Faire une œuvre par nécessité est une escroquerie par rapport à l'art. Il me semble que pour une large part l'urgence à travailler réside dans le fait que l'on agit librement. Faire quelque chose dont la nécessité ne puisse être déterminée qu'après coup et que ce jugement soit sujet à modification à tout moment. Il est extrêmement important que l'art soit justifiable. Robert Rauschenberg.

Robert Rauschenberg - Oeuvres, écrits, entretiens

The first and finest of its kind, New York's Museum of Modern Art has set the standard for all subsequent museums of twentieth-century art. After more than half a century of accomplishment and influence, it is difficult now to grasp the degree to which the founding of this institution was a brave experiment, an adventure into uncharted territory. The fledgling museum proposed not only to limit its collection to works of the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries - in itself a radical proposition in 1929 - but also to extend the boundaries of " art " to include modern disciplines unrecognised by other museums : photography and film as well as painting and sculpture ; architecture and design - domestic and industrial- as well as drawings, prints, and illustrated books.
The astonishing record of the success of this concept is presented in this rich volume. The history of the Museum, from its origins as a daring idea in the minds of three prominent art patrons in the twenties to the opening of its greatly expanded facilities in the eighties, is traced in an illustrated introduction by Sam Humer, Professor in the Department of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University and formerly a member of the Museum's staff. The engrossing story of the individuals who shaped the Museum, the pioneering exhibitions that influenced our cultural history, and the building of the world's most comprehensive collection of twentieth-century art chronicles not only the growth of the Museum but also the coming of age of modern art itself.
Then follows a lavish presentation of one thousand works from the holdings of the Museum's six curatorial departments : Painting and Sculpture, Drawings, Prints and Illustrated Books, Architecture and Design, Photography, and Film and Video. Each department's selection of masterworks is preceded by an essay, which explains the guiding principles and historical circumstances that shaped the development of the particular collection. Extensive captions provide insight and information about many of the works reproduced.
The selection of works represents a numerically small portion of the holdings of the Museum - some one hundred thousand works, remarkable for their diversity as well as their extraordinarily high level of quality - but it offers, for the first time outside the Museum itself, a balanced view of this great collection in all the modern visual arts and mediums. The works, by a vast spectrum of luminaries of the modern movement, bear impressive evidence of the quality, range, and sheer magnificence of The Museum of Modern Art collection, an unrivalled aesthetic reflection of the vigour, complexity, and inspiration of our times.

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