75 Reasons to Live

In January 2010, over the course of a three-day weekend, we invited 75 people to give talks of 7.5 minutes or less, each on a single SFMOMA collection work. This series was originally produced by Open Space (2008-2021), SFMOMA's interdisciplinary publishing platform for artists, writers, community members, et al. Browse the full Open Space archives here for features, interdisciplinary projects, and beautiful vestiges of the blogosphere.

75 Reasons to Live: Rudolf Frieling on Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (Golden)

75 Reasons to Live: Neal Benezra on Clyfford Still’s Untitled [formerly Self-Portrait]

75 Reasons to Live: Robert Bechtle on Richard Diebenkorn’s Coffee

75 Reasons to Live: Kevin Killian on Andy Warhol’s National Velvet

75 Reasons to Live: Rex Ray on Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait

75 Reasons to Live: Michelle Tea on Andy Warhol’s Self-Portrait

75 Reasons to Live: Chad Coerver on Anthony Hernandez’s Oakland #1

75 Reasons to Live: Lisa Sutcliffe on Penelope Umbrico’s 5,377,183 Suns from Flickr (Partial) 4/28/09

75 Reasons to Live: Yves Béhar on Barry McGee’s Untitled

75 Reasons to Live: Whitney Chadwick on Ed Ruscha’s Every Building on the Sunset Strip

75 Reasons to Live: Trevor Paglen on Will Rogan’s Untitled, from the series Public Sculpture

75 Reasons to Live: Tony Labat on Howard Fried’s Inside the Harlequin: Approach-Avoidance III and II

75 Reasons to Live: Suzanne Stein on Constant’s New Babylon

75 Reasons to Live: Stephen Hartman on Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (Golden)

75 Reasons to Live: Stephanie Syjuco on Sherrie Levine’s La Fortune (After Man Ray)

75 Reasons to Live: Stephanie Hanor on Bruce Conner’s SOUND OF ONE HAND ANGEL

75 Reasons to Live: Sarah Roberts on Terry Fox’s Pendulum Spit Bite

75 Reasons to Live: Sanjit Sethi on Augustus William Ericson’s Slab of Redwood for a London Dining Table Designed to Seat Forty Guests—Diameter 15 Feet

75 Reasons to Live: Sandra Phillips on Alfred Stieglitz’s Georgia O’Keeffe — Neck

75 Reasons to Live: Sam Green on Unknown artist’s Untitled [Women Racing]

75 Reasons to Live: Rick Prelinger on Willard E. Worden’s Observatory in Ruins, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

75 Reasons to Live: Renny Pritikin on Robert Arneson’s Harvey

75 Reasons to Live: Renée Green on On Kawara’s MAR. 16, 1993, from the Today series

75 Reasons to Live: Rebecca Solnit on Jay DeFeo’s The Verónica

75 Reasons to Live: Raelle Myrick-Hodges on John Collier Jr.’s Bureau with Portraits and Mementos (and self-portrait), Picuris Pueblo, NM

75 Reasons to Live: Rachel Rosen on Eadweard Muybridge’s Panorama of Francisco from California Street Hill

75 Reasons to Live: Peter Samis on Wright Morris’s Storefronts, Western Kansas

75 Reasons to Live: Pamela Z on Robert Rauschenberg’s Collection (formerly Untitled)

75 Reasons to Live: Michelle Barger on Doris Salcedo’s Unland: irreversible witness

75 Reasons to Live: Meg Shiffler on Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s “Untitled” (America #1)

75 Reasons to Live: Martin Venezky on Unknown artist’s Untitled [California Rancher/Cowboy in Front of a Backdrop]

75 Reasons to Live: Margaret Tedesco on Claude Cahun’s Untitled (Self-Portrait)

75 Reasons to Live: Mark Jensen on Bruce Nauman’s Wax Impressions of the Knees of Five Famous Artists

75 Reasons to Live: Lori Fogarty on Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Worker, Coachella Valley, California

