Museum of Modern Art

Museum of Modern Art
	The Museum of Modern Art in New York City
	Interactive fullscreen map
Established	November 7, 1929
Location	11 West 53rd Street; Manhattan, New York City, U.S.
Coordinates	40°45′42″N 73°58′39″W / 40.76167°N 73.97750°W
Type	Art museum
Visitors	2,839,509 (2023)
Director	Glenn D. Lowry
Public transit access	Subway: Fifth Avenue/53rd Street ( trains); Bus: M1, M2, M3, M4, M5, M7, M10, M20, M50, M104
Website	www.moma.org

The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, and includes over 200,000 works of architecture and design, drawing, painting, sculpture, photography, prints, illustrated and artist's books, film, as well as electronic media.^[2]

The institution was conceived in 1929 by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller, Lillie P. Bliss, and Mary Quinn Sullivan. Initially located in the Heckscher Building on Fifth Avenue, it opened just days after the Wall Street Crash. The museum was led by A. Conger Goodyear as president and Abby Rockefeller as treasurer, with Alfred H. Barr Jr. as its first director. Under Barr's leadership, the museum's collection rapidly expanded, beginning with an inaugural exhibition of works by European modernists. Despite financial challenges, including opposition from John D. Rockefeller Jr., the museum moved to several temporary locations in its early years, and John D. Rockefeller Jr. eventually donated the land for its permanent site. In 1939, the museum moved to its current location on West 53rd Street designed by architects Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone. A new sculpture garden, designed by Barr and curator John McAndrew, also opened that year.

From the 1930s through the 1950s, MoMA became a host to several landmark exhibitions, including Barr's influential "Cubism and Abstract Art" in 1936. Nelson Rockefeller became the museum's president in 1939, playing a key role in its expansion and publicity. David Rockefeller joined the board in 1948 and continued the family's close association with the museum until his death in 2017. In 1953, Philip Johnson redesigned the garden, which subsequently became the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden. In 1958, a fire at MoMA destroyed a painting by Claude Monet and led to the evacuation of other artworks. In later decades, the museum was among several institutions to aid the CIA in its efforts to engage in cultural propaganda during the Cold War.^[3] Major expansions in the 1980s and the early 21st century, including the selection of Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi for a significant renovation, nearly doubled MoMA's space for exhibitions and programs. The 2000s saw the formal merger with the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center, and in 2019, another major renovation added significant gallery space.

The museum has been instrumental in shaping the history of modern art, particularly modern art from Europe.^[4]^[5]^[6] In recent decades, MoMA has expanded its collection and programming to include works by traditionally underrepresented groups.^[7] The museum has been involved in controversies regarding its labor practices, and the institution's labor union, founded in 1971, has been described as the first of its kind in the U.S.^[8] The MoMA Library includes about 300,000 books and exhibition catalogs, more than 1,000 periodical titles and more than 40,000 files of ephemera about individual artists and groups.^[9] The archives hold primary source material related to the history of modern and contemporary art.^[10] In 2023, MoMA was visited by over 2.8 million people, making it the 15th most-visited art museum in the world and the 6th most-visited museum in the United States.

