How Contemporary is The Modern?

Founded in 1929, The Museum of Modern Art set out as the first institution in New York to promote the art of the present. The term “modern” as chosen by MoMA for its very name was not describing pre-contemporary art but rather art of the present that suggested “the progressive, original and challenging rather than the safe and academic,” as its founding director Alfred H. Barr, Jr. clarified. The decision to start with the 1880s was a consequence of practical and intellectual considerations: when MoMA opened its doors, New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art had already begun to collect the art of the nineteenth century, including Impressionism. MoMA’s mission to collect the art of living artists was laid out in an agreement of 1947 with the Met, the institution designated to be the recipient of works older than fifty years, only to be annulled by MoMA’s board in 1953. As a result, MoMA’s current collection spans from 1880 to the present. Today, MoMA is perceived as the high temple of modernism. But even its modern masterpieces such as Cézanne’s The Bather, Van Gogh’s The Starry Night or Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d'Avignon were acquired within decades of its creation. So, how contemporary does MoMA collect? This paper will shed light on MoMA’s acquisition practice over its 90 years of existence. By analyzing the collection data comprehensively for the first time, the paper will give an overview of MoMA as a collecting institution and zoom into collecting phases, practices, and patterns.