"MoMA 2000: Modern Starts"

MUSEUM OF MODERN ART

"Modern Starts" is the first of three Y2K exhibitions re-presenting the history of modern art as told by MOMA's collection. based on a historicist premise (1880-1920), the show's structure nonetheless deflects history's arrow: Curator John Elderfield et al. divide the works not chronologically but thematically, into "People," "Places," and "Things." Perverse, one might ask, to emphasize representational themes at a time when the medium itself was getting the upper hand? If the modernist narratives so bound up with MoMA'S history emerge from this revitalizing rearrangement more stirred than shaken, Elderfield's look at the opening chapter should nevertheless offer up myriad local charms and surprises. After all, he's got plenty to work with. Oct. 7, 1999-Mar. 14, 2000.

COPYRIGHT 1999 Artforum International Magazine, Inc.
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