Paul Cézanne, Still life with apples 1895–98, oil on canvas, 68.6 x 92.7 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017.
Robert Delaunay, Simultaneous contrasts: Sun and Moon 1913 (dated 1912) oil on canvas, 134.5 cm diameter. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund, 1954 Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, La Goulue at the Moulin Rouge 1891–92, oil on cardboard, 79.4 x 59.0 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mrs. David M. Levy, 1957. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017.
Jeff Koons, New Shelton wet/dry doubledecker, 1981, vacuum cleaners, plexiglass, and fluorescent lights 245.4 x 71.1 x 71.1 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Werner and Elaine Dannheisser, 1996 © 2017 Jeff Koons.
Vincent van Gogh, Portrait of Joseph Roulin 1889, oil on canvas, 64.4 x 55.2 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mr. and Mrs. William A. M. Burden, Mr. and Mrs. Paul Rosenberg, Nelson A. Rockefeller, Mr. and Mrs. Armand P. Bartos, The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, Mr. and Mrs. Werner E. Josten, and Loula D. Lasker Bequest (all by exchange), 1989 Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017.
Georges-Pierre Seurat, Evening, Honfleur 1886, oil on canvas, with painted wood frame, 78.3 x 94.0 cm (framed). The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Mrs. David M. Levy, 1957, Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017.
Mark Rothko, No. 3/No. 13 1949, oil on canvas, 216.5 x 164.8 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Bequest of Mrs. Mark Rothko through The Mark Rothko Foundation, Inc., 1981 © 2017 Kate Rothko Prizel & Christopher Rothko / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
René Magritte, The portrait, 1935, oil on canvas, 73.3 x 50.2 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Gift of Kay Sage Tanguy, 1956 © 2017 C. Herscovici, Brussels / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
Marcel Duchamp, Bicycle wheel 1951 (third version, after lost original of 1913) metal wheel mounted on painted wood stool 129.5 x 63.5 x 41.9 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, 1967 © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris / Estate of Marcel Duchamp. Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
Constantin Brancusi, The newborn version I 1920 (close to the marble of 1915) bronze, 14.6 x 21.0 x 14.6 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange), 1943 © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
Piet Mondrian, Composition in red, blue, and yellow, 1937–42, oil on canvas, 60.3 x 55.4 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The Sidney and Harriet Janis Collection, 1967 Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017.
Roy Lichtenstein, Drowning girl, 1963, oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas, 171.6 x 169.5 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Philip Johnson Fund (by exchange) and gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bagley Wright, 1971 © Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
Henri Matisse, La Japonaise: Woman beside the water 1905, oil and pencil on canvas, 35.2 x 28.2 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase and anonymous gift, 1983 © 2017 Succession H. Matisse / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
Joan Miró, Portrait of Mistress Mills in 1750, 1929, oil on canvas, 116.7 x 89.6 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. James Thrall Soby Bequest, 1979 © 2017 Successió Miró / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris. Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
Georges Braque, Soda 1912, oil on canvas, 36.2 cm diameter. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange), 1942 © 2017 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris. Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
Paul Gauguin, The Moon and the Earth 1893, oil on burlap, 114.3 x 62.2 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Lillie P. Bliss Collection, 1934, Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017.
Pablo Picasso, Seated bather 1930, oil on canvas, 163.2 x 129.5 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund, 1950 © 2017 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
Umberto Boccioni, Unique forms of continuity in space 1913 (cast 1931) bronze, 111.2 x 88.5 x 40.0 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange), 1948 Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2017.
Pablo Picasso, The architect’s table 1912, oil on canvas on panel, 72.6 x 59.7 cm. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The William S. Paley Collection, 1971 © 2017 Estate of Pablo Picasso / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Licensed by Viscopy, 2017.
The idea to build the greatest museum in the world was hatched by three women, Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan in 1929. To do so, they recognised the need to ride the crest of modern art over and above conservatism.
New York City’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) came to define and articulate what modern art was in the 20th century – we’ll chalk that up as a win for “the Ladies”, as the trio were known. The founding spirit hasn’t waned and neither have the visitors; MoMA’s Midtown quarters have continually shifted and grown over the decades. The latest expansion, to ease congestion, includes a cool US$400 million upgrade, a project that has involved the demolition of one building on West 53rd Street (the American Folk Art Museum) and the construction of another.
This building project may have temporarily limited MoMA’s exhibition space, but on the upside it has presented the National Gallery of Victoria with a unique opportunity – a major loan of works from its collection. Miranda Wallace, senior curator of international exhibitions at NGV says Melbourne is in some pretty exclusive company: “They sent one exhibition to Berlin in 2004, during their previous major expansion, and this time they have sent one exhibition to Paris, and a second, different exhibition, to Melbourne.”
