MoMA at NGV: 130 Years of Modern and Contemporary Art  – The National Gallery of Victoria has done it again, this time bringing to Melbourne a mesmerising exhibition of more that 200 works drawn from New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).  It truly is a stunner, tracing the development of art and design over the past 130 years.  This is a great opportunity to take a bite of the Big Apple in Melbourne!

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner German 1880–1938 Street, Dresden 1908 (reworked 1919, dated on painting 1907) oil on canvas 150.5 x 200.4 cm The Museum of Modern Art, New York Purchase, 1951 Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2018

You don’t have to be an art buff or even an art lover to love this.  Loosely employing eight themes, the exhibition groups together works of nineteenth and twentieth-century artists.  Vincent van Gogh, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dali, Edward Hopper, Mark Rothko, Andy Warhol and the list goes on taking you on a journey from the beginning of the 20^thcentury to right now.

Salvador Dalí Spanish 1904–89 The persistence of memory 1931 oil on canvas 24.1 x 33.0 cm The Museum of Modern Art, New York Given anonymously, 1934 © Salvador Dalí, Fundació Gala-Salvador Dalí / VEGAP, Spain. Copyright Agency, 2018 Image: GRACIE

Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997)Drowning Girl, 1963Oil and synthetic polymer paint on canvas67 5/8 x 66 3/4″ (171.6 x 169.5 cm)The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Philip Johnson Fund (by exchange) and gift of Mr. and Mrs. Bagley Wright© Estate of Roy Lichtenstein/Licensed by Viscopy, 201 Photograph: GRACIE

It’s fun, it’s informative, it touches on the familiar as well as the abstract and it’s even experiential.  What more could we want?

Edward Hopper American 1882–1967 Gas 1940 oil on canvas 66.7 x 102.2 cm The Museum of Modern Art, New York Mrs. Simon Guggenheim Fund, 1943 © Edward Hopper Estate Image: GRACIE

Sculpture and design are linked with paintings and pop art in an ‘intelligent conversation’ that demonstrates a synergy of ideas and thoughts across a whole range of mediums.    A sense of movement is brought together with the painting by Giacomo Balla – Swifts:  Paths of Movement + Dynamic Sequences  1913 as shown on the left, with the bronze sculpture by Umberto Boccioni that suggests swift movement of air and space.  It’s all here to captivate and fascinate.

Umberto Boccioni Italian 1882–1916 Unique forms of continuity in space 1913 (cast 1931) bronze 111.2 x 88.5 x 40.0 cm The Museum of Modern Art, New York Acquired through the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest (by exchange), 1948 Image: GRACIE

There’s a focus on the upheavals that shaped Europe in the 1920s and 1930’s and then the advancement of globalisation in the 1960s and 1970s.

Joost Schmidt German 1893–1948 Staatliches Bauhaus Ausstellung 1923 lithograph 66.7 x 47.3 cm The Museum of Modern Art, New York Gift of Walter Gropius, 1957 Image: GRACIE

Drawings and prints, film, painting, photography and sculpture, are all curated in a ‘conversation of ideas and thoughts’ that have been created over the last 130 years in expressions previously unimagined.

Cesare Casati Italian born 1936 C. Emanuele Ponzio Italian 1923–2015 Pillola lamps 1968 acrylonitrile butadiene styrene and acrylic plastic (1-5) 55.2 x 13.0 cm diameter (each) The Museum of Modern Art, New York Celeste Bartos Purchase Fund, 2000 © Cesare Casati Image: GRACIE