LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) presents The Expanding Field: MOCA’s Collection from the 1940s to 1970s, on view at MOCA Grand Avenue from April 18 through September 20, 2026. Drawing from MOCA’s world-renowned, ever-growing collection of nearly 8,000 objects, the exhibition focuses on artworks dating from the 1940s to the 1970s and demonstrates the collection’s historical depth, commitment to artistic experimentation, and global awareness. Featuring recent acquisitions alongside beloved artworks that have long been mainstays of MOCA’s collection, the more than 100 works included in The Expanding Field span a diverse range of movements, from Abstract Expressionism of the 1940s and 50s to the Pop and Assemblage of the 1960s, Minimal and Conceptual Art of the 1960s and 1970s, as well as Feminist Art, Appropriation, and California Funk dating to the 1970s.

The exhibition revisits the groundbreaking era in art practice that emerged after the Second World War and continued until the establishment of the museum in 1979. These decades saw a transformation from easel-size pictures to expansive Abstract Expressionist canvases; the recognition of photography as a fine art; an emphasis on systems and concepts and critical analysis of the ways that art and museums operate; experimentation with everyday objects, industrial materials, and emerging media such as video; and, not least, the rise of Los Angeles as a global art center.

Highlights include a gallery dedicated to the iconic Abstract Expressionist paintings of Mark Rothko, whose large-scale works are designed to create an intimate and human experience rather than a grandiose one; the artist wanted viewers to stand relatively close to his paintings so that they would be “in the picture,” their fields of vision flooded by luminous color. Additional highlights include paintings, sculptures, and works in all media by figures including John Baldessari, Dara Birnbaum, Joan Brown, Sarah Charlesworth, Hanne Darboven, Jay DeFeo, Arshile Gorky, Luchita Hurtado, Daniel LaRue Johnson, On Kawara, Corita Kent, Piet Mondrian, Jackson Pollock, Liliana Porter, Robert Rauschenberg, Ed Ruscha, Betye Saar, Anne Truitt, and Mary Ann Unger, among others.





“Drawing from the historical depth and distinction of MOCA’s singular holdings, The Expanding Field traces a transformative period in contemporary art history through works that reflect extraordinary experimentation and broad reconsideration of what a work of art could be,” said Ann Goldstein, Interim Maurice Marciano Director of MOCA. “Spanning nearly three and a half decades between the end of the Second World War and the emergence of MOCA in 1979, the exhibition offers a compelling view of how artists redefined the possibilities of art in ways that continue to inform the present.”

When a dedicated group of artists and civic leaders founded MOCA nearly fifty years ago, their ambition was to serve the growing Los Angeles art community not only by presenting world-class exhibitions but also by building a collection of major postwar art and the most significant art of the day, resulting in the acquisition of The Panza Collection in 1984, and bolstered by the major gifts of Rita and Taft Schreiber, Beatrice and Philip Gersh, Marcia Simon Weisman, and Barry Lowen. Many works from these foundational collections are included in The Expanding Field, and the exhibition further features important gifts from Lannan Foundation, Blake Byrne, and Joel Wachs, as well as loans from the Duker Collection. Today, as the period constituting contemporary art has grown considerably lengthier, MOCA’s collection encompasses an increasingly expansive and diverse art history.

Anna Katz, Senior Curator, stated: “The exhibition highlights a period of remarkable innovation, when artists pushed the boundaries of their practice through new approaches to scale, medium, material, and method. Seen together, these works reveal how the questions artists posed in the postwar decades remain urgent and generative for new contexts and new audiences.”

The Expanding Field: MOCA's Collection from the 1940s to 1970s is organized by Anna Katz, Senior Curator, with Ariana Rizo, Curatorial Assistant, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.