Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

In this artist profile, we visited street photographer Jamel Shabazz at his home studio where he is immersed in four decades worth of archival work. Most known for his vibrant images of everyday people on New York City’s streets and subway, Shabazz shares his core influences, philosophy, and process. Venturing back underground 43 years later, Shabazz reunites with two men to recreate one of his most iconic images, "The Righteous Brothers." “It's not about me,” explains Shabazz.“I'm just a vessel using my position to freeze time and then thaw the moments out later on so people can see them and heal, rejuvenate, or just celebrate.” Subscribe for our latest videos, and invitations to live events: http://mo.ma/subscribe Explore our collection online: http://mo.ma/art Plan your visit in-person: http://mo.ma/visit Commit to art and ideas. Support MoMA by becoming a member today: https://moma.org/join The comments and opinions expressed in this video are those of the speaker alone, and do not represent the views of The Museum of Modern Art, its personnel, or any artist.  #streetphotography #nycsubway #subwayphotography #documentaryphotography #documentary #artistprofile #art #museumofmodernart #moma #museum #modernart

“Movement itself is a great tool for expressing emotion.” Join dance psychotherapist and somatic practitioner Jennifer Sterling for an eight-minute immersive movement oriented meditation. Here she uses Simon Hantaï's Untitled [Suite “Blancs”] as an entry point to building somatic awareness.“There’s no right or wrong way… We learn to use our bodies as a tool for information gathering.” As Sterling invites you to orient, meditate and move with her, reflect on what feelings are present in your body. Artful practices are tools that can translate to everyday life to help soften distress, increase joy and support overall well-being. Subscribe for our latest videos, and invitations to live events: http://mo.ma/subscribe Explore our collection online: http://mo.ma/art Plan your visit in-person: http://mo.ma/visit Commit to art and ideas. Support MoMA by becoming a member today: https://moma.org/join The comments and opinions expressed in this video are those of the speaker alone, and do not represent the views of The Museum of Modern Art, its personnel, or any artist.  #somatichealing #somaticmovement #dancetherapy #wellbeing #art #museumofmodernart #moma #museum #modernart

Go behind-the-scenes to see how artist Yto Barrada (French-Moroccan, b. 1971) transforms the MoMA PS1 courtyard with a colorful arrangement of towering sculptures built from stacked concrete blocks, which visitors can sit on and explore. We visit Barrada's studio where she discusses how she often mines the hidden histories embedded within architectural and geometric forms, revealing the intersections of material, political, and personal narratives. For “Le Grand Soir,” Barrada looks to the tradition of constructing human pyramids in Morocco, where their distinctive applications have ranged from martial arts and acrobatics to spiritual practices. Each of Barrada’s structures takes inspiration from an acrobatic formation used by Moroccan acrobats: “tqal” (weight), “bourj tarbaite” (tower of four), and “bourj benayma ou chebaken” (tower lift with net). They also draw on subjects as wide-ranging as Moroccan Brutalism and Barrada’s family lore, weaving together distinct historical moments of shapeshifting, surmounting barricades, and retooling architectures. Learn more: https://www.momaps1.org/en/programs/367-yto-barrada Subscribe for our latest videos, and invitations to live events: http://mo.ma/subscribe Explore our collection online: http://mo.ma/art Plan your visit in-person: http://mo.ma/visit Commit to art and ideas. Support MoMA by becoming a member today: https://moma.org/join The comments and opinions expressed in this video are those of the speaker alone, and do not represent the views of The Museum of Modern Art, its personnel, or any artist.  #sculpture #behindthescenes #installationart #acrobat #architecture #architecturehistory #art #museumofmodernart #moma #museum #modernart

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Surrealist Manifesto, this short documentary takes a deep dive into the Surrealist game “exquisite corpse,” a collaborative drawing made by multiple people, each adding a different body part while unaware of what the others drew. This video itself takes the form of an exquisite corpse, with three distinct parts, each introduced by an exquisite corpse animated by Kohana Wilson (the head), Miranda Javid (the torso), and Gina Kamentsky (the feet). In part one, curator Samantha Friedman introduces the history of the game and looks at historical examples in MoMA's collection made in the fraught but fertile period between the first and second World Wars in Europe. Each is evidence of a community of artists spending time together, including André Breton, Yves Tanguy, Joan Miró, Man Ray, Valentine Hugo, Tristan Tzara, Victor Brauner. and Remedios Varo. Part two delves into the longest-known exquisite corpse, Ted Joans's "Long Distance," created over three decades by 132 contributors. Joans’s partner, artist Laura Corsiglia, and curator Lanka Tattersall explain how this project, like Joans himself, represents a second generation of Surrealism, expanding to include Beat poetry, the improvisation of jazz, and a global constellation of artists. Part three takes us to today. We visit Huma Bhabha’s studio, where she, Jason Fox, and Joe Bradley make life-size exquisite corpses and note how pervasive the game has become in our culture. Spanning one hundred years of art history and the game’s existence, *How to See an Exquisite Corpse* explores the appeal and influence that makes this exercise both a radical strategy of creative freedom and a game that any group of friends can play. This is a celebration of “a drawing going out to play with other drawings,” as Corsiglia puts it. 00:00-1:19: Part 1: What is an Exquisite Corpse? 1:19-3:19: A record of a social history 3:19-5:16: Part 2: Ted Joans, the second generation Surrealist 5:16-7:21: Introducing "Long Distance," the longest exquisite corpse 7:21-10:15: Contributions to "Long Distance" 10:15-11:00: Reflecting on the power of "Long Distance" 11:00-13:40: Part 3: Making a life-size exquisite corpse 13:40-14:32: The big reveal Subscribe for our latest videos, and invitations to live events: http://mo.ma/subscribe Explore our collection online: http://mo.ma/art Plan your visit in-person: http://mo.ma/visit Commit to art and ideas. Support MoMA by becoming a member today: https://moma.org/join The comments and opinions expressed in this video are those of the speaker alone, and do not represent the views of The Museum of Modern Art, its personnel, or any artist. #surrealism #surrealistart #exquisitecorpse #drawing #arthistory #documentary #explainervideo #art #museumofmodernart #moma #museum #modernart #animation

