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You might think that a modern art museum may give you trouble—not
just because it offers art instead of documenting events, but because
you’re looking to do research about the past at an institution
that specializes in the present. So where does that leave you? Somewhere
in the recent past? Well, don’t let the word “modern” trick you: it describes an era, approximately the last one hundred years of art. So while you may find artwork here that is about as old as you are, you’ll also find artwork here that dates back to the late 1800s. Modern shouldn’t mean “Don’t do research here.” The Museum of Modern Art’s (MoMA) collections are unbelievable. Its photography collection includes 25,000 works dating from 1840 to the present. And although it includes pictures taken solely for the sake of art, it also includes those taken by journalists, scientists, entrepreneurs, and even amateurs. If you are studying a specific event that took place in the last hundred years, it might be valuable to see not just how an event was captured on film, but how different people from different backgrounds chose to examine the same event. |
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Just looking at one photograph, “Back” (1938) by Dorothea
Lange (which you can find online at the museum’s website), you
could launch a discussion on the life of farmers during the Great
Depression and how, as shown in the photograph, they had a great deal
of time to talk and socialize, in part to keep up morale because even
at harvest time there was not much work for them to do. You
never know how a picture can give a new dimension, especially a human
dimension, to a paper that can easily get lost in dryness and facts.
The photography collection is not the only place where you can find photographs. They're also in the museum’s architecture and design collection, together with drawings and models. The museum also has design and graphic design collections, with more than 7,000 objects, from posters and typography to cars and tableware. There is also a film collection covering the entire film-making era and all genres—everything from films to stills to videos. The painting and sculpture collection traces every major artist and art movement in the past 100 years. It holds over 3,000 artworks, with pieces by such masters as Van Gogh, Picasso, Matisse, and Cézanne. And the prints and illustrated books collection has almost 40,000 items. Fortunately for you, the museum visitor, MoMA just underwent a huge renovation project that increased its exhibition space. And viewing artwork is not a bad idea, especially if you need some ideas or would like to find an artist or artists to research whose own life stories or artistic themes (especially if they provide historical or social commentary) could provide you with an interesting starting point for your research. To give you an example of the types of items you might come across, on a recent visit this author came across some of Chuck Close’s portraits; Edward Ruscha’s Double Standard 1969, a depiction of everyday objects and vernacular architecture that integrates pop and conceptual art; Andy Warhol’s screen prints of Marilyn Monroe; and Joan Jonas’ Song Delay 1973. Although the video projection of people and props performing different gestures and sounds (like jumping jacks and sweeping for example) in the urban landscape of lower Manhattan may prove initially prove confusing, some research on Jonas will reveal that her work in the late 1960s and early 1970s has influenced the development of many contemporary art genres, including performance, video, and conceptual art. Jeff Koons’ comments on the American cultural fetish for the new and perfect by presenting the culturally pleasing image of a cleaning appliance that can’t get dirty. David Hammons uses debris found on a Harlem street to create a basketball hoop and address the dream of basketball stardom. A portrait by George Grosz comments on the seamy underbelly of bourgeois culture in Circe 1927, in which he depicts a businessman as a pig being seduced by the mythical Greek enchantress Circe. More interested in architecture? preliminary work by Frank Lloyd Wright and Louis Kahn. You should take the time to walk through those exhibits because you never know what kind of painting, what kind of artist, or what kind of period will be represented and how it might be interesting to use in your paper. Note that museum admission is reduced for students with ID and free for individuals under the age of 16, and that an acoustiguide, a contraption that provides you with prerecorded information about selected works on display, can be rented for $5.00. However, as interesting as MoMA is, its museum educators insist that a trip to the museum galleries is not necessary to complete your research, especially if you already have an inkling of what you are interested in researching. And even if you don’t, you should be aware that you can find an object or artist that sparks your interest simply by going on the museum’s website and searching the collection [http://www.moma.org/collection/ search.php]—though this shouldn’t discourage you from visiting the museum. Although you won’t find all of the museum’s holdings catalogued online, you will find several items including highlights from the collections. You can look by media, year, or artist. The process is really very user-friendly and the resource can be very helpful. I encourage you to use it! Once you’ve found a topic of interest, go the