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117-649: 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 . 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, America's first devoted exclusively to modern art,

234-470: A sword , could be hired from shops outside. The treasuries of cathedrals and large churches, or parts of them, were often set out for public display and veneration. Many of the grander English country houses could be toured by the respectable for a tip to the housekeeper, during the long periods when the family were not in residence. Special arrangements were made to allow the public to see many royal or private collections placed in galleries, as with most of

351-720: A 17,000 sq ft (1,600 m) lot at 53 West 53rd Street west of its existing building, sold it to developer Gerald D. Hines for $ 125 million in January 2007. Hines planned to build a skyscraper called Tower Verre on the site. Work on the tower was delayed because of a lack of funding following the Great Recession . In 2010, MoMA completed its merger with the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in Long Island City, New York , formally renaming it as MoMA PS1 . In 2011, MoMA acquired an adjacent building that housed

468-537: A bequest. The Kunstmuseum Basel , through its lineage which extends back to the Amerbach Cabinet , which included a collection of works by Hans Holbein the Younger and purchased by the city of Basel in 1661, is considered to be the first museum of art open to the public in the world. In the second half of the 18th century, many private collections of art were opened to the public, and during and after

585-694: A capacity audience on April 23, 1974), various TV commercials, and Chris Cunningham 's music video for Björk 's All Is Full of Love . The MoMA library is located in Midtown Manhattan, with offsite storage in Long Island City, Queens. The noncirculating collection documents modern and contemporary art, including painting, sculpture, prints, photography, film, performance, and architecture from 1880–present. The collection includes 300,000 books, 1,000 periodicals, and 40,000 files about artists and artistic groups. Over 11,000 artist books are in

702-513: A casual, snapshot-like look and subject matter so apparently ordinary that it was hard to categorize". Under Szarkowski, it focused on a more traditionally modernist approach to the medium, one that emphasized documentary images and orthodox darkroom techniques. Peter Galassi (curator 1991–2011) worked under his predecessor, whereas Quentin Bajac (curator 2013–2018) was hired from the outside. The current David Dechman Senior Curator of Photography

819-449: A collaboration of museums and galleries that are more interested with the categorization of art. They are interested in the potential use of folksonomy within museums and the requirements for post-processing of terms that have been gathered, both to test their utility and to deploy them in useful ways. The steve.museum is one example of a site that is experimenting with this collaborative philosophy. The participating institutions include

936-565: A digital component. Commonly printed ephemera increasingly only manifests digitally. The Tate Library defines "e-ephemera" as the digital-born content and paratext of an email, typically of a promotional variety, produced by cultural institutions; similar in nature, monographs, catalogues and micro-sites are excluded, per being considered e-books. Websites, such as those of an administrative nature, have seen description as ephemera. The likes of Instagram feature accounts dedicated to displaying graphically designed ephemera. Digital ephemera

1053-569: A key role in its expansion and publicity. His brother, David Rockefeller , joined the board in 1948 and continued the family's close association with the museum. Significant events during this period included a major fire in 1958, which destroyed a painting by Claude Monet and led to the evacuation of other artworks. The museum's architectural evolution also continued, with a redesign of the sculpture garden by Philip Johnson and relocation to its current home designed by Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone , which opened in 1939. In later decades,

1170-433: A major factor in social mobility (for example, getting a higher-paid, higher-status job). The argument states that certain art museums are aimed at perpetuating aristocratic and upper class ideals of taste and excludes segments of society without the social opportunities to develop such interest. The fine arts thus perpetuate social inequality by creating divisions between different social groups. This argument also ties in with

1287-554: A new annex designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro, and in the existing building, as well as expanded lobbies. In June 2017, the first phase of the $ 450 million expansion was completed. Spread over three floors of the art mecca off Fifth Avenue are 15,000 square-feet (about 1,400 m) of reconfigured galleries, a new, second gift shop, a redesigned cafe and espresso bar, and facing the sculpture garden, two lounges graced with black marble quarried in France. The museum expansion project increased

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1404-402: A number of online art catalogues and galleries that have been developed independently of the support of any individual museum. Many of these, like American Art Gallery, are attempts to develop galleries of artwork that are encyclopedic or historical in focus, while others are commercial efforts to sell the work of contemporary artists. A limited number of such sites have independent importance in

1521-483: A result. Junk mail is a contemporary example of prominent ephemera. Ephemera's mundane ubiquity is a relatively modern phenomenon, evidenced by Henri Béraldi 's amazed writings on their proliferation. Ubiquitous descriptions of printed ephemera have extended back to the 1840s and by the turn of the century, a time in which a deluge of ephemera had become commonplace, "readers [were] defined by their relationship with print ephemera". Discussing an increase in ephemera by

1638-465: 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. In 2022, MoMA was the 17th most-visited art museum in the world and the 4th most-visited museum in the United States. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th-century to

1755-555: A specific item. Over 500 categories are listed in The Encyclopedia of Ephemera , ranging from the 18th to 20th century. There is scarcely a subject that has not generated its own ephemera. Commonly, printed ephemera is seen to not exceed "more than thirty-two pages in length", although some understandings are more broadly encompassing. Ephemera is chiefly observed as single page materials, with variance and repeat characteristics. The material usage of printed ephemera

