Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/666019
culturedmag.com 185 The Roberts Family Gallery is dedicated to Richard Serra's Sequence (2006) and is free to the public. part of the new SFMOMA's mission to be both properly international but also responsive to the California cultural community. One quintessential Bay Area show will be "Typeface to Interface," an exhibition inspired by a large gift of modern design from Aaron Marcus, a graphic designer and teacher. SFMOMA started its design department in the late 1980s just before the mass adoption of computers. "Digital tools have impacted every aspect of the discipline," explains Jennifer Dunlop Fletcher, curator of architecture and design, "so we were fortunate to be founded then." Nowadays, aspiring designers are flooding the Bay Area in the hope of working with the advanced engineering of firms like Apple and Google. "With design, I think of Southern California as owning that mid-20th-century moment," declares Dunlop Fletcher. "But we've got a hold on the beginning of the 21st century and are well positioned for the next 50 years." A series of commissioned performances will not start until the autumn because people's attention will be focused, as Dominic Willsdon, curator of education and public practice, quips, "on the blinding presence of the museum as object." With a remit that includes "live encounters" and "experiences of the communal," Willsdon is particularly excited about three spaces in the new museum—the renovated Phyllis Wattis Theater, the greatly expanded Koret Visitor Education Center and a brand-new "white box," a large double-height room that will be a home for performance art. Willsdon loves the "incredible collegial atmosphere" of SFMOMA, which he attributes to the absence of a chief curator. "We don't have turf wars," he says. "People have their different specialized areas but because we're all post- medium now, we have a model of working together. Things happen because alliances are formed." Benezra sees interdepartmental alliances as a key to their future success. "The best artists are pursuing the best ideas regardless of the medium," he explains. "So our curators need to think outside the box of their particular medium." And even though the museum has yet to open its doors, Benezra is already discouraging his curators from resting on their laurels. "I don't want anyone to become too comfortable," he declares. "We have to push forward ambitiously into contemporary art, and when I say contemporary art, I mean really contemporary art."