SFMOMA
L'Embarras des Richesses
The Photography of Jon Rendell

SFMOMA -L'Embarras des Richess  | The Photography of Jon Rendell | Scene4 Magazine | June 2016  www.scene4.com

Mario Botta's original building still intact on 3rd Street
with the bold white Snøhetta addition peering over the top of it

Founded in 1935 as the first West Coast museum devoted to modern and contemporary art, a thoroughly transformed San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), features significantly enhanced gallery, education and public spaces. With six art-filled terraces, a new sculptural staircase and Roman steps where the public can gather, access to 45,000 square feet of free art-filled public space and free admission for visitors age 18 and younger, SFMOMA is more welcoming than ever before.

The museum has grown to 460,000 square feet. SFMOMA is now one of the largest modern art museums in the world. This includes 145,000 feet of interior gallery space, 20,000 feet more than the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the second largest. Previous to its expansion, SFMOMA had approximately 69,000 feet of exhibition space.

SFMOMA re-opened on May 14, 2016 following its three-year expansion with 19 inaugural exhibitions It underwent a grand transformation to add a 10-story expansion designed by international architecture firm Snøhetta that nearly triples its gallery space, allowing the museum to show more of its exceptional collection of modern and contemporary art. The Snøhetta-designed ten-storey addition houses the Fisher collection-1,100 pieces on 100-year loan, including works by artists such as: Ellsworth Kelly, Roy Lichtenstein, Joan Mitchell, Chuck Close, Agnes Martin, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, and Gerhard Richter. The distinctive, wavelike façade is composed of fiberglass panels, each formed as one-quarter-inch thick panels - their form includes local sand from Monterey Bay.

As a photographer, I am delighted that SFMOMA now boasts the largest exhibit space devoted to photography in the U.S. SFMOMA has more exhibition space dedicated to photography than the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Ten percent of total gallery space in the new SFMOMA museum is reserved for photographic works.

"Photography is one of the foundations on which this house is built … we want to set it up as the equal of painting here," - Director Neal Benezra said of the new museum.

The ground-floor gallery is free to the public. Richard Serra's monumental 214 ton sculpture Sequence anchors the new building in place.

"We wanted to integrate the museum with the South of Market landscape and the alleys and streets …the fact that we have a big glass wall on Howard Street means that even if you don't have time to come in, you can have a glimpse," says Deputy Museum Director Ruth Berson.

The new museum is an exciting conduit that will allow us all to fully explore the future of art this century.

Visit SFMOMA.org onine.

SFMOMA -L'Embarras des Richess  | The Photography of Jon Rendell | Scene4 Magazine | June 2016  www.scene4.com

The new addition designed by Snøhetta can best be viewed from the Howard St entrance.

 

 

SFMOMA -L'Embarras des Richess  | The Photography of Jon Rendell | Scene4 Magazine | June 2016  www.scene4.com

A balcony on the new Snøhetta addition

 

 

SFMOMA -L'Embarras des Richess  | The Photography of Jon Rendell | Scene4 Magazine | June 2016  www.scene4.com

Joel Shapiro's sculpture (Untitled) appears to be in hot pursuit of a museumgoer

 

 

SFMOMA -L'Embarras des Richess  | The Photography of Jon Rendell | Scene4 Magazine | June 2016  www.scene4.com

One of the museum's unique features is its living wall located on the third floor terrace.
It accommodates over 19,000 plants, including 21 species native to California

 

 

SFMOMA -L'Embarras des Richess  | The Photography of Jon Rendell | Scene4 Magazine | June 2016  www.scene4.com

Visitors can travel between floors via naturally lit stairwells modeled after those built into the hills of San Francisco. Window seats and balconies break up the viewing experience

 

 

SFMOMA -L'Embarras des Richess  | The Photography of Jon Rendell | Scene4 Magazine | June 2016  www.scene4.com

A child barrels down the Roman Steps towards Richard Serra's "Sequence". Director Neal Benezra has earmarked this large lobby fronting Howard Street for new art. "Once the Fishers' 214-ton Richard Serra sculpture is removed in a couple of years, it will become our version of Turbine Hall." Mr Benezra was of course, referring to London's Tate Modern's vast and enormously flexible Turbine Hall exhibition space

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Scene4 Magazine - Jon Rendell

Jon Rendell was born into an auteur/photog family in Melbourne, Australia. He was always captivated by shadows and finds himself hard-wired to focusing on the transitory, abstract shapes that come and go with the available light.
Visit his website: www.jonrendell.com. See his Blog.
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©2016 Jon Rendell
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