1872-558: Is "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ephemera are often paper-based, printed items, including menus, ticket stubs, newspapers, postcards, posters, sheet music, stickers, and greeting cards. However, since the 1990s, the term has been used to refer to digital artefacts or texts. Since the printing revolution , ephemera has been a long-standing element of everyday life. Some ephemera are ornate in their design, acquiring prestige, whereas others are minimal and notably utilitarian. Virtually all conceptions of ephemera make note of

1989-463: Is Roxana Marcoci, PhD. In 1932, museum founding director Alfred Barr stressed the importance of introducing "the only great art form peculiar to the 20th century" to "the American public which should appreciate good films and support them". Museum Trustee and film producer John Hay Whitney became the first chairman of the museum's Film Library from 1935 to 1951. The collection Whitney assembled with

2106-567: Is a building or space for the display of art , usually from the museum 's own collection . It might be in public or private ownership, be accessible to all, or have restrictions in place. Although primarily concerned with visual art , art museums are often used as a venue for other cultural exchanges and artistic activities, such as lectures, jewelry, performance arts , music concerts, or poetry readings. Art museums also frequently host themed temporary exhibitions, which often include items on loan from other collections. An institution dedicated to

2223-483: Is a global occurrence, interest is chiefly present in Britain and America. Ephemera collections can be idiosyncratic, sequential and difficult to peruse. Multiple scholars articulated a connection to the past, such as nostalgia , as a key motivation for ephemera collecting. Such a connection has been described as evocative and atmospheric; the memory as collective and cultural ; the nostalgia as populist and

2340-408: Is ephemeral is due in part to the value bestowed upon it. Over time, the ephemerality of certain ephemera may change, as items fall in and out of fashion or popularity with collectors. Comic books, for example, were once considered ephemera; however, that perception later faded. As a conceptual category, ephemera has interested scholars. Henry Jenkins has argued that the emergence of ephemera, and

2457-632: Is generally considered to have been the first art museum in the United States. It was originally housed in the Renwick Gallery , built in 1859. Now a part of the Smithsonian Institution , the Renwick housed William Wilson Corcoran 's collection of American and European art. The building was designed by James Renwick Jr. and finally completed in 1874. It is located at 1661 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Renwick designed it after

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2574-523: Is more prestigious, respectively. Literature around ephemera concern its production, varieties: trade cards, broadside ballads, chapbooks, almanacs, and newspapers; scholars predominately examine ephemera post-19th century due to greater quantities thereof. A significant amount of scholars have been collectors, archivists and amateurs, particularly at the inception of ephemera studies, a now burgeoning academic field. Digitisation of ephemera has provided accessibility and spurred renewed interest, following

2691-503: Is of comparable nature to printed ephemera, although it is even more prevalent and subject to altering perceptions of ephemera. Holly Callaghan of the Tate Library noted a proliferation of "e-ephemera"; an increased reliance upon this form of ephemera has engendered concern, with note to later accessibility and a difficultly to those outside of the intended recipients. Citing ostensibly infinite digital storage, Wasserman said that

2808-528: Is organized around six curatorial departments: Architecture and Design, Drawings and Prints, Film, Media and Performance, Painting and Sculpture, and Photography. The MoMA's holdings include more than 150,000 individual pieces in addition to roughly 22,000 films and 4 million film stills. (Access to the collection of film stills ended in 2002, and the collection is stored in a vault in Hamlin, Pennsylvania .). The collection houses such important and familiar works as

2925-559: Is provided by a dedicated print room located within the museum. Murals or mosaics often remain where they have been created ( in situ ), although many have also been removed to galleries. Various forms of 20th-century art, such as land art and performance art , also usually exist outside a gallery. Photographic records of these kinds of art are often shown in galleries, however. Most museums and large art galleries own more works than they have room to display. The rest are held in reserve collections , on or off-site. A sculpture garden

3042-478: Is regarded as one of the most important in the world. The Department of Photography was founded by Beaumont Newhall in 1940 and developed a world-renowned art photography collection under Edward Steichen (curator 1947–1961). Steichen's most notable and lasting exhibit, named The Family of Man , was seen by 9 million people. In 2003, the Family of Man photographic collection was added to UNESCO 's Memory of

3159-557: Is similar to an art gallery, presenting sculpture in an outdoor space. Sculpture has grown in popularity with sculptures installed in open spaces on both a permanent and temporary basis. Most larger paintings from about 1530 onwards were designed to be seen either in churches or palaces, and many buildings built as palaces now function successfully as art museums. By the 18th century additions to palaces and country houses were sometimes intended specifically as galleries for viewing art, and designed with that in mind. The architectural form of

3276-495: Is the Greek epi ( ἐπί ) – "on, for" and hemera ( ἡμέρα ) – "day". This combination generated the term ephemeron in neuter gender; the neuter plural form is ephemera, the source of the modern word, which can be traced back to the works of Aristotle . The initial sense extended to the mayfly and other short-lived insects and flowers, belonging to the biological order Ephemeroptera . In 1751, Samuel Johnson used

3393-828: Is to help expand the collection and display of work by women, Latinos, Blacks, Asians, and other marginalized communities. In connection with the renovation, MoMA shifted its approach to presenting its holdings, moving away from separating the collection by disciplines such as painting, design, and works on paper toward an integrated chronological presentation that encompasses all areas of the collection. The Museum of Modern Art closed for another round of major renovations from June to October 2019. Upon reopening on October 21, 2019, MoMA added 47,000 square feet (4,400 m) of gallery space, bringing its total floor area to 708,000 square feet (65,800 m). The MoMA occasionally has sponsored and hosted temporary exhibition houses, which have reflected seminal ideas in architectural history. The MoMA

