When Henri Met Pablo

摘要

Whatever you may think of the new Broadway version of La Boheme, there's a better story of art-world devotion and back-stabbing just across the river in Queens, N.Y. That's where the Museum of Modern Art is squeezed temporarily into a remodeled warehouse in a neighborhood where the sport-utility vehicle of choice is a dump truck. While its Manhattan headquarters is being reconstructed, MOMA is still managing to play host to the kind of exhibition that will bring hundreds of thousands of people to a place with no hot restaurant and no cabs. At a time when the museum blockbuster is threatened by high insurance rates and topic fatigue―there are Monet haystacks I see more often than I see my mother―"Matisse Picasso," which comes to the U.S. after hugely successful runs at the Tate Modern in London and the Grand Palais in Paris, is proof that the blockbuster can still be a public service, not to mention a supreme pleasure. It's only February, but it's safe to say that this is the show of the year.