Kynaston L. McShine (ed.): Information (1970)

Catalogue for an exhibition curated by Kynaston McShine and held at MoMA in New York between 2 July-20 September 1970.

The exhibition presented videos and installations by 100 American and European artists (e.g. Vito Acconci, Art & Language, Daniel Buren, Jan Dibbets, Hans Haacke, Dennis Oppenheim, Edward Ruscha, Robert Smithson, or Jeff Wall). It included an early example of dealing with publicly accessible archives within the context of an exhibition and some of the participating artists confronted the issues of political and media based contents: Haacke established MoMA Poll as a first link between the areas of politics and the museum by presenting an open poll on the way the Rockefeller family acted with regard to Nixon’s plans in Indochina.

Publisher Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1970
207 pages
via MoMA

Commentary: Eve Meltzer (Oxford Art Journal, 2006), Interviews with Adrian Piper and Hans Haacke (Doreen Mende, Displayer, 2007), Adam Lauder (2010).

Publisher
WorldCat

PDF (52 MB)

Alfred H. Barr, Jr.: Cubism and Abstract Art: Painting, Sculpture, Constructions, Photography, Architecture, Industrial Art, Theatre, Films, Posters, Typography (1936)

The catalogue of the first MoMA’s retrospective of modernism, held 2 March-19 April 1936, laid the theoretical foundation of the museum. Its jacket contains a notorious chart of modernist art history, the Diagram of Stylistic Evolution from 1890 until 1935.

“The catalogue remains an important historical document (as does that for Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism). It set abstraction within a formalist framework that—ignoring the intellectual byways of French symbolism, German idealism, and Russian Marxism of the previous thirty years—was shaped by the scientific climate that had started a century before. … The exhibition together with the widespread dissemination of its influential catalogue, established Cubism as the central issue of early modernism, abstraction as the goal.” (Sybil Gordon Kantor, 2003)

The exhibition later traveled to another 7 cities: San Francisco, Cincinnati, Minneapolis, Cleveland, Baltimore, Providence, and Grand Rapids.

Publisher Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1936
249 pages
via MoMA

Commentary: Meyer Schapiro (Marxist Quarterly, 1937), Susan Noyes Platt (Art Journal, 1988), Astrit Schmidt Burkhardt (Word & Image, 2000).

Publisher (incl. master checklist and press releases)
WorldCat

PDF (47 MB)

Alfred H. Barr Jr. (ed.): Fantastic Art, Dada, Surrealism (1936)

“The second of a series of exhibitions planned to present … the principal movements of modern art. The first of these, Cubism and Abstract Art, was held at the MoMA in the spring of 1936.”-

Publisher Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1936
248 pages
via MoMA

Second edition, revised and enlarged
Publisher Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1937
294 pages
via MoMA

Publisher (incl. master checklist and press releases)
Ephemera from the exhibition
WorldCat (1st ed.)
WorldCat (2nd ed.)

1st ed.: PDF (43 MB)
2nd ed.: PDF (55 MB)