An updated edition featuring a fresh look at the Museum’s superlative collection of modern and contemporary art Few institutions approach the richness of The Museum of Modern Art’s holdings in painting, sculpture, drawing, prints, illustrated books, architectural models and drawings, graphic and industrial design, photography, film, video and multimedia installations. This updated edition of MoMA 350 Works from The Museum of Modern Art is a fresh consideration of the Museum’s superlative collection of modern and contemporary art, featuring 115 new works since the 2004 edition, many of them recent acquisitions ranging from typefaces to conceptual performances that reflect the Museum’s ongoing dedication to the art of our time. MoMA Highlights presents a rich chronological overview of the most significant artworks from each of the Museum’s curatorial departments--painting and sculpture, drawings, prints and illustrated books, photography, architecture and design,film, and media and performance art--with each work represented by a vibrant, high-resolution color image and accompanied by a short informative text. Trimmer and lighter in weight than previous versions, this new edition of MoMA Highlights is an indispensable resource for exploring one of the premier art collections in the world.
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.
This book is really great and they just reprinted the second edition this year. It includes (as you may guess from the title) 350 of the most famous works from the museum. Each work of art is featured on it's on page in color along side information on the artist, the painting itself and it's context. This book would be used well in a situation where students have to pick an image to work with, but buyer beware there might be some inappropriate images/commentary for the classroom. A solution would be to pull images from the book for the students to look at.
ok i tried to be an artsy nonfiction girly and i failed. i literally zoned out every time i tried to read this book. i like art i promise i just could not finish this. i’ll try again with a shorter art book soon.
Nice to have small format, book, but often, format is too small to see image details. Also, colors often washed out. Film stills are a fair percentage and seem an odd choice. All that said, analyses are valuable.
The title tells what it is: 350 presentations, each usually exactly a page that includes a picture and a description, preceded by the barest introduction. There is almost no organization with two exceptions: a basic chronology is followed and facing pages often have some thematic intersection. Most artists represented have one work, although Warhol has three and Picasso four. All departments are represented: painting and sculpture, photography, performance and film, design and architecture, prints and illustrations. As is the nature of the history of modern art, the first half has more familiar artists and works, with most of the artists and many of the works being familiar; by the 1950s certain icons are obviously familiar (Warhol), and a few surprises (Raging Bull, ipod), but most quite frankly are examples of ever more obscure wackiness where the only thing that seems to count is originality and a story (48 bales of hay with a golden needle ha pause ha, man in the piano). Art criticism (modern art itself?) is a statement of the obvious (it’s white), some perceptive observations (the dancers seem to float), plus an exegesis (“implying methods from …”), plus complete projection (“we see our own creations,” “conveys the confusion”) that is often strained to the ridiculous. The descriptions often start with some influences and a little background, then follow with those sections. Overall, informative and entertaining, especially when reading a few per day over the course of six months. Overall thought – This is (of course?) more a book to be brought along on a museum trip to add richness to the experience than to be read serially. Or to be referenced to recall particular favorites. Isn’t that what essayists and critics are for? And textbooks? Well, maybe for medieval art, or Netherlandic still-lives of the 17th century, but for modern art this may be the best approach. The whole point of modern art appears to be that everything that makes art history a thing – styles, materials, types of customers – are now unconstrained. Which makes the blunderbuss approach as good as any.
Through 350 selected works, this guide chronicles the dialogues between representationism and non-representationism; the material and the conceptual; the ephemeral and the timeless; the banal and the transcendental; the nihilistic and the optimistic. It is also a tale of how western art struggles to find its meaning, and a celebration of innovation triumphing over mere tradition, cosmopolitanism over parochialism. Above all, it shows how a great institution can shape our ways of seeing. Four stars.
Fun as a coffee table adornment. Pretty to look at and read casually,…but the introduction and the museum’s “hashkafa” as expressed in the book is too postmodern and woke, (even for me) to allow the book be