The Problematic of Video Art in the Museum, 1968–1990 By Cyrus M ...

exhibiting and displaying of avant-garde art extended far beyond the time and place of its conception. Yet, rather than influence particular art movements, MoMA reacted to developments that were taking place in the art world within the period. Its redefining of the structural framework of the art museum—from the “classical” to a more modern avant-garde, from as early as 1929— would bring about and help facilitate the right set of circumstances for the exhibition and “imbrication” of video art in mainstream art museums from the late 1960s to the present. Within this time frame, MoMA's commitment at this time to exhibit the avant-garde would help define a set of new aesthetic criteria for experiencing video art in museums in America (and across the world). Its innovations would influence the practices of other major art national institutions globally. Although MoMA would by no means be the only major art institution in New York within the 1968–1990 period to support video art (the Whitney Museum's video art programme would also be significant), MoMA's instigation of the avant-garde museum model would initiate video art through its avant-garde museum framework, which provided the paradigm for contemporary art presentation within the institutional sphere globally.

MoMA, as well as the other institutions analysed within this study, adopted a form of nationalistic showcase which extended the influence of contemporary American art to the global stage. Historically speaking, the origin/concept of the art museum employed as a national symbol can be traced back to the early period of the Louvre museum in Paris. As Duncan and Wallach have observed: “In the nineteenth century, when other nations began to feel that a public art museum was a pressing need, they naturally turned to the example of the Louvre”.⁷ Significantly, the circumstances surrounding the incorporation and display of video art in MoMA were engendered largely by MoMA's institutional development and the transformation of the previous classic museum structure by restructuring information environments.⁸ By varying the structure of the art museum (established by the Louvre) as a “traditional classical model” to an “avant-garde museum model”, MoMA would help to promulgate a paradigmatic shift which would effectively redefine the