Show Me the Money is an earnest attempt to get people to talk about money in the visual arts.

The Big Picture: Artists, Organizations, and the Economy
Notes on an Alternative Economy by Christian Frock
“Question — What are the active models of creative autonomy that work within the existing limitations of the system? How can I make the wor... More

Receipt of Delivery is a weekly series featuring Bay Area exhibition mailers selected from the SFMOMA Research Library’s collection of artists’ ephemera.

“Many thanks again for the guided tour through the Bay Area. It was one of the richest evenings during our trip: in one night four artists for documenta 5. This is to confirm the documenta will officially invite for participation Terry Fox, Howard Fried, John C. Fernie, and Jim Melchert.” – Harald Szeemann (correspondence with Carol Lindsley, Reese Palley Gallery, San Francisco, Dec... More

“The Bô Văn hoá (Vietnamese Communist Cultural Ministry) carefully monitors all public organized cultural activity … Art events are particularly bothersome to the robotic, directives-as-bible, power-hungry officials who police such activities.” –Zoe Butt

Hey, I’m only saying out loud what a lot of people are thinking, so don’t shoot the messenger, o.k.?

It’s been painful to see Art consistently ranking among the lowest paid and least marketable degrees in articles like this one on CNBC, this one on CBS,  this one on the Huffingtonpost or this one on the job site Monster.com. So e... More

“We’re so in tune with technology now that we slip into it so well. . . . We’re like cyborgs in the way that we can sort of use a camera as an extension of ourselves.” — Janet Cardiff, in SFMOMA’s Artcast

Thanks to the social networks that have built webs through and between our lives, navigating the everyday has become an activity that... More

Positive Signs is a series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity and optimism.

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See all Positive Signs.

“Making Sense of Modern Art Mobile,” SFMOMA’s handheld multimedia tour, includes a one-minute, two-second clip of Andy Warhol and an unidentified bottle-blond man making a silkscreen painting. The clip, titled Andy Warhol at Work on the SFMOMA website, is captioned: “Archival film footage showing Andy Warhol making a silkscreen painting.”... More

Receipt of Delivery is a weekly series featuring Bay Area exhibition mailers selected from the SFMOMA Research Library’s collection of artists’ ephemera.

More

Last night Trevor Paglen, a former SECA award winner, spoke with filmmaker Werner Herzog in New York’s Bryant Park. The event showcased Paglen’s newest project and book, called The Last Pictures which was presented by NYC-based public arts organization Creative Time. The Last Pictures refers to 100 images that Paglen selected to be placed on an “ultra archival” disc that itself will be placed on a satellite set to be put into geosynchronous orbit around the Earth. The theory is that after humans engineer their own nuclea... More

“… One of the reasons that we as cultural producers fail to organize — or even communicate — effectively around economic issues is because we’re taught to believe that funding is a private concern, a lack of money is shameful, and payment is linked so conclusively to merit that further knowledge can’t possibly benefit, or harm, any pote... More

This text is a selection from the exhibition catalogue for Six Lines of Flight: Shifting Geographies in Contemporary Art. The exhibition convenes artists from six cities around the globe: Beirut, Lebanon; Cali, Colombia; Cluj, Romania; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; San Francisco, United States; and Tangier, Morocco.

“This transcript is in many ways the key to the project and serves as an important starting point for unlocking cross-cultural understanding. The roundtable revolves around a discussion of ‘the periphery,’ the notion ... More

“It has become increasingly apparent that contemporary art is no longer defined by a few primary centers; it is now composed of many centers, small and large, each possessing unique histories, constituencies, and ethnic identities.”

—Apsara DiQuinzio

Early this morning I went to observe the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. In the past I’ve photographed all kinds of protests and protesters, but this time I concentrated on the NYPD. For those who don’t know, they are the largest municipal police force in the United States. They are so big they have their own culture and the... More

SFMOMA assistant curators Jenny Gheith (painting and sculpture) and Tanya Zimbardo (media arts) have just announced the finalists for the 2012 SECA Art Award. This installment of the museum’s biennial award is especially exciting: for the first time in the award program’s history, the museum will be commissioning new work offsite.

Up to four winners will be announced in December. Selected from a pool of more than 250 applicants, the finalists are:

Zarouhie Abdalian

Elisheva Biernoff 

Nate Boyce

Tammy Rae Carland

Anthony Discenza

Liam Everett

Josh Faught

Chris Fraser

Jonn Herschend

Cybele Lyle

Jonathan Runcio

Jesse Schlesinger

Chris Sollars 

Stephanie Syjuco

Lindsey White

David Wilson

Since 1967 SFMOMA and its art interest group SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) have honored Bay Area artists with the SECA Art Award, which includes an SFMOMA exhibition, an accompanying catalogue, and a modest cash prize. This fall the curators will lead group stud... More

The return of the One on One: artists, poets, and others reflect on single works in SFMOMA’s collection. Please welcome writer Robert Glück.

In 1951 Jess made The Mouse’s Tale, the first of his large collages, or “paste-ups,” as he called them. Only a few years before he had been a radio-chemist working on the production of plutonium for the U.S. government. He abandoned science and rational method when he dreamed the world would come to an end in 1974. The nude in The Mouse’s Tale crouches on contradictory perspectives of a ... More

Eleven years after terrorists intentionally crashed two jets full of people, American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175, into the World Trade Center, Ground Zero is still one huge construction site. Cranes, jackhammers, cops, firefighters, and tourists are omnipresent. The constant noise of construction goes on all night and all day. I went there yesterday morning before the crowds came, and this is what it looked like.

Positive Signs is a series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity and optimism.

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Next: Positive Signs #56–60, on aesthetic experience.
See all Positive Signs.

The return of our regular feature Collection Rotation! Each month someone special organizes a mini exhibition from our collection works online. Today, please welcome (back) writer and rock ‘n’ roll star Tammy Fortin.

Last month I relocated from San Francisco to Lansing, Michigan, for my wife’s job. While she was at work every day, I myself, being unemployed and highly organized, began the slow process of unpacking and putting things away. I started with, arguably, the most important objects in any home, the books. I emptied th... More

Receipt of Delivery is a weekly series featuring Bay Area exhibition mailers selected from the SFMOMA Research Library’s collection of artists’ ephemera.

“I had the idea that my outdoor work was going to appeal to two different audiences: my friends and the artists who received mailers on this will look at it as artwork. And then there... More

All summer long, as part of the exhibition Stage Presence, we hosted LIVE performances in a specially commissioned fourth-floor performance space created by Tucker Nichols. It was a totally awesome artist lineup, and we posted rehearsal pix plus follow-up videos every week.

Richard T. Walker’s the speed and eagerness of meaning (longer longi... More

It’s possible Clint Eastwood never read Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man. That book, which is about African Americans being invisible to the white power structure, among other things, is really a must read, and I would recommend it highly to anybody. It’s worthwhile because it gives insight into the life of someone who feels marginalized and voiceless, someone whom the middle class and elite usually ignore. Ellison’s book is also important because, in a sense, he spoke on behalf of not just African Americans but all people ... More