Être moderne — Le MoMA à Paris — Louis Vuitton — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: October 11, 2017 → March 5, 2018

Organised by Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the exhibition “Being Modern: MoMA in Paris” draws together a superb and far-reaching representation of the highly important artworks that MoMA has acquired since its founding in 1929. Presented from 11 October 2017 to 5 March 2018, the exhibition includes masterworks ranging from the birth of modern art through trends and styles such as American abstraction, Pop art and Minimalism to the most contemporary art.

A multidisciplinary selection of 200 works will occupy the whole of the Fondation’s building. The works are drawn from all six of the MoMA’s curatorial departments, reflecting the history of the institution and the choices it had made in building its collecting. The exhibition responds to two objectives: to show a significant body of MoMA’s great collection in Paris, and to evoke the more fluid and interdisciplinary installations that visitors to MoMA will encounter following the completion of the expansion and renovation project.

Among the 200 works presented at Fondation Louis Vuitton are masterpieces by Paul Cézanne, Gustav Klimt, Paul Signac, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse, Giorgio de Chirico, Edward Hopper, Max Beckmann, Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Duchamp, Francis Picabia, Alexander Calder, René Magritte, Walker Evans, Yayoi Kusama, Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Yvonne Rainer and Frank Stella. The selection will alternate between acknowledged masterpieces and less familiar but nevertheless highly significant artworks. A selection of rarely shown materials from MoMA’s archives, retracing the history of the Museum, will also be incorporated into the galleries.

Some of the works will be shown in France for the first time: Constantin Brancusi’s bronze Bird in Space (1928); Diane Arbus’s Identical Twins, Roselle, New Jersey (1967); Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Cans (1962); Philip Guston’s Tomb (1978); (Untitled) “USA Today” by Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1990); 144 Lead Square by Carl Andre (1969); Untitled by Christopher Wool (1990); Untitled (You Invest in the Divinity of the Masterpiece) by Barbara Kruger (1982); and Patchwork Quilt by Romare Bearden (1970).