Corporeal

Corporeal brings together sculptures that explore the figure—whether whole, fragmented, or implied—to consider our place in the world, both as individuals and collectively. 

These selected works from SFMOMA’s collection rise from the gallery floor to meet visitors at a human scale. 

Rose B. Simpson’s duo of totemic forms, They Rose 1 and They Rose A (both 2019), reflect on the relationship between trauma and resilience and build on Simpson’s multigenerational, matrilineal lineage of Indigenous artists working with clay. Nick Cave’s Soundsuit (2009) offers an ecstatic costume that obscures a wearer’s gender, race, and class to subvert biases around identity, while Antony Gormley’s Quantum Cloud VIII (1999) embodies the invisible energies that radiate from our bodies through a constellation of branching metal. Additional works by Magdalena Abakanowicz, Rebecca Belmore, Petah Coyne, and others flesh out the presentation.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website