3510-502: Is to shape identity and memory, cultural heritage, distilled narratives and treasured stories. Many art museums throughout history have been designed with a cultural purpose or been subject to political intervention. In particular, national art galleries have been thought to incite feelings of nationalism . This has occurred in both democratic and non-democratic countries, although authoritarian regimes have historically exercised more control over administration of art museums. Ludwig Justi

3627-462: Is vast and varied, often eluding simple definition. Librarians often conflate ephemera with grey literature whereas collectors often broaden the scope and definition of ephemera. José Esteban Muñoz considered the characteristics of ephemera to be subversion and social experience; Alison Byerly described ephemera as the response to cultural trends. Wasserman, who defined ephemera as "objects destined for disappearance or destruction", categorised

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3744-470: Is very often minimal and much are without art, although a distinct design lexicon can be found in pieces. Early ephemera, functionally monochromatic and predominantly textual, indicates a greater access to printing from common people and later cheap photography. 17th century ephemera incorporated administrative elements and more visuals. Advertising and information are among the primary elements of ephemera; design elements, which are typically indicative of

3861-768: The Alte Pinakothek , Munich) was opened to the public in 1779 and the Medici collection in Florence around 1789 (as the Uffizi Gallery). The opening of the Musée du Louvre during the French Revolution in 1793 as a public museum for much of the former French royal collection marked an important stage in the development of public access to art by transferring the ownership to a republican state; but it

3978-641: The American Folk Art Museum on West 53rd Street. The building had been completed in 2001 to designs by Tod Williams Billie Tsien Architects and was sold in connection with a financial restructuring of the Folk Art Museum. In January 2014, MoMA decided to raze the American Folk Art Museum, which was between MoMA's existing structure and the proposed tower at 53 West 53rd Street. The architectural community protested

4095-503: The Eameses , Betty Cooke , Isamu Noguchi , and George Nelson . The design collection contains many industrial and manufactured pieces, ranging from a self-aligning ball bearing to an entire Bell 47D1 helicopter . In 2012, the department acquired a selection of 14 video games , the basis of an intended collection of 40 that is to range from Pac-Man (1980) to Minecraft (2011). Art museum An art museum or art gallery

4212-649: The French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars , many royal collections were nationalized, even where the monarchy remained in place, as in Spain and Bavaria . In 1753, the British Museum was established and the Old Royal Library collection of manuscripts was donated to it for public viewing. In 1777, a proposal to the British government was put forward by MP John Wilkes to buy the art collection of

4329-772: The Guggenheim Museum in New York City by Frank Lloyd Wright , the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao by Frank Gehry , Centre Pompidou-Metz by Shigeru Ban , and the redesign of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art by Mario Botta . Some critics argue these galleries defeat their purposes because their dramatic interior spaces distract the eye from the paintings they are supposed to exhibit. Museums are more than just mere 'fixed structures designed to house collections.' Their purpose

4446-601: The Guggenheim Museum , the Cleveland Museum of Art , the Metropolitan Museum of Art , and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art . There are relatively few local/regional/national organizations dedicated specifically to art museums. Most art museums are associated with local/regional/national organizations for the arts , humanities or museums in general. Many of these organizations are listed as follows: Ephemera One definition for ephemera

4563-551: The Late Medieval period onwards, areas in royal palaces, castles , and large country houses of the social elite were often made partially accessible to sections of the public, where art collections could be viewed. At the Palace of Versailles , entrance was restricted to people of certain social classes who were required to wear the proper apparel, which typically included the appropriate accessories, silver shoe buckles and

4680-659: The My Lai Massacre . The MoMA had promised to fund and circulate the poster, but after seeing the 2-by-3-foot (0.61 m × 0.91 m) poster, MoMA pulled financing for the project at the last minute. MoMA's board of trustees included Nelson Rockefeller and William S. Paley (head of CBS), who reportedly "hit the ceiling" on seeing the proofs of the poster. The poster was included shortly thereafter in MoMA's Information exhibition of July 2 to September 20, 1970, curated by Kynaston McShine. In 1971, after protests outside

4797-540: The National Museum of Western Art in Tokyo . The phrase "art gallery" is also sometimes used to describe businesses which display art for sale, but these are not art museums. Throughout history, large and expensive works of art have generally been commissioned by religious institutions or political leaders and been displayed in temples, churches, and palaces . Although these collections of art were not open to

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4914-624: The Papacy , while the Vatican Museums , whose collections are still owned by the Pope, trace their foundation to 1506, when the recently discovered Laocoön and His Sons was put on public display. A series of museums on different subjects were opened over subsequent centuries, and many of the buildings of the Vatican were purpose-built as galleries. An early royal treasury opened to the public

5031-697: The Rockefeller Guest House at 242 East 52nd Street was completed in 1950, some MoMA functions were held in the house until 1964. In 1937, MoMA had shifted to offices and basement galleries in the Time-Life Building in Rockefeller Center . Its permanent and current home, now renovated, designed in the International Style by the modernist architects Philip L. Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone , opened to

