Floor 6: Objects of Memory (exiting Traces of History)
Overview
Gallery Wayfinding
You are in the Objects of Memory Gallery. The walls of this gallery are painted a deep charcoal gray, creating a contemplative atmosphere. The gallery lighting is somewhat dimmed and each piece is gently spotlit from lights on the ceiling.
You've entered from the left corner of the back wall of the wide, rectangular gallery, facing the long, far front wall. Works are installed around the space. Four pieces are freestanding, while the others are wall-mounted. Two of the freestanding pieces—Persistent Antagonism and Woman with Packages, both by Louise Bourgeois—are grouped together on the same low rectangular platform.
On the right wall, please also note that there is a wall-mounted sculpture positioned four feet off the ground that protrudes two feet from the wall. It occasionally produces a dissonant sound.
Louise Bourgeois's large sculpture Spider is featured predominantly in the center of the room. Please note that there are no cautionary rails or barriers around Spider, as it is positioned directly on the floor. We recommend walking around the edges of the gallery to avoid bumping into Spider.
The exit to the 6th Floor Landing is in the center of the back wall. The QR code is at the threshold on the right wall, marked with a perpendicular tactile floor strip.
Label
From cherished family heirlooms to archaeological artifacts, physical objects have always served as connections to the past, preserving or sparking recollections of people, places, and events. In this gallery, artists draw upon the power of things to embody memories. Salvaged material retains a residue of its former life in the works of Louise Nevelson and Jannis Kounellis. Absent bodies are gestured toward by Rebecca Horn’s melancholy self-playing violins and Louise Bourgeois’s totem-like Personages. Childhood memories are summoned through familiar objects made strange via transformations in material and scale, as in Bourgeois’s giant spiders and Robert Therrien's abstracted snowman and coffin. As you walk through this gallery, consider the ordinary objects that hold powerful associations for you.
Objects
11 objects in the order you'll encounter them from this entrance. Select an object to view details.
Artwork Label Text
1995, cast 1996
Bronze
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1996
Visual Description
A bronze sculpture of a spider—scaled up to a size that is similar to a large dog—is set high on a gallery wall, about ten feet from the floor, and appears as though it is scaling the wall. Its eight splayed legs radiate from its compact body. The metal has a dark, near-black patina with subtle highlights on ridges and edges, giving the surface of the spider a slightly glossy sheen in places.
The spider's legs are elongated and uneven, modeled with rough, textured contours and knobby joints. Several legs taper to fine points while others end in small, rounded tips or hooked curves. The body is divided into two main sections—an elongated abdomen and a smaller front segment, above—both with a shallow central groove and irregular surfaces that show tool marks and variations in thickness. The spider is positioned at a slight angle so that it is climbing up and to the left. It is spotlit from above and casts shadows on the wall behind and below it.
Though the spider is greatly enlarged from life-size, it appears small in comparison to Louise Bourgeois's giant, eleven-foot tall Spider (1995) that is installed on the floor nearby.
Artwork Label Text
1995
Steel
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1995
Looming menacingly at over ten feet tall yet delicately balanced on its spindly legs, Spider projects both strength and vulnerability. Beginning in the mid-1990s, Bourgeois created a number of bronze and steel spiders at various sizes, ranging from the intimate to the monumental. She was drawn to the creature in part because it reminded her of her mother, a master weaver who restored antique tapestries. Bourgeois regarded the female spider, like her mother, as clever, hardworking, and fiercely protective of her children. "If you bash into the web of a spider," Bourgeois observed, "she doesn’t get mad. She weaves and repairs it."
Visual Description
A large-scale steel sculpture of a massive, spider-like creature standing tall on eight elongated legs towers over visitors at eleven feet tall—about the combined height of two adults. The forms legs radiate outward fifteen feet—about the length of the average car—in a wide, arched stance. The metal surface is dark brown with a weathered, mottled patina, and the legs are constructed from irregular, jointed segments that look twisted and slightly knotted.
