Museum of Modern Art

An extraordinary gathering of rare drawings, prints and sculptures focusing on themes of motherhood, grief and resistance In the early 20th century, when many artists were experimenting with abstraction by way of colorful painting, Käthe Kollwitz remained committed to an art of social purpose through figurative, black-and-white printmaking and drawing. Through her work, she brought visibility to the hardships of the working class and asserted the female point of view as a necessary and powerful agent for change. Published in conjunction with the largest exhibition of her work in the United States in more than 30 years, and the first major retrospective devoted to Kollwitz at a New York museum, this book surveys the artist’s career from the 1890s through the early 1940s. It features approximately 120 drawings, prints and sculptures drawn from public and private collections in Europe and North America. Examples of the artist’s most iconic projects showcase her political engagement, while rarely seen studies and working proofs highlight her intensive, ever-searching creative process. Essays explore crucial aspects of Kollwitz’s art, career and legacy, including her professional life and connections in Berlin, her groundbreaking approach to the subject of women’s grief and her work’s reception among artists in the US. Käthe Kollwitz (1867–1945) was born in the Prussian city of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad, Russia). One of history’s most outstanding graphic artists, she was widely recognized for her art of social advocacy and compassion and was one of the few women artists of the early 20th century to achieve international renown in her own lifetime.

This publication and the accompanying exhibition are the first to reunite major works from Picasso’s studio in Fontainebleau, France, in over 100 years. Between July and September of 1921, in a rented villa in the town of Fontainebleau, France, Pablo Picasso created an astonishingly varied body of work. Published to accompany an exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, that reunites these works for the first time since they left the artist’s studio, Picasso in Fontainebleau presents both monumental versions of Three Musicians and Three Women at the Spring alongside other major works on canvas, small preparatory paintings, line drawings, etchings, and pastels he created in Fontainebleau. Encompassing both Cubist and classic academic styles, these works are complemented by never-before-seen photographs and archival documents. An introductory essay by curator Anne Umland examines the critical issues that distinguish Picasso's Fontainebleau oeuvre, and is followed by 15 short essays co-authored by curators and conservators that offer art historical analysis of groups of closely related works and object-based insights into materials, structures, and processes. By investigating Picasso’s decision to paint simultaneously in seemingly opposite styles, Picasso in Fontainebleau emphasizes the interconnectedness of his process and practice, and his ability to disrupt expectations of artistic evolution and stylistic consistency.

A sweeping cross-media survey of Ruscha’s six-decade career, from paintings and works on paper to photographs and artist's books, with essays by leading scholars Spanning 65 years of Ed Ruscha’s remarkable career and mirroring his own cross-disciplinary approach, Ed Ruscha / Now Then features over 250 objects, produced from 1958 to the present, including paintings, drawings, prints, films, photographs, artist’s books and installations. Published to accompany the most comprehensive presentation of the artist’s work to date, and his first solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, this richly illustrated catalog highlights Ruscha’s most acclaimed works alongside lesser-known aspects of his practice. Essays by an interdisciplinary group of contributors examine Ruscha’s work under a new light, beyond the categories of Pop and Conceptual art with which he has traditionally been associated, to present fresh perspectives on one of the most influential figures in postwar American art. Taken together, they underscore Ruscha’s singular contributions, including his material exploration of language, experiments with unconventional mediums?such as gunpowder, chocolate or chewing tobacco?and his groundbreaking self-published books. Supplemented by an illustrated chronology and exhibition history, this publication captures the ceaseless reinvention that has defined his prolific, six-decade career. Ed Ruscha (born 1937) was raised in Oklahoma City and moved to Los Angeles in 1956, where he attended the Chouinard Art Institute (now CalArts). First showing with the Ferus Gallery in the early 1960s, Ruscha was included in Walter Hopps' landmark Pop art show New Painting of Common Objects at the Pasadena Art Museum in 1962. He has since shown his work extensively, most recently in several medium-specific museum surveys, including the 2004 exhibition Cotton Puffs, Q-Tips®, Smoke and Mirrors: The Drawings of Ed Ruscha at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, which traveled to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and the 2009 exhibition Ed Ruscha: Fifty Years of Painting at the Hayward Gallery, London, which traveled to the Haus der Kunst, Munich, and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. In 2005, he represented the United States at the 51st Venice Biennale. Ruscha lives and works in Los Angeles.

