Bradley Professor Adds Perspective to MoMA Exhibition

The audio playlist for the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA)’s new exhibition Vital Signs: Artists and the Body features several recordings of BU art history professor Cyle Metzger delving deep into the context behind some of the included works. The exhibition, which includes more than 100 works from the 20th century, focuses on artists who use forms of abstraction to question what it means to be an individual within a larger society.

When MoMA's Department of Learning & Engagement initially reached out to Metzger, it was because of his unique expertise surrounding artist Forrest Bess.

“They sought me out because I wrote one of the few existing articles on artist Forrest Bess, whose work is in the show,” Metzger said. “I spoke with the curator for almost an hour and a half, specifically about the works in this first interview: Forrest Bess: Number 40 (1949) and Untitled (1957), and about Bess’s life and perspective on gender.”

However, when it was discovered during the recording process that Metzger was also incredibly well-researched in some of the other work being showcased, he was invited to do two more interviews: one on artist Greer Lankton and the other on Candy Darling on Her Deathbed by photographer Peter Hujar.

These interviews were then transformed into short audio pieces available on the MoMA website and via QR codes next to the works in the galleries. The Forrest Bess interview was also transcribed into a longer piece set to appear in an upcoming issue of MoMA Magazine.

Metzger, who was in New York doing research for his forthcoming book Deep Cuts: Transgender History in American Art after World War II, was able to attend the exhibition opening, during which he ran into artist Greer Lankton’s childhood best friend.

“I was able to talk to her about Lankton’s life and the legacy in her work in a way that was more personal and human than is usually possible just reading through archival materials,” Metzger explained.

Metzger was one of only two art historians asked to contribute, and the only one to provide multiple recordings—most other clips are from the artists in their own words, the exhibition curators, or writers who had interest in the work.

Vital Signs: Artists and the Body is open in New York until Feb. 22, 2025. You can listen to the recordings and learn more about the exhibition here.

–Jenevieve Rowley-Davis

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