SFMOMA Acquires 85 Artworks by Nan Goldin, Ruth Asawa, and Others

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has announced the acquisition of approximately 85 modern and contemporary works of art, ranging from paintings and sculptures to new media and photography. Some of the most notable names include Ruth Asawa (whose retrospective is currently at the Museum of Modern Art and debuted at SFMOMA last spring), Nan Goldin, Kay WalkingStick, Yoshitomo Nara, Dorothea Lange, and Eugene Atget.

SFMOMA Director Christopher Bedford noted in a statement that all the new additions, “whether photographs or paintings, ceramics or fibers, designs or digital media… demonstrate the relevance of art to a better understanding of our world and each other.” Bedford said the new artworks “will further the museum’s goal of telling a broader, more inclusive story about the arts of our time.”

To this end, SFMOMA acquired several artworks by leading Aboriginal artists, including WalkingStick, Raven Chacon, Jaune Quick-to-See Smith and Cannupa Hanska Luger. Ruger’s video Mirror Shield Project: River (Water Snake) Documented a 2016 performance at a camp near Standing Rock, North Dakota, involving mirrored shields; Chacon’s sound installation storm patternIn 2021, also inspired by the Standing Rock resistance movement.

Chacon’s installations, videos by Gerald Clark and Luger, and Palestinian artist Samia Halaby’s dynamic digital kinetic paintings from the late 1980s will be on display on the first floor of the museum starting January 24.

Some new works have been gifted (such as Yoshitomo Nara’s polyurethane-coated bronze sculptures) The taller sister Heping2024, by Maria and Tim Blum), while other works such as Sheila Hicks’ soft sculpture Rempart, 2016, photos by Goldin Lola model on the other side of Boston1972, and paintings by Lenore Chin family1991, acquired through the Museum’s sale funds.