If you have ever read the Bible you figure out pretty quickly that if you want to get anywhere in life you pretty much have to devote yourself to either God or the Devil. For example, Robert Johnson became a famous guitar legend by making a deal with the Devil at a lonely crossroads in Mississippi. Faust sold his soul to Mephistopheles for the lov... More

Last fall I taught a course called “Queer Modernism” at California College of the Arts. As a class project, my students traced a queer itinerary through the permanent collection at SFMOMA, culminating in a queer audio tour of the museum’s holdings. Each student first wrote an introduction to queer art at SFMOMA, explaining the interest of our... More

More

Just released online, a few of Anthony Discenza’s older video works.

I find myself drawn to Open Space when I have a story to tell about “behind-the-scenes” experiences I have in my role as a curator in rural Northern California. I was recently invited to Redding to judge the 62nd Annual Student Art Show at Shasta Junior College. It was an experience that I am still thinking about two weeks after the fact.

Back in the days when the NEA was a tad wealthier than it is today, there was a wonderful program that sent practitioners around the country to do site visits at peer organizations. The ostensible ... More

For one night only, on Wednesday, May 9, the Berkeley Art Museum presented In Protest, a collection of protest posters commissioned by a variety of artists and writers, including Zarouhie Abdalian, John Baldessari, Amy Balkin, Amy Franceschini, Doug Hall, Paul Kos, Tony Labat, Shaun O’Dell, Rigo 23, Piero Golia, Jordan Kantor, Kevin Killian, ... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Lynn Marie Kirby is a San Francisco–based artist and teacher. Her collaborative video project with Li Xiaofei, Hello? 你好!, is on view through June 17 as part of the Descriptive Acts exhibition.]

Do you collect anything?

Collaborators.

If you could steal any artwork in the world to have up in your home, what would it be?

Must be Vermeer, judging from the picture that Alexis Petty just took of me for this blog. Alexis and I meet frequently in this café as we are collaborating on a projec... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Anthony Discenza is a visual artist, adjunct professor at CCA, and resident of Oakland. His sound installation A Viewing (The Effect) is on view through June 17 as part of the Descriptive Acts exhibition.]

Do you collect anything?

I maintain an extensive collection of beautiful, hand-blown anxieties, fears, and intimations of doom.

If you could spend an afternoon with anyone, living or dead, who would it be?

Hmm, that’s a tough one. Maybe Philip K. Dick, he’s def in my top five. (... More

Missed connections keep popping up at the museum. It must be springtime!

Today’s post on Eleanor Antin’s 100 Boots, by SFMOMA Managing Editor of Publications Judy Bloch, refers to Picturing Modernity, SFMOMA’s regular rotation of our photography collection, as well as State of Mind: New California Art circa 1970, currently on at the Berkeley Art Museum. Highway ’71 Revisited cross-posts today at the excellent BAM/PFA blog, blook.

No sooner had Eleanor Antin’s 100 Boots (1971–73) come off the wall at the close of SFMOMA’s 1970s-focused installation of Picturing Modernity than the work app... More

This week Off Label, the second feature-length documentary of former homeboys Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri, had its West Coast premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The film’s title refers to the legal practice of prescribing pharmaceuticals for a use not approved by the FDA, such as prescribing antidepressants that caus... More

I’ve come to enjoy the phenomenon of the digitally connected spectators which make up the modern museum audience. At times I want to be critical and stand on my imaginary podium to speak about this and the loss of our biological connection with our environment. But this loss is accompanied with an ease of communication with others via social netw... More

More

Last fall I taught a course called “Queer Modernism” at California College of the Arts. As a class project, my students traced a queer itinerary through the permanent collection at SFMOMA, culminating in a queer audio tour of the museum’s holdings. Each student first wrote an introduction to queer art at SFMOMA, explaining the interest of our queer intervention: How does looking at art through a queer lens show familiar works in a new light and, more generally, change our understanding of modernism and its canons?

