
As SFMOMA confronts the reality of works produced in digital media, it must
meet yet another challenge to the integrity and logic of its method of presenting
art. Throughout the past century, the museum's traditional role as the framer
of unique and valuable objects has been challenged by artists who embrace
technologies of mass reproduction, appropriate everyday objects, or create
ephemeral work. Consequently, museums have had to continually find new means
of maintaining control, value, and identity. If we accept the idea that a
museum is an institution that enhances and, some might even say, creates art
by framing objects and images, then we must respond to the installation, performance,
and digital artists who demand new ways of framing their work.
-- Aaron Betsky, former SFMOMA Curator of Architecture, Design, and Digital
projects
