The Globe and Mail - 02.11.2019

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A Passion for Abstraction

The inaugural exhibition focuses on some of the most significant paintings, sculptures

and artists in the collection of John and June Mann including: Jean-Paul Riopelle, Leon Bellefleur,

Ray Mead, Paul Slogget, Daniel Solomon, Joyce Wieland, Douglas Bentham,

Rita Letendre and Michelle Ferron... to name just a few.

Come for the Art – Stay for the Experience

Grand Opening

Saturday November 2 | 2:00pm - 5:00pm

1776FourthAvenue,St.CatharinesON

thegalleryat13thstreetwinery.com

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2, 2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O ARTS| Rß

I

n an upper corner of the new-
ly expanded Museum of Mod-
ern Art, there is a gallery de-
voted to Paris in the 1920s. It dis-
plays such famous paintings as
Pablo Picasso’sThree Musicians
and Fernand Léger’sThree Wom-
en, but also includes a black lac-
quer screen by the Irish designer
Eileen Gray, still-life photographs
by Florence Henri and Germaine
Krull, and an abstracted land-
scape with a yellow crescent
moon painted by the Brazilian
artist Tarsila do Amaral.
MOMA acquiredThe Moonlast
year after selling another Léger
to buy art by less celebrated fig-
ures; the pioneering Brazilian
modernist moved in the same
circles as Picasso, but she is
largely ignored by European art
history.
So, this is a broad view of one
modernist metropolis in the
1920s, but it’s not intended as de-
finitive. Come spring, this ar-
rangement will already have
been swapped for one devoted to
art made in Germany during the
same period.
Cross-disciplinary, non-canon-
ical, open to female artists, glob-
al in reach and, most of all, con-
tinually evolving – that is the sto-
ry of modern art that the new
MOMA wants to tell. It already
has a magnificent collection,
much of it hidden in the vaults,
and now it has an elegantly ex-
panded building in which to dis-
play a lot more, as well as a bold
plan to change a third of its per-
manent collection galleries every
six months.
All that remains is the job of
pleasing three million visitors
every year – some of them native
New Yorkers who will be looking
for old friends in familiar loca-
tions, many more of them tour-
ists checking icons off a list. If
people are invigorated rather
than irritated by the change, it
will be testament to a successful
marriage of art and architecture,
and a thoughtful rehang of the
entire collection.
The immediate impression of
the new MOMA is one of trans-
parency and seamlessness – no
small feat on the part of architec-

ture firms Diller Scofidio + Ren-

fro and Gensler, considering the

piecemeal way the 53rd Street

site was enlarged.

To some outrage, the expan-

sion started in 2014 by demolish-

ing the former Museum of Amer-

ican Folk Art, the narrow build-

ing to its west that MOMA had

acquired in 2011.

That’s the space where the ar-

chitects have created a glass

stack linking the existing build-

ing to three extra floors of gal-

lery space, which are tucked into

a condo tower next door but

have no ground-floor presence.

(The residential tower was built

on a site MOMA sold to a devel-

oper in 2007, and had controver-

sies of its own.)

Using natural light, occasional

street views and double-height

ceilings to create overlooks from

one floor to another, the archi-

tects lead visitors through an in-

tegrated experience that adds 30

per cent more gallery space, al-

lowing curators to push the

number of works on display to

2,500, from 1,500. Compare this

with the illogical spaces or awk-

ward junctions created by Toron-

to’s decade-old expansions at

the Art Gallery of Ontario and

the Royal Ontario Museum, and

you realize that the MOMA archi-

tects have done their work so

that the visitor doesn’t have to.

Art lovers moving effortlessly

from the old wings to the new

can still follow the traditional

chronological circuit, starting

with the Impressionists and

Post-Impressionists on the fifth

floor and moving downward to-

ward contemporary art, but even

this broad storyline gets inter-

rupted.

