Not that it’s a battle mind you but today’s Guardian has a nice piece by Jonathan Jones in which the Brit journalist talks to MOMA’s Glen Lowry and John Elderfield and learns that the MOMA re-installation on 53rd St., opening next week, will not put the collection in a Cuisinart and place Picasso next to John Currin (which is kind of the way the Tate Modern does it).
MOMA’s approach will continue to be historical with rooms devoted to themes at play during this era or that. But gone will be the overarching idea that modern art progressed in a line from Cezanne to abstract expressionism which had been the museum’s story of modern art previously.
Surrounding all the great facts and quotes is the journalist’s silly worry about which museum got it “right” and which museum, Tate Modern or MOMA, will win the hearts and minds of viewers. And fueling that worry, presumably, is worry about tourist dollars. Will MOMA, closed for so long, now be the “it” global art attraction siphoning tourists away from the London museum.
