SOFT POWER at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

San Francisco | 26 October 2019 – 17 February 2020

Tim Marlow, artistic director for London's Royal Academy of Arts, chooses the best exhibitions to see this month, presented by Regent Seven Seas Cruises.

A n important exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art takes a closer look at how artists use their work to explore and expand their roles within society. Entitled SOFT POWER, the show's Reagan-era expression affirms the power of persuasion through culture, political values and foreign policies over violence and coercion.

Tanya Lukin Linklater with Liz Lott, The treaty is in the body, 2017. [Courtesy the artist and Winnipeg Art Gallery. ©Tanya Lukin Linklater]

The show focuses on art as the center of this sentiment, reflecting on the potency and effectiveness of art to generate change.

Nairy Baghramian, Retainer, 2012. [Courtesy the artist.] Jason Mandella

Among work by 20 international artists, three-quarters will be new and never-before shown in the US.

Eamon Ore-Giron, Infinite Regress LXXIV, 2019 [Courtesy the artist, Fleisher/Ollman, Philadelphia, and Páaramo Gallery, Guadalajara.]
COPYRIGHT:JOSHUA WHITE/JWPicture

Commissions from 15 artists take the form of sculpture, site-responsive installation, mural, performance, video, photography, sound sculpture and large-scale painting, inspiring visitors to exert their own, soft influence within the world.

Tuan Nguyen, The Specter of Ancestors Becoming, 2019, Still from 4-channel video installation: color, 7.1 surround sound
28 min. [Courtesy the artist and James Cohan.]

SOFT POWER is on view at SFMOMA from 26 October 2019 until 17 February 2020.

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