We used the term “quee... More

OK, I can’t resist: when did Ross Mirkarimi stop beating his wife?

Or did he beat his wife? Or is she an abuse victim too afraid to come forward, heroically rescued by her neighbor?

People want to know!!

I mean, it’s not every day that the writer of a female superhero comic book called Huntress just happens to be the neighbor of the newly elect... More

If it is true that there has never been a movement for justice without the arts, and I believe it is, then the recent history of movement building in the Bay Area exists in part through the work of Melanie Cervantes and Dignidad Rebelde, the collaborative project of Cervantes and Jesus Barraza. If you have ever attended a protest in the Bay Area organized by a coalition of social justice organizations and activists or the Occupy movement, you have seen their work: bold digital and screenprints depicting community members demanding justice and a... More

Our regular feature Collection Rotation. Each month someone special organizes a mini “exhibition” from our collection works online. Today, please welcome artist and writer Jaime Cortez.

“A thing with feathers”

To curate this online show, I sifted through images on Artscope, SFMOMA’s interactive art-browsing tool. It is qui... More

On Wednesday, April 11th, Wayne Koestenbaum spoke at the San Francisco Art Institute as part of the Visiting Artists and Scholars lecture series curated by Glen Helfand. That afternoon, on the other side of the city, and with one eye on the clock, Kevin Killian visited my Fundamentals of Creative Reading class at San Francisco State. To transmit th... More

While Abraham Lincoln was dealing with the Civil War, Carleton Watkins was leading a mule train around the Yosemite Valley, photographing some of the most spectacular images ever made of the American West.

In fact, some of those photographs helped convince Congress to preserve the Yosemite Valley. The bill that they passed was signed by Abraham Lin... More

Last fall I taught a course called “Queer Modernism” at California College of the Arts. As a class project, my students traced a queer itinerary through the permanent collection at SFMOMA, culminating in a queer audio tour of the museum’s holdings. Each student first wrote an introduction to queer art at SFMOMA, explaining the interest of our queer intervention: How does looking at art through a queer lens show familiar works in a new light and, more generally, change our understanding of modernism and its canons?

We used the term ... More

In Tris Vonna-Michell’s GTO: hahn/huhn, variation 1, viewers are invited to pore through various media that resemble the documentary evidence of a Cold War–era detective story. Slides of hazy black-and-white images — buildings, shapes, scenery — and typed sentences appear in rotation on an old slideshow screen. Pin boards exhibit photocopied... More

Once I finally saw through that Easter Bunny scam, I determined never again to put my faith into any of the known rites of spring — that’s Easter, Passover, Nowruz, and Major League Baseball by my watch. But time heals all wounds. And with the arrival of a world class spring equinox event so close to my house that even I — who drives four... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Alejandro Cartagena is a photographer from Monterrey, Mexico. His work is on view in the Photography in Mexico exhibition through July 8. This Friday he speaks live on the web for Rooftop TV. Blue Bottle Coffee also created a flight of ice cream inspired by Cartagena's photography. Yum!]

Do you co... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Photographer Daniela Rossell lives in Mexico City. Her series Untitled (Ricas y Famosas) is on view in the Photography in Mexico exhibition through July 8. You can watch Daniela and others speak live on the web this Friday as part of Rooftop TV.]

Do you collect anything?

I collected erasers as a child. Erasers as replicas of all sorts of things — sushi, ice cream, animals, etc. It has been the collection I have taken the most seriously in terms of dusting it off and having it on pro... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Pablo Lopez Luz is a photographer living in Mexico City. His work is on view through July 8 as part of the Photography in Mexico exhibition. Pablo, Daniela, and Alejandro will be speaking live on  the web this Friday as part of Rooftop TV.]

Do you collect anything?

