Thomas Arthur Schaefer

San Francisco has been pretty fun, but the highlight of this trip was my visit to the SFMOMA yesterday. There were a few pieces that are in the collection that were not on display which made me kinda upset. One of them being a Gerhard Richter painting I've wanted to see for ages... but all in all I was pretty happy. Especially with the selection of Rauschenberg works that were on display... including the Erased De Kooning Drawing from Bob's White Series. It was really interesting especially since they had the tiny work displayed right next to one of his large Black Paintings. I walked through the whole museum... skipping through most of the photo exhibit only stopping to look at a John Baldessari and a Mike Kelley work, but came back to the Rauschenberg works a total of 3 times and spent a good 2 hours looking at just 4 or 5 of his works.

I was also very excited to finally get to see an On Kawara date painting. They are so damned impressive in person, especially if you understand the technical mastery that goes into each one of those pieces. I think I stared at that piece for a good 20 minutes. After I walked away I noticed a puzzled security guard walk over to the work to see what I was doing there forever... only to see him shake his head in non-knowingness.

They had a really nice collection of Paul Klee drawing on display as well. But the odd work that most people were looking at me funny for was the unmarked Matthew Barney performance piece that was neatly hidden from view if you didn't know what to look for. There were a number of people who came to where I was standing and asked me what in the world I was looking at after they couldn't see it over a number of minutes on their own. The first thing I noticed was a drawing scrawled high up in a remote corner of the lobby ceiling... my eyes then trained on rope, climbing clips that trailed across the ceiling and flowing back to a set of white rock climbing pegs and ending at a hidden pile of vaseline with a small white object in it. It was total Barney... I was just surprised to find that there were no call outs to the piece. No place cards nothing... thats why people were looking at me so strange I guess. I was a nice find on my part I thought.

The Lebbeus Woods works blew me away... I wasn't familiar with this artist/architect. I was so inspired by the (6) drawings fabrication. The Richard Tuttle work was very inspirational as well. I haven't seen too much outside of books and watching him work in videos. I think besides seeing more Rauschenberg works up close... these 2 guys left the biggest impression on me in terms of how to complete some of my works that are in production.

Richard Prince - Untitled (Cowboy) [1991-1992]