S.F. Moma

I have lived in the bay area for more than a decade, yet never visited San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art: S.F. Moma. This year my employer became a corporate sponsor; as such, all employees get free admission. This was the impetus I needed.

On Thursday, July 21, 2011, I took a day off work to visit S.F. Moma. (Yes, I registered it as a vacation day--I didn't use my corporate benefit while simultaneously playing hooky.)

Di Yin and I drove up to the city before lunch. We parked by S.F. Moma, picked up our tickets, arranged for our timed entry into the special exhibit, and headed out for lunch. I brought a long list of possible destinations, some within walking destination and some across the city. It'd been years since I visited the city regularly; my list of places to try had grown seemingly without bound.

Because it was a beautiful day to walk around, we decided to restrict our choices to those reachable on foot. We began by trotting down Market to Civic Center Plaza. I took out my camera and began shooting pictures. We went to Civic Center because I wanted to check out Off The Grid's food trucks. Off The Grid organizes groups of food trucks to appear regularly at different parts of the city. Every Thursday some appear in Civic Center Plaza.

We inspected the scene and the nearby street market but decided not to eat there. Instead, we ventured into the Tenderloin to hunt for banh mi sandwiches. I had a few Vietnamese sandwich joints on my list.

The Tenderloin was scary at times. After we were turned away at the first joint we stopped by, we headed straight to one I knew would be open and good: Saigon Sandwich.

After lunch, we stopped at Westfield Mall on the way back to S.F. Moma. On the way out of the Tenderloin, we crossed one intersection that had seven police cars around it, most on different sides of the street and facing different directions, ready to speed anywhere as needed.

Although I visited the Westfield Mall few times before (see this report), I forgot how large and modern it is. It has many floors (seven?), curved escalators, and a notably diverse food court.

We returned to S.F. Moma and began exploring. S.F. Moma's collection includes art and design in many styles: bay area figuration, cubism, abstract, surreal, Latin American modernism, and pop art. Notable artists include Warhol, Jasper John, Lichtenstein, Rivera, O'Keeffe, Matisse, and Klee (a whole room of Klee!).

S.F. Moma's photography exhibits are extensive. The main display has photographs mostly from 1850 to 1980, usually of architecture but also of fashion. I didn't like the modern photographs, preferring the old styles. Incidentally, they had some Brassai. Another (?) display shows photographs of bombed out Parisian buildings due to the Paris Commune of 1871.

The special exhibit in the photograph section was a series of rooms on various contemporary photographers (last ten years). One room had Richard Misrach's striking photos of New Orleans homes post-Katrina. Most have graffiti on them from owners telling looters to go away; others have messages stating we are okay and giving a phone number.

We took a break from our viewing of photographs for our timed entry to the special exhibit on the Steins' collection. The Steins (Gertrude, et al.) collected Matisse, Picasso and Parisian avant-garde in general (including Cezanne and Renoir). It also had some art by the Steins themselves and pictures of Michael and Sarah Stein's villa, which was also architecturally news (a la the art they collected).

Although the art wasn't my thing (it was alright), I enjoyed the exhibit. It was done well, covering simultaneously the history of the art and of the family. It also explored the evolution of the relationship between collectors and artists. It told stories about debts, falling-outs with artists, and intra-family squabbles.

The wall labels had quotes from various Steins describing some of the art including this memorable statement: "[It is] the nastiest smear of paint I have ever seen" but "[is] brilliant and powerful" (describing Matisse's colorful Woman with a Hat). Another label mentioned that Picasso, in reply to being told that Gertrude Stein didn't look like her portrait, said "she will." The quotes made the labels fun to read.

We spent three hours in the museum in total. Overall it wasn't bad but wasn't as interesting or extensive as I expected.

On the way home, we stopped by Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous, an oddly-named ice cream joint that's been getting a lot of buzz since it opened the previous year. We tried it; the buzz was justified.