I have a photography collectio... More

On March 5th I attended the artist talks/conversation between Catherine Lord and Moyra Davey at UC Berkeley as part of the “Still Pictures” lecture series on photography, curated by Anne Walsh. I came to the event an admirer of Catherine Lord — I love her cancer memoir The Summer of Her Baldness, and a couple of years ago I managed to ... More

                                                                                     
Through clouds of grayish-white marijuana smoke I would listen to this guy go on and on about how pretentious Werner Herzog was. He would take a deep hit from his bong, hold it in his ... More

Opening Day!

One of my favorite things to do is muck around with the art historical canon. Now I intend to bring that spiteful energy to the world of planking, a leisure activity in which you turn your body into a plank in a public space and then document it for the internet so it can be shared with other planking enthusiasts.

Planking recently emerged from its... More

During Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards, we restyled our weekly in-gallery talks with a superb lineup of past SECA Art Awardees. You can listen to the series here. For our final SECA Art Award talk last week, Hung Liu (1992 SECA Art Award) spoke about Rosana Castrillo Diaz’s (2004 SECA Art Award) Untitled.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash ... More

When I think of art, I think of language. When I think of language, I think of control. When I think of control and language, I think of how much humans need to feel they have control over their lives or they will go insane. When I think of insane, I think of cooking. If I cook something good, I feel in control – even if I am only in control ... More

Last fall I taught a course called “Queer Modernism” at California College of the Arts. As a class project, my students traced a queer itinerary through the permanent collection at SFMOMA, culminating in a queer audio tour of the museum’s holdings. Each student first wrote an introduction to queer art at SFMOMA, explaining the interest of our queer intervention: How does looking at art through a queer lens show familiar works in a new light and, more generally, change our understanding of modernism and its canons?

We used the term ... More

In conjunction with Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards, we’ve restyled our weekly in-gallery talks with a superb lineup of past SECA Art awardees. Each Thursday at 6:30pm an artist talks about something on view. Last week, Rebeca Bollinger (1996 SECA Art Award) talked about  Giorgio Morandi’s Natura Morta (Still Life), “translating” the painting five ways. Two of the translations are represented in detail below.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the ... More

Last fall I taught a course called “Queer Modernism” at California College of the Arts. As a class project, my students traced a queer itinerary through the permanent collection at SFMOMA, culminating in a queer audio tour of the museum’s holdings. Each student first wrote an introduction to queer art at SFMOMA, explaining the interest of our queer intervention: How does looking at art through a queer lens show familiar works in a new light and, more generally, change our understanding of modernism and its canons?

We used the term “quee... More

Whenever I feel surprise at having become an an art dealer, I remind myself that at 14 years old, like some suburban Medici prince, I commissioned my first work of art. For the grand sum of twenty dollars, or bag ‘o weed of same value, I got my friend Lance, who was something of an artist, and something of a hustler, to paint the cover of Rel... More

California Dreaming, an exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, pays tribute to Jews whose dreams have shaped the character of life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush era to the present. This is not a pantheon-building exercise, though. While iconic figures do play prominent roles in CJM’s historical pageant, the exhibition commemorates their deeds without representing history as a procession of “great men.” Levi Strauss, for instance, is represented by examples of the things his company made, including a policy of nondiscrimination... More

Big news this afternoon: SFMOMA just acquired Edward Hopper’s Intermission (1963), one of the artist’s largest and most ambitious paintings. Some details on the work, from today’s press release:

“Hopper came up with the idea for Intermission while he was watching a movie, and his wife, Josephine Hopper, arranged for him to work on t... More

In conjunction with Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards, we’ve restyled our weekly in-gallery talks with a superb lineup of past SECA Art Awardees. Each Thursday at 6:30 p.m. an artist talks about something on view. Last week Jordan Kantor (2008 SECA Art Award) talked about On Kawara’s MAR. 16, 1993, from the Today series:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Jordan Kantor on On Kawara... More

I don’t know how to describe my work.

I didn’t choose to be an artist, my art chose me.

My art is about energy.

Do you have a pirated copy of Photoshop I could borrow?

I would never date another artist.

I would never date a poet, they’re worse than artists.

