The Museum of Modern Art in New York recently reopened its doors after having shuffled around the entire display of its permanent collection. Many negative reactions have been published since then by culture critics and museum experts. Yet for all that this “rehang” presents some problems, it also offers some solutions to long-standing problems. I’d like to present a more positive evaluation of the rehang, which seems to me to be lacking in the discussion so far. It’s worth taking a step back to look at both the rehang and the reactions to it in terms of the museum’s mission. As published on its website, MoMA’s mission aims to uphold a responsibility to two parties: the art and the public. “In sum, The Museum of Modern Art seeks to create a dialogue between the established and the experimental, the past and the present, in an environment that is responsive to the issues of modern and contemporary art, while being accessible to a public that ranges from scholars to young children.” The two stakeholders here are the art (the basis of the “dialogue”) and a wide range of visitors. Is this present in the new display? Is the mission statement the guiding light for this major shift, as a good mission statement should be? I would argue that it is. The generally negative reactions to the rehang arise, I think, from an idea that MoMA’s many, many visitors should get to see what they want: the blockbusters. This is evident in the complaints that a favorite painting is no longer on show, or blockbuster paintings like Van Gogh’s Starry Night are still on show but placed in a less central location. But if that is a loss – and it is! people will always want to see their favorite painting – it is countered by a big gain. A really big gain, to my mind. Namely: the rehang is actively redefining art. Because MoMA is, ultimately, a tastemaker. No, much more than a tastemaker: MoMA defines what art is. If MoMA only showed Picasso, Mondrian, and Van Gogh, many people in the world could rightly gain the impression that only these three men made modern art, period. Not in the museum? Not art! So, in expanding its display to include more women artists, more Latinx artists, more artists of any tradition beyond the white European male one, MoMA is expanding the definition of modern art. At the expense, admittedly, of some of our favorite white male European artists. This is a loss, but an acceptable one, when we consider the concomitant gain. Indeed, the gain of this is so huge it is difficult to express. It is colossal!! Visitors will see new things, see art made by grandmothers and Nigerians and so many other people who might even be more like them, who might even open their minds to the idea of making art themselves, or even better, to the realization that they are the kind of person who can also make an object that other people flock to look at, they can also touch lives, they can make a difference, they can make history. Maybe they won’t see that one iconic Matisse they had bookmarked on Instagram, but they will see so much more! Even if under duress… And to my mind, this is part of MoMA’s job as a good citizen of the world. MoMA is a huge, culture-making institution. It can afford to disappoint a few people just a tiny bit – we all wish it didn’t have to be so! – if the bigger effect is to change the way we see art. And the way art affects us as people. In my heart of hearts, I believe that this change is worth it: a change that empowers wildly diverse people in all sorts of ways that just might change the world.
