在欧洲现代艺术被引介进入美国的过程中，展览作为传播和讨论的手段，起到了重要作用。在举行于纽约现代艺术博物馆的“立体主义与抽象艺术展”中，阿尔弗雷德·H·巴尔对19世纪末到20世纪30年代中期的欧洲现代艺术进行了大规模的谱系化调查。 受罗杰·弗莱等前辈学者、约翰·奎恩等重要藏家、匿名者协会等艺术组织和先锋杂志等多重影响，成长于军械库展览余波中的巴尔在成为MoMA馆长之前便已经初步形成了自身折中的、形式主义倾向的现代艺术观念，逐渐发展出“视觉艺术的统一性”、“现代艺术的普遍性”等艺术主张。在1936年的“立体主义与抽象艺术展”中，巴尔综合绘画与雕塑、建筑、海报、摄影等多重媒介，塑造跨越地理界限的风格序列，通过展览现场、同名文献、谱系图的三重互动，成功塑造了一个关于欧洲现代艺术的经典叙事，即:立体主义作为中心事件，发端自19世纪晚期的法国，以德国、苏联、荷兰等国家为主要阵地，连续的、成谱系的现代艺术发展，到30年代中期，以抽象作为高潮，最终逐渐汇聚发展为“几何抽象艺术”和“非几何抽象艺术”两大趋势。 巴尔通过这场展览塑造的现代艺术叙事，一方面走出了军械库展览中关于现代艺术的绝对“法国趣味”，为现代艺术剥除了布鲁克林展的“神秘学意味”；另一方面，巴尔的叙事因其自身的研究立场和方法，不可避免地削弱了现代艺术的革命性等意涵。这种带有进步论色彩、纯粹形式的现代艺术叙事，奠定了数代公众和学者对欧洲现代艺术历史的理解，逐渐成为一种关于现代艺术的经典叙事，有其自身的权威性。
Exhibitions played a crucial role in introducing European modern art to America. In 1936, Alfred H. Barr Jr. conducted a comprehensive survey of European modern art from the late 19th century to the mid-1930s with the exhibition Cubism and Abstract Art. Influenced by predecessors like Roger Fry, key collectors like John Quinn, modern art organizations like Société Anonyme and avant-garde magazines, Barr—who grew up in the aftermath of the Armory Show—had already begun to form his formalist views on modern art before before joining MoMA. He proposed concepts such as the "unity of visual arts" and the "universality of modern art." In the 1936 exhibition, Barr combined various media, including painting, sculpture, architecture, posters, and photography, to create a stylistic sequence that transcended geographical boundaries. Through the exhibition, its catalog, and a genealogy chart of modern art, Barr established a canonical narrative: Cubism as a central event originating in late 19th-century France, with major developments in Germany, the Soviet Union, and the Netherlands, culminating in the abstract art trends of the mid-1930s. Barr‘s narrative moved beyond the French-centric view of the Armory Show and removed the mystical connotations from modern art. However, his approach also diminished the revolutionary aspects of modern art. This progressive, formalist narrative shaped the public and scholarly understanding of European modern art history, becoming a canon and authoritative perspective.