Several legs taper into sharp, pointed tips that touch the ground, while one leg curves in a long, sweeping arc before narrowing to a fine point. Near the center, one of the legs curls up into a thin, hook-like talon under the body. The compact torso is made of layered, ribbed plates and rounded forms, with a suggestion of a head at the top front: two small, rounded protrusions read as eyes, and the upper portion is capped by a fan-like cluster of vertical ridges. The gallery lighting casts shadows of the spider's legs across the floor beneath and around the form.
Artwork Label Text
1949, cast 1990
Painted bronze, edition 2/6
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1997
[These] pieces were presences—missed, badly missed presences. ... It was a tangible way of re-creating a missed past. — Louise Bourgeois, 1976
These pillar-like structures belong to a group of approximately eighty works that Bourgeois called Personages. She carved the life-size sculptures in wood between 1945 and 1955 and later cast them in bronze. For Bourgeois, they were abstract surrogates for the family and friends that she left behind in France after emigrating to New York. Like individuals, each of the Personages has its own unique character and qualities: Woman with Packages, with its hanging forms, could be referencing the burdens of motherhood, while the spear-like shape of Persistent Antagonism suggests violence or perhaps isolation.
Visual Description
A mostly matte white-painted, slim bronze sculpture—about the height of a short adult, but far narrower—rises from a thin, square, gray metal base.
The form is smooth and tapers slightly, with a rounded top that contains a cut out rectangular space in which an elongated ovular form is set. The edges of the ovular form, and the space in which it sits, is painted a subtle shade of powder blue, giving the sense that the form is glowing slightly from within. A narrow, U-shaped inset extends down beneath the oval form, giving the impression that this area has been carved away.
Around the midsection, several curved appendages that are attached to the sides of the narrow form and extend outward. They are teardrop-like shapes that are wide and rounded at the bottom and narrow at the top. To our left, there is one sole large and thick white appendage. To our right, there are two appendages: one is a smaller white shape that lies flush against the tall central form, and the other is a much larger, glossy black appendage that is attached to the small white one and also protrudes away from it.
The lower portion of the form narrows into a long, tapered shape that meets the base at a rounded point. The gray base of the piece sits on a low rectangular museum platform set along a charcoal gray wall. The piece itself is positioned about two feet in front of the wall, and the narrow form cast shadows onto the wall under the gallery lighting.
The piece stands next to the sculpture Persistent Antagonism, also by Louise Bourgeois.
Artwork Label Text
1946–48, cast 1989
Painted bronze, edition 1/6
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1997
These pillar-like structures belong to a group of approximately eighty works that Bourgeois called Personages. She carved the life-size sculptures in wood between 1945 and 1955 and later cast them in bronze. For Bourgeois, they were abstract surrogates for the family and friends that she left behind in France after emigrating to New York. Like individuals, each of the Personages has its own unique character and qualities: Woman with Packages, with its hanging forms, could be referencing the burdens of motherhood, while the spear-like shape of Persistent Antagonism suggests violence or perhaps isolation.
Visual Description
A narrow, painted, vertical wood sculpture—similar in height to a short adult, but far narrower—contains two distinct sections: a white upper third portion and a black lower two-thirds portion. The form is an elongated, tapering column with a slightly irregular and textured surface. The upper section, which is painted matte white, widens from a rounded point at the very top and pinches in toward the bottom two-thirds section, which bears a glossy black surface.
At the top of this section, a tight, collar-like band encircles the shaft. A metal cable threads through the form and drapes along the front. Strung from this cable are eight thin, drooping elements that hang downward in a small cluster, creating a small, spiky skirt around the neck of the form. Below this skirt is the lower portion of the form, which is slightly bisected horizontally, narrowing the form as it tapers toward the floor.
On the front side of the form there is a column of twelve one-inch, horizontal row-like score marks. This lower portion narrows to a small point, where the sculpture connects to a square black plinth. The plinth sits on a low rectangular museum platform painted charcoal gray. The piece itself is positioned about two feet in front of a charcoal gray wall, and the narrow form casts shadows onto the wall under the gallery lighting.
The piece stands next to the sculpture Woman with Packages, also by Louise Bourgeois.
