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What is the best way to organize art? For the 400 years that public art museums have been around, they have mostly arranged their collections academically—by artist, chronology, genre or medium. Lately, however, some museums—especially the ones dedicated to modern art—have been challenging this classical approach. Yet none has done so with the explosive force of "Big Bang: Destruction and Creation in 20th Century Art," on view at Paris' Pompidou Center until February.
The show juxtaposes famous works with obscure ones, pairs young artists with old, mixes its media and otherwise turns the Pompidou collection on its head. Take, for example, the first room, devoted to the subtheme "disillusioned body," catalog-speak for the deconstruction of the human form. Here Willem de Kooning's grotesque 1972 sculpture The Clamdigger is accompanied by Alberto Giacometti's spare Standing Woman II (1959-60), Pablo Picasso's contorted Women Before the Sea (1956) and Francis Bacon's bizarre 1964 triptych Three Figures in a Room—all demonstrating just how discombobulated a body can be. Around the corner is a group of multiples: Andy Warhol's Ten Lizes (as in Taylor), four of Yves Klein's female torsos from his blue period, four Matisse bas-reliefs of prone nudes and six Marlene Dumas portraits. A Dennis Oppenheim sculpture of a man sits amid all this facing a big bronze bell, which he hits with his head every few minutes, producing a loud bong.
In all, Big Bang is arranged according to eight themes, from "archaism" to "war," plus some 40 subthemes. Its organizers believe that such interdisciplinary shuffles are part of a veritable art revolution. "Contemporary artists are trying to escape academic categories," says Catherine Grenier, the show's curator. "They don't think in chronological terms. They don't want to be classified in one movement. They are not so interested in history—they want to create their own."
The notion of installing a collection in a thematic, multimedia way has been percolating at least since New York City's Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) flirted briefly with the approach, beginning in 1999 with the show "ModernStarts." As a way to summarize the nonlinear development of 20th century art, MOMA divided its extensive collection into three categories: People, Places and Things. Critics called the series handsome and provocative, as well as simplistic and awful. It was also the final show in the old MOMA building and a laboratory for installations in the new one, an elegant $425 million structure that opened in November.
Meanwhile, London's Tate Modern began life in 2000 with its permanent collection also parceled out into themes: "landscape," "nude," "still life" and "history." It elaborated on each idea—history embraced memory and society, for example—to better accommodate the works included under each title. Critics said Tate Modern chose this nontraditional arrangement to cover up the museum's weaknesses, particularly in works from the first half of the 20th century. Curator Frances Morris prefers to accent the positive, saying that the huge spaces in Tate Modern's home, a former power station, presented an opportunity "to explore the strengths of the collection." Those experiments were being closely watched at the Pompidou, France's National Museum of Modern Art. While appreciating their thematic approaches, Grenier felt that MOMA and Tate had simply given updated names to academic definitions. "The organization was still the same," she says. "It was portrait, it was landscape, it was history. And it was not really satisfactory."
The opportunity to, as the "Big Bang" catalog says, "make history" presented itself this year when the Pompidou had to install a new fire-protection system. Instead of closing the museum and transferring its contents to some remote arrondissement, the Pompidou decided to stay open and refit one floor at a time. So while part of the building is getting its sprinklers, the Pompidou is squeezing much of its content—an astounding 850 works—into a single floor and organizing it in a novel way. This thematic approach means that you can enjoy a Laurel and Hardy film in the same room as a delightful Picasso sculpture of a girl skipping rope (under the subtheme "childhood"). Or a Bauhaus-inspired Marcel Breuer dining-room set in front of the energetic Wassily Kandinsky painting Auf Weiss II (1923)—subtheme: "abstract city." You can hear the Music of Changes by experimental composer John Cage in the space dedicated to "random."
Grenier says that the response to the exhibit from the artists, the professionals hanging the works and from the public has been "incredibly good"—visitors are spending longer with the permanent collection than ever before. "What could have been an incoherent jumble is as tightly structured as a Swiss watch," wrote Richard Dorment of Britain's Daily Telegraph.
But the debate continues. When the new MOMA opened, it chose to abandon themes and present its painting and sculpture collections in a mainly chronological way. Some critics complained that the new layout was disappointingly conservative, more mausoleum than museum. "One of the lessons of 'ModernStarts' was the pleasure of seeing multiple options emerging more or less simultaneously in early Modernism," says John Elderfield, chief curator of painting and sculpture. "But another was the loss of seeing the integrity and the unfolding of individual achievements and artistic movements." As for Tate Modern, it is planning to rehang its entire permanent collection next year in time for the museum's sixth anniversary. In late September, it will provide the first clues as to whether it will stick with the thematic approach or try something more historical.
Conveying the sweep of 20th century art, with its many manifestations, is a tricky business. "History without chronology can become volatile," warned Le Monde's Harry Bellet in an otherwise favorable review of the Pompidou show, "and the 'Big Bang' strongly risks staying in a gaseous state." But volatility can be good, according to Robert Rosenblum, a New York University art historian and Guggenheim curator. "There has been such exposure, in fact, overexposure to 20th century art," he says, "that museums have to shuffle the deck around from time to time for people to see things in a new way."
Giving works a fresh perspective is a big advantage of a thematic show. The disadvantages: pieces that fit the theme may seem confusingly out of context and may not represent the best of the collection. Still, as Dorment said, "It ought to be possible to combine the intellectual stimulation such a shake-up undoubtedly achieves with the visual thrill you get from seeing works of art of the highest quality displayed perfectly."
The Pompidou seems to be looking for such middle ground. "The idea of a thematic show is not automatically against the idea of chronology," Grenier says. "We can mix them." The enthusiastic response to the current installation suggests there will be no going back when the Pompidou reopens all its floors in 2007, its 30th anniversary. Already the curators have been asked to propose alternatives. This unexpected change in Pompidou philosophy, Grenier says, "is the real Big Bang."
- Ann Morrison | Paris
- Paris' Pompidou Center challenges convention by arranging its collection around themes, rather than dates or genres. Is this any way to run a museum?