A revelatory new volume on the American modernist's lesser-known works on paper, reuniting many serial works for the first time Recalling a charcoal she made in 1916, Georgia O'Keeffe later wrote, "I have made this drawing several times--never remembering that I had made it before--and not knowing where the idea came from." These drawings, and the majority of O'Keeffe's works in charcoal, watercolor, pastel and graphite, belong to series in which she develops and transforms motifs that lie between observation and abstraction. In the formative years of 1915 to 1918, she made as many works on paper as she would in the next 40 years, producing sequences in watercolor of abstract lines, organic landscapes and nudes, along with charcoal drawings she would group according to the designation "specials." While her practice turned increasingly toward canvas in subsequent decades, important series on paper reappeared--including charcoal flowers of the 1930s, portraits of the 1940s and aerial views of the 1950s. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, this richly illustrated volume highlights the drawings of an artist better known as a painter, and reunites individual sheets with their contextual series to illuminate O'Keeffe's persistently sequential practice. Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, Georgia O'Keeffe (1887-1986) first received critical attention when her breakthrough charcoal drawings were exhibited in New York in 1916. Two years later, she moved to the city to work full time on her art. Beginning in 1929, O'Keeffe spent summers in New Mexico, where she would relocate in 1949. The most famous female artist of her age, she thought of herself not as "the best woman painter" but as "one of the best painters."

Video within and beyond art: a survey of the medium’s political meanings Video is everywhere. Since its debut as a consumer medium in the 1960s, video has shaped our opinions, our politics and our societies. On our phones and computer screens, walls and streets, it defines new spaces and experiences?spreading memes, lies, fervor, fact and fiction. In other words, video has transformed the world. Featuring works from the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, this illuminating exhibition catalog?MoMA’s first major publication on video art in nearly 30 years?explores the ways in which artists have both championed and questioned video’s promise, some hoping to create new networks of communication, democratic engagement and public participation, others protesting commercial and state control over information, vision and truth itself. Lavishly illustrated essays by esteemed scholars and artists?including Ina Blom, Aria Dean, David Joselit, Pamela M. Lee, Glenn Ligon and Ravi Sundaram?highlight video’s widely varied formats, contexts and global reach. Signals is a manual for understanding the present, an era in which video has pervaded all aspects of life. Artists include: Ant Farm, Gretchen Bender, Dara Birnbaum, Black Audio Film Collective, Tony Cokes, Harun Farocki and Andrei Ujica, Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabinowitz, Dan Graham, Mona Hatoum, Every Ocean Hughes, Mako Idemitsu, Emily Jacir, Amar Kanwar, Victor Masayesva Jr., Marta Minujín, Carlos Motta, Fujiko Nakaya, New Red Order, Nam June Paik, Sondra Perry, Howardena Pindell, Walid Raad and Souheil Bachar, Raindance Corporation, Marlon Riggs, Martha Rosler, Julia Scher, Richard Serra and Carlota Fay Schoolman, Tiffany Sia, Frances Stark, Martine Syms, TVTV, Stan VanDerBeek, Videofreex, Ming Wong, Nil Yalter and Artur Zmijewski.

An exploration of interaction design through 35 classic examples of video games, from Space Invaders to Minecraft Our lives are increasingly lived on screens, and every one of our electronic interactions is mediated by a designed interface, which can be buggy and incomprehensible or inviting and accessible. Like other ubiquitous everyday tools, these interfaces are seldom recognized as objects of design--and even less as objects of interactive design. In video games, however, users are acutely aware of their relationship with the interface, making video games compelling examples of this important field of contemporary design. Published in conjunction with an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, Never Alone: Video Games as Interactive Design explores the impact of interactive design by examining 35 video games created between 1972 and 2018--from Space Invaders (1978) and Pac-Man (1980) to The Sims (2000) and Minecraft (2011). An overarching essay by curators Paola Antonelli, Anna Burckhardt and Paul Galloway presents the pioneering criteria by which MoMA has selected these video games for its collection, as well as the protocols for their acquisition, display and conservation. The richly illustrated plate section is divided into three sections that analyze input devices (keyboards, joysticks, buttons), game designers and players, and each game is accompanied by a short text illuminating its significance in the history of the medium.

