Highlights from the Modern's Collection

The Modern is home to one of the leading collections of modern and contemporary international art in the central United States. Throughout the museum, visitors will experience artworks from the 1950s to the present. As visitors enter the first gallery on the lower floor, they encounter artworks by Clyde Connell, Anselm Kiefer, Shirin Neshat, and Do Ho Suh. In conversation with one another, these works explore how artists from different generations and backgrounds navigate the intersections between their cultures of origin and their personal identities. The adjacent galleries highlight various forms of Abstract Expressionism. Throughout the mid-twentieth century, artists explored paint’s physical properties, perceptions of depth, and the interplay of forms, deliberately moving away from realistic representation. Artists whose work is on view include Sam Francis, Philip Guston, Morris Louis, Jackson Pollock, and Mark Rothko. Continuing in a loose chronological order, the next gallery is dedicated to Pop art, displaying artworks by Vija Celmins, Joseph Cornell, Alain Jacquet, and Jacques Villeglé. Including works from precursors to the artistic movement as well as those who stretched its boundaries, this gallery highlights the expansiveness of Pop art. As visitors continue through the first-floor galleries, they will experience how Post-Minimalist artists, starting in the late 1960s, reintroduced evidence of the artist’s hand into their surfaces and ushered in a softness, tactility, and natural essence through their chosen materials. Many Post-Minimalist artists were women, including Lynda Benglis, Nancy Graves, Sylvia Plimack Mangold, and Agnes Martin, whose works are exhibited here. In the final first-floor gallery, photographic works by Bernd and Hilla Becher, Orit Raff, and Hiroshi Sugimoto utilize repetition and seriality to capture characteristics and nuances across a diverse range of subjects.