Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)

Bumming in Beijing: The Last Dreamers

Documentary, Foreign language

• $
• Critics' pick

This portrait of five artists living in China's capital before and after the Tiananmen Square incident is widely considered the work that launched the country's independent documentary movement.

"Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light"

Photography

• Rating: 5/5
• $$
• Critics' pick

One of the giants of 20th-century photography, Bill Brandt (1904–1983) is not as well-known as his close contemporaries Henri Cartier-Bresson and Walker Evans. This exemplary exhibition of his work, curated by MoMA’s Sarah Hermanson Meister, reappraises...

Random International, Rain Room

Installation

• $$
• Critics' pick

As part of "EXPO 1: New York" at MoMA PS1, the museum offers what is essentially an indoor rain shower by archi-visionaries Random International. The piece turns on and off depending on the presence of viewers, and is sure to be the feel-good museum hit...

"Claes Oldenburg: The Street and the Store"

Museums & Attractions, Sculpture

The Pop sculptor's early career is the focus of this exhibit, which looks at two of Oldenburg's installations from the 1960s: The Store, a series of storefronts where he sold his artwork from 1961 to 1964, and The Street, which was first presented at...

"Abstract Generation: Now in Print"

Prints & editions

• $$
• Critics' pick

Contemporary takes on abstraction in print provide the focus for this exhibition, featuring contributions by Cory Arcangel, Tauba Auerbach, Philippe Decrauzat, Liam Gillick, Wade Guyton, Nadia Kaabi-Linke, R. H. Quaytman and Haegue Yang.

"Hand Signals: Digits, Fists, and Talons"

Prints & editions

• $$

The hand becomes a feast for the eye in this collection of 20th-century posters and ephemera featuring the appendage as focal point.

"Ellsworth Kelly: Chatham Series"

Painting

• $$
• Critics' pick

With the artist turning 90, there's been a lot of Kelly love evident in several gallery shows devoted to his work. MoMA joins the celebration with this presentation of paintings (each in the shape of an upside-down L) created as a color-study series in...

Claes Oldenburg, The Street and The Store + Mouse Museum/Ray Gun Wing

Installation, Mixed media, Sculpture

• Rating: 5/5
• Critics' pick

Now 84, Pop artist Claes Oldenburg is best known for his drooping, soft sculptures of telephones, toilets and other household fixtures, and for the cheerfully absurdist, gargantuan versions of small objects—lipsticks, clothespins and the like—made in...

"Henri Labrouste: Structure Brought to Light"

Design

• $$

Labrouste (1801–75) pioneered the use of glass and iron to create soaring, light-filled, cathedral-like interiors, like the ones found in his two great libraries, the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève and the Bibliothèque Nationale, both in Paris. This show,...

"XL: 19 New Acquisitions in Photography"

Photography

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MoMA trots out its latest photographic holdings, which include photos by Robert Frank, Lynn Hershman Leeson and Stephen Shore, among many others.