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.

Rebeca Bollinger on Giorgio Morandi’s Natura morta (Still Life).

Detail, Rebeca Bollinger on Gio... 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:

Jordan Kantor on On Kawara’s MAR. 16, 1993, from the Today series

Jordan Kantor (2008 SECA Art Award) is a San Francisco–based artist. When he delivered the talk on On Kawara archived here, h... 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:

Josephine Taylor on Mitzi P... 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