Modern is Back

An old friend is made new at the Museum of Modern Art.

By: Pat Summers

Barnett Newman’s "Broken Obelisk" takes center stage in the museum’s air- and light-filled second-story atrium

   We’d grown used to the crowds at the Museum of Modern Art on New York’s West 53rd Street. Veterans of exhibition lines snaking through galleries and the restroom and café crushes, my husband and I anticipated a bigger and better museum after the many millions of dollars spent on its expansion and renovation. We visited a few days before the official reopening Nov. 20.
   The new MoMA lives up to its rave reviews. It is splendid. Words like streamlined, spacious, urbane and elegant come trippingly to mind, and they’re followed by initial-visit exclamations over the merest details of the building. This can go on for as many hours as a visit lasts — and probably continue the next time.

Matisse’s "Dance" finds a new home at the top of the stairs

   We entered on 53rd Street, walked a few steps and climbed a few stairs until, amazingly, we looked straight across the wide lobby-promenade to MoMA’s new entrance on 54th Street. To our right, the enlarged sculpture garden was spread out before us, with Rodin’s "Balzac" surveying its length.
   All around us were high ceilings, skylights, pale walls and floors — and a sense of great airiness and openness. The structure’s soaring, light-filled atrium adds to the impact.
   In June 2002, MoMA (founded in 1929) closed to allow for the overhaul now so grandly completed. The Japanese architect Yoshio Taniguchi had done the job of designing the new museum — melding together the disparate parts of earlier additions and, in effect, allowing for re-creation of the Modern.

The exterior, including the entrance on 54th Street.

   Rather than just store the collection and close down for a few years, museum officials chose to convert a former staple factory in Queens into an interim site. Amazingly, it worked. Like countless other Garden Staters, we had found reaching MoMA on 53rd a breeze, but getting to MoMA in Queens via trains, buses or taxis was another matter. At first.
   Throughout the transition period, communication between museum and members was laudably detailed and complete, and when exhibitions began in Queens — notably the Matisse Picasso show — the place became an irresistible destination.
   MoMA’s return to Manhattan, with 2,500 works of art and objects brought back from Queens and around the world, was reportedly a marvel of planning and timing… and rigging. Just one example: installation of the green Bell-47D1 helicopter over the grand staircase. Only when the helicopter was finally suspended in midair could its rotors be reattached.

Vasily Kandinsky’s "Panel for Edwin R. Campbell No. 2"

   In the six levels of stacked galleries, most contemporary works are on the second; drawing, architecture and design, the third; painting and sculpture from 1945-1970, the fourth; and from 1880-1945, the fifth. Temporary exhibition spaces are at the top, while film and media facilities remain below lobby level.
   On a 1-10 internal décor continuum of plain to fancy, Dia: Beacon must own the "1" position for its fittingly minimalist interiors, while the classically ornate Metropolitan Museum of Art is a hands-down 10. MoMA comes in at about 3½ — a level at which the beautiful building still doesn’t upstage the art it houses.
   Evidently, for both Museum Director Glenn D. Lowry and architect Taniguchi, this remake of MoMA was a heady experience. Greeted with compliments while snapping digital images, Director Lowry responded, "I had a full head of hair when this began," gesturing to his forehead that was, yes, somewhat high. And Mr. Taniguchi told another reporter his hair had been black when the whole thing started about eight years ago. Did it really go to their heads?

Vincent Van Gogh’s "The Starry Night".

   With nearly doubled capacity, MoMA has repositioned works on view, besides offering far more of them. The delightful observation of one editorial writer, that "the old gangs — those paintings that seemed to troop together through the years — have been broken up" is true.
   No doubt many visitors will come seeking their old favorites, and eventually find them in new company. Picasso’s "Demoiselles d’Avignon" or Monet’s "Water Lilies" are both in new spots. Matisse’s "Dance" now surprises on a stairway. If "location, location, location" holds true for museums, Barnett Newman’s "Broken Obelisk" comes out a clear winner. Stunningly positioned in the second-floor atrium, it’s strikingly visible from many perspectives.

Another view of the atrium (the design is all about views).

   At 25 feet high and 8,000 pounds, this work of art couldn’t just be pushed around until the right place was found. So carpenters made a full-size mock-up of wood and cardboard to allow curators an easier way to position it.
   MoMA’s sixth floor, earmarked for special art exhibitions, is a vast space now displaying sizeable works on its two end walls: James Rosenquist’s 86-foot long painting, "F-111" faces Ellsworth Kelly’s "Sculpture for a Large Wall," with a long, wood (ballroom) floor between them.
   In this floor’s expansive escalator lobby area, the glass roof comes with shades that can cover some or all of the changing skyscape. This aerial panorama includes the buildings surrounding the museum, ever-exciting reminders of its Manhattan context.
   Traditionally here, women’s restrooms were too small and dependably unkempt, the least appealing part of any visit. But if early impressions hold up, they’re now spacious marvels of modernity, with details as small as a locker door handle worthy of study and admiration. How apropos — that a place recognizing good design now incorporates it, even in locales removed from the art.
   No one will starve at the museum, and eating opportunities come in elegant-looking quarters, with Café 2 on the second level, Terrace 5 on the fifth and a lobby-level fine-dining restaurant, The Modern, obviating any need to remember an obscure name. It includes a "Barroom," named for the museum’s first director.
   But it’s MoMA’s new stretch-your-arms-out spaciousness that struck us most happily. Not until we realized we felt so unconfined did we start to remember MoMA, playing back the old, line-filled lobby on bad-weather days; the shoulder-to-shoulder (and yes, bolder and bolder) browsing in the museum shop that spilled into the lobby, or vice versa. The new roominess contributes to a comfort at being there, better able to regard everything in an expansive, not self-protective, way.
   Close behind its spaciousness in value come the museum’s innumerable great views — up, down and sideways. It’s easy, while gazing about, to miss architectural aids like the structural bridges connecting the atrium with most exhibition floors. The new MoMA design facilitates movement and access, and does so unobtrusively.
   But, as another visitor wisely observed, "Despite the beauty and force of the architecture, the art is still the main show." So true: It’s the art that gives meaning to this artful place. And it’s all there, re-thought and re-arranged and even supplemented.
   What could be better than revisiting MoMA’s collection back in its Manhattan setting? Maybe following that transcendent experience with a practical one: buy a soft street pretzel with mustard and work on it while thinking back over the museum’s treasures. Just be sure to wear comfortable shoes.
The Museum of Modern Art, 11 W. 53 St., New York, N.Y., is closed Tuesdays, Thanksgiving and Christmas days. Hours: Daily 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m; Fri. to 8 p.m. Admission costs $20, $16 seniors, $12 students, children free. No admission fee Fri. 4-8 p.m. For information, call (212) 708-9400. On the Web: www.moma.org