PUBLISHER
Koenig Books

BOOK FORMAT
Flexi, 6.75 x 9.25 in. / 192 pgs / 50 color.

PUBLISHING STATUS
Pub Date 7/25/2017
Active

DISTRIBUTION
D.A.P. Exclusive
Catalog: FALL 2017 p. 159

PRODUCT DETAILS
ISBN 9783960980827 FLAT40
List Price: $30.00 CDN $40.00

AVAILABILITY
In stock

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Pontus Hultén and Moderna Museet: The Formative Years

Edited by Anna Tellgren. Foreword by Daniel Birnbaum. Text by Patrik Andersson, Annika Gunnarsson, Ylva Hillström, Pontus Hultén, et al.

The legendary curator Pontus Hultén (1924–2006) worked at Moderna Museet in Stockholm between 1958 and 1973. In 1960 he was appointed director. It was in this role that he built the collection and the museum’s international reputation, with exhibitions such as Movement in Art (1961), American Pop Art (1964), Niki de Saint-Phalle’s She–A Cathedral (1966) and Warhol’s first European solo exhibition (1968). In 2005 Hultén donated his art collection, library and archives to Moderna Museet. Pontus Hultén and Moderna Museet: The Formative Years explores Hultén’s practice as a curator and director. In addition to new essays, the book contains archival photographs and documents as well as a previously unpublished 1962 text by Hultén outlining his ideas on how an art museum should run.

Pontus Hultén and Moderna Museet: The Formative Years

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FROM THE BOOK

Excerpt from “How does one wish a museum for modern art to function?” attached to a letter Pontus Hultén sent to the Dutch art collector and professor Pieter Sanders on December 4, 1962.

“How often has it not happened that two friends in discussing an art work, which is loved by both, have discovered that they admire it for entirely different reasons, almost like seeing two entirely different pieces of art. This is not directly connected with the form of the art work, its appearance. The more simple the form, the more complex the experience may be. I mean that the genial art work is as many sided as an infinite polygon, and inasmuch as time and spectators move they constantly discover new sides. We admire the Altamira-grotto paintings for other reasons than the contemporaries. We cannot see a Vermeer or Leonardo as one saw their works during the 16th or 17th century, they reflect now another light coming from another point of departure, but we can love them, nevertheless, from our viewpoint because they have this wonderful richness. The more versatile an art work, the larger is its ‘quality.’ And this is directly connected with the fact that one believes that the unique in the existence of each individual is a fundamental value. ‘Poetry must be done by all and not by only one,’ writes Lautreamont.”

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