^ The Art Newspaper, List of most-visited museums in 2023
^ "About the Collection". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved January 19, 2024.
^ Dasal, Jennifer (September 24, 2020). "How MoMA and the CIA Conspired to Use Unwitting Artists to Promote American Propaganda During the Cold War". Artnet News. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
^ Reilly, Maura (October 31, 2019). "MoMA's Revisionism Is Piecemeal and Problem-Filled: Feminist Art Historian Maura Reilly on the Museum's Rehang". ARTnews.com. Retrieved December 16, 2023. According to Barr, "modern art" was a synchronic, linear progression of "isms" in which one (heterosexual, white) male "genius" from Europe or the U.S. influenced another who inevitably trumped or subverted his previous master, thereby producing an avant-garde progression. Barr's story was so ingrained in the institution that it was never questioned as problematic. The fact that very few women, artists of color, and those not from Europe or North America—in other words, all "Other" artists—were not on display was not up for discussion.
^ Duncan, Carol (June 1989). "The MoMA's Hot Mamas". Art Journal. 48 (2): 171–178. doi:10.1080/00043249.1989.10792606. ISSN 0004-3249. But the MoMA remains enormously important for the role it plays in maintaining in the present a particular version of the art-historical past. Indeed, for much of the academic world as for the larger art public, the kind of art history it narrates still constitutes the definitive history of modern art.
^ Kleiner, Fred S.; Christin J. Mamiya (2005). "The Development of Modernist Art: The Early 20th Century". Gardner's Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Thomson Wadsworth. p. 796. ISBN 978-0-4950-0478-3. Archived from the original on May 10, 2016. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City is consistently identified as the institution most responsible for developing modernist art ... the most influential museum of modern art in the world.
^ Cotter, Holland (October 10, 2019). "MoMA Reboots With 'Modernism Plus'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 16, 2023. After decades of stonewalling multiculturalism, MoMA is now acknowledging it, even investing in it, most notably in a permanent collection rehang that features art — much of it recently acquired — from Africa, Asia, South America, and African America, and a significant amount of work by women.
^ Greenberger, Alex (October 16, 2019). "'Art Workers Don't Kiss Ass': Looking Back on the Formation of MoMA's Pioneering Union in the 1970s". ARTnews.com. Retrieved December 16, 2023.
^ "Library". MoMA. Archived from the original on February 5, 2016.
^ "About the Archives". MoMA. Archived from the original on February 13, 2016.

[1] The Art Newspaper, List of most-visited museums in 2023

[2] "About the Collection". The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved January 19, 2024.

[3] Dasal, Jennifer (September 24, 2020). "How MoMA and the CIA Conspired to Use Unwitting Artists to Promote American Propaganda During the Cold War". Artnet News. Retrieved December 16, 2023.

[4] Reilly, Maura (October 31, 2019). "MoMA's Revisionism Is Piecemeal and Problem-Filled: Feminist Art Historian Maura Reilly on the Museum's Rehang". ARTnews.com. Retrieved December 16, 2023. According to Barr, "modern art" was a synchronic, linear progression of "isms" in which one (heterosexual, white) male "genius" from Europe or the U.S. influenced another who inevitably trumped or subverted his previous master, thereby producing an avant-garde progression. Barr's story was so ingrained in the institution that it was never questioned as problematic. The fact that very few women, artists of color, and those not from Europe or North America—in other words, all "Other" artists—were not on display was not up for discussion.

[5] Duncan, Carol (June 1989). "The MoMA's Hot Mamas". Art Journal. 48 (2): 171–178. doi:10.1080/00043249.1989.10792606. ISSN 0004-3249. But the MoMA remains enormously important for the role it plays in maintaining in the present a particular version of the art-historical past. Indeed, for much of the academic world as for the larger art public, the kind of art history it narrates still constitutes the definitive history of modern art.

[Kleiner-6] Kleiner, Fred S.; Christin J. Mamiya (2005). "The Development of Modernist Art: The Early 20th Century". Gardner's Art through the Ages: The Western Perspective. Thomson Wadsworth. p. 796. ISBN 978-0-4950-0478-3. Archived from the original on May 10, 2016. The Museum of Modern Art in New York City is consistently identified as the institution most responsible for developing modernist art ... the most influential museum of modern art in the world.

[7] Cotter, Holland (October 10, 2019). "MoMA Reboots With 'Modernism Plus'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved December 16, 2023. After decades of stonewalling multiculturalism, MoMA is now acknowledging it, even investing in it, most notably in a permanent collection rehang that features art — much of it recently acquired — from Africa, Asia, South America, and African America, and a significant amount of work by women.

[8] Greenberger, Alex (October 16, 2019). "'Art Workers Don't Kiss Ass': Looking Back on the Formation of MoMA's Pioneering Union in the 1970s". ARTnews.com. Retrieved December 16, 2023.

[resources_library-9] "Library". MoMA. Archived from the original on February 5, 2016.

[10] "About the Archives". MoMA. Archived from the original on February 13, 2016.

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]