75 Reasons to Live: Lisa Robertson on Eva Hesse’s Sans II

75 Reasons to Live: Leslie Shows on Arthur Dove’s Silver Ball No. 2

75 Reasons to Live: Lawrence Rinder on Lebbeus Woods’s Quake City, from the San Francisco Project: Inhabiting the Quake

75 Reasons to Live: Kota Ezawa on Jeff Koons’s Michael Jackson and Bubbles

75 Reasons to Live: Kenneth Foster on Joanne Leonard’s Sad Dreams on Cold Mornings

75 Reasons to Live: Kamau Patton on Nata Piaskowski’s Untitled [Playing Handball]

75 Reasons to Live: Kaja Silverman on Robert Rauschenberg’s Cy + Roman Steps (I-V)

75 Reasons to Live: Julio César Morales on Ansel Adams’s Diego Rivera Painting the Fresco “Still Life and Blossoming Almond Trees”

75 Reasons to Live: Joseph Becker on Giovanni Pintori’s Poster

75 Reasons to Live: Johnny Ray Huston on Diane Arbus’s Xmas Tree in a Living Room, Levittown, L.I.

75 Reasons to Live: John Zarobell on Bruce Conner’s LOOKING GLASS

75 Reasons to Live: Jens Hoffmann on Felix Gonzalez Torres’s “Untitled” (America #1)

75 Reasons to Live: Jennifer Sonderby on Leslie Shows’s Two Ways to Organize

75 Reasons to Live: Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher on J. B. Blunk’s Invisible Presence

75 Reasons to Live: Jennifer A. González on Felix Gonzalez-Torres’s Untitled

75 Reasons to Live: Jeffrey Fraenkel on Diane Arbus’s A Young Brooklyn Family Going for a Sunday Outing, N.Y.C.

75 Reasons to Live: Janet Bishop on Watercolors by schoolboys, ages 10-16, from the Chirodzo Art Centre, Southern Rhodesia, 1957

75 Reasons to Live: Iain A. Boal on Elaine Mayes’s Interracial Couple and Baby, Golden Gate Park, August, 1968

75 Reasons to Live: Henry Urbach on Ewan Gibbs’s San Francisco

75 Reasons to Live: Glen Helfand on Ed Ruscha’s Thirty-four Parking Lots in Los Angeles

75 Reasons to Live: Gary Garrels on Robert Ryman’s Untitled, 1958

75 Reasons to Live: Ellen Arenson on Clyfford Still’s Untitled, 1951-52

75 Reasons to Live: Duane R. Deterville on Pablo Picasso’s Tête de trois quarts (Head in Three-Quarter View)

75 Reasons to Live: Dominic Willsdon on László Moholy-Nagy’s Vom Funkturm (From the Radio Tower)

75 Reasons to Live: Craig Baldwin on Wallace Berman’s Semina 7

75 Reasons to Live: Chris Sollars on Bruce Nauman’s Wax Impressions of the Knees of Five Famous Artists

75 Reasons to Live: Chris Perez on Barry McGee’s Untitled

75 Reasons to Live: Chip Lord on Terry Fox’s A Metaphor

75 Reasons to Live: Catherine Wagner on Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan’s Untitled, from the installation Evidence

75 Reasons to Live: Carrie Pilto on Henri Matisse’s La fille aux yeux verts (The Girl with Green Eyes)

75 Reasons to Live: Carey Perloff on Robbert Flick’s Along Ocean Park, Looking West, Summer

75 Reasons to Live: Bill Fontana on Dan Graham’s Double Cylinder (The Kiss)

75 Reasons to Live: Beth Lisick on Chris Johanson’s Untitled (Figures with black presence)

75 Reasons to Live: B. Ruby Rich on Edward Weston’s Legs in Hammock, Laguna

75 Reasons to Live: Anne Walsh on Unknown artist’s Untitled [Women Racing]

75 Reasons to Live: Anne McGuire on Anne Bremer’s Sentinels

75 Reasons to Live: Allison Smith on J. Wilbur Sandison’s Quilt

75 Reasons to Live: Megan Brian on Marilyn Minter’s Strut

75 Reasons to Live: Lynn Hershman Leeson on Tina Modotti’s Convent of Tepotzolán, Mexico