Thursday, August 16, 2012

The SFMoMA


An unexpected trip to MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art.) A friend once told me the difference between art and design, where design focuses on problem solving (solution) and art revolves around expressing ideas (abstraction.) For most of the stuff I do, there's always a reason for the choices I make to create the final product. And I tend to make graphics tell stories, straight forward ones. I suppose that makes me a designer than an artist. So visiting museums is quite foreign to me. Most of the time, instead of appreciate the work done by the artists, I'd expect myself to seek definite reasons for all the choices they made to come up with their art pieces and the stories they wanted to tell, which leaves me pretty helpless and confused.

This time around, I hoped to be different. I'd keep an open mind and absorb whatever they throw at me.

My old student ID still worked. Score! Was only charged $11 instead of $14 like they stated on the site. Hell yessss!!

Modern art, modern looks:


First art piece showcased right above the lobby -- a cube made out of 2000+ LED lights that displays a boxing match by dimming different portion of the lights.


Clean and simple map, just the way I like it.


The first floor we entered, there was this:

Art Game Lab's made out of crowdsourced games contributed by the SFMoMA community to bring even more joy to all the art spectators. "Visitors can pick up instructions for prototype games to be played in the museum's galleries and other public spaces."



Of the many games and missions, here's the one Michelle picked up:


...and mine:

"Photograph your favorite frame or pedestal at SFMoMa." Little that they know, most of the photographs used the same frames, paintings drawn on canvases, and sculptures placed on the floor. It was quite a challenge just finding the candidates.

Then, we were on our way to tour the museum.
(Most of the artists' names have escaped me, sorry. I've tried my best to recall and credit the pieces below.)


Very interesting frame, but not quite my favorite.

One of the few pieces by Piet Mondrian.



No photography allowed in a few main exhibits.

Some art are open for interpretation.

Caught the man off guard.

Some of them are huge.

This one's two and a half Michelle in height.

Some influential.


Some suitable for spectacular backdrops.

by Gene Davis.


by Kenneth Noland.

Some are textured.


...and made me want to touch it.

(This is the best hand I've drawn in years.)

This is also art, but often time be used as a bridge that connects us to the 5th floor of MoMA.





...where Michelle shall accomplish her mission.




Bright headphones.

"Sit outside in the SFMoMA Rooftop Garden for six minutes with your eyes closed. What did you observe?"

While she was observing, I did so, too:








"Back View"

by Philip Guston.

This is one of my favorites. By Sherrie Levine, who's an appropriation artists."Appropriation can be understood as 'the use of borrowed elements in the creation of a new work.'"

The palette of each piece is based on a famous painting by the European artists corresponding to its title. A painting restorer mixed paint and apply it in a single coat on a mahogany panel, effectively enabling Levine to make her own monochromatic paintings in that color.

Here's my favorite frame:


"Handtools" the title.


Finally, to wrap up the tour, we swung by the Museum Store for creative goodies.



Courtesy of Vince Avallone.

..and look what we found:


'til next time,
-Benson|| Twitter || Facebook || 365. || Shop of Imagination ||