What Matters: A Proposition in Eight Rooms

What Matters: A Proposition in Eight Rooms features thought-provoking contemporary works from the museum’s collection that offer individual artistic responses to questions about life and art. Presented as a series of episodes with rotating artworks, the first proposition includes works by Matthew Barney, Rosa Barba, João Maria Gusmão + Pedro Paiva, Walter Hood, Byron Kim, Tatsuo Miyajima, Yoko Ono, Ebony G. Patterson, Lorna Simpson, and Naama Tsabar.

These works propose engagements with both physicality and the ephemeral, addressing tangible matter of artistic media as well as urgent subject matters. Presented across eight rooms, What Matters addresses materials, conditions of space and architecture, and, most importantly, social relations. The first episode’s spiritual center is Yoko Ono’s MEND PIECE, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art version (1966/2021), where visitors will be invited to sit together at a table and discover their own means of repairing broken ceramic cups and saucers. In this participatory work, the communal act of mending furthers efforts to, in Ono’s words, “mend the earth.”

In the second episode of What Matters, opening in 2024, works by contemporary artists Abraham Cruzvillegas, Sky Hopinka, Deana Lawson, and Guadalupe Maravilla will continue the exploration of collective healing, impermanence, and intentionality.

Visitors are invited to participate in MEND PIECE, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art version Friday–Sunday, 11 a.m.–4 p.m.

Header: Yoko Ono, MEND PIECE (Andrea Rosen Gallery, New York City version), 2015/2018. Artwork © 2015 Yoko Ono, courtesy Rennie Collection, Vancouver; photo: Blaine Campbell.