Frank Stella’s 1984 mixed media painting

Is it a premonition of what we will see when the Museum of Modern Art reinstalls its massive collection later this year?

The Long Run, on display through May 5, is an epic recasting of the galleries normally used to display contemporary and recent the most recent chronology of Modernist works. MoMA’s curators disrupted the chronology by pulling unseen works from storage and using them to show what artists with relatively long careers (think O’Keeffe, Rosenquist, Stella) were producing later in life.

1980-1989 wire sculpture by Lee Bontecou

The work is spectacular and compelling – wire “drawings” suspended from the ceiling (Gego and Bontecou), engaging installations (Fischl & Weiss and Joan Jonas), wall-size paintings and drawings (Joan Mitchell and Robert Morris), and personal meditations (Brătescu and Martin).

Walk through the show on our Flickr album.

The beauty of the show is that MoMA has mixed famous with not-so-famous geniuses and selected works that exemplify how artists switched it up mid- to late-career.

1975 self-portrait by Philip Guston

It seems that many successful artists feel compelled to take a new tack somewhere along the line. They just rethink their desire to crank out the same old thing.

A few examples that this show demonstrates: Guston left pure, pretty abstraction for biting, messy satire of himself and society. Agnes Martin left the gritty Seaport district amidst the junk-as-art era and began creating spiritual masterworks in Taos. Stella abandoned minimalism to maximal, wild impact.

Some galleries have loose themes — urban landscapes (Oldenburg monuments, O’Keeffe monoliths) and mixed media “found” art (linking 1930s Kurt Schwitters and 1980s David Hammons). But mostly visitors enter each white space confronted by works they’ve never seen before.

1999-2000 installation Things from the Room in the Back by Peter Fischli and David Weiss

Most visitors are confounded by the Fischli & Weiss installation.  Many wonder whether it is a place inside the museum that’s under construction, because it appears to be scattered plaster buckets and paint pans. It’s actually a witty “fool the eye” sculpture that the team hand-crafted from polyurethane.

One of the most magical experiences is the Joan Jonas installation with twinkling crystals, sparkling facets, and mystical mountains – a poetic experience reflecting her lifetime of exploration, collaboration, media experimentation, and life work.

If you have the time, watch this video of the seminar about this amazing show and the longevity of the creative drive:

Remember: MoMA will be closed for three months from June 15 to October 21 for the reinstallation of the museum.

2010-2013 Joan Jonas video and crystal sculpture installation Reanimation