Artwork Label Text
1996
Violins, violin bows, stones, and electric motor
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1997
Every few minutes a series of jarring wails is produced as automated arms move the bows of these two violins. The sculpture is related to several large-scale installations by Horn from the 1980s and 1990s featuring motorized violins or other instruments. In one permanent installation in Münster, Germany, mechanical hammers strike the walls of an abandoned tower that the Gestapo (Nazi secret police) used as a prison and execution site. Horn does not disclose where the masonry stones in this work came from, but there is the suggestion that the violins are giving voice to the traumatic memories of some site.
Visual Description
A motorized sculpture with an acoustic element features two violins that are periodically played by a set of robotic arms. The work consists of two full-size, slightly weathered violins with horsehair bows and three rough-cut masonry (ashlar) stones, all of which project out from a gallery wall on thin rods. They are suspended between roughly six and seven feet above the floor.
The two instruments are set on opposing diagonals like mirrored counterparts. The violin on the lower-left side is accompanied by two chunky gray stones just above and below it, while the violin to the upper right has a single large, gray stone floating close to its upper right side. The bows of the violins are held by thin metal robotic arms that extend out from the rods behind the violins. The motorized arms are set on a timer, and when they are activated every two minutes, they move the bows back and forth across the strings, producing a repeating dissonant sound for twenty seconds.
Artwork Label Text
1983
Nails, steel, and wood
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1990
Visual Description
A large, horizontally oriented assemblage—about the height of a short adult, several feet longer than their outstretched arms, and protruding almost one foot from the wall—combines steel, wood, and nails. A dark, charcoal-gray field made from long horizontal planks spans the full width, its surface scuffed and mottled with patches of lighter gray and black, visible seams, as well as occasional drips and abrasions. Across the lower third runs a deep, shelf-like ledge—also dark gray—creating a step forward in space.
Rising from this ledge is a tightly packed cluster of vertical elements: splintered boards, narrow slats, thicker planks, and thin steel strips of varying heights, many with peeling paint and rough, chipped edges. Colors alternate in a restrained palette—weathered bluish gray, muted red, beige wood, off-white, and occasional blackened or rust-stained surfaces—creating a combination of stripes and blocks. Toward the center, there are several tall gray boards flanked by a few prominent, red-painted planks. Some pieces lean slightly, overlap, or are notched and broken, with jagged tops and visible nail heads holding them in place.
On our left, a cluster of torn, raw-wood pieces with exposed grain and splintered ends sits beside a narrow, bright off-white strip; adjacent gray boards show extensive flaking paint that reveals bare wood beneath. Near our center-left, a small, white, spindle-like wooden element appears among the verticals. To our right, the vertical forms become more staggered in height, with several gray-green boards and thin white sticks grouped near the far-right edge. Along the ledge at our right, a long brown plank lies horizontally like a baseboard or beam, its surface worn and slightly glossy. Another smaller block of wood lies horizontally closer to the center of the ledge, its left side darkened black.
Artwork Label Text
1978
Paint and fiber on wood
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1988
Visual Description
A shallow, angular, wall-mounted relief is shaped like a vertically-oriented coffin. It's about the length and width of a standard coffin, but much flatter at only four inches deep. The outer edge forms a narrow frame in dark green-black, following the outline of the panel: narrow at the top, widening outwards diagonally, then tapering again toward the bottom. Inside this border, the main surface is heavily weathered and irregular, textured with smoky gray, charcoal, and greenish-black tones. The rough surface includes cloudy patches of paint and speckling across the surface, encased within the darker, greenish-black frame. The work is set flush to the gallery wall with its lower edge positioned about one foot above the floor.
Artwork Label Text
1988
Nickel and bronze
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1992
Visual Description
A sculpture of three stacked metal spheres—about the size of a tall table lamp—with a smooth, softly reflective surface, resembles a highly simplified snowman that has been reduced to its basic geometric forms. The bottom sphere is the largest; above it sits a slightly smaller sphere, followed by the smallest sphere at the top, creating a slight tapering silhouette. Each sphere meets the next at a narrow, slightly indented seam, separating the volumes. The nickel and bronze surface is highly polished and silvery gray to smoky copper in color, with dark, near-black areas, cloudy discolorations, and faint streaks. Subtle highlights catch along the curves of the spheres, while darker shadows also sometimes pool, depending on the position of the viewer. The sculpture rests centered on a white rectangular pedestal and is protected by a glass cover.
