When the MoMA invited us to contribute to the Artist’s Choice series in 2006, we knew right away that we would not foreground our own artistic preferences. The subject matter of our contribution would be the perception of art itself. Everyone knows that the holdings of the MoMA are unparalleled in quantity, quality and density. How can we possibly pick out the gems when we only have gems to choose from? The problem facing the museum is not a lack of first-rate art but rather a lack of perceptive attention on the part of museum visitors, despite the spectacular galleries in the new extension. The art is there, spread out in a panorama, professionally illuminated, impossible to overlook - but it is not seen. Our project is an attempt to offer a spatial alternative to the existing galleries for a limited period of time and in a limited space, a site of heightened concentration and density that will function like a kind of perception machine. By obstructing and putting pressure on perception, the viewing experience is intensified and becomes more enduring, more selective, and more individual.
The design of our exhibition reverses the conventional presentation of art in the galleries of the MoMA. We will reduce the size of the familiar, spacious rooms that house the now classical media of art history - painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, and design - and place the emphasis on film and video, or rather specific fragments of them. The choice does not reflect the artistic taste of Herzog & de Meuron; it simply confirms an undeniable shift in imagery that has taken place in recent years. The moving image with explicit reference to violence, drama, and sex has received growing attention while the traditional artistic media of painting, drawing, or sculpture require special exhibitions with blockbuster potential in order to be perceived at all. Seen in this light, our installation does not represent the status of the media within the museum but rather that of the world outside. It also draws attention to the separation and classification into five departments defined by the MoMA at the beginning of the 20th century and still operative today: the Departments of Painting and Sculpture, Prints and Drawings, Photography, Film and Media, and Architecture and Design. Most of the exhibition galleries still conform to these categories, and only rarely do presentations exploit the friction of combining these artistic media in order to foster new insight and perceptions.
Herzog & de Meuron, 2006
The design of our exhibition reverses the conventional presentation of art in the galleries of the MoMA. We will reduce the size of the familiar, spacious rooms that house the now classical media of art history - painting, sculpture, drawings, prints, and design - and place the emphasis on film and video, or rather specific fragments of them. The choice does not reflect the artistic taste of Herzog & de Meuron; it simply confirms an undeniable shift in imagery that has taken place in recent years. The moving image with explicit reference to violence, drama, and sex has received growing attention while the traditional artistic media of painting, drawing, or sculpture require special exhibitions with blockbuster potential in order to be perceived at all. Seen in this light, our installation does not represent the status of the media within the museum but rather that of the world outside. It also draws attention to the separation and classification into five departments defined by the MoMA at the beginning of the 20th century and still operative today: the Departments of Painting and Sculpture, Prints and Drawings, Photography, Film and Media, and Architecture and Design. Most of the exhibition galleries still conform to these categories, and only rarely do presentations exploit the friction of combining these artistic media in order to foster new insight and perceptions.
Herzog & de Meuron, 2006
M+ Hong Kong, March 2021