Vija Celmins at SFMOMA

Why would someone take a photo of the surface of the ocean? No boats, no waves breaking, not even a bit of sky above the horizon. 

But this is a drawing, not a photo. Graphite on paper. Pencil.

Why not simply exhibit the photo? Presumably because the subject---the surface of the ocean---is not the point. Apparently the point is the act of drawing.

This is one piece in a large exhibition of work by Vija Celmins. There is a room full of these ocean pictures. And a room full of night skies, and a room full of desert floors. Dozens of drawings made over decades. Minimal subjects, maximum technique.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art says, "these 'redescriptions' are a way to understand human consciousness in relation to lived experience." Lived experience? What other kind of experience is there?

For some reason these remind me of Marcel Duchamp's ready made sculptures. He exhibited a metal rack used for drying milk bottles and a porcelain urinal as works of art. Those were minimal subjects and minimal technique, but, like these, the whole point was to draw attention to something.