The Museum of Modern Art

This program on the Museum of Modern Art has several contributors - a founding member of the museum, the architect Philip Johnson; the present Director of Paintings, Kirk Varnedoe; an art critic who protested against the museum's policy during the Vietnam era, Lucy Lippard; an art historian, Linda Nochlin, and an artist refused by the museum, Leon Golub. They are interviewed about how and why MOMA became one of the most important art institutions of the twentieth century. And behind the glamor, what sort of place is it? Do art institutions like MOMA harbor an élite culture or do they make `high art' democratically available to everyone? Does MOMA promote specifically American values, thereby becoming a vehicle of American imperialism? Is Modernism as a movement over and, if so, has MOMA become a fossilized museum? Is there a different rôle that MOMA could perform in today's Post-modernist world?

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