
MoMA Will Make Thousands of Exhibition Images Available Online - prismatic
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/15/arts/design/moma-will-make-thousands-of-exhibition-images-available-online.html
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anotheryou
Where can I find the images?

All I see are tiny photographs of the exhibition space.
[http://moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1220/installation_image...](http://moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/1220/installation_images/37?locale=en)

I hoped for each artwork having a deep-zoom, clean, frontal photograph with
optional banana/human/car for scale.

Film and Sound would lend itself even better to the internet. (see
[http://www.ubuweb.com/](http://www.ubuweb.com/) )

edit: ok, found some. 2000px max, obtrusive viewer (that red close button on
the image, ugh) without zoom (just some semi-fullscreen) :
[http://moma.org/collection/works/192537?locale=en](http://moma.org/collection/works/192537?locale=en)

How to do it right (try both, "view in room" and zoom:
[https://www.artsy.net/artwork/antonio-ballester-moreno-
the-s...](https://www.artsy.net/artwork/antonio-ballester-moreno-the-shapes-
of-letters-1)

And of course no sound/video, would probably be too good for us or
something...

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rikvanmechelen
Hi anotheryou, For full disclosure, I'm one of the Devs that worked on this
project though these opinions are completely my own. We agree that the ugly
red X is ugly, it's just part of an old design, that will still be around for
a bit, but not too long. We actually used to have a zoom, the problem is that
unlike Artsy, we do not have the full rights for these images, even though
MoMA might own the artwork. Image rights for modern art are complex, and we
removed it not to long ago. We legally can't put out images larger than
2000x2000, so we decided to use tiling to get around that. That was until
people started to paste them back together and got a very high res image, so
we took it down (for now). In the end, this was an archives project, which
means dealing with a lot of old material. We are the first (or at least one
of) that opens up our archives in such a way. And as it should be with big IT
projects, this was an MVP of course. I really wish I could have been there to
take a picture with Audrey Hepburn and a banana for scale :D

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anotheryou
Thanks for the personal reply. Of course I'm glad you made the effort and it's
amazing so much has made it online after all. I suspected rights where an
issue and part of my critic was based on the anger about the protective art
world in general (I really love the open internet and the art world makes it
very hard to share and debate it online).

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themartorana
This is the dream of the internet making culture available to the masses. I've
loved Google Art Project for a while, and news of more art coming online is
fantastic. My wife is an art teacher and this kind of news makes her giddy.

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jdavis703
Aren't museums open to the masses already? For example I was at the Louvre
about a year ago and shocked at the casualness that tourists touched hundreds
of years old objects with -- even when these objects had do not touch signs on
them. What scares me is that our culture will wind up in the homes and offices
of the wealth, truly hidden away from the masses. Seeing the way some museums
"guard" their art, I'm really surprised donors still let us mere mortals
breathe on their million dollar investments.

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sehr
The masses cannot afford trips to Paris.

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jdavis703
There are also masses in Europe. About 500 million I believe, and regardless
there are art museums near almost everyone in all developed countries.

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JadeNB
Even if there is _an_ art museum near you, there may not be _the_ art museum
that hosts the particular piece of art that will change your life. Your
comment sounds to me like it opposes making as much work as possible available
to as many people as possible, which surely isn't what you meant.

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kldaace
It's great that they're making these available, but I hope people don't use
this as a substitute for actually going to the museum. Art is something best
experienced in person. While a Jackson Pollock seems ridiculous on a computer
screen, its scale and grandeur are something else in person.

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ollifi
Also I hope people who go to museum would refrain from photographing and
actually enjoy the art experience while there. MoMa especially was very bad in
this regard and it was very difficult to look at anything and not be asked to
move out of way. Some museums ban photography and I think it makes them much
more enjoyable.

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minimaxir
The dataset of all MoMA exhibition metadata is already public
([https://github.com/MuseumofModernArt/collection](https://github.com/MuseumofModernArt/collection))
so this is a logical progression.

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lacker
Finally, pg's original startup vision of putting art museums online is
achieved!

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eitally
[https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/](https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/)

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markingram
Cool, they should use HoloLens or VR to do a 3D virtual show room. Something
like this would be nice:
[https://m.reddit.com/r/HoloLens/comments/53lfmt/someone_crea...](https://m.reddit.com/r/HoloLens/comments/53lfmt/someone_created_a_mini_model_of_his_living_room/)

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rikvanmechelen
I know right! I have in my space time actually played around with something
similar for this project, and at least for some exhibitions this is something
that could be done in the future. Maybe some next incarnation might include
this ;)

ps: For full disclosure, I'm one of the Devs that worked on this project
though these opinions are completely my own

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draw_down
Good idea, guys.

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douche
They should.

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accomplice
I guess 15 years too late is better than never.

