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

Sanjit Sethi, artist and co-director of the Center for Art and Public Life at California College of the Arts, gives a seven-and-a-half-part talk on Augustus William Ericson's Slab of Redwood for a London Dining Table Designed to Seat Forty Guests—Diameter 15 Feet (1893). He narrates the history of this dismembered tree and his response to the photograph documenting it: “It seems like a gory image from some type of B-grade horror film on trees.“Remember the end of Manhattan, when Woody Allen asks himself what makes life worth living? In January 2010, during SFMOMA's three-day 75th anniversary celebration, 75 people from the Bay Area creative community gave extremely short talks — 7.5 minutes or less! — on a single collection work of their choosing. Someone called it “manic splendor“ — and it was. You can view all of the talks on The Anniversary Show exhibition page. Or look for them here, on Open Space.