Collection

Description

The MCA’s permanent collection includes more than 2,500 artworks that span media and movements from the 1920s to the present. Although not on permanent display, works from the collection appear regularly in our many rotating exhibitions. The entire collection, with images and descriptions, is presented here for the first time. Explore it by artist, title, or creation date. Images in this section are published for educational use under the umbrella of the Fair Use doctrine.

Artist last name index

Title index

Decade index

A primarily beige-looking canvas is actually composed of many small dots of light blues, pinks, oranges, and purples.

...Pindell has said, “in graduate school I remember that a woman artist would be criticized if she used pink. If a man used pink it was considered a mix of red and white… . When I noticed this, I started using the things that I was told not to use. Glitter. Pink. This was my way of resisting.”

Short A primarily beige-looking canvas is actually composed of many small dots of light blues, pinks, oranges, and purples.

Works on View

On viewMatthew Barney, Cremaster 2: The Drone's Cell, 1999
On viewYto Barrada, Palissade de chantier (Building Site Wall), 2009/2011
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On viewAlexander Calder, Chat-mobile (Cat Mobile), 1966
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On viewAlexander Calder, Les Mouettes (The Seagulls), 1965
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On viewAlexander Calder, Snowflakes and Red Stop, 1964
1. Short An intricately designed mobile consists of many spindled arms ending in small circles. Most of the circles are white, but one is red.
On viewAlexander Calder, Snow Flurries, 1951
On viewAlexander Calder, Performing Seal, 1950
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On viewAlexander Calder, Four Boomerangs, c. 1949
On viewAlexander Calder, Orange Under Table, c. 1949
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On viewAlexander Calder, Little Face, c. 1943
On viewNick Cave, Speak Louder, 2011
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On viewMark Dion, Concerning the Dig, 2013
On viewFred Eversley, Untitled (parabolic lens), 1974
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On viewSam Gilliam, Cartouche, 1981
On viewRodney Graham, Small Basement Camera Shop circa 1937, 2011
On viewJene Highstein, Floating World, 1986
1. Short Photograph of a person-sized rounded outdoor sculpture made of grey, textured stone
On viewMiyoko Ito, Chiffonier, 1971
On viewMiyoko Ito, Our Inspiration Realized, 1960
On viewRashid Johnson, The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club (Marcus), 2010
1. Short This black and white vertical portrait portrays a dark-skinned person with two faces, one looking left and the other looking right, with palm-like fronds surrounding the figure.
2. Long The masculine person, shown from the torso up, is wearing a vertically striped button-down shirt, a herringbone vest, and a dark tie. The subject takes up the majority of the image, with their shoulders extending to either of the vertical edges. The two superimposed faces, slightly overlapping, have a similarly stoic expression. Both of the faces have heavy, dark eyebrows, a wide rounded nose, a closed, expressionless mouth, and are crowned by a dark, curly afro hair style. The upper left and bottom corners all appear lighter in tone, as if overexposed. Surrounding the figure are lush, palm-like plant fronds, both in the background and foreground. Some of the fronds obscure the person's shoulders on both sides of the image.
On viewSuki Seokyeong Kang, Mat 90 × 120 #19-06, 2019
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On viewSharon Lockhart, Enrique Nava Enedina: Oaxacan Exhibit Hall, National Museum of Anthropology, Mexico City, 1999
On viewMariko Mori, Birth of a Star, 1995
1. Short A woman with bright, color contacts, short spiky purple hair, and a futuristic, plastic outfit, stands in the middle of a white room surrounded by floating colored balls. She poses like a pop singer holding a microphone that looks like a small spaceship and wearing large headphones.
2. Short A woman with short spiky purple hair and tiny pupils wearing a futuristic, plastic outfit and headphones, poses with a microphone in the middle of a white room surrounded by floating colored balls.
