For this blog, I chose to research Moma’s “Inventing Abstraction”, made in 2012. “Inventing Abstraction” is an art exhibition and network analysis project tracking the artists and people who worked on the “Inventing Abstraction” art exhibit from 1910 to 1925. Each node of the graph signifies a different person important to the exhibition, and the lines between them signify connections and interactions between the artists of the movement that were documented or formally noted in some way. Additionally, members of the movement who had the highest total number of connections are highlighted in red, for the sake of visibility.
The chart is highly intractable, and along with the base information of their connections, clicking on any node of the chart will bring up a small summary of their person – when they were born and died, what artwork they created in the exhibition, where their country of origin was, and more. Along with that, it walso brings the connections to and from that person to the forefront. All of this works quite well for ease of use, being able to filter out the specific information you’re looking for means that you can avoid the overwhelming nature of the document as a whole.
The project was created through the use of MOMA’s archive/curatorial team, along with a number of prominent researchers and historians. The information was found through old documents and notes- each one serving as proof of who knew who, and how the lines should be drawn. This information was formatted into data regarding the points and connections, each entry marking either one person, or one link between the people included. From there, it gets formatted into a highly stylized format, with a faux paper texture and a red/beige/black color palette that connects the visualizations of data with the subject matter.
