sfmoma

The Story of How Top Photographers Posed for Baseball Cards in 1974

In the mid-1970s, 134 of the top photographers and curators in the world of photography posed for an unusual set of baseball cards that now sell for thousands of dollars as a complete set. The SF Museum of Modern Art just released this 4-minute video in which photographer Mike Mandel shares the story of how these cards came to be.

Photog Cribs: A Tour of Michael Jang’s Home Studio in San Francisco

Here's a 2-minute video by SFMOMA that offers a tour of photographer Michael Jang's home and studio in San Francisco. Jang, who has had many works acquired for the SFMOMA collection, has an incredible body of work that includes portraits of everyone ranging from the Ramones and Jimi Hendrix to Robin Williams.

The Emperor’s New Photographs: Are Appropriated Street View Shots Art?

The debate rages on: should appropriated Google Street View photographs be considered art? There are quite a few artists and photographers out there who think it should be. Photographer Michael Wolf was awarded Honorable Mention for his curated screenshots at the World Press Photo 2011. Photographer Aaron Hobson takes screenshots and turns them into gorgeous panoramic photos. Jon Rafman's screenshots were picked for an exhibition at London's Saatchi Gallery.

Now here's another case that might cause a lot more head-scratching: photographer Doug Rickard's Street View screenshots have been selected for the permanent collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

State of the Art: Is Photography Over?

Here are the recordings of all the "Is Photography Over?" panel sessions hosted by SFMOMA that we referred to earlier today:

Photography has almost always been in crisis. In the beginning, the terms of this crisis were cast as dichotomies: is photography science or art? Nature or technology? Representation or truth? This questioning has intensified and become more complicated over the intervening years. At times, the issues have required a profound rethinking of what photography is, does, and means. This is one of those times. Given the nature of contemporary art practice, the condition of visual culture, the advent of new technologies, and many other factors, what is at stake today in seeing something as a photograph? What is the value of continuing to speak of photography as a specific practice or discipline? Is photography over? [#]

The videos run a total of 5 hours altogether, so you'll need to set aside a good amount of time to chew through the talks. You can also find transcripts of the sessions and more information about the experts here.