OREANDA-NEWS. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and MoMA PS1 and Volkswagen Group of America (VWGoA) announced on Thursday afternoon in New York City an expanded two-year partnership that will provide lead support for all of MoMA’s award-winning education programs, key exhibitions, and innovative initiatives that will share MoMA and MoMA PS1’s programming with a broad, global audience.

Volkswagen Group of America has been a major partner of MoMA and MoMA PS1 since 2011, supporting a wide range of more than 30 exhibitions, educational opportunities and special event programming. The new initiatives announced today build on the success of the partnership.

The new focus on supporting MoMA Education will expand the Museum’s opportunities to reach a worldwide audience of learners. The profound shift toward digital learning that has occurred since MoMA launched its first curriculum website in 2006—a transition not only from print to digital, but also towards customizable, interactive, self-guided, anytime-anywhere learning—has allowed MoMA to produce and aggregate a wealth of multimedia content that encourages a wide audience of participants not only to read and learn about works of art, but also to reflect, create, participate, and share.

From instructor-led online courses to interactive apps, to free downloadable resources, MoMA’s digital initiatives help expand perspectives and enrich lives for a growing global constituency. MoMA Education also offers customized programs for more than 900,000 people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities who take part each year.

The expanded partnership will allow MoMA Education new opportunities to connect visitors with living artists, leverage emerging technologies, and further illuminate the richness of MoMA’s collection.

Additional highlights of the new agreement announced today are:

- Lead sponsorship of a series of exhibitions at MoMA and MoMA PS1, including Greater New York 2015 (October 11, 2015-March 2016), a survey exhibition that takes place every 5 years, and this year will show a city and art community that has changed dramatically over the last 15 years.

- Creation of a new strand of MoMA PS1 VW Fellows, offering opportunities to the brightest young art world professionals from the United States and around the world to work alongside curators and staff at MoMA PS1’s producing large scale exhibitions and programs.

- Development of the Volkswagen Global Conversation Series, a new international platform for cross-disciplinary debate and discussion, bringing together artists and curators and critical thinkers around the world, to cover the full range of artists’ practice, art and design. Programs will take place at MoMA and internationally.

- Year-round sponsorship of the cutting edge program of MoMA and MoMA PS1 and the continued support of Sunday Sessions in the VW Dome at MoMA PS1’s geodesic performance venue.

Prof. Dr. Martin Winterkorn, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Volkswagen Group of America, Inc. and Chairman of the Board of Management of Volkswagen Aktiengesellschaft, said: “Volkswagen can claim to be ‘DAS Auto’, just like MoMA is ‘DAS Museum’. The renewal of our partnership reflects of our commitment to one of the world’s leading art institution. And it also demonstrates Volkswagen’s general commitment in the fields of arts, education and social matters. MoMA’s focus on making art and knowledge accessible to everyone matches well with Volkswagen’s beliefs. We are delighted to contribute to the further unfolding of this idea.”

“It is a pleasure to work with an organization that shares our commitment to bringing world-class modern and contemporary art to a diverse, global audience,” said MoMA Director Glenn D. Lowry during the announcement in New York. “We look forward to our continued partnership and to connecting visitors and our community abroad with today’s most significant artists and innovators through conversation, exhibitions, educational programming.”