Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) is an internal, cross-departmental research program at The Museum of Modern Art that fosters the multiyear study of art histories outside North America and Western Europe. Founded in 2009, C-MAP builds knowledge about global modern and contemporary art by harnessing resources from within and outside the Museum. Through this directed effort, C-MAP significantly impacts MoMA’s collections, exhibitions, publications, and education programs.
Structure of C-MAP
The program, which includes staff from across the Museum’s departments, is organized into three groups that currently focus on modern and contemporary art produced in Africa, Southeast and East Asia, and the city of Bombay/Mumbai. Previous groups have included Central and Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Western Asia. C-MAP Fellows, who serve 2-3 year terms and are embedded in a curatorial department, support the development of these research foci by planning, executing, and documenting a robust schedule of monthly meetings as well as on-the-ground group travel to their region of focus. These in person or online meetings feature invited scholars, artists, and curators, who present their cutting-edge projects. This activity enables MoMA staff to establish contacts, exchange experiences, and acquire firsthand knowledge of these diverse geographies. C-MAP also fosters long-term strategic partnerships with key cultural institutions worldwide. These initiatives enable the Museum’s staff to develop a better understanding of MoMA’s collections as well as a deeper knowledge of their broader historical contexts, facilitating future acquisitions and programs.
Africa Group
The C-MAP Africa group has focused on artistic practices and institutional formations across the African continent in an expanded time frame, from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s. The group has taken an artist-centric approach to its research, looking closely at the production of individual artists and inviting still-living artists to share their experiences of collectives on the continent. It is led by Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, the Steven and Lisa Tananbaum Curator in MoMA’s Department of Painting and Sculpture, and C-MAP Africa Fellow Beya Othmani.
Southeast and East Asia Group
The C-MAP Southeast and East Asia Group currently researches art and architecture of the Southeast Asian region and its diasporas, including but not limited to Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, focusing on art histories, contemporary practices, and conceptual frameworks to address and look beyond categorical and canonical understandings of the art of the region. It is led by Stuart Comer, the Lonti Ebers Chief Curator of Media and Performance; Roxana Marcoci, the David Dechman Senior Curator and Acting Chief Curator of Photography; and Carlos Quijon, C-MAP Southeast and East Asia Fellow.
Bombay/Mumbai Group
Recognizing the city as a dynamic constellation, the C-MAP Bombay/Mumbai Group investigates the role of the metropolis in the creation of art, architecture, cinema, design, literature, music, and theater, from the original archipelagic formation of the seven islands of Bombay, to the colonial Bombay Presidency, to the current megacity that is Bombay/Mumbai. The group is led by Lucy Gallun, curator in the Department of Photography, and Ananya Sikand, C-MAP Bombay/Mumbai fellow. Special thanks to advisor Homi K. Bhabha, Anne F. Rothenberg Professor of the Humanities, Harvard University, and Saloni Mathur, MoMA Scholar in Residence (2024–25) and professor at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Online Platform: post
C-MAP regularly publishes its research on post: notes on art in a global context, an online platform that has been the public face of the program since 2013. post encourages in-depth global explorations of artistic practices and contexts, and of the ways in which modernism is continually being redefined. post foregrounds contributions by individuals and institutions from around the world and makes less-accessible episodes of art history available to a broad public. Essays, interviews, archival materials, and newly translated sources reflect new research perspectives that emerge both within the Museum and in the larger scholarly world.
C-MAP Seminars
C-MAP periodically organizes C-MAP Seminars, which enable its members to think more deeply about the Museum’s global views of modern and contemporary art. Seminars comprise both internal and public components, the latter of which comprise an ongoing series of public programs known as “post Presents.” Past seminars have been organized around the topics of performativity, transnational histories and nonaligned networks, multiple modernities, international networks, global collecting practices, and challenges of museum display.
The Museum of Modern Art’s Contemporary and Modern Art Perspectives (C-MAP) initiative is supported by The International Council of The Museum of Modern Art.