MoMA Contemporary Highlights

At the core of The Museum of Modern Art's new building in midtown Manhattan are dramatic and expansive new galleries designed to showcase the Museum's world-famous collection of international contemporary art. Contemporary Highlights presents this renowned collection in pocket size, as a handbook guide to the Museum's contemporary collection, and features the curators' selections of 250 of the most significant artworks that the Museum has collected over the past 25 years. Interweaving highlights from the Museum's seven curatorial departments—Painting and Sculpture, Drawings, Prints and Illustrated Books, Photography, Architecture and Design, Film and Media—this volume presents a broadly chronological overview of the most innovative, provocative and fascinating art of the past quarter century. Each work is presented on its own page, in full color, accompanied by a brief and accessible essay outlining the work's significance. As a companion to Modern Highlights or on its own, Contemporary Highlights is an indispensable resource. Includes work by Matthew Barney, Louise Bourgeois, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mike Kelley, Louise Lawler, Christian Marclay, Paul McCarthy, Barry McGee, Ana Mendieta, Boris Mikhailov, Takashi Murakami, Bruce Nauman, Cady Noland, Neo Rauch, Charles Ray, Gerhard Richter, Pipilotti Rist, Kara Walker, David Wojnarowicz and others.

Foreword by Glenn D. Lowry.

Vito Acconci was born in the Bronx, New York, in 1940. Among the many public institutions that have hosted solo exhibitions of his work in the United States are the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. He has taught at Cooper Union, Parsons School of Design and Yale University.

Chuck Close was born in Monroe, Washington, in 1940 and studied visual art at Yale University. Photography has been an integral part of his painting process since the mid-60s, and later became a body of work in its own right. Close has also distinguished himself as a master of printmaking. Since 1967 his work has been the subject of more than 100 major exhibitions throughout the world.

Ellen Gallagher was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and educated at Oberlin College and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. She has had solo exhibitions at the Gagosian Gallery in New York and Anthony D'Offay Gallery in London. Her work has been reviewed in major art and general-interest publications throughout the world, including Artforum, W, the New York Times, and many others, and is in major public collections nationwide. She lives and works in New York City and Provincetown, Massachussetts.

Jeff Koons was born in York, Pennsylvania, in 1955. The former Wall Street commodities broker rose to prominence in the mid-80s and has been the subject of numerous solo museum exhibitions, such as those seen at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Bilbao Guggenheim, and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago. Koons currently lives in New York.