OPEN SPACE

Lebbeus Woods, Architect is on view at SFMOMA till June 2. Open Space is pleased to be hosting a series of posts on Woods’s work and legacy. Today, please welcome SFMOMA’s architecture and design department assistant Daryl McCurdy.

In 1960, a 20-year-old Lebbeus Woods arrived at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to pursue a master’s degree in architecture. Already a highly skilled draftsman, Woods began to offer his illustration skills to scholars for their academic papers. One of Woods’s clients was Dr. Heinz von Foerster... More

I’m not the kind of cat that’s going to cut off an ear if I can’t do something.
Bob Dylan (musician and poet)

What do I care about the purring of one who cannot love, like the cat?
Friedrich Nietzsche (philosopher)

My house is run, essentially, by an adopted, fully clawed cat with a mean nature.
Anthony Bourdain (chef and author)

The order of the world is always right — such is the judgment of God. For God has departed, but he has left his judgment behind, the way the Cheshire Cat left his grin.
Jean Baudrillard (philosophe... More

From now until closing time on June 2 we are celebrating the unique and inspiring personal style of some of our gorgeous SFMOMA visitors. Follow the series.

What’s your name?

[indecipherable but cute baby noises]

Eva’s mom: My name is Maralee B., and her name is Eva L., after Eva Hesse.

Where are you from?

[more indecipherable baby talk]

Eva’s mom: We live in the Mission in SF.

What brings you to SFMOMA today?

[Eva smiles]

Eva’s mom: Our SFMOMA trip was all about Eva. She played on the geometrical cushions in the... More

We are presenting daylong screenings of Al Wong’s Twin Peaks (1977) in SFMOMA’s Phyllis Wattis Theater on Free Tuesday, May 7. Over the course of a year the San Francisco native shot this contemplative journey, winding around the distinctive hills in the city. Twin Peaks was featured at SFMOMA in a spotlight screening of his work in 197... More

Lebbeus Woods, Architect is on view at SFMOMA till June 2. Open Space is pleased to be hosting a series of posts on Woods’s work and legacy. Today, please welcome SFMOMA’s Assistant Curator of Architecture and design Jennifer Dunlop-Fletcher.

Lebbeus Woods and Conceptual Architecture, New York, 1970–85

In a 1971 essay, architect Peter Eisenman asked if conceptual architecture was possible. Eisenman was the founding director of the Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies (IAUS), a small New York nonprofit organization that led the dis... More

I almost spilled coffee on myself yesterday when I read this bombastic headline in the New Republic: “How Occupy Changed Contemporary Art.” Then I laughed out loud.

It’s just that I die inside a little bit more each time when I read yet another “art review” written by someone purporting to be an authority on the subjec... More

A 747 crashes due to rough weather conditions northwest of Washington, D.C., killing all 92 people on board.
A bomb in the cargo hold of a TWA flight leaving Athens explodes 18 minutes after takeoff and sends the plane crashing into the Ionian Sea; 88 people die.
All 346 people aboard a DC-10 bound for London perish when the flight crash-lands in a woods north of Paris. The destruction is so severe that only 40 of the bodies are identifiable. Turkish families on vacation, English rugby players, British fashion models, Japanese ... More

In celebration of Slow Art Day, we invited four special guests to commandeer SFMOMA’s Twitter account for 30 minutes of live tweeting from the galleries. Artist, writer, theorist Tina Takemoto closed out our week with a slow close look at Glenn Ligon’s White #13. Check out the rest of our hijack transcripts here.

It’s easy to understand modern art. If it hangs on a wall, it’s a painting. If you can walk around it, it’s a sculpture.

What do you get if you cross a painter with a boxer? Muhammad Dali.

What happened when a ship carrying red paint collided with a ship carrying blue paint? Both crews were marooned.

How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb? Two. One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.

Recently a guy in Paris nearly got away with stealing several paintings from the Lo... More

In celebration of Slow Art Day, we’ve invited four special guests to commandeer SFMOMA’s Twitter account for 30 minutes of live tweeting from the galleries. This afternoon’s team of hijackers: Will Brown, a collaborative project based in a storefront space in San Francisco’s Mission district. Will Brown is Lindsey White, Jordan Stein, and David Kasprzak. Their slow-looking session on Francis Picabia’s L’Homme aux gants (Man with Gloves) included responses from visitors in the gallery, as well as from an open call o... More