Monuments to Modernism: Museums of Modern Art and the Contest for Cultural Space

FAIN: HB-262738-19

Sandra Zalman
University Of Houston (Houston, TX 77204-3067)

Preparation for publication of a book about the relationship between four museums in New York City—the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Gallery of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art—that shaped debates about modernism from 1959 to 1966.

In 1961, Art in America's special issue posed the question "What Should a Museum Be?" As arts administrators grappled with the role of the museum in contemporary life, they increasingly turned to design to make the case that museums were no longer repositories of venerated objects, but sites of cultural discourse. My book project analyzes how four prominent museums in New York City negotiated this increasingly politicized terrain, as they marshaled innovative architecture to forge competing versions of modern art for public consumption between 1959 and 1966. With chapters focusing on the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, the Gallery of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, I investigate how museums expanded their visibility in the urban fabric while historicizing recent art – not as esoteric or obscure, but as a tool that had the potential to advance cultural agendas amidst the socio-political turmoil of the 1950 and 60s.

Associated Products

Modern Art Museums and the Modern Brand (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: Modern Art Museums and the Modern Brand
Author: Sandra Zalman
Abstract: This will be a new special topics course taught in the School of Art at the University of Houston, aimed toward art and art history majors, as well as others interested in cultural history and museum studies.
Year: 2021
Audience: Undergraduate

Unpacking the MoMA Myth: Modernism under Revision (Article)
Title: Unpacking the MoMA Myth: Modernism under Revision
Author: Sandra Zalman
Abstract: This article unpacks certain origin myths about the Museum of Modern Art and its influence on the history of modernism. By analyzing the legacy of Alfred Barr’s Chart of Cubism and Abstract Art alongside the growth and display of the museum’s collection, this article argues that MoMA’s 1964 expansion as a critical turning point in the history of the institution. When MoMA turned away from the contemporary to showcase its permanent collections as a history of modern art, it reified its once ardent experimentalism and created a more concrete narrative of modern art than ever before. This article seeks to recover MoMA’s commitment to revisionism, complicate its origin myths (including Barr’s chart), and argues that offering a provisional modernism could be MoMA’s most radical legacy.
Year: 2020
Format: Journal
Publisher: Modernism and Modernity

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