Floor 5: 5th Floor Landing (exiting Elevators)
Overview
Gallery Wayfinding
You are at the 5th Floor Landing.
This floor has 10 galleries organized in a long rectangular layout. You are currently at the short end. Facing the 5th floor tactile map, along the same wall as the map, to the right, is the exhibition title and graphic. The entrance to the galleries is also to the right, along with more text about the exhibition. The elevators and a sculpture by Sol LeWitt are behind you.
With your back to the elevators, the entrance to the main galleries is in front of you and to your right. The entrance to the Alexander Calder Gallery and a video about the artist is also to your right, farther away at the end of the landing. The QR code is at the threshold on the right wall, marked with a perpendicular tactile floor strip.
Label
Line, Form, Color was the title that twenty-eight-year-old Ellsworth Kelly (1923–2015) gave to a proposed book project in 1951 (later published in 1999), which he described as “an alphabet of plastic pictorial elements.” This floor is dedicated to the work of Kelly and two other leading twentieth-century US artists, Alexander Calder (1898–1976) and Sol LeWitt (1928–2007), all of whom explored essential elements of line, form, and color.
Their work emerged from varied starting points, from modern abstraction in 1930s Paris (Calder) to the reaction against modernism in1960s New York (LeWitt). Kelly—who spent formative years in Paris after World War II and befriended Calder there—occupied something of a middle position. Despite these differences, we can see unexpected affinities: Kelly and LeWitt both made work consisting of repeating elements, while many of Calder’s mobiles are composed of similar, if always slightly varying, units. Each artist engaged architecture and real space, whether projecting or suspending sculptures from walls and ceilings (Calder), making multi-panel and shaped paintings that turn the wall into a ground (Kelly), or conceiving ephemeral wall drawings (LeWitt). All three also opened their artworks to external elements, from passing air currents (Calder), to found forms and processes guided by chance (Kelly), to allowing the interpretation of their instructions by different drafts people at changing sites (LeWitt).
These parallel presentations of Calder, Kelly, and LeWitt demonstrate how each artist radically innovated by investigating art's basic building blocks. In the adjoining Co-Lab on this floor, visitors of all ages can explore some of these concepts hands-on.
Gamynne Guillotte
Chief Education and Public Engagement Officer
Ted Mann
Project Assistant Curator, Fisher Collection
Visionary support for Reimagined: The Fisher Collection at 10 is provided by Fisher Art Foundation.
Lead support is provided by Penny S. and James G. Coulter, Mimi and Peter Haas Fund, and Diana Nelson and John Atwater.
Presenting support is provided by Dana and Bob Emery. Major support is provided by Katie Hall and Tom Knutsen. Significant support is provided by Concepción S. and Irwin Federman, Alexandria and Kevin Marchetti, and Deborah and Kenneth Novack.
Meaningful support is provided by Alka and Ravin Agrawal, Sabrina Buell and Yves Béhar, Nancy and Alan Schatzberg, and Susan Swig.
Label
"How can art be realized?
Out of volumes, motion, spaces bounded by the great space, the universe . . .
Spaces, volumes . . . juxtaposed, pierced by vectors, crossed by speeds.
Nothing at all of this is fixed.
Each element able to move, to stir, to oscillate, to come and go in its relationships with the other elements in its universe."
—Alexander Calder, 1932
"Sculpture has become . . . an aerial act," wrote an enthusiastic critic in 1929 about the work of Alexander Calder (born 1898, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; died 1976, New York). Although this observation was prompted by Calder's early, figurative wire sculptures, it could just as well describe the hanging "mobiles" the artist began creating in the early 1930s. In these extraordinary constructions, carefully counterbalanced elements move with passing air currents. Sculpture had traditionally meant solid, unmoving forms, but through these and other works, Calder transformed the medium into an art of lightness, space, motion, and time.
The works on view in this gallery span from the late 1920s, when Calder was a young artist in Paris, to 1976, the year of his death, and include a variety of mobiles alongside other standing and wall-mounted works that testify to his restless invention.
Calder's work combines a lasting interest in the physical forms of the natural world with a talent for experimentation. Using mostly simple tools (shears and pliers) and modest materials (wire, painted sheet metal, paint, wood), Calder produced dynamic and energetic compositions of color, shape, movement, and sometimes even sound.
Related Media
Artwork Label Text
Alexander Calder in the studio with his son.
Excerpt from Works of Calder (1950).
Produced by New World Film Productions for the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Directed and cinematography by Herbert Matter; produced and narrated by Burgess Meredith; music by John Cage.
Digitized 16mm color film, with sound, 3:18 min.
Transcript
Narrator:
Today, this boy went to the beach. It was a sunny, windy day, and he was alone; he wandered about and investigated, and the wind made everything move.
He found some jellyfish, and under the water they were moving, too. So was the water, and the milkweed, and the sun.
Then he walked and came to a place with big glass windows. There was a lot of noise going on inside. When he looked in, he saw a house full of things that moved.
There was a man in there, very busy. He was making the noise—hammering and banging, and scraping and bending things into shape.
The boy asked the man why he was doing that. The man said he enjoyed doing so. He explained that the things he made were called “mobiles” because they move by themselves.
“The mobiles were made out of everything,” he said: tin, wood, steel, and wire. He made them by himself. He worked hard, as though in a factory, but the things came out different.
Sometimes they moved all around him, and he enjoyed that. It was like having his own private sky.
The boy watched them so long he got rather dreamy. And the things he saw in the house, and the things he had seen outside, got mixed up together in his head. The man said that was what they were supposed to do.
He said everybody saw something different, after all, depending on the way they looked at the mobiles. Only the mobiles were exactly what they were and nothing else. He hammered and bent, and cut them and fixed them, so that they would move.
