And the award for best outfit from an artist’s invitation card goes to…Louise Nevelson (1986). -ds
The Museum of Modern Art Library
Welcome to the life and times of the MoMA Library.
Our library is open to the public--just contact us to make an appointment.
Our library is open to the public--just contact us to make an appointment.
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Gilbert and George artists’ book Side by Side has been reprinted! And it’s still great. -ds
Gilbert and George artists’ book Side by Side has been reprinted! -ds
This exuberant binding of Modern French Painters (1929) conveys some of the excitement surrounding the dissemination of modern art in the early 20th century. Writing at a time when modern art could provoke intense debate, author Jan Gordon intended “to put into plainly intelligible language the ideas behind and the developments of…’Modern Art.’ I wished that my readers should understand what I was saying, even if they did not agree with me.” Reflecting on the dynamism of the movement, he concluded, “If the public can assimilate all that it has recently received, it will be able to assimilate all that it will receive for a century or so.” - jt
![“Q. What is this goddess resting her elbow on?”
This question was put to a museum-goer by the author of Museum Ideals of Purpose and Method (1923) in order to test “museum fatigue:”
“The observer…was instructed to answer the questions with the least possible exertion and to hold the positions he needed to assume for the purpose until he could be photographed.”
The result is a study of human movement in the spirit of Eadweard Muybridge, with the subject pictured Bent, Much Bent, Half-Crouching, Crouching (above), Twist[ed], Looking Up, Stretching Forward, Stretching Up, and even Climbing Up.
This documentation supports the author’s book-length argument: “If the public is to gain more than a minute fraction of the good from museum exhibits…, radical changes in our methods of exhibition are imperative.” These include many conventions assumed today, from careful lighting to well-placed labels.
The answer to the original question, by the way, is “A smaller statuette bearing a drum-shaped object on its head.” Now that sounds uncomfortable.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/ad1ca62027e5cf9bde8b893a800c3648/tumblr_mgos3cpxws1r6ssrvo1_500.jpg)
“Q. What is this goddess resting her elbow on?”
This question was put to a museum-goer by the author of Museum Ideals of Purpose and Method (1923) in order to test “museum fatigue:”
“The observer…was instructed to answer the questions with the least possible exertion and to hold the positions he needed to assume for the purpose until he could be photographed.”
The result is a study of human movement in the spirit of Eadweard Muybridge, with the subject pictured Bent, Much Bent, Half-Crouching, Crouching (above), Twist[ed], Looking Up, Stretching Forward, Stretching Up, and even Climbing Up.
This documentation supports the author’s book-length argument: “If the public is to gain more than a minute fraction of the good from museum exhibits…, radical changes in our methods of exhibition are imperative.” These include many conventions assumed today, from careful lighting to well-placed labels.
The answer to the original question, by the way, is “A smaller statuette bearing a drum-shaped object on its head.” Now that sounds uncomfortable.
The exhibition catalog for the show Multiples: The First Decade (1971) at the Philadelphia Museum of Art was designed as a book and art multiple. You can stand it up and fan it out to make a circular rainbow. It has a little snap on the front and back covers to help form the shape. -ds
Books Make Friends! Great title from the exhibition catalog of the 2006 survey of the first 90 books published by the excellent Roma Publications. -ds
A mystery box arrived at the Library today. In it, an altered copy of In Search of the Miraculous (1949), Pyotr Ouspensky’s account of the teachings of mystic George Gurdjieff. This copy belonged to artist and occultist John Graham, whose painting Two Sisters (1944) is in the MoMA collection. Update: the box was supposed to go to the Department of Drawings, which holds a sketchbook, among other works by the artist. - jt
