sfmoma elevates climbing art

on monday i had the awesome opportunity to visit san francisco's museum of modern art. what i found there left me inspired.

as a photographer who aspires to create strong climbing-influenced art i often struggle with the results of my efforts. i've wondered: is it possible to make images that rise above the specificity of the athletic climbing experience?

an installation and a painting series at the sfmoma answered my question.

as you round the third floor staircase at the sfmoma you encounter a 6' tall triptych by german painter antje majewski. this photorealistic painting series, entitled bergsteiger (the mountain climbers), depicts a group of rock climbers from poland.

from the artist's website:

"the size and the thematic recall the "manly heroism" of both nazi and communist paintings, but my mountain climbers are very normal people, nice guys with soft beards whose nationality isn't obvious. they could be polish, german or czech. their mountain climbing in the peculiar soft rock formations of the stolowe mountains isn't heroic at all; no new race or state is built, nothing more is at stake then a leisurely afternoon.


i tried find a way around the history of how "naturalistic" painting had been used by both national socialist and communist regimes, and i found that it can be done very well just in the way a deeply compromised scene like that of men struggling against the mountains is painted."


the other piece of climbing-inspired art that i came across at the sfmoma sits high inside the building's atrium. this installation/performance project was created by matthew barney (random aside - barney is romantically entangled with bjork) and is part of the artist's drawing restraint project. what you see in the atrium is a series of pencil sketches and words that barney created while suspended in space with a climbing rope, a series of carabiners and slings.

these two projects show us that inspiration for art can be found anywhere. and that climbing, with its large palette of physical, thematic, and aesthetic possibility, makes for some great creative inspiration.