When artist Montien Boonma was searching for a cure for his wife’s cancer, he turned to traditional Thai medicine and its healing power of smell. Boonma made this experience central to one of his most ambitious immersive installations, "House of Hope," which evokes a sacred temple. Now installed for the first time at MoMA, this "house of pills" has a strong scent that greets a visitor long before they get to the gallery. Medicinal herbs such as turmeric, Andrographis, and the traditional Thai mixture "yahom" are among the materials in the work’s celestial mural and dense curtains of pill beads. The second episode of our new series ART AND THE SENSES explores how smell, an unexpected material in art, connects to memory, ritual, healing, and transience. In this short documentary, we visit Bangkok, where Boonma’s assistant Apisit Nongbua sources the artwork’s herbs and makes the aromatic pills, and then return to New York for an elaborate installation: strands of approximately 500,000 pills are hung and scenic painters apply Boonma’s experimental medium of rice starch and spices to the walls. “Scent is something that is very visceral and some may have an immediate bodily reaction to it,” Chief Curator at Large and Publisher Michelle Kuo explains. “For that reason, scent has been used in all kinds of environments, whether devotional or religious or medicinal and therapeutic, because it has some kind of effect on the body and the mind, and I think that's all the more reason that artists are fascinated by it.” Watch this video to understand how smell and hope, though both ungraspable, have powerful effects on our wellbeing. We typically refer to the “visual arts,” but we experience art through all five senses. Our new ART AND THE SENSES video series explores how artists help us understand and question our perceptions, one sense at a time: smell, hearing, taste—and that biggest taboo in a museum, touch. 00:00–1:00: Who was Montien Boonma? 1:00–3:57: The idea behind "House of Hope" 3:57–4:43: Shopping for herbs in Bangkok 4:43–5:23: Making the beads 5:23–6:53: Painting the wall mural 6:53–8:12: Boonma's death and legacy 8:12–9:59: Linking smell and hope Subscribe for our latest videos: http://mo.ma/subscribe Plan your visit in-person: http://mo.ma/visit The comments and opinions expressed in this video are those of the speaker alone, and do not represent the views of The Museum of Modern Art, its personnel, or any artist. #senses #smell #scent #sensory #art #museumofmodernart #moma #museum #modernart #immersiveexperience #thaiart #traditionalmedicine #documentary #bangkok

We live in the Age of the Bully. No longer memories confined to our childhood schoolyards, they are all around us. Bullying is not a phenomenon that plagues children or humans alone, but is a fact of all social life across species, ages, and cultures. At its core, it is an exercise in power—a method to elevate one’s rank by diminishing further that of other, much less powerful, individuals. Bullies display force and dare others not to flinch. They become the arbiters of inclusion and exclusion, setting and solidifying social and political norms to the detriment of those that do not conform to their vision or interests. They can be CEOs, presidents, mean girls, or hedge fund managers. Though the trope of standing up to a bully makes for a compelling narrative, substantive change requires dismantling the systems that got them there in the first place. This is no simple task. Today we face bullies that have come to occupy, control, and often even subvert the institutions that traditionally existed to protect us. Here are some more of the questions that we will ask: How do you spot a bully? How do you stand up to them? Why does our social system reward this kind of behavior? Do bully-proof societies or places exist? Are there bully stereotypes? Are the bullies that evade those stereotypes more dangerous? Does gender play a role? Are female bullies less common, or do we notice them less? Does the detection of bullying behavior change across cultures? Is there bullying in the animal world? Is bullying an active choice or an inescapable psychological trait? Can you hide it? Is there such a thing as a good bully? Can there be an upside? How has our understanding of and opinion toward bullying changed over time? Ruth Ben-Ghiat: is Professor of History and Italian Studies at NYU and writes on fascism, authoritarianism, propaganda, and democracy protection. Simon DeDeo: is Associate Professor of Social and Decision Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University, External Professor at the Santa Fe Institute, and director of the Laboratory for Social Minds. Steven Donziger: is an environmental lawyer known for his legal battles with Chevron, representing the local communities of the Ecuadorian Amazon in Aguinda v. Texaco, Inc. Alex Gibney: is an Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker of such films as Taxi to the Dark Side, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and The Inventor: Out for Blood in Silicon Valley, among others. Damian Norfleet: is an interdisciplinary performer-composer-improviser whose work explores the human condition and inter-communal relationships. Betsy Levy Paluck: is Professor of Psychology and Public Affairs at Princeton University and focuses on prejudice, intergroup conflict reduction, the application of social psychological theory as a tool for societal change. The presentations will be accompanied by the screening of a series of short videos cut specifically for Salon 50. Subscribe for our latest videos and invitations to live events: http://mo.ma/subscribe Explore our collection online: http://mo.ma/art Plan your visit in-person: http://mo.ma/visit Commit to art and ideas. Support MoMA by becoming a member today: https://moma.org/join The comments and opinions expressed in this video are those of the speakers alone, and do not represent the views of The Museum of Modern Art, its personnel, or any artist. #design #art #museumofmodernart #moma #museum #modernart