talks-erly

This talk by long-time art critic for "The New Yorker" Peter Schjeldahl was presented on April 7, 2005, as part of SFMOMA’s Phyllis Wattis Distinguished Lecture Series in conjunction with the exhibition "Robert Bechtle: A Retrospective." Reflecting on Bechtle's use of photographs as the basis for his paintings, Schjeldahl remarks: "he takes something that has absolutely no intention—the light that hits a piece of film—and makes it be on purpose, specifies it and takes it visually to a level that you can’t get to in a photo." Schjeldahl also offers poetic meditations on the implications of photorealism, parallels between Bechtle's work and that of American realist painter Edward Hopper, and the place of painting in the history of narrative. 

SFMOMA has a rich history of inviting artists, curators, and scholars to participate in live programming. While our building is closed for expansion we will be bringing you artist talks, scholarly lectures, and panel discussions that have not been heard since they were recorded. We look forward to sharing our vast Public Programs Archive with you, and we hope you will return often to see what else we’ve dug up.

SFMOMA's Public Programs Archive: soundcloud.com/tags/public%20programs%20archive


Public Programs Archive: Peter Schjeldahl: The Story of the Image (April 7, 2005)

Stephen Vitiello: Water, from Tetrasomia, 2000, artist web project commissioned by Dia Art Foundation at diaart.org/vitiello

Kent Monkman on the Hudson River School

Poetry &: Firespitter, a Jayne Cortez Celebration

Layli Long Soldier: Buffalo-Hide Painting and the Exquisite Endurance of Collective Memory

Tehching Hsieh, Adrian Heathfield, and Humberto Moro, with Special Guest Linda Montano

Tiona Nekkia McClodden on Melvin Edwards

Senga Nengudi: Populated Air Book Launch

Sam Gilliam Award Program: A Conversation with Sheela Gowda and Rattanamol Singh Johal

Wednesday, December 10, 2025
6:30 pm

Dia Chelsea 
537 West 22nd Street 
New York, New York 

Simon Leung was born in Hong Kong in1964. Since the 1990s, Leung has used the squatting body to create projects that engage in concepts of nationalism, property, labor, identity, and protest in the public space. Working across video, performance, sculpture, drawing, critical theory, fiction, and opera, Leung often links his work to context-specific sites, notably Hong Kong, Berlin, and Los Angeles. Recent presentations include the group exhibitions Another Beautiful Country, the Pacific Asia Museum, Pasadena (2024); Scratching at the Moon, Institute of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2024); and Countering Time, Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong (2024–25); as well as My Friend the War, a performance with Jim Fletcher at Cabinet, Brooklyn (2022). Leung teaches at the University of California, Irvine, where he is a professor of art, Asian American studies, and critical theory.

Simon Leung on Tehching Hsieh

Poetry &: it’s an honor to be here, here I am an honor to be: a mad man with Funto Omojola

Artists on Artists Lecture Series
Jim Hodges on Joseph Beuys
December 10, 2007

Artists on Artists Lecture Series - Jim Hodges on Joseph Beuys

Artists on Artists Lecture Series
Gary Simmons on Bruce Nauman
March 14, 2005

Artists on Artists Lecture Series - Gary Simmons on Bruce Nauman

Artists on Artists Lecture Series
William Kentridge on Bruce Nauman
Thursday, December 19, 2002

Artists on Artists Lecture Series - William Kentridge on Bruce Nauman

Mark Dion – Talk at Mildred’s Lane 28th July, 2012

Introduced by Marissa Benedict, Mildred’s Lane Fellow on The Alchemist’s Shack II and recipient of the Sisters Crow Adept Scholarship Fund, this talk by Mark Dion covers some of his “botanically-related” projects including Systema Metropolis (2007) and his recent commission for Documenta 13 (2012).

Systema Metropolis (2007) takes its name from Carl Von Linnaeus’s Systema Naturae (1735) - a founding text in the history of zoological and botanic nomenclature as it introduced the Linnaean system of classification to the natural world. Whilst Linnaeus’ task was to unearth and fix a taxonomy of biological life for the entire universe Systema Metropolis aimed - through collaborations between Dion and the Natural History Museum in London -  to explore a taxonomy of biological life in the microcosmic universe of the city of London.  Systema Metropolis used both traditional Linnaen approaches of comparative anatomy and contemporary systematic methodologies (which often involve grinding down a specimen to analyse its DNA structure) in order to analyse, categorize and present the project’s findings. 

The second project Dion describes – his commissioned piece for Documenta 13 - embarked from the legacy of another important figure from the history of zoology and botanical taxonomy: Carl Schildbach and his dioramic zylotech books (which Dion first came across in the natural history museum in Kassel during a break from Documenta 10). These books, originally made for the Gentry collectors of the time, were intended as an alternative to the pressed plant herbariums of the time and each book intended as a literal embodiment the tree which it represented. For Documenta 13 Dion set out on a similar project of creating zylotech books which would represent the trees of the different continents he was working across. The final work presented a complex portrait of shifting nature as well as a critique of taxonomy as a conditioned (and subjective) system of knowledge which codifies and classifies the world, dividing nature into discrete groups as a basis for typology and understanding.

Recorded on location in the barn at Mildred’s Lane, Pennsylvania the talk is punctuated by the chitter of cicadas, the infrequent pop of a beer bottle and the occasional bat squeek.

For more information on the projects please see http://markdionsbartramstravels.pcah.us/

Or visit the Mildred’s Lane website http://www.mildredslane.com/ 



Artists on Artists Lecture Series - Gary Simmons on Bruce Nauman

diaartfoundation

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