3. Long Each ball is a different color and they appear to be made of rubber or plastic. Everything in the picture appears to be made of plastic: from the acrylic, plaid skirt the woman is wearing, to the spaceship shaped microphone she holds, to the oversized headphones she wears over her purple hair. The full figure of the woman is visible and in addition to the plaid miniskirt, she is wearing white tights with geometric markings at her knee, white boots, a black sequin top and plastic circlets over her, kneck, shoulders and arms. She poses like a pop singer with her eyes looking directly at the viewer, her gaze is made more unnerving by the intensely bright yellow white contact lenses she is wearing which cover her irises entirely and reduce her pupils to small black dots.
On viewCelia Munoz, Ave Maria Purisima (Enlightenment 8), 1983
On viewClaes Oldenburg, Model of Proposed Facade for the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, in the Shape of a Geometric Mouse, 1977
On viewDan Peterman, Accessories to an Event (plaza), 1998
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On viewPope.L, Crying Painting, 2016
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On viewWalid Raad, Letters to the Reader_002, 004, 009, 005, 013, 015, 2014
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On viewMichael Rakowitz, May the Arrogant Not Prevail, 2010
1. Short Installation view of a castle facade with crenelations, an arched doorway, and covered with blue tiles with yellow tile–stripes and columns of painted animals.
On viewWendy Red Star, The Last Thanks, 2006
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On viewGeorge Rickey, Two Lines Oblique, 1968
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On viewThomas Schütte, Ganz Grosse Geister (Big Spirits XL), 2004
1. Short Three yellow sculptures of abstract human figures stand as if communicating with each other outdoors in an urban setting.
2. Long Three yellow and white forms are installed on an outdoor terrace. The forms resemble human bodies, yet they have no faces. The heads of the forms are created from coiled, hard textured material and the bodies are similarly constructed of coiled material, arranged into torsos, arms and legs. The scale of the figures is about double the size of an average person and the are arranged about a half of a figure length apart from each other. The figure on the left appears to have its head tilted to the sky, while the center figure faces to the right, where the third figure bends lightly towards the ground, hand upraised. The bright color of the figures contrasts with urban scene in the background: behind the figures a black fence, green leafy trees and tall gray buildings are visible. The sky is bright blue and the bright light of mid-day casts sharp shadows below the figures.
On viewCindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1979
On viewCindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1979
1. Short Black-and-white photograph of a woman grabbing a glass from an in-home bar
On viewCindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1978
On viewCindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1978
1. Short A black-and-white photograph shows a woman wearing a swimsuit, sunglasses, and a bandana reclining on a folding chair on a cluttered wooden deck that overlooks a grassy field in the middle ground and a beach and ocean at the horizon.
On viewCindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still, 1978
On viewCindy Sherman, Untitled, 1975
On viewCindy Sherman, Untitled, 1975
On viewCindy Sherman, Untitled, 1975
On viewCindy Sherman, Untitled, 1975
On viewErin Shirreff, Sculpture for Snow, 2011
1. Short A matte black geometric sculpture juts out from the snowy ground. Two of its faces, one square and one triangular, are perfectly covered by a white layer of snow.
On viewLorna Simpson, The Clock Tower, 1995
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On viewZilia Sánchez, Topología (de la serie Tatuajes), 1993–2001
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On viewTakis, Magnetic Mobile, c. 1964
On viewRuth Thorne-Thomsen, Plane Crash, 1977
On viewRuth Thorne-Thomsen, Beached Whale, 1975
On viewSalman Toor, The Bar on East 13th Street, 2019
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On viewJeff Wall, In front of a nightclub, 2006
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On viewGillian Wearing, Self Portrait at Three Years Old, 2004
1. Short A young, dark-haired child in a white shirt looks into the camera against a grey background. The skin around the child's eyes seems a slightly rougher texture than that on the rest of its face.
On viewRay Yoshida, Untitled (Rust Background), 1973, 1974

Gloved hands review a 4x5 color transparency and a roll of 35mm black and white film over a light box with a viewing loupe.

To request images—including exhibition installation views and permanent collection works—or MCA-created text or media, fill out a media and image application.

Short Gloved hands review a 4x5 color transparency and a roll of 35mm black and white film over a light box with a viewing loupe.