In the Dark: The Organizational Culture for Film Exhibition in the Museum of Modern Art

• In Event: 1548 - Classification and Legitimation in the Sociology of Culture

Abstract

Film entered museum collections for the first time in 1935 at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). The social and material conditions that organize film exhibition at the museum today, can be traced back to the original screenings of the 1930’s when a strict line was drawn between film as art and entertainment. Based on ethnographic research, in this paper I discuss the institutional practices that organize the exhibition of film in the darkness of the MoMA theaters. Using organizational theory and a pragmatic approach to sociology of art, five dimensions of film exhibition are examined: design and technology, code of conduct, security and surveillance, membership, and curatorship. Together, these conditions weave a situated organizational culture for the experience of film at MoMA.

Author

• Tania R. Aparicio, New School for Social Research