MoMA’s “Inventing Abstraction”

The project I chose to explore was the Museum of Modern Art’s “Inventing Abstraction” (1910-1925) because my mother is an abstract artist, as well, and it is interesting to be able to take a look into the beginnings of the abstract art world. Growing up, I was always dragged around to museums to view artwork without being able to appreciate the art because I did not understand its historical or cultural significance. However, this website may aid in being a bridge for younger and more digitally-minded patrons of art museums because this interactive website exhibits abstract art from the period of 1910 to 1925, and many of these works can be found in the New York City Museum of Modern Art today. This website also exhibits abstract artworks from across many various media platforms–from poetry to dance, and from painters to photographers… Abstract art is both an artistic movement as it is a historical and theoretical rejection of narrative subject matter in artworks that had become so commonplace to artists and patrons of the past. I began searching through this website on its title page, which fittingly displayed an abstract painting in the background of some text that described the background and purpose of the art movement’s website. I then clicked the “Explore Connections” button on the title page, and began sifting through the site from there.

It is clear through the primary diagram display on the “Connections” tab that the abstract art movement did not start from a singular source, but was much more networked over a period of time and in different locales across major cities in Europe and the Americas. The diagram display is interactive, and shows just how interconnected each artist was to a group of at least four or five other artists. Once one clicks on one of the artists named, it will bring them to another page, where the artist selected is of main focus, seen in the featured image of this post. The site then organizes and exhibits the artist, the years he was alive, his birthplace, places worked, and artistic interests, which all contribute to the images of works he or she produced. One may even click on the works provided, and be linked to another web page that displays the image in a larger format, and gives information such as the year it was produced, the title, and a description about the work. While this is a great way to exhibit the collaboration between artist networks and later show individual progress in the abstract world, I did not appreciate how certain artists (such as Kandinsky) had long paragraph-form descriptions about them in this section, while others had none. Although this may not have been avoided due to lack of information given to the museum, I think the museum could have done a better job at creating a more streamlined view of each artist’s background. An example of this is how prolific and influential artists such as Georgia O’Keeffe did not contain long text descriptions on their artist page, despite their importance to the abstract art movement.

On the “Artists” tab, all of the artists presented are organized in alphabetical order by last name, and clicking onto an artist’s name will bring them back to the same artist’s diagram page, as previously discussed. Again, some artists have their names highlighted in orange, while most of them do not. Those with orange highlights seem to be important actors in the abstract world’s initiation and foundation because long paragraphs are written about them in the white space provided below the “Interests” category. Though this can be easily deduced, I wish it had been explicitly noted why the orange highlighted names were presented in such a manner, for those who may not be so technologically savvy. It also bothered me that certain players’ “Interests” sections, such as Max Weber’s, were left blank, when clearly he had many artistic interests that influenced his career and the movement itself.

I thoroughly enjoyed the “Conversations” tab, which displayed videos mainly of artists speaking about important abstract artists and their works from this period. Abstraction can truly be an interactive process, despite its variation in medium. The videos are informative and a more personal way to examine information to be learned from this exhibit. However, I did have trouble playing a couple of the videos, and I am not sure on what end this may have been a problem from…

Finally, the “Programs and Events” page displays upcoming events at the MoMA that relate to these abstract artists described in the movement, whether it be through an exhibition or a dance performance. This page includes images of the work, text about the artist and the work itself, and hyperlinks to purchase the tickets, and/or the artist’s website. Everything is categorized by event in a clear manner due to color. Overall, this page allows the digitally interactive website to come to life with real events that people can interact at and discuss more of the works. While I liked the abstract display of the title page a lot, I wish the rest of the site’s page used colors and background displays that perhaps reflected the work of the artist themselves, as the title page did.