5148-553: The mystification of fine arts . Research suggests that the context in which an artwork is being presented has significant influence on its reception by the audience, and viewers shown artworks in a museum rated them more highly than when displayed in a "laboratory" setting Most art museums have only limited online collections, but a few museums, as well as some libraries and government agencies, have developed substantial online catalogues. Museums, libraries, and government agencies with substantial online collections include: There are

5265-401: The 1970s, a number of political theorists and social commentators have pointed to the political implications of art museums and social relations. Pierre Bourdieu , for instance, argued that in spite the apparent freedom of choice in the arts, people's artistic preferences (such as classical music, rock, traditional music) strongly tie in with their social position. So called cultural capital is

5382-619: The 4th most-visited museum in the United States , and the third most-visited U.S. art museum. This attendance was 89 percent higher than in 2021, but still well below the pre-COVID attendance in 2019. The idea for the Museum of Modern Art was developed in 1929 primarily by Abby Aldrich Rockefeller , wife of John D. Rockefeller Jr. , and two of her friends, Lillie P. Bliss and Mary Quinn Sullivan . They became known variously as "the Ladies" or "the adamantine ladies". They rented modest quarters for

5499-813: The German Film (1947), traces the birth of Nazism from the cinema of the Weimar Republic and helped lay the foundation of modern film criticism . Under the Museum of Modern Art Department of Film , the film collection includes more than 25,000 titles and ranks as one of the world's finest museum archives of international film art. The department owns prints of many familiar feature-length movies, including Citizen Kane and Vertigo , but its holdings also contains many less-traditional pieces, including Andy Warhol 's eight-hour Empire , Fred Halsted 's gay pornographic L.A. Plays Itself (screened before

5616-602: The Louvre's Tuileries addition. At the time of its construction, it was known as "the American Louvre". University art museums and galleries constitute collections of art developed, owned, and maintained by all kinds of schools, community colleges, colleges, and universities. This phenomenon exists in the West and East, making it a global practice. Although easily overlooked, there are over 700 university art museums in

5733-736: The Marxist theory of mystification and elite culture . Furthermore, certain art galleries, such as the National Gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris are situated in buildings of considerable emotional impact. The Louvre in Paris is for instance located in the former Royal Castle of the ancient regime , and is thus clearly designed with a political agenda. It has been argued that such buildings create feelings of subjugation and adds to

5850-581: The MoMA was at the center of a controversy over its decision to withdraw funding from the iconic antiwar poster And Babies . In 1969, the Art Workers Coalition , a group of New York City artists who opposed the Vietnam War , in collaboration with Museum of Modern Art members Arthur Drexler and Elizabeth Shaw, created an iconic protest poster called And babies . The poster uses an image by photojournalist Ronald L. Haeberle and references

5967-536: The US alone. This number, compared to other kinds of art museums, makes university art museums perhaps the largest category of art museums in the country. While the first of these collections can be traced to learning collections developed in art academies in Western Europe, they are now associated with and housed in centers of higher education of all types. The word gallery being originally an architectural term,

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6084-503: The World Register in recognition of its historical value. Steichen's hand-picked successor, John Szarkowski (curator 1962–1991), guided the department with several notable exhibitions, including 1967s New Documents that presented photographs by Diane Arbus , Lee Friedlander , and Garry Winogrand and is said to have "represented a shift in emphasis" and "identified a new direction in photography: pictures that seemed to have

6201-433: The active lending-out of a museum's collected objects in order to enhance education at schools and to aid in the cultural development of individual members of the community. Finally, Dana saw branch museums throughout a city as a good method of making sure that every citizen has access to its benefits. Dana's view of the ideal museum sought to invest a wider variety of people in it, and was self-consciously not elitist. Since

6318-454: The ambiguity of the kinds of items that might be included. A piece of ephemera's purpose, field of use and geography are among the various elements relevant to its categorisation. Challenges pertaining to ephemera include determining its creator, purpose, date and location of origin and impact thereof. Determining its worth in a present context, distinct from its perhaps obscured purpose, is also of interest. The breadth of printed ephemera

6435-418: The art world. The large auction houses, such as Sotheby's , Bonhams , and Christie's , maintain large online databases of art which they have auctioned or are auctioning. Bridgeman Art Library serves as a central source of reproductions of artwork, with access limited to museums, art dealers , and other professionals or professional organizations. There are also online galleries that have been developed by

6552-490: The associate director and curator of prints and drawings at the Fogg Museum at Harvard University , was referred to in those days as a "collector of curators". Goodyear asked him to recommend a director, and Sachs suggested Alfred H. Barr Jr. , a promising young protégé . Under Barr's guidance, the museum's holdings quickly expanded from an initial gift of eight prints and one drawing. Its first successful loan exhibition

6669-421: The category, ephemera , may cease to exist, its contents have being ultimately preserved. Ephemera has long been substantially collected, both with and without intention, presevering what may be the only remaining reproductions. Victorian families pasted their collections of ephemera, acquiring the likes of scraps and trade cards, in scrapbooks whereas Georgian curators thoroughly archived ephemera. It

6786-451: The collection. The libraries are open by appointment to all researchers. The library's catalog is called "Dadabase". Dadabase includes records for all of the material in the library, including books, artist books , exhibition catalogs , special collections materials, and electronic resources. The MoMA's collection of artist books includes works by Ed Ruscha , Marcel Broodthaers , Susan Bee , Carl Andre , and David Horvitz . Additionally,

