Diebenkorn at the de Young

Berkeley #22, Richard Diebenkorn

In recent years I have had little interest in the hyped-up, blockbuster shows at the de Young.  But finally they’ve hit a home run right out of the park.   Richard Diebenkorn – The Berkeley Years, 1953-1966 does everything a major museum show is supposed to do.  There are pieces familiar to de Young regulars and a few from other Bay Area Museums.  Bulking up the large show are plenty of rarely seen works from private collections as well as pieces from museums, big and small, around the country.  The de Young should be praised for the effort it took to bring in so many single pieces from different museums.  The show fills the museum’s entire lower level special exhibition space and overflows to the main floor as well.  I believe this might be the largest amount of space the de Young has ever devoted to a single artist – and deservedly so for a Bay Area giant like Diebenkorn. 

The show is one that demands more than one look – it’s up until September 29, 2013.  And, as Scarlet Johansson never played Richard Diebenkorn in a movie, the crowds are manageable.  You can take in those big pieces from across the room without a mob in the way entranced by their audio tour.

Henri Cartier-Bresson at the SF MoMA

Today included a trip to the SF MoMA. It has been a while since I have visited, there are two shows that I recommend:

Photography is their strength in terms of both their permanent collection and the special exhibits they have. The Henri Cartier-Bresson show ends January 30. It’s worth the effort to make the trip to see this one. Some work is familiar but many pieces are seldom shown. The show is deservedly large, commanding an entire floor. It’s a thorough retrospective spanning his career with work from all over the world. So many of the photos are like archetypes for their countries that they border on stereotypes. The photo of Dutch housewives scrubbing their sidewalks is placed next to image of Italian boys playing cards in a stairwell. It can’t help but make you snicker. And some are hauntingly serious. Like the one of African-American sharecroppers forced to live in a tent city after being evicted for registering to vote. My reaction to the show made me feel like I was paging through an atlas — but an atlas without maps. Is such a thing possible?

It is also the museum’s 75th Anniversary. The second floor has been re-curated. It’s always good to shake things up. I am always surprised when works of art look new just because they have been moved. There are also some hidden treasures pulled out for the show including works by Richard Diebenkorn, Wayne Thiebaud and Clyfford Still.