The network analysis project I decided to look at was the MoMA’s “Inventing Abstraction” website. The project depicts a relationship web between the artists whose work was displayed at the MoMA exhibit of the same name in 2012 – 2013. The exhibit as a whole showcases the beginnings of abstract art in the early 20th century and highlights its pioneering figures.
On the network website, the nodes/vertices are the artists, and the edges connect artists who were documented to have at least some kind of acquaintance between the years 1910 – 1925, the years of interest for the exhibition. There are no “weighted” relationships or anything, so there’s not really an indication of which relationships are “more meaningful” or “more important,” which I would imagine would be pretty difficult to determine (and likely rather subjective). However, there are a few nodes in red, which indicates the artists with the most connections in the group currently on screen. You can click on any name to create a more zoomed-in network map, which would change the names in red! (By default, the map shows you a lot of names — I think probably all of them, but I’m not 100% certain.)
If you click on a name, you can also see details about the artist, like which of their works were in the exhibition, their birthplace and places where they worked, and their artistic interests. There’s also sometimes a little biography written by the exhibit curators.
I believe the interactions that the project allows (i.e. clicking to zoom in/make a “new map”) are rather effective, and definitely help to conceptualize just how interconnected the world of the early abstract movement had been. One feature which I feel like might have been interesting to include would have been a view which lets you see artists grouped by country/region of origin. It might have helped to show how international (or not) some artists’ social groups were! However, I understand what a logistical struggle that feature might have been, especially when considering the goal of the visualization — sometimes, less is more.
