Every Painting in the MoMA on 10 April 2010

When declining to contribute to New York’s Museum of Modern Art, Gertrude Stein commented “You can be a museum, or you can be modern, but you can’t be both.” Who knows if that’s universally true, but this video (really a series of stills) for me triggers not the bracing feelings of novel modernity but rather a pleasant nostalgia. I’ve never been inside MoMA, but seeing so many famously familiar works of art makes it feel like coming home. I especially love the photos that have people in front of the paintings—a reminder, as the date in the video title makes plain, that this is a record of timeless images, yes, but also of a particular time and place “Every Painting in the MoMA on 10 April 2010,” by Chris Peck :: via things magazine