Encompassing photography, installation, print media, video and more, this publication is the most comprehensive account of Tillmans' wide-ranging career to date A visionary creator and intrepid polymath, Wolfgang Tillmans unites formal inventiveness with an ethical orientation that attends to the most pressing issues of life today. While his work transcends the bounds of any single artistic discipline, he is best known for his wide-ranging photographic output. From trenchant documents of social movements to windowsill still lifes, ecstatic images of nightlife to cameraless abstractions, sensitive portraits to architectural studies, astronomical phenomena to intimate nudes, he has explored seemingly every genre of photography imaginable, continually experimenting with how to make new pictures and deepen the viewer's experience. Published in conjunction with a major exhibition of Tillmans' work at the Museum of Modern Art, this copiously illustrated volume surveys four decades of the artist's career. An outstanding group of writers offer diverse essays addressing key threads of his multifaceted practice, and a new text by Tillmans himself elucidates the distinctive methodology behind his system of presenting photographs. Wolfgang Tillmans: To look without fear grants readers new insight into the work of an artist who has not only changed the way photography is exhibited but pointed contemporary art in dynamic new directions. Wolfgang Tillmans (born 1968) is among the most influential contemporary artists, and the impact of his work registers across the arts, intersecting with fashion, music, architecture, the performing arts and activism. Tillmans is the recipient of the Turner Prize (2000) and the Hasselblad Foundation International Award in Photography (2015). His foundation, Between Bridges, supports the advancement of democracy, international understanding, the arts and LGBTQ rights.

The adventures, mysteries and many lives of a Matisse masterpiece Created in 1911, Henri Matisse's The Red Studio would go on to become one of the most influential works in the history of modern art. The painting, which has hung in MoMA's galleries since 1949, depicts the artist's studio in the Parisian suburb of Issy-les-Moulineaux, filled with his own artworks, furniture and decorative objects. Matisse's radical decision to saturate the work's surface with red has fascinated generations of scholars and artists, yet much remained to be discovered about the painting's genesis and history. Published in conjunction with an exhibition that reunites the artworks shown in The Red Studio for the first time since they left Matisse's work space, this copiously illustrated catalog examines the paintings and sculptures depicted in it, from familiar works such as Young Sailor II (1906) to lesser-known pieces whose locations have only recently been discovered. A narrative essay by Ann Temkin, the Marie-Josée and Henry Kravis Chief Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, and Dorthe Aagesen, Chief Curator and Senior Researcher at Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen, traces the life of The Red Studio, from the initial commissioning of the work in 1911 through its early history of exhibition and ownership to its arrival at MoMA after World War II. The book features a rich selection of archival materials, including photographs, letters and ephemera, many of which have never before been published or exhibited. With its groundbreaking research and close reading of the work, Matisse: The Red Studio transforms our understanding of this landmark of 20th-century art.

This volume offers a panoramic collection of interviews and writings from an artist for whom language has always been a significant means of creative expression. Arranged chronologically, the assembled texts reflect Tillmans’ thinking on photography, music, politics, nightlife, astronomy, spirituality and activism. The sources are as varied as their content, with statements and conversations that originally appeared in exhibition catalogues rubbing up against social-media posts and song lyrics. Whether discussing his own work as a photographer or drawing out the thoughts of others, Tillmans is a generous interlocutor with a refreshing clarity of thought. This visually rich and timely publication tracks Tillmans’ contributions to art and cultural criticism in tandem with the social and cultural shifts of the past 30 years.

How motor vehicles reshaped the way people lived, worked and played in the 20th century, and their enduring influence on the built environment Drawing on the wealth of automobile-related design, art and architecture in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, Automania takes an in-depth look at an industrial object that changed the world. From its first appearance as a plaything for the rich in the 1890s to its establishment as a utilitarian necessity of modern life, the car has transformed the ways in which we live, work and enjoy ourselves, inspiring countless designers and artists working in various mediums. Some have viewed the automobile as the ultimate expression of technological progress, capable of bringing about widespread economic growth and positive societal change. Others have seen it as the enemy of humanistic values, leading only to rising fatalities and the proliferation of hazardous waste and pollution. But all have recognized it as central to contemporary life, design and culture. Automania traces the rich cultural history of the car while giving pride of place to the ten vehicles in MoMA's collection, which mark pivotal moments in the history of automotive design. These include the Jeep M-38A1 Utility Truck, the Citroën DS 23 Sedan, the Volkswagen Type 1 Sedan, the Fiat 500f City Car, the Cisitalia 202 GT Car, the Ferrari Formula 1 Racing Car 641/2, the Porsche 911 Coupé, the Airstream Bambi Travel Trailer, the Jaguar E-Type Roadster and the Smart Car Coupé.

