On Monday, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, one of the largest art institutions in the world, reopens after four months of work. The enlarged building also presents a hanging of the collections completely redesigned from a thematic angle.
It is one of the most famous and visited museums in the world: the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), in New York. Inaugurated in 1939 in the heart of Manhattan, enclosed in the grid formed by the streets of this district, this museum, which welcomes more than two million visitors a year, houses masterpieces ranging from “The Starry Night” by Van Gogh to soup cans painted by Warhol, passing by “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” by Picasso.
Closed since June, the institution reopens its doors on Monday, with an exhibition space enlarged by nearly a third, partially settling in a neighboring building: it gains 3,600 square meters of galleries, for a total of 15,000 square meters now. This is far from being the first expansion of this gradually expanding museum: five times (and the last time in 2017), the MoMA has pushed its walls.
Thematic display
But this time, there is a real novelty for the museum: the hanging allows you to exhibit 2,400 works of modern and contemporary art each year, compared to an average of 1,500 so far. And above all, this one, which was until now chronological (as at the Louvre or the Center Pompidou, where most of the works are exhibited according to their period or the movement to which they belong), becomes thematic.
Even if this is not a revolution in itself in the world of museums (the Tate Modern, in London, for example, has offered a thematic hanging since its inception), this is a first for this international institution. Thus, “Les Demoiselles d’Avignon” by Picasso, one of the masterpieces of the museum, will no longer be presented alongside other paintings by the Spanish painter, but a more recent 50-year-old canvas by artist Faith Ringgold, who echoes her.
No more boundaries between media
In addition, the boundaries between the different types of media (painting, sculpture, video, photo) are abolished in this new hanging, which should be renewed much more regularly. A direction given by MoMA since the early 2000s, but “it took a new generation of curators with new ideas, for whom interdisciplinarity was natural“to put it in place for good, according to museum director Glenn Lowry.
The new spaces also plan to give back a place to performance: a new gallery, with black walls and ceilings, will be entirely dedicated to this art. The new galleries, open to the outside thanks to large bay windows, will also offer new workshops for all audiences … and a renovated boutique.
–