6903-556: The controversial decision to withdraw funding from the antiwar poster " And Babies " in 1969, and the subsequent protests, highlighted the museum's involvement in contemporary sociopolitical issues. It was also among several institutions to aid the CIA in its efforts to engage in cultural propaganda during the Cold War . Major expansions in the 1980s and the early 21st century, including the selection of Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi for

7020-607: The design project for the expansion. Despite these expansion projects, MoMA's physical space had never been able to accommodate its growing collection. On June 14, 1984 the Women Artists Visibility Event (W.A.V.E.), a demonstration of 400 women artists, was held in front of the newly renovated Museum of Modern Art to protest the lack of female representation in its opening exhibition, "An International Survey of Recent Painting and Sculpture". The exhibition featured 165 artists; only 14 of those were women. By

7137-612: The display of art can be called an art museum or an art gallery, and the two terms may be used interchangeably. This is reflected in the names of institutions around the world, some of which are considered art galleries, such as the National Gallery in London and Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin , and some of which are considered museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York City and

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7254-695: The display rooms in museums are often called public galleries . Also frequently, a series of rooms dedicated to specific historic periods (e.g. Ancient Egypt ) or other significant themed groupings of works (e.g. the gypsotheque or collection of plaster casts as in the Ashmolean Museum ) within a museum with a more varied collection are referred to as specific galleries, e.g. Egyptian Gallery or Cast Gallery . Works on paper, such as drawings , pastels , watercolors , prints , and photographs are typically not permanently displayed for reasons of conservation . Instead, public access to these materials

7371-401: The early days of printing. The first mass-produced ephemera is presumed to be a variant of indulgences (~1454/55). Demand for ephemera corresponded with an increasing scale of towns whereupon they were commonly dispersed on streets. Ephemera has functioned as a substantial means of disseminating information, evident in public sectors such as tourism, finance, law and recreation and has "aided

7488-679: The end of the 20th century, MoMA had 100,000 objects in its collection, an increase from the 40,000 items it had in 1970. After the Dorset Hotel adjacent to the museum was placed for sale in 1996, MoMA quickly purchased it. The next year, the museum began planning a major renovation and expansion, selecting Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi in December 1997. The project nearly doubled the space for MoMA's exhibitions and programs, and features 630,000 square feet (59,000 m) of space. Taniguchi's initial plan called for two structures, one each to

7605-704: The entire building solely intended to be an art gallery was arguably established by Sir John Soane with his design for the Dulwich Picture Gallery in 1817. This established the gallery as a series of interconnected rooms with largely uninterrupted wall spaces for hanging pictures and indirect lighting from skylights or roof lanterns . The late 19th century saw a boom in the building of public art galleries in Europe and America, becoming an essential cultural feature of larger cities. More art galleries rose up alongside museums and public libraries as part of

7722-429: The ephemera associated with melancholy. Aesthetics, academic advancement and existential ephemerality have also been seen as motivation. The study of print ephemera has seen much contention; various viewpoints and interpretations have been proposed from scholars, with comparisons to folklore studies and popular culture studies, due to the invoking of "remembrance and echoed retellings" and contending that which

7839-498: The film library was Iris Barry , a British film critic and author whose three decades of work in collecting films and presenting them in artistic and historical contexts gained recognition for the cinema. Barry and her successors built a collection comprising some 8000 titles. Exiled film scholar Siegfried Kracauer worked at the MoMA film archive on a psychological history of German film between 1941 and 1943. The result of his study, From Caligari to Hitler: A Psychological History of

7956-519: The first of its kind in Manhattan to exhibit European modernism. One of Rockefeller's early recruits for the museum staff was the noted Japanese-American photographer Soichi Sunami (at that time best known for his portraits of modern dance pioneer Martha Graham ), who served the museum as its official documentary photographer from 1930 until 1968. Goodyear enlisted Paul J. Sachs and Frank Crowninshield to join him as founding trustees. Sachs,

8073-632: The following as ephemera: Further items that have been categorised as ephemera include: posters, album covers, meeting minutes , buttons, stickers, financial records and personal memorabilia; announcements of events in a life, such as a birth, a death, a graduation or marriage, have been described as ephemera. Textual material, uniformly, could be considered ephemera. Artistic ephemera include sand paintings, sculptures composed of intentionally transient material, graffiti, and guerrilla art. Historically, there has been various categories of ephemera. Genres may be defined by function or encompass and detail

8190-837: The following: It also holds works by a wide range of influential European and American artists including Auguste Rodin , Henri Matisse , Pablo Picasso , Georges Braque , Joan Miró , Aristide Maillol , Piet Mondrian , Marcel Duchamp , Paul Klee , Fernand Léger , René Magritte , Henry Moore , Alberto Giacometti , Georgia O'Keeffe , Edward Hopper , Walker Evans , Dorothea Lange , Arshile Gorky , Hans Hofmann , Franz Kline , Willem de Kooning , Jackson Pollock , Mark Rothko , David Smith , Helen Frankenthaler , Morris Louis , Kenneth Noland , Robert Rauschenberg , Frank Stella , Andy Warhol , Roy Lichtenstein , Jean-Michel Basquiat and hundreds of others. The MoMA photography collection consists of over 25,000 works by photographers, journalists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and amateurs, and

