Hasta La Ideas

Lots of news out of New York’s Museum of Modern Art, but first things first: you have only a scant four days left to see the enduringly fascinating “Marlene Dumas: Measuring Your Own Grave,” our pick for Best Museum Exhibition of 2008. The show also happens to be one of the first to feature the museum’s refreshed identity, masterminded by Pentagram’s Paula Scher and and further developed and applied by Julia Hoffmann, MoMA’s Creative Director for graphics and advertising. “The new system…employs prominent use of the MoMA logo as a graphic device, dramatic cropping and juxtapositions of artwork, and a brighter color palette to create a bold, contemporary image,” notes Pentagram’s blog. “The identity also underscores the museum’s leadership role in the field of design.” And can you name that typeface? That’s right, it’s Matthew Carter‘s MoMA Gothic.

As if the new identity wasn’t excitement enough, today MoMA announced its acquisition of the Gilbert and Lila Silverman Fluxus Collection, widely considered the largest and most important of its kind in the world (and oh, how we hope it’s all carefully tucked into old-fashioned suitcases!). Assembled over three decades by the Silvermans, the collection cosnsists of approximately 3,000 works “in mediums ranging from printed ephemera, multiples, drawings, and sculptural objects, to photographs and film.” There are also thousands of files packed with artists’ correspondence, notebooks and scrapbooks, and documents and photographs related to Fluxus performances and events. Capping things off is a reference library of more than 1,500 related books and catalogues. Among the 150 artists represented in the collection are George Maciunas (the artist, art historian, and graphic designer who coined the term “Fluxus”), George Brecht, Yoko Ono, Dick Higgins, and Nam June Paik.

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