News Press Release

Teresita Fernández, Fire, 2005; silk yarn, steel armature, and epoxy; 96 x 144 in. (243.84 x 365.76 cm); Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund purchase; © Teresita Fernández

As part of the next phase of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)'s expansion project, the museum today announced plans to go beyond its walls and directly into the community through an array of collaborative and traveling museum exhibitions, site-specific installations, and education programs that will unfold throughout the Bay Area and beyond during construction of its new building.

Throughout the approximately two-and-a-half-year span leading up to the inauguration of the new building, slated for completion in early 2016, SFMOMA will experiment with new ideas, engage in dialogue with a range of cultural partners, and create innovative ways for audiences to experience the museum's collection, bringing the best of these ideas and initiatives back into its newly expanded home. Additional off-site programs are currently in development; as plans evolve, more details will be announced.

In the week leading up to the final day of public museum operation in the current building—which will be Sunday, June 2, 2013—the museum will host a series of celebratory events, including a period of free admission and programs to mark the beginning of this next stage in the museum's evolution.

Beginning in summer 2013, SFMOMA will co-organize major exhibitions at partner museums featuring works drawn either entirely or in part from SFMOMA's holdings. Projects are still in development, but highlights include an exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum considering connections between art and spirituality; a presentation at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts that takes SFMOMA's growing collection of South African photography as a starting point; and an exhibition at the Asian Art Museum that taps the collections of both SFMOMA and the Asian to spark intriguing dialogues about beauty in Asian and Western art.

Additional projects feature a yearlong outdoor installation of Mark di Suvero's large-scale sculptures at historic Crissy Field near the Golden Gate Bridge; a citywide exhibition including newly commissioned, site-responsive artworks at Los Altos; and a multi-location display of Doug Aitken's Empire trilogy (2008–14), which will present all three video installations simultaneously for the first time. SFMOMA will also bring touring presentations of its renowned photography collection to communities throughout California, create new partnerships with local schools, and develop creative educational projects in collaboration with both local and international artists.

"SFMOMA is more than just a building," says SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra. "We're a set of intersecting cultural communities. As we reimagine our new home, we're also rethinking who we want to be in the future, and what better way to find inspiration than in conversation with others. We look forward to fully exploring what it means to be a museum during this phase, while broadening access to our collection in ways that foster a sense of community ownership of the collective cultural riches of the city and celebrate the creative spirit of the region. When our new building is completed in 2016 we'll bring the best of these experiences back into our new building with a greater understanding of our place in the community."

"Dialogue with the community has always been important to SFMOMA, and we're tremendously excited to work with all our museum partners," says SFMOMA Curator of Painting and Sculpture Janet Bishop, who is leading the museum's off-site initiative. "Our construction period offers an opportunity to really extend that dialogue and play it out in a variety of new ways. Not only will audiences be able to see and experience the museum in a new light, but we'll be able to see ourselves in a new light, too, and gain valuable insight from that exchange."

SFMOMA's decision to pursue off-site programming during construction evolved from a detailed review of the best options for the museum's art collection, the audiences it serves, and its vision for the future. Joint programs through partnership further SFMOMA's mission to make art not only widely accessible, but accessible in continually new and surprising ways.      

Bay Area Museum Partnerships

At partner venues, SFMOMA will co-organize major thematic exhibitions—one approximately each season—that highlight both iconic and lesser-seen works from all areas of the museum's holdings and provide new contexts for viewing and understanding those artworks. Current museum partners include Asian Art Museum; Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University; Contemporary Jewish Museum; Museum of the African Diaspora; Oakland Museum of California; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Exhibitions scheduled from summer 2013 to summer 2014 include:

• Beyond Belief: 100 Years of the Spiritual in Modern Art (June 27–October 27, 2013)
  On view at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
  Beyond Belief will assemble approximately 60 works in various media—painting, sculpture, photography, video, and installation—to create a conversation about the spiritual dimensions of 20th- and 21st-century art. Objects that have long been appreciated for their contributions to the development of modern and contemporary art will be reassessed through the lenses of religion, metaphysics, philosophy, and Eastern thought. Drawn from SFMOMA's collection, the exhibition will include works by early 20th-century visionaries such as Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian, mid-century innovators from Jackson Pollock to Mark Rothko, and leading postwar artists including Bruce Conner, Brice Marden, Agnes Martin, Nam June Paik, and Kiki Smith. Beyond Belief is co-organized by Karen Tsujimoto, curator; Jeanne Gerrity, curatorial associate; and Daniel Schifrin, writer-in-residence, at the Contemporary Jewish Museum; and Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture; Corey Keller, curator of photography; Caitlin Haskell, assistant curator of painting and sculpture; and Peter Samis, associate curator of interpretation, at SFMOMA. 
   