How does one approach 130 years of collecting? Certainly, you would be tempted to snatch up crowd-pleasers, starting with the forebears of modernism; Van Gogh, Gauguin and Matisse, which will be included at MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art. Continuing chronologically, Wallace has selected Marcel Duchamp, then a little suprematism, and has obliged with Salvador Dali’s The Persistence of Memory and popular painters Pollock and Picasso. We stop in at Warhol and Lichtenstein before edging closer to the 21st century.
Curating is more than making selections however; here the challenge is in distilling themes to provide a cogent showcase of 200 works. “We knew there were many stories to be told and also many others that one exhibition couldn’t possibly encompass. What seemed more appealing was focusing on several currents or rhythms that continue through the historical period covered by the show.” Wallace wasn’t alone in this task, discussions on what works the NGV exhibition might entail were very active from the time she first met with her collaborative curators at MoMA, Samantha Friedman (associate curator, drawings and prints) and Juliet Kinchin (curator of modern design).
“MoMA curators are very skilled at ‘synthesising’ their collections to tell the many and varied narratives of modernism, and Samantha and Juliet began by proposing a series of thematic groups. These were honed and refined over the course of about 12 months, before we settled on the final eight themes that could unite works from the 1880s through to the present.”
While there has been a trend for curators to eschew chronology when presenting survey shows and especially blockbusters (such as last year’s Van Gogh and the Seasons at NGV or the current impressionism exhibition at the Art Gallery of South Australia), Wallace has embraced chronology. She argues that it “creates a strong structural spine for the exhibition, one that many people will be able to relate to.” Art, says Wallace, doesn’t progress in a linear pattern, or “to the beat of a single drum,” as she puts it.
Chronology therefore, describes the exchanges across decades that occur in the development of art and here the audience will have a chance to connect these echoes beyond just subject and approaches. Wallace says
the “exhibition allows us to visualise a bridge between post-impressionism and the present.”
Representing the present, and current anxiety surrounding migration and displacement is the most recent work, a woven panel created by the National Union of Sahrawi Women alongside Swiss company, Manuel Herz Architects in 2016. The themes of displacement of the Western Saharan women resonate with the mid-period of this exhibition, a time that saw artists emigrate to the US either side of World War II. And while the exhibition opens with predominantly European artists and reflects the centre stage Paris inhabited when it came to avant-garde art, by the “1960s we see increasing pluralism, artists from all over the world, represented.”
The founders, says Wallace, “set a new agenda for collecting contemporary art. A collection philosophy that art was enmeshed in industry and technology was embraced.” As a result the Museum collected broadly within six curatorial departments as diverse as architecture and design and drawing and prints, which will all be represented at NGV.
Chronologising more than a century of modern art inevitably uncovers the oscillations and patterns of history – since the Museum’s founding, has our love affair with technology lessened?
Again three women have put their heads together over MoMA, this time, Wallace and her MoMA colleagues bring the story to Melbourne. It’s not, says Wallace, “a simple story to tell.” In fact, she continues, “it is enormously complex, but the way the exhibition is structured will, I think, provide visitors with a useful tool to access these complex stories – this is the central motif or current of change. This can be used to understand some radically different approaches and objects, and ultimately to get a sense of how artists habitually are engaging with the world in very interesting and meaningful ways.”
MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art
National Gallery of Victoria, St Kilda Road, Melbourne
9 June – 7 October
Dangerously Modern: Australian Women Artists in Europe 1890–1940, co-curated by the Art Gallery of South Australia and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, celebrates 50 Australian women artists who travelled to Europe during the early 20th century.
Curator and proud palawa/pallawah woman, Dr Jessica Clark’s latest exhibition In the air at The Substation connects First Nations and non-First Nations artists in a response to human consumption and environmental destruction through reflection, resistance and redirection.
Elysha Rei’s exhibition Shirozato to Shinju (White Sugar and Pearls) at Umbrella Studio Contemporary Arts, Townsville QLD, explores the interconnected histories of the Japanese diaspora in Australia.
With works from Tuppy Ngintja Goodwin, Betty Pumani and Robert Fielding, Aboriginal-owned Mimili Maku Arts’ first exhibition with Ames Yavuz is an opportunity to celebrate the milestone of their 20 year anniversary, as well as the ways of working that are integral to the centre and Aṉangu culture.
An exhibition at Perc Tucker Regional Gallery pays tribute to Staffordshire-born Josiah Wedgwood (1730-1795) and his eponymous pottery company, featuring rare, valuable and ornate pieces, as well as “grandma’s good china”.
The works of Thom Roberts are immediate in their charm, yet underpinned by poignant reflections on identity, perspective and belonging. His exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra marks the artist’s first major solo show, bringing together more than a decade’s work spanning painting, installation, sculpture, animation, and works on paper.
