An Airstream Bambi trailer, which was designed in 1960 and became a fixture on American highways, at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan, June 29, 2021. The MoMA exhibit Automania, drawn almost exclusively from the museums own collection, walks a painted white line between critique and celebration. Jeenah Moon/The New York Times. by Lawrence Ulrich (NYT NEWS SERVICE) .- For many Americans, cars became a lifeline and refuge during the pandemic, even as newly sparkling air over locked-down cities highlighted their darker side. Soul-searching over commuting and climate change was balanced by hope that cars might clean up their act via electricity, and allow new generations to fall for their beauty and ingenuity. That wrench-tight tension is at the heart of Automania, an exhibition opening at the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan on Sunday July Fourth, a holiday that has come to symbolize motorized freedom and parade-queen convertibles. In that spirit, the public might be urged to visit MoMA via mass transit; but in this case, pack the kids in the SUV and have at it. As this shrewdly curated show reveals, that yin-yang of cars dates to the industrys earliest years, and to those of MoMA itself. Automania takes its name and inspiration from a 1963 Oscar-nominated animated short, Automania 2000. That piece is the work of John Halas a ... More