• Flesh and Metal: Body and Machine in Early 20th-Century Art (November 13, 2013–March 16, 2014)
  On view at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University
  Art in the first half of the 20th century is often discussed as a tension between the utopian, impersonal world of the machine and the uncontrollable realm of the human psyche.  A closer look at work by some of the era's European and American artists, such as Berenice Abbott, Constantin Brancusi, Giorgio di Chirico, Marcel Duchamp, Max Ernst, Germaine Krull, Fernand Léger, and Man Ray, suggests a synthesizing of these two polarities—flesh and metal, body and machine. This show of over 60 paintings, sculptures, photographs, and illustrated books considers how artists reconciled these apparent opposites, producing a wide range of imagery that responded to the complexity of modern experience. Flesh and Metal is co-curated by Hilarie Faberman, Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Cantor, and Nancy J. Troy, Victoria and Roger Sant Professor in Art at Stanford, in association with Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture; Caitlin Haskell, assistant curator of painting and sculpture; and Corey Keller, curator of photography, at SFMOMA. Throughout 2013, Troy and Faberman will be leading courses with Stanford students, who will assist with designing and presenting the exhibition. 
   
• Public Intimacy: Art and Social Life in South Africa (working title; spring 2014)
  On view at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
  Taking as a starting point SFMOMA's growing collection of photography from South Africa and reflecting YBCA's multidisciplinary approach to programming, this presentation will focus on the ways that artists have explored questions of intimacy, gender, sexuality, and violence in South Africa. Three critical moments of South African history will frame the project: the 1960s, when apartheid measures such as the "Immorality Act" proscribed many forms of intimate relationships; the mid-1990s, the immediate post-apartheid period; and the present. The exhibition will feature contemporary South African artists, performers, and other cultural producers, many of whom have an educational or activist dimension to their work. Public Intimacy is co-curated by Betti-Sue Hertz, director of visual arts, and Marc Bamuthi Joseph, director of performing arts, at YBCA; and Dominic Willsdon, Leanne and George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Programs, and Frank Smigiel, associate curator of public programs, at SFMOMA. 
   
• Gorgeous (working title; summer 2014)
  On view at the Asian Art Museum
  Gorgeous will present key works from SFMOMA and the Asian Art Museum in provocative and stimulating new contexts to chart the boundaries of beauty and examine one of its most extreme forms. The exhibition will encourage viewers not only to marvel at the works on view, but also to engage the question "What is gorgeous?" From luxurious ornamentation to austere simplicity, from kitsch to camp, gorgeousness is an evolving and dynamic concept that has been conceived in many ways and has taken various visual forms. How does the placement of a Mark Rothko painting near a Buddhist mandala or a 2000-year-old Chinese tomb figure near self-portraits sculpted in soap and chocolate by Janine Antoni, bringing into focus new aspects of each work? Through two very different collections with very different histories, Gorgeous will inspire debate and discovery. Highlights include paintings, sculptures, and photographs from SFMOMA's holdings by Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Marilyn Minter, Joan Miró, Meret Oppenheim, Trevor Paglen, and Pablo Picasso. From the Asian Art Museum, the exhibition will feature the 1000-year-old Indian sculpture Durga victorious over the buffalo demon; a gilded and jeweled Burmese Buddhist alms bowl; a Korean cloth with complex calculated geometric designs; a decorated Koran from 16th-century Persia; a set of Chobunsai Eishi silk scrolls, Three Types of Beauties in Edo (1770–1829); and Hua Yan's gold-surfaced ink paintings Summer gatherings in a mountain villa (1682–1756). Gorgeous will be curated by Allison Harding, assistant curator of contemporary art, and Forrest McGill, chief curator and Wattis Curator of South and Southeast Asian Art, at the Asian Art Museum, in association with Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture, and Caitlin Haskell, assistant curator of painting and sculpture, at SFMOMA. 

Outdoor Commissions and Site-Specific Installations

SFMOMA will create temporary interventions into the urban fabric of the city, such as:

• Mark di Suvero at Crissy Field (May 2013–May 2014)
  A major outdoor exhibition of Mark di Suvero's iconic works will be on view near the Golden Gate Bridge. Eight large-scale steel sculptures will be installed at Crissy Field, a former airfield and military base that is now one of the most visited national park sites within the Golden Gate National Parks. Curated by SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra, Mark di Suvero at Crissy Field will be the largest display of the artist's work ever shown on the West Coast, including a recent sculpture that has never before been on public view. The exhibition coincides with di Suvero's 80th birthday, taking place more than 70 years after he emigrated from Shanghai to San Francisco—a journey that proved to be a lasting inspiration as the scale and color of the Bridge have inspired di Suvero throughout his life. Presented by SFMOMA in partnership with the National Park Service and the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy, the yearlong exhibition will be free to the public and extend the programs celebrating the Golden Gate Bridge's 75th anniversary.