Cézanne at his most modern: a major career-spanning appraisal of his extraordinarily experimental drawings Although he is most often celebrated as a painter, Paul Cézanne's extraordinary vision was fueled by his experiments on paper. In pencil and watercolor, on individual sheets and across the pages of sketchbooks, the artist described form through multiple probing lines; realized compositions through repetitions and transformations; and conjured kaleidoscopic color through layering of watercolor. It is in these material realities of drawing where we see Cézanne at his most modern: embracing the unfinished, making process visible and actively inviting the viewer to participate in the act of perception. Published to accompany a major exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, this is the most significant effort to date to unite drawings from across Cézanne's entire career, tracing the development of his practice on paper, exploring working methods that transcend subject, and devoting both curatorial and conservation-based research to these remarkable works.

On Alexander Calder's fruitful, creative and enduring relationship with MoMA, from the early wire sculptures to late abstractions Alexander Calder's work first appeared in the Museum of Modern Art's galleries in 1930, in the exhibition Painting and Sculpture by Living Americans. Over the next decades the artist's connection with the Museum would be deep, productive and mutually beneficial. Calder cultivated friendships and working relationships with notable figures, including Alfred H. Barr Jr., the Museum's founding director, and James Johnson Sweeney, with whom he collaborated on his expansive retrospective exhibition in 1943. His work is imprinted on MoMA's early history, not only for its material and conceptual innovation but also for its presence at significant moments, such as a mobile made to hang over the lobby's grand staircase on the occasion of the new Goodwin and Stone building (Lobster Trap and Fish Tail, which hangs there to this day); an elaborate candelabra to adorn the tables at a celebratory anniversary event; and a sculpture to fly off a flagpole to advertise the landmark exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art. Alexander Calder: Modern from the Start celebrates this extraordinarily fertile relationship between an institution and an artist who was both an important creative partner and, with his magnificent gift of 19 works in 1966, a major donor. Through MoMA, Calder came to be known as a pioneer of modern sculpture, and through Calder, MoMA came to understand itself as an American museum of modern art. After studying engineering, Alexander Calder (1898-1976) moved to Paris in the late 1920s, where he found himself at the center of the city's artistic avant-garde. There, he developed his Cirque Calder, a performance artwork comprising dozens of miniature handmade objects, and a group of standalone figurative works in wire. Turning toward abstraction in 1930, Calder invented the mobile--an abstract sculpture made of independent parts that incorporate natural or mechanical movement. He would continue to explore the possibilities of this visual language for the rest of his career, eventually shifting to monumental constructions and public works.

The first survey on the interdisciplinary biodesign genius of Neri Oxman, pioneer of "material ecology Throughout her 20-year career, Neri Oxman has invented not only new ideas for materials, buildings and construction processes, but also new frameworks for interdisciplinary--and interspecies--collaborations. She coined the term "material ecology" to describe her process of producing techniques and objects informed by the structural, systemic and aesthetic wisdom of nature, from the shells of crustaceans to the flow of human breathing. Groundbreaking for its solid technological and scientific basis, its rigorous and daring experimentation, its visionary philosophy and its unquestionable attention to formal elegance, Oxman's work operates at the intersection of biology, engineering, architecture and artistic design, material science and computer science. This book--designed by Irma Boom and published to accompany a midcareer retrospective of Oxman's work--highlights the interdisciplinary nature of the designer's practice. It demonstrates how Oxman's contributions allow us to question and redefine the idea of modernism--a concept in constant evolution--and of organic design. Some of the projects featured in the book and exhibition include the Silk Pavilion, which harnesses silkworms' ability to generate a 3-D cocoon out of a single thread silk in order to create architectural constructions; Aguahoja, a water-based fabrication platform that prints structures made out of different biopolymers; and Glass, an additive manufacturing technology for 3-D printing optically transparent glass structures at architectural dimensions. Israeli American architect, designer and inventor Neri Oxman (born 1976) is professor of media arts and sciences at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. Her work is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and Boston's Museum of Fine Arts, among others.

