The Documentary Expands
Grass: A Nation’s Battle for Life. 1925. USA. Directed by Merian C. Cooper, Ernest B. Schoedsack
These notes accompany The Documentary Expands, which screens on March 10, 11, and 12 in Theater 3.
Calling Merian C. Cooper (1893–1973) and Ernest B. Schoedsack (1893–1979) auteurs may seem like fudging a little bit, but I don’t think it is. Yet the doubt creeps in on two levels. First, while film is undeniably a collaborative medium, the auteur theory argues that there is a singular dominant creator. The bond between these guys, however, seems so seamless in their films as to be almost unique. The other reason for hedging is that they first made their collaborative mark in documentary film, a form that presupposes that the director cannot mold his material as freely as can the maker of narrative films. (It has become obvious in subsequent decades that even the most “pure” cinéma vérité is subject to manipulation at the hands of masters like Jean Rouch or Fred Wiseman.) And it is, of course, true that immediately after Grass, Cooper and Schoedsack began to move away from authentic actuality. Read more
0 Comments | Tags: auteurist, documentary film, Ernest B. Schoedsack, film, Joris Ivens, Merian C. Cooper
Eavesdropping and Poetry in the MoMA Galleries
Matthew Rohrer and Joshua Beckman
“You know who has a really cool Christopher Walken impersonation? Oh wait, you don’t know this person…” “I’m a real bot…” Do you ever catch the tail end of a stranger’s conversation, then begin to weave the rest of the tale on your own? How much do you embellish what might be a very simple story? And have you ever eavesdropped on other people’s conversations at MoMA?
While you might imagine that a lot of the discussions taking place in the Museum galleries have to do with the art on the walls, poets Matthew Rohrer and Joshua Beckman have discovered otherwise. Roaming the Museum and riding its elevators for three days in February and March, they have been snooping on other people’s chatter, and they found that it’s not so much about the art. Many of the conversations are incomprehensible to them, not because Rohrer and Beckman only understand art-speak, but because so many MoMA visitors these days are speaking other languages besides English Read more
0 Comments | Tags: Eavesdrop, Joshua Beckman, Matthew Rohrer, Modern Poets, MoMA Teen Voices Project
Claes Oldenburg: Conservation of Floor Cake (Week 5)
In our previous posts we discussed the materials and methods used by Claes Oldenburg to create Floor Cake, the artist’s unique and popular piece of painted cake currently undergoing conservation treatment here at MoMA. This week, we investigate the properties of Floor Cake’s surface dirt, to help us prepare an optimal cleaning solution to remove dirt and grime from the sculpture’s painted surface.
Floor Cake disassembled during treatment
0 Comments | Tags: acrylic paint, Claes Oldenburg, conductivity, Conservation, Floor Cake, pH, Richard Wolbers
Cubicle Critic: Oscar-Nominated Documentary Shorts
The prized Academy Award® statuette. Image courtesy Oscar.com
“The Oscars are my Super Bowl”—it’s something of a cliché in our media-obsessed world, especially among twenty-something women such as myself, but there you have it anyway. I’m not a football fan, and to me March madness refers to the stir-craziness that inevitably accompanies the last weeks before spring. But a celebration of the silver screen, of stars established and emerging, of glamorous dresses and fashion flops—that I can get behind.
So it’s with particular relish that I see the annual screening of Academy Award–nominated short documentaries at MoMA each year. Apart from being an invaluable research tool for my local, all-in-good-fun Oscar Pool, seeing the nominees in some of the smaller categories is a great way to add some interest to the ever-lengthening Oscars telecast (not to mention the serious cinematic cred it garners you among your friends). Read more
2 Comments | Tags: Academy Awards, documentary filmmaking, film
Can Art Change the World?
As Director of Digital Learning, I might just have the best job in the world. Take today as an example. At 10:00 a.m., I reviewed video for an online studio course about the materials and techniques of Willem de Kooning, Jackson Pollock, and Barnett Newman (among others) that my coworker Amy Horschak and I hope to run this summer (it is being developed by Corey d’Augustine). At 2:00, I brainstormed with colleagues about new content for the blog. At 5:00, I attended an exhibition opening for the Education department’s CreateAbility class, a monthly program for individuals with learning and developmental disabilities and their families. I brought in the camera just in time to hear parents talk about how meaningful the class was for their children. (We’ll be adding the video to the Learn section of the site, which is being updated later this spring.) By 7:00 I was watching a program organized by my colleagues Laura Beiles and Pablo Helguera: the artist William Kentridge on stage in Theater 1, performing I am not me, the horse is not mine. Read more
3 Comments | Tags: CreateAbility, Digital Learning, video production, William Kentridge
MoMA.org turns 1…and 15
It was one year ago tomorrow that we launched the latest redesign of MoMA.org. (March 6 is a day that will be forever ingrained in the Digital Media team’s memory!) But MoMA has had an online presence for fifteen years now, since 1995, when an exhibition site for the design show Mutant Materials in Contemporary Design was developed. The following year, the Museum’s website, MoMA.org, officially launched, and we’ve been doing exhibition feature sites ever since (including our most recent one for William Kentridge: Five Themes).
Talk about a blast from the past. Here’s a look at MoMA.org through the ages:
Homepage of the Mutant Materials site, MoMA, 1995
0 Comments | Tags: MoMA.org, Web design