Artwork Label Text
1978
Painted wood
Gift of the Doris and Donald Fisher Collection
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1980
Visual Description
A tall, deep wall-mounted relief—higher than a tall adult, about as wide as their outstretched arms, and projecting one foot from the wall—is constructed from painted wood and unified in matte black, forming a rectilinear assemblage of many different parts. The overall silhouette is irregular but roughly rectangular, with stacked compartments and frame-like borders creating a patchwork of recessed bays and raised blocks. Across the surface, wooden elements—planks, trim pieces, carved moldings, turned spindle-like posts, and gridded panels—are fitted tightly together.
Near the top, horizontal boards form thick bands interrupted by rectangular openings that expose the white wall; smaller square blocks with perforated or patterned faces sit among them. A vertical element runs down just right of center, connecting the upper and lower portions. To our right, there is a cluster of narrow, closely spaced horizontal slats, while adjacent layered pieces overlap in stepped tiers. The central lower region contains a large framed panel of varied plank textures, with subtle seams and grain visible under the black paint.
To our left, along the left edge, there are long linear components, including a deep channel and rod-like protrusion. At the bottom, smaller boxed-in compartments contain tightly arranged miniature elements; there are short dowels, rectangular offcuts, and small mechanical-looking shapes. The monochrome black paint combines the diverse materials into a single mass, while the relief's depth creates cast shadows that reveal the layers, joints, and voids throughout the construction.
A low museum stanchion has been placed on the floor in front of this piece.
Artwork Label Text
1969
Lead, ed. 19/60
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1990
Visual Description
A narrow lead panel (about three feet tall by one-and-a-half feet wide) presents a dark, charcoal-gray field with a single light bulb suspended from a long, loosely coiled wire in low relief running almost the full length of the panel. Positioned in the panel's vertical center line, near the top there is a shallow, circular, dish-like head with a raised rim. The long woven wire connects to the center of this and descends down the length of the panel, subtly twisting and kinking, its edges catching faint silvery highlights against the dark ground.
Toward the bottom of the panel, this wire connects to screw base of the light bulb, which is a cap and two coils. There is a small perpendicular tab on the right of the screw base that resembles a turn-key switch. There are tiny letters on the side of the switch that spell out "Leviton" backwards. The screw base then connects to the light bulb itself, which hangs a few inches above the bottom edge of the panel.
The background is marked by soft scuffs, horizontal rubbing, and uneven tonal patches. In the upper right corner, incised markings read "19/60" beside a stylized scratched artist signature. There is a small "'69" written beneath the signature. The lead panel is in a metal frame, and this frame rests on a white wooden panel. The entire arrangement is in a clear Plexiglas case.
Artwork Label Text
1969
Lead and mirror, ed. 19/60
The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Acquired by the Fisher family, 1990
Visual Description
A rectangular lead panel, about 23 inches tall by 17 inches wide, presents a dark, charcoal-gray field with a single, centrally placed raised shoe form. The shoe appears as a low-relief impression, oriented vertically with the opening at the top and the toe pointing downward; it is a narrow, lace-up shoe with a slightly wrinkled texture.
The laces are rendered in relief and tied in a small bow near the top third of the shoe, with lace holes and crossing segments visible as shallow ridges and depressions. Near the toe area sits a small circular mirror, ringed by tiny raised lettering that says "High School Days" in all capital letters.
The surrounding field is smooth but marked by faint scuffs, tonal streaks, and soft variations in sheen. To the left side of the shoe’s heel, a small portion of the background is raised, like there was an air bubble beneath the top layer. In the upper right corner, incised markings read "19/60" beside a stylized scratched signature. There is a small "'69" written beneath the signature. The lead panel is in a metal frame, and this frame rests on a white wooden panel. The entire arrangement is in a clear Plexiglas case.