“Messing with MoMA: Critical Interventions at the Museum of Modern Art, 1939–Now”

MoMA has never been shy about about making itself the main character in the story of Modern Art. The institutions's carefully cultivated power and prestige has been catnip for the certain artists wanting in, while being too impatient to wait for MoMA's seal of approval. Yayoi Kusama’s late ’60s be-in in the Sculpture Garden and Tony Shafrazi’s defacement of Picasso’s Guernica are just some of the antics that the Modern has apparently decided to co-opt for its own narrative, judging from this exhibit of documentary ephemera. It recounts the various artists over the decades who have staged protests, surreptitiously hung work in MoMA’s galleries or otherwise made their presence felt without a formal invitation.