MoMA’s “Inventing Abstraction” online exhibit displays the connections between artists who produced works between 1910 and 1925. Each node represents an artist, the white labels representing artists with less connections, the red labels representing artists with more connections. The edges in the diagram represent that at some point there was a documented “acquaintance” or interaction between these artists in some way. This means that many artists from certain countries appear in clumps, as they often interacted with members of their own country more than foreign artists.
By hovering your mouse over an artist, you can see all of the connections between that artist and others. After clicking on the artist, you are presented with a few of the works that they produced and can explore who worked with or interacted with them. Observing the entire map can be a bit overwhelming, as the display is fairly cluttered. I preferred exploring artist by artist, looking for similarities between artists who worked in the same countries. When you click on one artist, all artists and connections that don’t connect to that artist are hidden, and you are only presented with the artist that you are interested in. The way that the diagram reshapes itself as you explore makes it much more digestible. On top of that, the fluidity of the diagram (and how it shifts to reorganize itself) makes it more fun to explore.
3 thoughts on “Network Analysis: MoMA’s “Inventing Abstraction””
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I also analyzed this network, and I agree that the initial visual can be overwhelming, so I also really appreciated that you could select an artist to isolate just their network. An element that I did find interesting was how you could view the whole network as three dimensional, but this didn’t really make it less overwhelming.
Your analysis of the project is very clear and detailed. I like the way you decided to analyze data (finding similarities in the work of artists from the same country). Yes, the system is a bit cluttered, I feel that the website could use an interface more similar to that of Six Degree of Francis Bacon, where you only see the name of the artists you hover the mouse over. Do you think this would make the website better?
I also agree that looking at the entire map is overwhelming. However, I think it is interesting that there is a wide variety of abstract artists between 1910 and 1925 who were all connected in some way. It can also be overwhelming to find a place to start due to the sheer number of artists; I agree that exploring each artist individually or with an intentional pattern (such as by country) made the information much more digestible.