A friend some time back shared a photo of an object in the current installation by artist Samson Young, Intentness and song, that is on view at SFMOMA (December 21, 2024 – June 22, 2025). I first encountered Young’s work when I reviewed Seeing Sound, an exhibit curated by Barbara London at the Kadist gallery here in San Francisco back in mid-2021. This new Young exhibit is a sizable space filled with ephemera, notably small gadgets that emit little bits of light and sound, much of it on tight loops, all of which resists easy mental collation. I was touched to find old familiar gadgets, like an Apple Newton and a Sony MiniDisc player, in the mix, as well as this book by the late sound artist Steve Roden, i listen to the wind that obliterates my traces. Young seemed to have excavated his own memory palace and created a vaguely Lego-like zone of contemplation.
