For most people, visiting San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art isn’t exactly a casual trip. I’ve lived in San Francisco 6 years and have only made it once. However, now you can see some of the art from the museum by just texting the museum and asking. I’ve seen more art from its collection this afternoon than I have in years.




The SF MOMA currently houses 34,678 different pieces of artwork, but only roughly 5% of that collection is viewable at any given time if you happened to swing by the museum to check things out. Even if you do make it to the museum, seeing that 5% is a pretty lofty task. The MOMA says that in order to walk past every piece of artwork currently on display you’d need to trek roughly seven miles. That’s a lot of walking. It’s also likely a lot of seeing things you’re not interested in so that you can make your way to things you are.



Or, you could just text the museum.



A project called “Send Me SFMOMA” allows you to get a picture of roughly anything you want on demand, all you have to do is ask. The “anything” in that statement is a little rough. You can’t just message and ask to see a specific piece. However, you can message and ask for happiness, or the ocean, or a dog…


Screenshot of SF MOMA texts

To try it out, send a text to 572-51 with the words “Send Me” followed by what you’d like to see. I personally like testing the waters with emojis, which sometimes works and other times ends in failure. When there’s a match, you’ll get back an image from that 34,678-item collection. Presumably, you’ll never get the same image twice, so you can slowly work through the whole collection from your couch.