On the unique synthesis of word and image in Dorothea Lange's boldly political photography, which defined the iconography of WPA and Depression-era America Toward the end of her life, Dorothea Lange reflected, "All photographs--not only those that are so-called 'documentary'... can be fortified by words." Though Lange's career is widely heralded, this connection between words and pictures has received scant attention. A committed social observer, Lange paid sharp attention to the human condition, conveying stories of everyday life through her photographs and the voices they drew in. Published in conjunction with the first major MoMA exhibition of Lange's in 50 years, Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures brings fresh attention to iconic works from the collection together with lesser-known photographs--from early street photography to projects on the criminal justice system. The work's complex relationships to words show Lange's interest in art's power to deliver public awareness and to connect to intimate narratives in the world. Presenting Lange's work in its diverse contexts--photobooks, Depression-era government reports, newspapers, magazines, poems--along with the voices of contemporary artists, writers and thinkers, the book offers a nuanced understanding of Lange's career, and new means for considering words and pictures today. An introductory essay by curator Sarah Hermanson Meister is followed by sections organized according to "words" from a range of historical contexts: Lange's landmark photobook An American Exodus, Life and Aperture magazines, an illustrated guide to minimize racism in jury trials, and many more. These contexts are punctuated with original contributions from a distinguished group of contemporary writers, artists and critical thinkers, including Julie Ault, Kimberly Juanita Brown, River Encalada Bullock, Sam Contis, Jennifer Greenhill, Lauren Kroiz, Sally Mann, Sandra Phillips, Wendy Red Star, Christina Sharpe, Rebecca Solnit, Robert Slifkin and Tess Taylor. Dorothea Lange (1895-1965) operated a successful San Francisco portrait studio in the 1920s before going on to work with the Resettlement Administration (and later the Farm Security Administration) documenting the hardships of the Great Depression and Dust Bowl migration. During World War II, Lange worked for the US government photographing the Japanese American internment camps, and California's wartime economy. Lange's photographs were published widely during her lifetime. Lange worked closely with curator John Szarkowski on a retrospective that opened posthumously in 1966 at the Museum of Modern Art. --Charles Caesar "Galerie"

Structured Lineages: Learning from Japanese Structural Design presents a selection of essays and roundtable discussions by internationally prominent structural engineers on the intertwined traditions of architecture and engineering in postwar Japan. Originally delivered as talks at a symposium held at the Museum of Modern Art in 2016, on the occasion of the exhibition A Japanese Constellation: Toyo Ito, SANAA, and Beyond, the ten essays gathered in this volume offer insight into the collaborations between architects and structural engineers that engendered many of the most important buildings erected in Japan after 1945, with special focus on the work of Tange Kenzo, Kawaguchi Mamoru, Kimura Toshihiko, Matsui Gengo, Saitoh Masao, Sasaki Mutsuro and Tsuboi Yoshikatsu. Charting a largely unexplored history in a manner at once scholarly and accessible, these conversations and essays--each accompanied by an expansive array of archival and contemporary photographs--illustrate how intimately the innovations of this collaborative tradition passed from one generation to the next. Some of Japan's most recognizable, globally influential designs are traced to their origins in a mentor's earlier experiments. The diverse backgrounds of the scholars and engineers who contributed to Structured Lineages inform the book's uniquely international perspective on the spirit of creativity and cooperation that arose in Japan in the latter half of the 20th century and persists in Japanese architectural practices to this day.

This new edition of MoMA Highlights presents 375 works from the Museum of Modern Art's unparalleled collection of modern and contemporary art. Featuring 170 new selections--a greater representation of women, artists of color and artists from around the world--this updated volume reflects the inclusionary ethos of the newly expanded museum. MoMA Highlights presents a rich chronological overview of the art of the past 150 years, beginning with a photograph made around 1867 and concluding in 2017, with an Oscar-nominated documentary film. In between, readers will encounter some of the most beloved artworks in the museum's collection--iconic works by Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Frida Kahlo and Andy Warhol, among many others--and discover lesser-known but equally fascinating and significant objects of art, architecture and design from around the world. Each work is represented by a vibrant image and a short, lively and informative text, many of which have been newly written or significantly revised for this edition. Published to accompany the opening of the museum's new and expanded collection galleries in 2019, MoMA Highlights is an indispensable survey of one of the world's premier collections of "the art of our time."