• SECA Art Award presentations at various locations (fall 2013)
  Continuing SFMOMA's commitment to supporting the local art scene, the next iteration of the museum's biennial award honoring the achievements of exceptional Bay Area artists has invited nominees to submit proposals for their artwork to be presented outside of the traditional museum gallery context. In December 2012, the museum announced four recipients of the 2012 SECA Art Award: Zarouhie Abdalian, Josh Faught, Jonn Herschend, and David Wilson. Curated by SFMOMA Assistant Curators Jenny Gheith and Tanya Zimbardo, the exhibition of this year’s awardees will present new commissioned work at various locations in the Bay Area—a first in the history of the Art Award program—in fall of 2013. Documentation of the projects will be featured both on the museum's website and in the accompanying award exhibition catalogue.

• SFMOMA Off-Site in Los Altos (winter 2013–2014)
  SFMOMA will host an off-site exhibition in Los Altos, a residential community located in Silicon Valley that has recently been undergoing a unique period of development and transformation. Organized by the museum, the show will feature existing artworks as well as several newly commissioned, site-responsive artist projects that react to the history and culture of the area, the community, and the distinctive character of each artwork's setting. The work will range in media and scale and will be presented at various locations around Los Altos. The exhibition will be free for all visitors and is organized in association with the City of Los Altos and Passerelle Investment Company.

• Doug Aitken's Empire at multiple venues (fall 2014)
  A multi-location exhibition of Doug Aitken's Empire (2008–14)—the Los Angeles–based artist's trilogy of video installations reflecting on migration and myths of the West—will present all three parts of the work together for the first time. Shown simultaneously at different venues, the work comprises Migration, a single-channel work meant to be projected onto billboards or the façade of a building; and Frontier and Black Mirror, designed as multi-channel pavilions with moving image and sound.
   
• New Work exhibitions (dates and venues TBD)
  Presentations of the museum's ongoing New Work series, which showcases recent work by national and international artists, will take place at off-site locations to be announced. Previous New Work exhibitions have featured artists Matthew Barney, Marilyn Minter, Glenn Ligon, Tatsuo Miyajima, Kara Walker, and Andrea Zittel, among many others.  

Photography Exhibitions around the State

SFMOMA is known internationally as a leader in presenting and collecting photography, and it will bring exhibitions of work from its collection to communities throughout California, including Bakersfield, Riverside, Sacramento, Santa Barbara, and Sonoma. Projects in development include:

• The Provoke Era: Japanese Photography from the Collection of SFMOMA (dates and venues TBD)
  SFMOMA has been actively acquiring the work of internationally recognized artists including Masahisa Fukase, Eikoh Hosoe, Daido Moriyama, and Shōmei Tōmatsu since the 1970s, assembling one of the world's preeminent collections of Japanese photography. The exhibition begins with the avant-garde tradition that emerged in Tokyo in the 1960s and 70s and explores its influence on the diverse photographic practice that continues today. The tumultuous period following World War II proved fertile ground for a generation of Japanese photographers who responded to societal upheaval by creating a new visual language dubbed "Are, Bure, Boke"—rough, blurred, and out of focus. Named for the magazine Provoke, which sought to break the rules of traditional photography, this exhibition traces how Japanese photographers responded to their country's shifting social and political atmosphere. 

• Photography in Mexico from the Collection of SFMOMA (dates and venues TBD)
  This exhibition surveys a century of photography, beginning with works from the medium's first artistic flowering in the wake of the Mexican Revolution (1910–20) and culminating with contemporary considerations of the U.S./Mexico border region. The show includes work by Edward Weston, Tina Modotti, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Manuel Carillo, Graciela Iturbide, Elsa Medin, Pablo Ortiz Monasterio, and Mariana Yampolsky, among others. The featured images reveal a distinctively rich and diverse tradition of photography in Mexico, ranging from the explosion of the illustrated press at midcentury to the intense documentary investigations of cultural traditions, indigenous groups, and urban politics of the 1970s and 80s.  

Education Programs for Schools and Families

During the museum's off-site period, SFMOMA will continue to expand its role as cultural producer and catalyst for creativity through new education programs under the direction of Dominic Willsdon, Leanne and George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Programs at SFMOMA. Projects connecting to SFMOMA's off-site exhibitions and festivals will provide art experiences for elementary schoolchildren and prototypes for new partnerships with high schools in the area. Working onsite in classrooms over extended periods, museum staff will develop visual art curriculums and creative projects in collaboration with local and international artists.
 

About SFMOMA's Expansion

Developed by architectural firm Snøhetta in collaboration with SFMOMA and EHDD of San Francisco, the museum's expansion project will significantly enhance gallery and education spaces, enabling SFMOMA to better showcase its expanded permanent collection and serve its growing audiences. In November 2011, SFMOMA unveiled the latest design details featuring free-access ground-level galleries and public spaces, and new educational areas throughout the museum. The public can stay up to date on the latest expansion news by visiting the expansion section of the SFMOMA website at sfmoma.org.

Media Contacts

• Robyn Wise, 415.357.4172,
• Christine Choi, 415.357.4177,
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