The fifth-floor room where Pi-

casso’sLes Demoiselles d’Avignon

announces the opening chapter

in the 20th century’s reinvention

of art also includes two later

works. There’s a gentler encoun-

ter with human form in the

shape of a wooden sculpture by

Louise Bourgeois from the 1940s,

and Faith Ringgold’s frantic vi-

sion of the 1960s U.S. race riots, a

composition inspired by Picas-

so’sGuernica. MOMA, by the way,

can boast it has five times more

works by women on display than

it did 20 years ago.

More refreshing still are the

many breaks in traditional divi-

sions by medium: Photography

and design are now dotted

throughout, sometimes provid-

ing the main theme for a gallery,

sometimes complementing

painting or sculpture. The Pictur-

ing America gallery, for example,

adds Edward Hopper’s carefully

composed oil paintings of a gas

station and a cinema lobby to a

display of photography that in-

cludes everything from Dorothea

Lange’s familiarMigrant Mother

to the 1940s photo booth self-

portraits of an anonymous wom-

an.

One of the more impressive

pieces of cross-disciplinary

sleight of hand is the integration

of film into the galleries, wel-

coming home a medium tradi-

tionally banished to the mu-

seum’s cinematheque, not be-

cause it isn’t central to modern-

ism, but because it’s time-based

and potentially noisy.

Now, right next door toLes De-

moiselles, a gallery of early pho-

tography and film includes two

short, silent examples mounted

into the very walls: a 1905 view

of the then brand-new New York

subway, and the cakewalk se-

quence fromThe Lime Kiln Club

Field Day, an unfinished work

from 1914 that was the first fea-

ture film with an all-black cast.

Elsewhere, short films or clips

of longer ones are judiciously lo-

cated so that soundtracks don’t

bleed into adjacent galleries. The

visitor can glimpse Jacques Tati’s

Playtimethrough a modernist

glass window saved from the

renovation of the United Nations

building, or step into a small

screening room dedicated to the

films of Andy Warhol.

Multidisciplinary displays

aren’t new, and the Musée d’Or-

say in Paris tossed aside the

modernist canon in 1986 when it

began showing 19th-century aca-

demic painters alongside the Im-

pressionists. Today, most art mu-

seums filled with historic collec-

tions of white, male art are striv-

ing to become more diverse,

while Canadian museums are

breaking down old distinctions

between Indigenous and West-

ern art.

MOMA is only moving with

the times, but what is radical,

and sure to prove influential in

the international museum com-

munity, is how far the institution

is willing to push its experi-

ments.

Glenn Lowry, the director who

oversaw this expansion, the pre-

vious one in 2004 (and one in

1993 at the Art Gallery of Ontario

when he was director there), is

quick to reassure doubters that

favourites such as Claude

Monet’sWater Lilies(in its own

specially designed room) or Vin-

cent Van Gogh’sStarry Nightwill

always remain on display.

What is actually harder to be-

lieve is that MOMA will want to

keep dismantling its smartly cu-

rated new displays every few

months – and will always find

the energy to replace them with

something of the same provoca-

tive standard. But, in the mean-

time, here’s a promise: If you

aren’t satisfied with the new MO-

MA, come back next year and

you will find a different mu-

seum.

The Museum of Modern Art

in New York reopened to

the public Oct. 21.

MOMAbroadensitsscopewithambitiousoverhaul

NewYorkmuseum

opensitshallstoglobal

anddiverseartistsin

continuallyevolving

efforttoshinespotlight

ontheoverlooked

KATE
TAYOR

VISUALARTS

Topa Faith Ringgold’s

frantic íision of the U.S.

race riots in the siïties

takes inspiration from

-icasso’s Guernica.

Aboíea The Museum of

Modern Art acquired

Braôilian artist Tarsila do

Amaral’s The Moon last

year, after selling a oger

to buy art by less

celebrated figures.

COURTESYOFTHE

MUSEUMOFMODERNART