I don’t need to be able to write about my work, that is for other people to do.

You can’t understand art unless you understand my suffering.

I don’t make my art for the critics.

My art is about space and community.

Was Andy Warhol really gay?

My art doesn&... More

During my first three visits to the California Academy of Sciences aquarium, the giant octopus failed to make an appearance. Three times I searched its tank for some sign of life — the tip of a curling tentacle that might give away its hiding place — and three times I left disappointed. I could only imagine it buried in the shadows of a rocky l... More

In conjunction with Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards, we’ve restyled our weekly in-gallery talks with a superb lineup of past SECA Art Awardees. Each Thursday at 6:30 p.m. an artist talks about something on view. Last week Josephine Taylor (2004 SECA Art Award) talked about Mitzi Pederson’s Untitled:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Pla... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Kamau Amu Patton is a winner of the 2010 SECA Art Award, and his work is on view in the fifth-floor galleries. He may be familiar to Open Space readers; last year we posted a talk he gave on Nata Piaskowski.]

Do you collect anything?

A/V cables. Cables are quite interesting. They are about connect... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Ruth Laskey is a winner of the 2010 SECA Art Award, and her work is on view in the fifth-floor galleries.]

Do you collect anything?

No. But I have a lot of books.

If you could steal any artwork in the world to have up in your home, what would it be?

A skyspace by James Turrell … I would love to spend time with one of those each day. This might have to do with my apartment being somewhat small and dark.

If you weren’t an artist, what would your gig be?

Chances are I would be working th... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Mauricio Ancalmo is a winner of the 2010 SECA Art Award. His work is on view in the fifth-floor galleries through April 3.]

Do you collect anything?

Everything except collectibles.

If you could steal any artwork in the world to have up in your home, what would it be?

The caves of Lascaux.

Who was... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests. Colter Jacobsen is a winner of the 2010 SECA Art Award. His work is on view in the fifth-floor galleries through April 3.]

If you could steal any artwork in the world to have up in your home, what would it be?

I wouldn’t steal artwork, even given the opportunity. My backpack was recently stolen. If anyone knows of its whereabouts, please let me know. Thank you. There weren’t really any valuables inside except for two full notebooks. But those are only valuable to me. I doubt the t... More

When in the course of history it becomes necessary for people to dissolve the art which has connected them to one another, and to assume the making powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which they are entitled, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separate from art.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, artists are among us, deriving their powers from the consent of others. That whenever any form of art becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish art, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that art long established should not be ch... More

From Lisa J. Sutcliffe, assistant curator of photography.
Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake, which measured 9.0 on the Richter scale and triggered the massive tsunami that hurtled toward the northeast coast of Japan, devastating everything in its path.

Two public KAPSULS provide helpful context for upcoming exhibitions. They were also developed by two of the most active next-generation independent curators in the Bay Area: Christina Linden and David Kasprzak.

Will Brown‘s trio of Jordan Stein, Lindsey White, and David Kasprzak will open an exhibition on Saturday, March 17th, entitled A squ... More

Chris Burden, arranging for his friend to shoot him in the arm in 1971, then calling it art. Then arranging to be crucified on a Volkswagen, getting long steel nails hammered through his palms, again, for art.

Robert Capa, after surviving the D-Day landing at Normandy, went on to co-found Magnum with Henri Cartier Bresson only to step on a landmine... More

Last fall, I taught a course called “Queer Modernism” at California College of the Arts. We focused on marginalized schools such as magic realism and neo-romanticism; figurative practices such as portraiture; queer inflections of abstraction; creative platforms such as ballet and opera–all of which have been instrumental in forging modern... More

Yesterday was Free Tuesday at SFMOMA:

In conjunction with Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards, we’ve restyled our weekly in-gallery talks with a superb lineup of past SECA Art Awardees. Each Thursday at 6:30pm an artist talks about something on view. Last week, Chris Finley (1998 SECA Art Award) talked about Vija Celmin’s Blackboard Tableau #1 :

***Our audio recording ... More

In response to San Francisco’s beautiful weather I wanted to remind everyone to take in the sun.