8307-491: The founder of the Newark Museum , saw the traditional art museum as a useless public institution, one that focused more on fashion and conformity rather than education and uplift. Indeed, Dana's ideal museum would be one best suited for active and vigorous use by the average citizen, located near the center of their daily movement. In addition, Dana's conception of the perfect museum included a wider variety of objects than

8424-424: The general public, they were often made available for viewing for a section of the public. In classical times , religious institutions began to function as an early form of art gallery. Wealthy Roman collectors of engraved gems and other precious objects, such as Julius Caesar , often donated their collections to temples. It is unclear how easy it was in practice for the public to view these items. In Europe, from

8541-458: The help of film curator Iris Barry was so successful that in 1937 the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences commended the museum with an award "for its significant work in collecting films ... and for the first time making available to the public the means of studying the historical and aesthetic development of the motion picture as one of the major arts". The first curator and founder of

8658-461: The hugely successful and now famous Picasso retrospective of 1939–40, held in conjunction with the Art Institute of Chicago . In its range of presented works, it represented a significant reinterpretation of Picasso for future art scholars and historians. This was wholly masterminded by Barr, a Picasso enthusiast, and the exhibition lionized Picasso as the greatest artist of the time, setting

8775-447: The institution's labor union, founded in 1971, has been described as the first of its kind in the U.S. 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. The archives hold primary source material related to the history of modern and contemporary art. The museum attracted 2,190,440 visitors in 2022, making it

8892-431: The interest that some people show in collecting items that other people throw away, showcases the immaterial nature of culture arising in daily life. Rick Prelinger noted that when a piece of ephemera is preserved, and greater value is placed upon it, the object then arguably stops being ephemera. Categorising types of ephemera has presented difficulties to fixed systems in library science and historiography due to

9009-402: The land for its permanent site. From the 1930s through the 1950s, MoMA gained international recognition with landmark exhibitions, such as Barr's influential "Cubism and Abstract Art" in 1936, a retrospective of Pablo Picasso 's works organized in 1939–40 and the "Indian Art of the United States" exhibition in 1941. Abby Rockefeller's son, Nelson , became the museum's president in 1939, playing

9126-707: The late Sir Robert Walpole , who had amassed one of the greatest such collections in Europe , and house it in a specially built wing of the British Museum for public viewing. After much debate, the idea was eventually abandoned due to the great expense, and twenty years later, the collection was bought by Tsaritsa Catherine the Great of Russia and housed in the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg . The Bavarian royal collection (now in

9243-502: The library has subscription electronic resources along with Dadabase. These include journal databases (such as JSTOR and Art Full Text), auction results indexes (ArtFact and Artnet ), the ARTstor image database, and WorldCat union catalog. MoMA's Department of Architecture and Design was founded in 1932 as the first museum department in the world dedicated to the intersection of architecture and design. The department's first director

9360-472: The lone Vincent van Gogh exhibition on November 4, 1935. Containing an unprecedented 66 oils and 50 drawings from the Netherlands , as well as poignant excerpts from the artist's letters, it was a major public success due to Barr's arrangement of the exhibit, and became "a precursor to the hold van Gogh has to this day on the contemporary imagination". The museum also gained international prominence with

9477-520: The matter is often reliant upon limited yet vast approximation. Such temperance ephemera was prominent enough to elicit contemporaneous sentimentality and disdain. By this point, ephemera was printed by various establishments, having likely become a major element of some. The mid-15th century has been identified as the origin of ephemera, following the Printing Revolution . Ephemera, such as religious indulgences , were significant in

9594-662: The mid-19th century, E.S Dallas wrote that new etiquette had been introduced, thus "a new era" was to follow, espousing the impression that authorship and literature were no longer hermetic. In 1998, librarian Richard Stone wrote that the internet "can be seen as the ultimate in ephemera with its vast amount of information and advertising which is extremely transitory and volatile in nature, and vulnerable to change or deletion". Multiple academics have described digital ephemera as being possibly more vulnerable than traditional forms. Internet memes and selfies have been described as forms of ephemera and various modern print ephemera features

9711-508: The model for all the museum's retrospectives that were to follow. Boy Leading a Horse was briefly contested over ownership by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum . In 1941, MoMA hosted the ground-breaking exhibition, " Indian Art of the United States ", curated by Frederic Huntington Douglas and Rene d'Harnoncourt , that changed the way Native American arts were viewed by the public and exhibited in art museums. Abby Rockefeller's son Nelson

9828-572: The monarch, and the first purpose-built national art galleries were the Dulwich Picture Gallery , founded in 1814 and the National Gallery, London opened to the public a decade later in 1824. Similarly, the National Gallery in Prague was not formed by opening an existing royal or princely art collection to the public, but was created from scratch as a joint project of some Czech aristocrats in 1796. The Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.

