The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) is doing something that I find to be an entertaining, inspirational, time-waster.
Text 572-51 with the words “send me” followed by a keyword, a color, or even an emoji and you’ll receive a related artwork image and caption via text message from the SFMOMA. For example text, “Send me fishing” to 572-51 and you will receive a return message containing a picture of something in SFMOMA’s collection. When I did it, I received this image from Paul Strand:
‘The Nets, Janitzio, Lake Pátzcuaro, Mexico’, 1933
When I texted, “Send me baseball” to 572-51, I received an image by Bill Owens, ‘Three boys watching, from the portfolio Leisure’, ca. 1960’s-ca.1980’s, printed 2001
SFMOMA says that their collection is so large, they can only exhibit around 5% of it at any one time so in an effort for transparency and longing to share their collection with the world, they’ve come up with this text messaging system so we can enjoy art at our leisure.
I’ve found that around 80% of the art I get from my queries are photographs. Give it a try, see what you get!
