Staring at "The Responsive Eye": Mike Wallace at MoMA, 1965

Mike Wallace at the Museum of Modern Art's 1965 "The Responsive Eye" exhibition for CBS, Part 1

12:51 PM Update: Greg Allen, who originally came across the video, has done a massive, wonderful post about the history of the television program, its fabulous soundtrack, and the connection between MoMA and CBS.

I could list all of my favorite parts of Mike Wallace's television program on MoMA's 1965 group exhibition, "The Responsive Eye," but it is probably better for you to just watch the video and enjoy it for yourself. (All the credit for this find goes to Greg Allen, who came across it on Mary & Matt. The timing is superb since I was thinking about Op art yesterday.)

Two notes: 1. Wallace tells the viewer: "It is a fact that the guards at the Museum of Modern Art have obtained permission to wear sunglasses while on duty at this show." As Tyler Green has noted, this is not the first time that a work of art has required museum guards to utilize protective measures. 2. "The Responsive Eye" was organized by curator William C. Seitz, who was the first person to earn a degree from Princeton with a dissertation on Abstract Expressionism (in 1955). He also founded the school's non-credit painting program and taught Frank Stella, who appeared in MoMA curator Dorothy Miller's 1959 "Sixteen Americans" show at the age of 23 the year before Seitz joined the museum.


Part 2


Part 3