Abstract
In 1971, Pakistan‐born lawyer and artist Iqbal Geoffrey (1939–2021) lodged a discrimination case against the Museum of Modern Art in New York. This essay connects Geoffrey's complaint, which he filed with the New York State Division of Human Rights, to MoMA's situation at the centre of activist debates over race and equality during the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the museum's prominent role in exporting US art around the world during the Cold War. At a time when Asian modernists received a mostly transactional, diplomatic welcome from US cultural institutions including MoMA, Geoffrey mobilized his legal, artistic, and epistolary practices to stake his claim to permanent belonging within the US art world. Today, his case raises questions over where expanding histories of ‘global modernism’ meet incomplete histories of ‘American’ modernism, against a backdrop and the legacies of the Cold War era.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