9945-523: The municipal drive for literacy and public education. Over the middle and late twentieth century, earlier architectural styles employed for art museums (such as the Beaux-Arts style of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City or the Gothic and Renaissance Revival architecture of Amsterdam's Rijksmuseum) succumbed to modern styles , such as Deconstructivism . Examples of this trend include

10062-440: The museum (as well as to modern art itself) and refused to release funds for the venture, which had to be obtained from other sources and resulted in the frequent shifts of location. Nevertheless, he eventually donated the land for the current site of the museum, plus other gifts over time, and thus became in effect one of its greatest benefactors. During that time, the museum initiated many more exhibitions of noted artists, such as

10179-599: The museum garden, and named it in honor of his mother, the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden . The Rockefeller family and he have retained a close association with the museum throughout its history, with the Rockefeller Brothers Fund funding the institution since 1947. Both David Rockefeller Jr. and Sharon Percy Rockefeller (wife of former senator Jay Rockefeller ) sit on the board of trustees. After

10296-437: The museum meant to spur inclusion of African Americans Richard Hunt was the first African American sculptor to have a major solo retrospective at the museum. In 1983, the museum more than doubled its gallery space, increased the curatorial department by 30%, and added an auditorium, two restaurants, and a bookstore in conjunction with the construction of the 56-story Museum Tower adjoining the museum. Architect César Pelli led

10413-590: The new museum in the Heckscher Building at 730 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan, and it opened to the public on November 7, 1929, nine days after the Wall Street Crash . Abby Rockefeller had invited A. Conger Goodyear , the former president of the board of trustees of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York , to become president of the new museum. Abby became treasurer. At the time, it was America's premier museum devoted exclusively to modern art, and

10530-466: The next month, MoMA relocated its public-facing operations to a temporary facility called MoMA QNS in Long Island City , Queens. The overall project, including an increase in MoMA's endowment to cover operating expenses, cost $ 858 million in total; the renovation of the Midtown Manhattan building alone cost $ 425 million. During the project, new gallery space was added on the first floor of the adjacent Museum Tower, and mechanical spaces and equipment within

10647-438: The object's disposability. Collectors and special interest societies have contributed to a greater willingness to preserve ephemera, which is now ubiquitous in archives and library collections. Ephemera have become a source for humanities research, as ephemera reveal the sociological , historical, cultural, and anthropological contexts of their production and preservation. The etymological origin of Ephemera ( ἐφήμερα )

10764-602: The paintings of the Orleans Collection , which were housed in a wing of the Palais-Royal in Paris and could be visited for most of the 18th century. In Italy, the art tourism of the Grand Tour became a major industry from the 18th century onwards, and cities made efforts to make their key works accessible. The Capitoline Museums began in 1471 with a donation of classical sculpture to the city of Rome by

10881-529: The period of origin, such as the Renaissance , likely changed in accordance to higher literacy rates. The prose of ephemera could range from pithy to relatively long (~400 words, for example). By the 19th century, color printing was present, as were vivid, creative, innovative and ornate design, due to the incorporation of lithography . The modern ephemera of duplicating machines and photocopiers are chiefly informative. Ephemera's "generic legibility"

10998-417: The planned demolition in part because that building was relatively new, having been completed in 2001. MoMA decided to proceed with the demolition because the American Folk Art Museum was in the way of MoMA's planned expansion, which included exhibition space within 53 West 53rd Street. The tower, designed by Jean Nouvel and called 53W53 , received construction approval in 2014. Around the same time as 53W53

11115-639: 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 . The museum is considered one of the most influential cultural institutions globally devoted to modern and contemporary art . At the same time, MoMA has long faced criticism for developing and perpetuating Eurocentric narratives of modernism and for its insufficient focus on expanding access to socioeconomically underprivileged groups. The museum has been involved in controversies regarding its labor practices, and

11232-460: The proliferation of print media as an exchange of information". In their times, ephemera has been used for documentation, education, belligerence, critique and propaganda. Lottery tickets, playbills and trade cards have been among the most prominent ephemera of eras, such as the Georgian and Civil War eras. Panoramic paintings were a far-reaching class of ephemera, few remaining as

11349-512: The public indefinitely, as an experimental exhibition and performance space. In addition, the PS1 space would be available while the 53rd Street complex was closed for major renovations. MoMA broke ground on the 53rd Street project in May 2001. Over the next year, the museum gradually closed two-thirds of its galleries and moved some of its exhibits online. The Midtown building closed completely in May 2002;

11466-502: The public on May 10, 1939, attended by an illustrious company of 6,000 people, and with an opening address via radio from the White House by President Franklin D. Roosevelt . In 1958, workers re-clad the MoMA building's second floor with a glass facade overlooking the sculpture garden. On April 15, 1958, a fire on the second floor destroyed an 18-foot-long (5.5 m) Monet Water Lilies painting (the current Monet Water Lilies

11583-583: The publicly accessible space by 25% compared to when the Tanaguchi building was completed in 2004. The expansion allowed for even more of the museum's collection of nearly 200,000 works to be displayed. The new spaces also allow visitors to enjoy a relaxing sit-down in one of the two new lounges, or even have a fully catered meal. The two new lounges include "The Marlene Hess and James D. Zirin Lounge" and "The Daniel and Jane Och Lounge". The goal of this renovation

11700-437: The term ephemerae in reference to "the papers of the day". This application of ephemera has been cited as the first example of aligning it with transient prints. Ephemeral , by the mid-19th century, began to be used to generically refer to printed items. Ephemera and ephemerality have mutual connotations of "passing time, change, and the philosophically ultimate vision of our own existence". The degree to which ephemera

11817-537: The third and fourth floors were evacuated to the Whitney Museum of American Art , which abutted on the 54th Street side. Among the paintings that were rescued was A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte , which had been on loan from the Art Institute of Chicago . Visitors and employees trapped above the fire were evacuated to the roof, and then jumped to the roof of an adjoining townhouse. In 1969,

