Explore MoMA’s Collection of Modern & Contemporary Art Every Time You Open a New Browser Tab

There are brows­er exten­sions designed to increase your pro­duc­tiv­i­ty every time you open a new tab.

Oth­ers use pos­i­tive affir­ma­tions, inspir­ing quotes, and nature pho­tog­ra­phy to put your day on the right track.

We here­by announce that we’re switch­ing our set­tings and alle­giance to New Tab with MoMA.

After installing this exten­sion, you’ll be treat­ed to a new work of mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary art from The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art’s col­lec­tion when­ev­er you open a new tab in Chrome.

If you can steal a few min­utes, click what­ev­er image comes up to explore the work in greater depth with a cura­tor’s descrip­tion, links to oth­er works in the col­lec­tion by the same artist, and in some cas­es instal­la­tion views, inter­views and/or audio seg­ments.

Expect a few gift shop heavy hit­ters like Vin­cent Van Gogh’s The Star­ry Night, but also less­er known works not cur­rent­ly on view, like Yay­oi Kusama’s Vio­let Obses­sion, a row­boat slip­cov­ered in elec­tric pur­ple “phal­lic pro­tru­sions.”

Vio­let Obses­sion’s New Tab with MoMA link not only shows you how it was dis­played in the 2010 exhi­bi­tion Mind and Mat­ter: Alter­na­tive Abstrac­tions, 1940s to Now, you can also tog­gle around the instal­la­tion view to explore oth­er works in the same gallery.

You can hear audio of Kusama describ­ing how she “encrust­ed” the boat in soft sculp­ture pro­tu­ber­ances in her favorite pink­ish-pur­ple hue “to con­quer my fear of sex:”

Boats can come and go lim­it­less­ly and move ahead on the water. The boat, hav­ing over­come my obses­sion would move on for­ev­er, car­ry­ing me onboard

A link to a 1999 inter­view with Grady T. Turn­er in BOMB allows Kusama to give fur­ther con­text for the work, part of a sculp­ture series she con­ceives of as Com­pul­sion Fur­ni­ture:

My sofas, couch­es, dress­es, and row­boats bris­tle with phal­lus­es. … As an obses­sion­al artist I fear every­thing I see. At one time, I dread­ed every­thing I was mak­ing.

That’s a pret­ty robust art his­to­ry les­son for the price of open­ing a new tab, though such deep dives can def­i­nite­ly come at the expense of pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

We weren’t expect­ing the 3‑dimensional nature of some of the works our tabs yield­ed up.

Stop, Repair, Pre­pare: Vari­a­tions on Ode to Joy for a Pre­pared Piano, No.12008 by Jen­nifer Allo­ra and Guiller­mo Calzadil­la required a live musi­cian to play Ode to Joy from Lud­wig van Beethoven’s Ninth Sym­pho­ny upside down and back­wards, from a hole carved into the cen­ter of a grand piano.

Frances Ben­jamin John­ston’s plat­inum print, Stair­way of the Trea­sur­er’s Res­i­dence: Stu­dents at Work from the Hamp­ton Album 1899–1900, is per­haps more eas­i­ly grasped if you can’t go too far down the rab­bit hole with the art­work appear­ing in your new tab.

An excerpt from the 2019 pub­li­ca­tion, MoMA High­lights: 375 Works from The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art, New York pro­vides a brief bio of both John­ston, “a pro­fes­sion­al pho­tog­ra­ph­er, not­ed for her por­traits of Wash­ing­ton politi­cians and her images of coal min­ers, iron­work­ers, and women labor­ers in New Eng­land tex­tile mills” and the Hamp­ton Insti­tute, Book­er T Washington’s alma mater.

Book­mark such bite-sized cul­tur­al his­to­ry breaks, and cir­cle back when you have more time.

Speak­ing of which, allow us to leave you with this thought from artist Felix Gon­za­lez-Tor­res, cre­ator of 1991’s time-based instal­la­tion Unti­tled (Per­fect Lovers), a par­tic­u­lar­ly con­cep­tu­al offer­ing from New Tab with MoMA:

Time is some­thing that scares me… or used to. This piece I made with the two clocks was the scari­est thing I have ever done. I want­ed to face it. I want­ed those two clocks right in front of me, tick­ing.

Set your Chrome Brows­er up to use New Tab with MoMA here. 

Relat­ed Con­tent 

MoMA’s Online Cours­es Let You Study Mod­ern & Con­tem­po­rary Art and Earn a Cer­tifi­cate

How to Make Comics: A Four-Part Series from the Muse­um of Mod­ern Art

The Muse­um of Mod­ern Art (MoMA) Puts Online 90,000 Works of Mod­ern Art

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the Chief Pri­ma­tol­o­gist of the East Vil­lage Inky zine and author, most recent­ly, of Cre­ative, Not Famous: The Small Pota­to Man­i­festo.  Fol­low her @AyunHalliday.