An online exhibition feels like a logical next step for museums. What the difference is between an online exhibition, an online slideshow, and your Instagram feed is anyone’s guess but in one particular case, it worked extremely well. A little hidden on the lower part of the website of the Museum of Modern Art is a very interesting online exhibition  You have to be curious enough to scroll through the exhibition schedule until 2019, some projects and installations and than at the absolute end, one gets to Crossing Borders: Immigration and American Culture. 

In the comfort of your home, you can click through a selection of artworks, created by immigrated artists who often fled to The States to seek refuge. Not only the traditional media are used in this exhibition, it ranges from performance to film and architecture. Also noteworthy is the fact that the works were chosen by the staff across the Museum (democracy! anarchy!). 

Needless to say is that this exhibition doesn’t come out of nowhere. Immigration has been one of the most politically-charged issues that has led to a greater division in society. There is a big group of people who are scared stiff for people from another part of the world. It is superfluous to name any event in the past year that reflects this xenophobic mindset.

The MoMA wants to (although I do wonder if the people who are xenophobic would visit this exhibition) make sure that people are aware that immigrants and refugees often bring their ideas and talents with them. A shining example of artistic input from outside the borders of the United States that co-constructed American culture is this selection of artworks. In a slideshow format, one can find a picture of the artwork and a corresponding text in which in about 100 words one can understand where the artist is from and the artwork is about. Tania Bruguera, Cristo, Carmen Herrera, Eva Hesse, Piet Mondrian, László Moholy-Nagy, Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Mark Rothko, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, and my favorite Felix Gonzalez-Torres, to name a few. They did not only influence American culture but the course of art in general.

For a shortcut to the exhibition click here: