OPEN SPACE

…………………………………………………..“That’s not perversity, people, that’s poetry.” Michael Fox……………………………………………

Here at the Open Space, we are huge fans of a site called Jumping in Art Museums. So when we saw Malia Campbell’s set of images in front of Ellsworth Kelly’s Stele I on the SFMOMA Rooftop Garden, we were super excited.

Malia says:

The subject in the photo is my boyfriend, Scott Hargis. He lives in Oakland and I live in Seattle. Whenever I go down to visit him we always go to SFMOMA and, after our 2nd or 3rd trip, we realized it was just cheaper to get a membership. We were especially excited for the Avedon exhibit (we’re both professional photographers) and ended up going three or four times just to see his work.

This photo was taken after our first viewing of the Avedon exhibit. I was inspired by Avedon’s self portrait of he and Twiggy dancing. The movement was so dynamic and fun—by the time we made our way up to the rooftop garden I knew I wanted to capture something of the same essence so I made Scott stand in front of the sculpture and jump for me. It took about five takes and these three were my favorites.

These images were captured on my iPhone, proving that fun and exciting images are captured by a photographer, not a camera.

Malia also has some handy photography tips on her blog.

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We choose the Flickr pictures of the week from anything tagged “SFMOMA”. You tag too!

Penny Kim took this picture of the beautiful California light reflecting off the SFMOMA Rooftop Garden’s newest addition— Tony Smith’s Throwback, 1976.

Thanks Penny!

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We choose the Flickr pictures of the week from anything tagged “SFMOMA”. You tag too!

Benjamin Heath took this picture of SFMOMA reflected in a window of the Contemporary Jewish Museum across the street.  Good eye, sir.

Kevin Dini aka buddah is took this sparring pic of James Rosenquist’s Leaky Ride for Dr. Leakey which is on view in the 75 Years of Looking Forward exhibition. And yes, that is Kevin’s thumb, although I should mention that he says of the nail polish, “I try to keep it up better than that, but sometimes it gets away from me.”

Thanks Kevin!

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We choose the Flickr pictures of the week from anything tagged “SFMOMA”. You tag too!

Nick, a.k.a kukkurovaca, took this picture of Ellsworth Kelly’s Stele I in the SFMOMA Rooftop Garden. Looks like the person on the left is entering another dimension.  The dapper gentleman on the right may have just returned from it.

Nick says:

“There’s no real story to this photograph—If I remember correctly, I had just gone to see the Avedon exhibit for the first time, and the Adams-O’Keeffe for the third or fourth time, probably. I went up to the roof, got a beverage, and sat down to people-watch. I had my camera with me—I suspect I’m not alone in going to the roof in part to take out my pent-up photographic urges from the no-photography areas of the museum.

The composition that I wound up with is not quite what I had anticipated. At the time I brought up my camera, the fellow on the left was just standing and looking up at the piece; it was entirely fortuitous that at the moment I pressed the shutter release he began to step past it, or, thanks to the perspective, into it.“

I love the matching blue shirts and the Avedon gestures of these two.  The pictures come from Anitechi’s flickr, and she writes:

“This trip was our honeymoon, and I was glad there were fabulous exhibitions in my favorite museum. I appreciate that you like these photos. It will be a special experience to see our photos on SFMOMA’s blog.”

I was instantly charmed by this image of stockings that match the SFMOMA grand staircase and walls.  Thanks Marco!

Here’s what he had to say about the shot:

“The legs belong to my girlfriend Holly. The story is nothing special, I was feeling creative after we saw the Robert Frank and Richard Avedon photographs and I saw the similarity between the wall and Holly’s stockings. So I whipped out my point & shoot and took the shot.”

Rita, a.k.a Seenyarita, snapped this picture at the entrance to the current Richard Avedon exhibition.  From time to time, the SFMOMA freight elevator is in use during public hours and the doors open, much to the surprise of visitors.  Rita explains her picture better than I could:

“I’ve been to see the Avedon show 3 times now. Probably will go back at least one more time before it’s over.  I was intrigued by the way that the image on the elevator parts to reveal another world. I feel that Avedon was able to show worlds to us through portraits on a white background. There was no need to see anything in the background beyond the subject since the portraits themselves spoke volumes.“

Photo: Scott Owens

Not sure how this worked, but Scott Owens claims this it is a  self-portrait, taken while on a field trip with The San Francisco Foundation to visit the new Rooftop Garden.  Looks like he’s having a good time inside Barnett Newman’s Zim Zum I (1969).

Loves it!

San Francisco – May 2009.  Photo: Irene Pomianowski aka bellearielparis

Irene Pomianowski took this shot of Anish Kapoor’s Hole (1988) while at SFMOMA with a group from the Newark Museum.  She says, “In the 5 days we were in SF we went on tours at 6 museums (in addition to SFMOMA), City Hall, Napa Valley for winetasting & lunch, a performance at ACT, and of course, ‘Beach Blanket Babylon.’ Somehow I found time to take about 1000 photos.” Thanks Irene!

Photos: Global X

A mysterious person named Global X made this mini-series involving a red A17 coat-check tag.  Thank you X!

Photo: Rands

From this angle,  Donald Judd’s Untitled (1973) looks an awful lot like the staircase in the Atrium.  Photo by Rands.

Shades of Blue! photo by SFMOMA visitor Rob Reich

I liked this fabulous image of  Alexander Calder’s Big Crinkly (1969), now on view in our Rooftop Sculpture Garden. Photo by Rob Reich.

Thanks Rob!

This pretty snapshot, taken by SFMOMA visitor Jeanee Chung (and scooped  up from Flickr), shows  a portion of Damien Hirst’s painting Pray (2003)  and, in the reflection of the glass, one corner of a gallery in our current fifth-floor contemporary exhibition, Between Art and Life, organized by Gary Garrels.  On the left side of Jeanee’s picture you can see Ernesto Neto’s My Little Castle (2005) and on the right is Jim Hodges’s series of photographs Even Here 1-12 (2008). (Which pictures, sweetly enough, are themselves of light reflections from windows on a gallery floor.) Nice. Thanks Jeanee.