Barbara London's Soundings at MoMA: A Curator's Swan Song

Barbara London, a veteran curator at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), organized her final exhibition before mandatory retirement, titled Soundings: A Contemporary Score, which explores sound art. The exhibition features works by Susan Philipsz, Marcio Fusinato, Tristan Perich, Richard Garet, Jana Winderen, Carsten Nicolai, Christine Sun Kim, Jacob Kierkegaard, Hong-Kai Wang, Florian Hecker, Camille Norment, Sergei Tcheperin, Stephen Vitiello, Luke Fowler, Toshiya Tsunoda, and Haroon Mirza. London's career at MoMA began in the 1970s in the Print Department, and she was instrumental in expanding the museum's film department to include video and moving image media. She organized the first video exhibition at MoMA in 1987 with a Bill Viola retrospective, and in 1995 she curated Video Spaces, a survey of video installations. The article also highlights other unsung curators at MoMA: Clive Phillpot, a librarian who organized a Fluxus exhibition without authorization, and Deborah Wye, who championed Louise Bourgeois and political art during the culture wars. London's Soundings exhibition is noted for its concise, avant-garde focus on sound, requiring sustained attention from visitors.