This exhibition presents key works from the collections of SFMOMA and the Asian Art Museum in provocative new contexts, charting the boundaries of beauty and inviting visitors to ask "What is gorgeous?" From luxurious ornamentation to austere simplicity, from kitsch to camp, gorgeousness is an evolving and dynamic concept that has taken various visual forms. Gorgeous features paintings, sculptures, and photographs by Marcel Duchamp, Jeff Koons, Marilyn Minter, Joan Miró, Meret Oppenheim, Trevor Paglen, Pablo Picasso, and others, along with works ranging from a 1000-year-old Indian sculpture to a 16th-century Persian Koran to silk scrolls by Japanese artist Chobunsai Eishi. By juxtaposing a Mark Rothko painting with a Buddhist mandala or a 2000-year-old Chinese tomb figure with Janine Antoni's self-portraits sculpted in soap and chocolate, Gorgeous sheds new light on these works and inspires debate and discovery.

*image (left)
Yasumasa Morimura
Portrait (Futago), 1988
chromogenic print with acrylic paint and gel medium
collection SFMOMA, Gift of Vicki and Kent Logan
© Yasumasa Morimura
Photo: Ben Blackwell