Lynn Hershman, Business card for the Floating Museum, 1975–78

A San Francisco–based organization founded in 1975 by Lynn Hershman, the Floating Museum was one of the many artist-run, alternative spaces that flourished in California in the 1970s. Designed as a temporary experiment, the museum existed for a mere three years; it did not maintain a physical venue, but assisted artists in locating and securing spaces in which to create one-time site-specific performances and installations. In its first year and a half, the Floating Museum sponsored a dozen individual projects around San Francisco, including performances by Eleanor Antin and the painting, by inmates of San Quentin prison, of a panoramic landscape based on a design by San Francisco artist Hilaire Dufresne. In May 1977, the organization extended its reach beyond the Bay Area by sending a group of nine artists to Europe as part of the exhibition “Global Space Invasion (Phase I).” The following year, its activities culminated in an exhibition produced in collaboration with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art titled “Global Space Invasion (Phase II).” Accompanied by an exhibition brochure called Global Passport, “Global Space Invasion (Phase II)” featured the work of over one hundred artists at public spaces throughout the city.