“An intoxicating 9 minutes and 22 seconds video art piece.�Martynka Wawrzyniak, who has been known to make these strong visual treatments, lets chocolate be poured on her whilst remaining submissively still for nearly 10 minutes.

The Polish-born, NYC-based artist currently has work at the The Garage Center for Contemporary Culture.”    purpleTELEVISION

video source from purpleTELEVISION

The paintings currently in my gallery come out of the venerable tradition of “bad art.” It’s a dicey pedigree that includes people like Martin Kippenberger, John Waters, and Jim Shaw, who single-handedly stimulated a groundswell of interest in bad painting in the early ’90s when he published his collection of what he called ... More

In conjunction with Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards, we’ve restyled our weekly in-gallery talks with a superb lineup of past SECA Art awardees. Each Thursday at 6:30 p.m. an artist talks about something on view. Last week, Shaun O’Dell (2004 SECA Art Award) talked about Kamau Amu Patton:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version... More

At The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

I wander into the first room of Descriptive Acts, on SFMOMA’s fourth floor. To my left sits a twentysomething girl in front of a laptop at a table, typing continuously. To my right, a rectangular screen is projected, in which the girl’s typed words run from left to right. Together, these two components constitute Instant Narrative, a p... More

If I stand facing the mirror holding Bob Dylan’s self-portrait over my own face, do I not, in a sense, become him? If this is how Bob Dylan painted himself, then through this gesture am I not more like him than if I merely sang one of his songs out loud?

At some point as I recite his words and feelings, would our identities merge into one? I... More

In conjunction with Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards, we’ve restyled our weekly in-gallery talks with a superb lineup of past SECA Art awardees. Each Thursday at 6:30 p.m. an artist talks about something on view. Last week, Maria Porges (1992 SECA Art Award) talked about Janine Antoni and her sculpture Lick and Lather:

Audio clip: Ad... More

In 1974 the San Francisco Museum of Art accepted an unusual exhibition proposal from Bay Area–based artists Robert Moon and Gage Taylor: along with artist friends Robert Fried, Gerald Gooch, Bill Martin, and Richard Lowenberg, Moon and Taylor would take a month-long expedition to Baja, Mexico, covering 2,500 miles in two vans and a pickup truck. ... More

Hi! Open Space is undertaking a little research to find out more about our audience, i.e., you. What do we provide that you like? What would you like to see more — or less — of? The survey is brief, and at the end you’ll have the option to enter a drawing for a fancy prize — an iPad2.

Sure, I’ll take the survey!

Last month, I convinced a friend to come with me to an exhibition, Baldessari Class Assignments (Optional), at California College of the Arts’ Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art. Before I had a chance to visually make sense of anything in the exhibition I was greeted by an overpowering sweet smell of vanilla and pastry. The source ... More

On view in San Francisco for just a few more days are two major photography exhibitions: Ralph Eugene Meatyard at the de Young and Francesca Woodman at SFMOMA. On January 26th, Julian Cox, Founding Curator of Photography for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and Chief Curator at the de Young, and Corey Keller, Associate Curator of Photography at SFMOMA, talked to each other via G-chat, and discussed the two artists, their work, and their place in the history of photography.

In conjunction with Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards, we’ve restyled our weekly in-gallery talks with a superb lineup of past SECA Art awardees. Each Thursday at 6:30 p.m. an artist talks about something on view. Last week, Kathryn VanDyke (2000 SECA Art Award) talked about Agnes Martin and her painting Falling Blue:

Audio clip: Adob... More

Hi! Open Space is undertaking a little research to find out more about our audience, i.e., you. What do we provide that you like? What would you like to see more — or less — of? The survey is brief, and at the end you’ll have the option to enter a drawing for a fancy prize — an iPad2.

Sure, I’ll take the survey!