museum’s online database [http://library.moma.org] which lists the research materials (books and magazines about and containing art) available at the Museum’s Library. The librarian recommends you search by keyword or subject. If you can’t make it down to the library but find interesting research material, you can try looking up the same book in the public library. Chances are you will be able to find it close to home. You can really research almost anything, and even if you are not interested in focusing specifically on art, you can type in a topic to see how it is incorporated into modern art and how you might be able to use some artwork within a larger group of research sources: for example, the photographer William Eggleston was the first to use color to expose the seamy underside of American culture, and artist Shirin Neshat makes videos about being a woman in the conservative Middle East. If you’d rather go for a theme than an artist, consider graffiti art, politics in arts or the movies, the Vietnam War in art, the Cold War in art, McCarthyism and the film industry, topics addressed by photojournalists, advertising, fashion photography, hip-hop, textiles, Life Magazine, finance or economics of art, art and censorship, identity and assimilation as addressed by immigrant artists, U.S. immigration policy and terrorism through art, or art about globalization and economic displacement. If you’d like more guidance, you should contact the library by calling (212) 708-9433 or emailing library@moma.org. Before you contact the library, though, be sure to read the FAQs (frequently asked questions) on MoMA’s website [www.moma.org/research/library/index.html]. An actual visit to the library might be difficult since it’s only open Monday, Thursday and Friday from 10-5, more or less when you are supposed to be in school, and because the library is still in the temporary museum building in Queens. However, it’s worth contacting the librarian, who might direct you to other useful research sources or give you an appointment to access the library’s resources. Other resources you should be aware of, which should be more accessible, are www.artbook.com, www.artlex.com, http://www.facinghistory.org, http://www.ps1.org/ps1_site/index.php, http://www.ashp.cuny.edu, databases on the New York Public Library’s website (especially Academic Search Premier), the 41st Street New York Public Branch Library, the New York Public Library Donnel Center, the Uris Center at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the library at the Brooklyn Museum. Two books that can help you learn to analyze and write about art are Ways of Seeing by John Berger and Believing is Seeing by Mary Anne Staniszewski. (FYI: To find the databases on the New York Public Library’s website, go to www.nypl.org, click on “research libraries,” then click on “quick links,” then “databases and indexes online,” and finally “arts and humanities.”) A side note to teachers: the Library suggests that you begin an inquiry into helping prepare lessons about modern art or seeking lesson plans from MoMA by contacting MoMA’s education department, not the library. No one, teacher or student, should contact the archives or collections unless prompted to do so by MoMA educational or library staff. In addition to contacting the Education Department for teaching resources, teachers should also be sure to contact the Museum at (212) 708-9685 or groupservices@moma.org should they wish to bring a class for a group visit. Depending on your research topic and your own degree of personal interest in modern art, you may want to consider visiting the museum and attending a gallery talk or participating in the educational programs that MoMA organizes for students after school. All of the after-school programs are free. You should also check out general public programming put together by MoMA. On scheduled Friday nights, MoMA invites you to sit for a screening of classic, foreign, and current movies, to talk with museum educators about them and to chow down on free pizza and soda. It doesn’t get much better than this. Themes for the movies have included teens taking on the world and what it means to be an immigrant. Rushmore, The 400 Blows, Boyz N the Hood, Liberty Heights, La Ciudad, and Coming to America are all films that MoMa has screened in the past. Another program, Follow the Leader, analyzes what influences the way we view our politicians and leaders. For a full listing of all programs available, visit the education section of the museum’s website, [http://www.moma.org/education]. Other events that may be of interest, such as film and media screenings, are also listed under the calendar of events [http://www.moma.org/events]. You can find programs on almost anything, and they can provide you with a useful context in which to view some of the artwork on display. In just the month of October, the museum held programs on Latin American architecture from the 1930s to the 1960s, how New York and Parisian artists responded to the conflicts of World War II (including capitalism, socialism, and communism), American veterans who used the G.I. bill to study art in Paris after World War II, art design from the Atomic Age, Rudy Burckhardt’s photographs of Queens, fifteen new billboards in Chelsea and Long Island City, and contemporary architects. MoMA is one of the few museums that makes its staff and its resources very accessible to individual high school kids doing research on their own and on their own time. You should definitely take advantage of this! |