Art on Your App: Tap into MCASD’s Vast Collection with Museum’s New Digital Guide

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (MCASD) has launched a free digital guide for art lovers’ mobile phones. 

The resource, on the Bloomberg Connects application, “promises to revolutionize the visitor experience,” officials said, offering “unparalleled access” to museum collections and exhibitions. 

The guide features a user-friendly method of directing visitors to help them explore more than 20 museum galleries, the sculpture garden and other spaces in its La Jolla campus, the Joan and Irwin Jacobs Building. 

It also, said Kathryn Kanjo, the museum’s director and CEO, “provides a trove of contextualizing material and photography that allow viewers to deepen their understanding of the work on view.” By helping to frame “the vibrant narratives and transformative experiences offered by contemporary art,” she added, it becomes more “accessible to all.”

Access the guide by downloading Bloomberg Connects from the Apple App Store or Google Play, and selecting MCASD from the list of participating institutions.

The museum sought to create the app, officials said, due to “the evolving role of museums in today’s communities,” including “fostering inclusive spaces where diverse audiences can engage deeply with art and ideas.”

MCASD holds over 5,600 works in its permanent collection. The museum’s inaugural collection exhibition currently highlights some of the pieces, with art that has rarely been on view, including works by John Baldessari, Maren Hassinger, Larry Bell, Sam Gilliam, Yayoi Kusama, Robert Irwin, Kay Walkingstick, Helen Pashgian, Niki de Saint Phalle and Marcos Ramírez ERRE.

In April, the museum will introduce its first digital guide for a special exhibition, with Forecast Form: Art in the Caribbean Diaspora, 1990s–Today. This group exhibition focuses on contemporary art within the Caribbean diaspora from the 1990s to the present.

The museum expects to see greater impact for the digital guide in the fall with For Dear Life: Art, Medicine, and Disability, which is set to open Sept. 19.

For Dear Life is the first historical survey of artistic responses to sickness and health, and the inclusion of audio tours within the guide will, officials said, help deliver “a multi-sensory journey, enabling visitors to delve deeper into the artworks through immersive auditory engagement.”