Art
Orientalism Persists in Conversations Around Chinese Contemporary Art
In Art and China after 1989, now at SFMOMA, China’s emergence onto the world stage is eclipsed by persisting Orientalist ideas and Western modes of curation.
SFMOMA
Art
René Magritte’s Bad Paintings
When Belgium was occupied by Germany during World War II, René Magritte adopted the style of Pierre-Auguste Renoir and painted images based on popular cartoons.
Interview
Photographer Susan Meiselas on the Relationships She's Built with Her Subjects
Meiselas, whose documentary photography is wide ranging, says the one thing that ties her work together is her "relationships with subjects over time."
Interview
John Akomfrah Discusses Channeling J.M.W. Turner and Disasters at Sea
“The Deluge,” a monumental Turner painting showing a Biblical flood, is currently paired with Akomfrah’s “Vertigo Sea” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Art
Walker Evans's Eye on the City
While Walker Evans may be best known for his photographs from small towns across the US during the Great Depression, an exhibition at SFMOMA shows him also as a longtime New Yorker fascinated with the particulars of urban life.
Art
Bringing the Theatricality of Magic and Comedy to Art
Lindsey White, a recipient of SFMOMA's 2017 SECA Art Award, challenges assumptions and orthodoxies in irreverent photographs, sculptures, and installations.
Art
Why Edvard Munch Began Painting Portraits of the Soul
An exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art illustrates how, over time, Munch moved away from observational painting toward something more symbolic and emotional.
Art
Send a Text to SFMOMA and They’ll Text You Back an Artwork
You can explore SFMOMA's collection now with the ease of a text, though you don't always know what you're going to get.
Art
The Evolution of Diane Arbus in 35mm
The exhibition diane arbus: in the beginning gathers images the photographer shot between 1956 and 1962, when she started using the distinctive Rolleiflex camera with which she captured her most famous photos.
Art
Diaristic Maps Composed of Tens of Thousands of Photographs
Sohei Nishino’s maps are hellish auto-portraits, subjective representations built through fantastic repetition.
Art
The Early Life of Bruce Conner and His Rat Bastard Bohemia
To say that Conner was an outsider who also wanted to belong is to barely scratch the surface of his paradoxical persona.
Opinion
Ellsworth Kelly Explains His Relationship to Abstraction
"I've always lived in the present tense, and I like my paintings to be in the present tense," Ellsworth Kelly begins his interview with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) in 2013.