Label
This exhibition was designed to welcome the widest possible audience, and this screen-reader friendly website was built specifically with our low-vision and blind visitors in mind. Please enjoy the following features to help you navigate and engage with the exhibition:
- Each floor has a welcome panel that contains a Braille introduction and tactile map of the floor.
- All videos have open captions.
- Throughout the exhibition spaces, there are tactile floor strips that extend perpendicular from the wall, between galleries and at specific touch points. When you encounter a floor strip, that means there is a tactile QR code on the wall within arm’s length. Scanning this QR code on your personal device takes you to a screen reader friendly website that contains all exhibition text, visual descriptions for all artworks and galleries, guided tactile descriptions for touch objects accompanying select artworks, guided tactile descriptions for tactile maps located to the right of each introductory panel, and transcripts for all videos.
Helpful Links:
- Are you curious about what this website is and other accessibility considerations we've built into this reinstallation? Check out this FAQ to learn more.
- Certain galleries and artwork might have audio stops associated with them, which will be indicated by a 3-digit audio callout number on the wall. You can navigate to our Audio Guide Search, also located at the top of this navigation bar, to look up the stop number and listen on your personal device.
Label
Floor 5
- Calder, Kelly, Lewitt: Fundamentals of Form
- Olafur Eliasson: One-Way Color Tunnel
- Co-Lab: Hands-on Activity Space
- Cafe 5 + Sculpture Garden
- Bay Area Walls: David Huffman
Tactile Description
Map Overview
This tactile map shows Floor 5 of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. It has two primary regions. On your left is the legend oriented vertically and surrounded by a rough-dotted rectangular outline. On your right is the map of the museum, outlined in thin, smooth, double lines.
Legend
Start in the bottom left corner and find the dashed rectangle outline. Inside, at the top left, is the Braille word “Legend.”
This legend has five symbols and one pattern. Each symbol marks a point of interest. Each pattern marks an area.
- The solid five-pointed star means “You Are Here”
- Two stacked triangles pointing up and down mean elevators
- A zigzag line means stairs
- Two Braille r’s in a dashed line box mean the restrooms
- A water droplet means a water fountain
- Grid of small dots means “Floor Below”
How to Read the Map
The map to your right is made up of two main irregularly shaped rectangular spaces joined together near the bottom. The space on your left is shorter and narrower. The space on your right is longer and wider, with its left wall slightly jutting outward and an extension in the lower area on your right.
Double lines identify the building’s exterior walls, and single lines identify interior walls. When a wall stops and starts again, it marks an entrance or exit.
Each main room has a Braille label inside.
The areas labeled “Galleries” consist of many galleries that occasionally change depending on the current exhibition. The internal walls for the galleries are not depicted tactiley or visually on this map.
Map
This map shows two gallery areas, elevators, staircases, restrooms, water fountains, two Sculpture Terraces, and a restaurant.
Let’s find the five-pointed star, which signifies, “You Are Here.”
In the legend, find the pattern of small dots pattern meaning “Floor Below”. Move to the right, past the arrow pointing north and past the Sculpture Terrace, until you reach the grid of small dots pattern. From there, move up the map, past a short flight of stairs on your left, until you find the five-pointed star. Use this as your starting point to explore the map.
Starting at the star, the elevators are directly below it and slightly to your right. Moving up from the elevators, you will find a break in a horizontal interior wall marking the entrance to an area with galleries. Find the label, “Galleries,” then move to your right until you reach the exterior wall. Follow this wall up until you reach a section that juts out to your right. Inside that space is a water fountain.
From the water fountain, move left across the gallery area until you reach a vertical interior wall. This wall runs vertically along the length of the gallery space and has multiple breaks. Continue left until you reach the exterior wall. Follow it down until you reach a staircase icon that leads up to Floor 6. Continue down the map until you reach a second staircase icon that leads down to Floor 4.
Continue down from the staircase until you reach a horizontal wall. You are now back in the general area where you started. The five-pointed star is to your right. Move to your right, past the star, until you reach a vertical interior wall. Beyond that is another area with galleries. Up the map from the galleries is a women’s restroom and a water fountain. Down the map from the galleries is a men’s restroom and a water fountain. Continuing to your right past the gallery area is a round staircase down to Floor 4.
Let’s explore the rest of the museum to your left. Moving to your left, retrace your path back to the star. From the star, move down and slightly to your left over the short flight of stairs to the lower level of Floor 5. After the stairs, move to your left through a narrow hallway until you reach the Restaurant. Up and down the map from the restaurant are the two Sculpture Terraces. Moving to your left, through the restaurant, is a women’s restroom. Above that is a water fountain and a men’s restroom.
Objects
1 object in the order you'll encounter them from this entrance. Select an object to view details.
Artwork Label Text
1989
Painted wood
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1990
Visual Description
A painted-wood structure hangs from the ceiling as a white, open lattice form that narrows dramatically as it descends. From the ceiling to its bottom edge, the work is eleven feet tall—nearly spanning the full height of the room itself. The structure is built from many small, repeating, open-cube modules with thin, square-edge bars uniformly painted matte white. The units are stacked and offset so the overall mass starts as a four-by-seven-cube rectangular volume at the top—a section affixed to the ceiling—and steps inward in an irregular, cascading taper until it reaches a single cube at the bottom.
Throughout the sculpture's length, small sections protrude outward like short, cantilevered ledges as the form resumes its downward contraction. The repeated squares create dense interior layers of crisscrossing lines, giving the top a heavier, more complex visual density that becomes less layered and more skeletal toward the bottom. There is a white rectangular museum platform on the floor underneath the structure.