Alfred Barr: Abstract Cabinet and the Modern Narrative

Lecture at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Ljubljana:

"This is a story about a collaboration between a museum director who completely changed the appearance
of art history through innovative museum displays and an avant- guard artist who invented a new way to
exhibit abstract art. It is also a story about an ambitious dictator who passionately believed that "art is noble
and up to the fanaticism demanding mission". His desire was to shape the course of art by building a huge
temple of art and staging exhibitions of both "false art" called degenerate and "real art" he thought was truly
for the people. Finally it is a story about a young director of the modern museum on another continent who
reinvented modern art by abandoning the notion of "National Schools" and introducing instead "International
Movements" as basic principle for both the museum and the history of modern art that became widely accepted and remained until today. "