11934-469: The tower were added or relocated. MoMA reopened on November 20, 2004. The renovation received mixed reception. John Updike wrote in The New Yorker that the new structure "has the enchantment of a bank after hours, of a honeycomb emptied of honey and flooded with a soft glow", while Roberta Smith of The New York Times said MoMA had an "overly refined building, whose poor layout shortchanges

12051-399: The traditional art museum, including industrial tools and handicrafts that encourage imagination in areas traditionally considered mundane. This view of the art museum envisions it as one well-suited to an industrial world, indeed enhancing it. Dana viewed paintings and sculptures as much less useful than industrial products, comparing the museum to a department store. In addition, he encouraged

12168-594: The west and east of the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture Garden, which was to be enlarged from its original configuration. The Peggy and David Rockefeller Building on the western portion of the site houses the main exhibition gallerie, while the Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Education and Research Building provides space for classrooms, auditoriums, teacher-training workshops, and the museum's expanded library and archives. MoMA began

12285-425: The world's greatest collection of Modern art". Witold Rybczynski of Slate wrote: "Most of what has been written about the new MoMA has lauded its minimalist interiors, which, even if they don't exactly disappear, have an opulently ethereal quality. [...] Yet this urban building is not experienced only from inside—and, seen from the sidewalk, Taniguchi's architecture does anything but fade away." MoMA, which owned

12402-508: The year 2000 with the activation of a 1999 agreement formalizing its affiliation with the P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center , an independent contemporary art organization which had been founded in nearby Long Island City , Queens, New York in 1971. An agreement provided for a 10-year merger process, allowing gradual coordination and consolidation of programming and staff. The location in Queens, a re-purposed former public school, would remain open to

12519-545: Was Philip Johnson who served as curator between 1932 and 1934 and between 1946 and 1954. The next departmental head was Arthur Drexler , who was curator from 1951 to 1956 and then served as head until 1986. The collection consists of 28,000 works including architectural models, drawings, and photographs. One of the highlights of the collection is the Mies van der Rohe Archive. It also includes works from such legendary architects and designers as Frank Lloyd Wright , Paul László ,

12636-626: Was a continuation of trends already well established. The building now occupied by the Prado in Madrid was built before the French Revolution for the public display of parts of the royal art collection, and similar royal galleries were opened to the public in Vienna , Munich and other capitals. In Great Britain, however, the corresponding Royal Collection remained in the private hands of

12753-510: Was a private endeavour, with little outward cultural presence, although an eminent interpersonal function. Cigarette cards were widely collected, by-design. Contemporarily, institutions have attempted to preserve digital ephemera, although problems may exist in regards to scope and interest. Ephemera has been considered for curation since the 1970s, due in part to collectors, at which point societies , professional associations and publications regarding ephemera arose. Although ephemera

12870-568: Was achieved through the use of visuals, a quality that was significantly democratised by ephemera. Various forms of printed ephemera deteriorate quickly, a key element in definitions of ephemera. Although broad, pre-19th century ephemera has seldom survived. Much of ephemera was not intended to be disposed of. Assignats saw widespread contempt on account of their low-quality, endangering their survival rate. The temperance movement produced ubiquitous ephemera; some printed ephemera have had production quantities of millions, although quantifying

12987-496: Was acquired shortly after the fire as a replacement). The fire was started by workmen installing air conditioning, who were smoking near paint cans, sawdust, and a canvas drop cloth. One worker was killed by the fire, and several firefighters were treated for smoke inhalation. Most of the paintings on the floor had previously been removed from the work area, although large paintings including the Monet had remained in place. Art works on

13104-448: Was approved, MoMA unveiled its expansion plans, which encompass space in 53W53, as well as an annex on the former site of the American Folk Art Museum. The expansion plan was developed by the architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler . Following a controversy over the plans, MoMA split the plan into three phases in January 2016. The plan would add 50,000 square feet (4,600 m) of gallery space in 53W53, in

13221-563: Was for example dismissed as director of the Alte Nationalgalerie (Old National Gallery) in Berlin in 1933 by the new Nazi authorities for not being politically suitable. The question of the place of the art museum in its community has long been under debate. Some see art museums as fundamentally elitist institutions, while others see them as institutions with the potential for societal education and uplift. John Cotton Dana , an American librarian and museum director, as well as

13338-459: Was in November 1929, displaying paintings by Van Gogh , Gauguin , Cézanne , and Seurat . First housed in six rooms of galleries and offices on the 12th floor of Manhattan's Heckscher Building, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, the museum moved into three more temporary locations within the next 10 years. Abby Rockefeller's husband, John D. Rockefeller Jr., was adamantly opposed to

13455-465: 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

13572-516: Was selected by the board of trustees to become its president, in 1939, at the age of 30; he was a flamboyant leader and became the prime instigator and funding source of MoMA's publicity, acquisitions, and subsequent expansion into new headquarters on 53rd Street. His brother, David Rockefeller , joined the museum's board of trustees in 1948, and took over the presidency when Nelson was elected governor of New York in 1958. David Rockefeller subsequently employed noted architect Philip Johnson to redesign

13689-571: Was the Green Vault of the Kingdom of Saxony in the 1720s. Privately funded museums open to the public began to be established from the 17th century onwards, often based around a collection of the cabinet of curiosities type. The first such museum was the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford , opened in 1683 to house and display the artefacts of Elias Ashmole that were given to Oxford University in

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