SFMOMA <3s Halloween

What a dandy lion (that’s me)!

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The exhibition Less and More: The Design Ethos of Dieter Rams is on view at the museum through February 20, 2012.

It is hard for me to focus on much regarding the Occupy movement other than the two consecutive nights of police raids and brutality at the Occupy Oakland camp. However, the artists bloc of the Wall Street West movement is slowly coalescing, and plans are in the works for events, workshops, and discussions regarding the stake of artists in this mo... More

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Artist Sharon Lockhart reflects on the presence of the individual in the context of industrial labor through film, photography, and printed matter. For Lunch Break (2008), she spent a year at a naval shipbuilding plant in Maine, and the exhibition — now on view — examines the workers’ activities during their time off from production. SFMOMA is also distributing Lockhart’s newspaper, The Lunch Break Times, which relates stories about labor and lunch breaks. Every Wednesday, at NOON, we’re posting one of the articles here.………………………….

~ ~ SAN FRANCISCO TREATS ~ ~

For many staffers at the Lunch Break Times, lunch is the highlight of the day. Sure, we enjoy dining out. We especially love the grilled skirt steak sandwich at Naked Lunch (504 Broadway), the banh mi at Saigon Sandwich ... More

After a terrific run at SFMOMA this past summer, during which we welcomed more than 350,000 visitors, The Steins Collect has now moved on to Paris, where it opened October 5 as Matisse, Cézanne, Picasso … L’aventure des Stein. Part of what I heard again and again about our exhibition is its appeal had as much to do with the stories as... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Today I spoke with Ann Magnuson, artist, singer, performer extraordinaire. She will be performing a David Bowie– and Jobriath-inspired piece, The Rock Star as Witch Doctor, Myth Maker, and Ritual Sacrifice, on Thursday as part of Now Playing.]

What would I find in your refrigerator right now?

The most incredible organic eggs from Landers, which is this little desert town just north of Joshua Tree. There is a lady there who feeds her chickens all organic vegetables, and she nurtures them q... More

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Artist Sharon Lockhart reflects on the presence of the individual in the context of industrial labor through film, photography, and printed matter. For Lunch Break (2008), she spent a year at a naval shipbuilding plant in Maine, and the exhibition — now on view — examines the workers’ activities during their time off from production. SFMOMA is also distributing Lockhart’s newspaper, The Lunch Break Times, which relates stories about labor and lunch breaks. Every Wednesday, at NOON, we’re posting one of the articles here.………&... More

A Collection Rotation–style post, from one of our curators who really does rotate the collection. Please welcome Assistant Curator of Photography Erin O’Toole.

Soon after the invention of the daguerreotype was announced in 1839, Paris was overtaken by a fever for photography dubbed “daguerreotypomania.” Made the following year, this well-known lithograph (above) illustrates the excitement with which the new technology was immediately embraced. Seemingly everybody was taking pictures of everything from every mode of modern transporta... More

Over the past month I have witnessed and participated in the local contingent of the now-global movement known as Occupy Wall Street/Occupy Together. The goal of this nonviolent movement, fueled by people in 1,497 cities throughout the world, is to challenge capitalism by protesting major banks, corporations, and the top 1% of people who benefit from our country’s current economic system. Through taking over public space, consensus-based general assemblies, demonstrations, direct actions, workshops, teach-ins, defense against police bruta... More

On a visit to SFMOMA back in 2007, I turned a corner on the second floor and found myself sharing the gallery space with a heaping blue mountain. I walked the perimeter slowly, curious, tentative, dwarfed. As I came to the front of the blue mass, I saw a wooden table, and seated at this table, a live human figure hunched over a book, hard at work.

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests.  Michael Namkung is a San Francisco artist who uses movement to create his work. He'll be at the museum on Sunday for Yerba Buena Family Day, during which he will perform one of his Wall Sit drawings and families will be able to take part in drawing gym activities. Free!]

If you weren’t an arti... More

Since neither of the artists was able to be here for the opening of the current New Work exhibition, I made these videos to introduce SFMOMA’s audiences to Tiago Carneiro da Cunha (Brazil) and Klara Kristalova (Sweden). Generally, we interview artists when they come into town, but I thought that a Skype video chat would be a great workaround. I was delighted that both artists agreed to essentially invite me into their homes for a conversation.

Interviewing artists is my favorite part of my job, hands down. Having gotten to know them through the objects they make, I find it priceless to be able to spend an hour or so talking through their ideas with them. Most of the interviews that we conduct are very formal — a talking head in front of a neutral gray background with a classic three-point lighting setup. Part of this is because when we started producing video content in the 1990s, the only people who made interview videos were professionals, TV people, and documentarians. Time... More