In 1935, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) incorporated film into a museum collection for the first time. During MoMA screenings in the 1930s, the film department drew a symbolic line between cinema as art and as entertainment, a continuing effort until today. Based on ethnographic research, in this paper I examine four practices that sustain film as art at the museum: 1) the establishment of rules of conduct and uses of design and technology, 2) membership, 3) surveillance, and 4) tacit curatorship. At MoMA, institutional actors and audiences alike engage in practices to experience the moving image as art. The centrality of institutions in processes of artistic legitimation have been thoroughly studied, but what happens inside art organizations has received less attention. I contend that a micro-sociological framework of artistic legitimation reveals novel aspects of how a milieu of practices and actors—including zealous audiences’ active role—sustain film as art in organizations such as MoMA.

1935 年，现代艺术博物馆 (MoMA) 首次将电影纳入博物馆收藏。在 1930 年代的 MoMA 放映期间，电影部门在作为艺术和作为娱乐的电影之间划出了一条象征性的界限，这一努力一直持续到今天。基于人种学研究，在本文中，我考察了在博物馆中维持电影作为艺术的四种实践：1) 行为规则的建立以及设计和技术的使用，2) 成员资格，3) 监督，以及 4) 默契策展。在现代艺术博物馆，机构演员和观众都参与实践，将动态影像体验为艺术。机构在艺术合法化过程中的中心地位已经被彻底研究过，但艺术组织内部发生的事情却很少受到关注。