Special Holiday Viewings
December 22 and December 29
10:30 a.m.–5:45 p.m.
Due to the popularity of ModernStarts: People, Places, and Things, The Museum of Modern Art is adding two special viewing days to its regular schedule this holiday season: Wednesday, December 22, and Wednesday, December 29. This is a wonderful opportunity for New Yorkers and holiday visitors to view ModernStarts, an unconventional group of exhibitions that explores fresh ways of looking at and thinking about modern art.
Focusing on the years 1880 to 1920, the exhibitions of ModernStarts avoid the traditional organization of works by chronology, style, medium, or school. Instead, they explore relationships and shared themes, as well as divergent movements and conflicting points of view, by juxtaposing works in new and often provocative ways. ModernStarts: People explores the myriad ways in which artists portray the human figure in painting, sculpture, and photography, and includes works by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Paul Cézanne, Auguste Rodin, and other renowned artists from the Museum's collection. ModernStarts: Places demonstrates how particular sites, both real and imagined, urban and rural, were conceived and represented by artists in the period between 1880 and 1920. The exhibition presents such works as Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889), Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (c.1920), and Joan Miró’s Birth of the World (1925). ModernStarts: Things examines ordinary and extraordinary objects and illustrates the connections between three-dimensional works––sculpture, design objects, and architectural fragments—and two-dimensional representations of objects--paintings, prints, drawings, and photographs. Diverse works range from Picasso’s groundbreaking sculpture Guitar (1912–1913) to Marcel Duchamp’s Bicycle Wheel (1913/1951) to a monumental site-specific mural by British artist Michael Craig-Martin.
As part of the Museum’s expanded schedule, the Department of Film and Video has added screenings of classic films from MoMA’s collection on both December 22 and 29:
Wednesday, December 22
2:00 Ninotchka. 1939. Directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Written by Charles Brackett, Billy Wilder, Walter Resich from a story by Melchior Lengyel. With Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas, Ina Claire, Bela Lugosi. A classic American comedy set in Paris about a single efficient Soviet emissary (Garbo), several delinquent ones, and a playboy (Douglas) whose charm could melt the coldest of Russian hearts.110 min.
5:00 The 42nd Street Special. 1933. A promotional short in which many of the film’s stars toured the country by train announcing the forthcoming Warner Bros. film 42nd Street. 6 min. 42nd Street. 1933. Directed by Lloyd Bacon; Choreography direction (for camera and dancers) by Busby Berkeley. Music by Al Dubin and Harry Warren. Written by James Seymour and Rian James after the novel by Bradford Ropes. With Warner Baxter, Ruby Keeler, Bebe Daniels, Una Merkel, Dick Powell, Ginger Rogers. The wonderfully melodic and deliriously choreographed film from which all backstage parodies derive. “...and Sawyer, you’re going out a youngster but you’ve got to come back a star.” 89 min.
Wednesday, December 29
2:00 Shakespeare in Love. 1998. Directed by John Madden. Written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard. With Joseph Fiennes, Gwyneth Paltrow, Geoffrey Rush, Judi Dench, Simon Callow, Colin Firth, Imelda Staunton, Ben Affleck. A recent and most welcome gift to MoMA from Miramax Films. 122 min.
5:00 Rashomon. 1950. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Written by Kurosawa and Shinobu Hashimoto from a novel by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. With Toshiro Mifune, Masayuki Mori, Machiko Kyo, Takashi Shimura, Fumiko Homma. In Japanese, English subtitles. One of the great works of cinema and a most vigorous meditation on truth. Outside Kyoto sometime in the 1300s, a violent crime takes place and a man dies. Four contradictory versions of what happened are recounted: by the dead man (through a medium), by the widow, by a bandit and by a peasant witness. 88 mins.
Visitors may enjoy refreshments in Café/Etc., the Museum’s vibrant multimedia space recently opened in the former Rene d’ Harnoncourt Gallery on the Museum’s lower level. Café/Etc. serves as a lab for the presentation and study of art using new technologies. In addition to a café and bar, Café/Etc. features film and video installations, computer kiosks with digital media and online projects, a bookstore, and coin-operated replicas of the Edison Company’s original kinetoscopes from the 1890s. The space will also be used for artist talks, musical performances, educational events, and the presentation of works from the Projects series. (A separate press release is available.)
A special MoMA2000 package is being offered to visitors. For $50, visitors receive admission for one to the Museum, a MoMA2000 appointment calendar, and lunch at Sette MoMA, the Museum’s elegant Italian restaurant. The public may call (212) 708-9710 for lunch reservations.
