Revelations at the de Young

 I was in Golden Gate Park the other day and decided to pop in for a look.  The de Young, like so many art museums nowadays, feels their mission is to have mega-hyped up blockbuster shows as way to earn revenue and draw in the crowds.  Currently they have installed a massive Haight Street gift shop for the Summer of Love.  But that does not interest me.  I was just planning on a wander into the permanent collection.  Instead I found a fantastic, big show that is given scant attention by the museum’s PR-machine.  I often find that the shows to see, at any museum, are the under-promoted ones that, I guess, museums assume have less appeal. 
Upon entering the museum the first thing you encounter is Leonardo Drew’s huge installation Number 197.  A floor to ceiling (very high ceiling) grid of his assemblages fill the lobby it what also could be called a maximalist collage.  

Where the permanent collection begins on the first floor, a major rearrange has happened and a new show titled Revelations: Art from the African American South has taken over the better part of the exhibition space on the floor.  The exhibition (see link for details) includes 62 newly acquired works by contemporary African American artists from the U.S. South.  I am always happy to see more of the quilts from Gee’s Bend and then explored galleries of sculpture including Lonnie Holley’s Him and Her Hold the Root an assemblage including his-and-hers rocking chairs exploring family, memory and loss.  Ralph Griffin’s sculptures, including Panama Jack (shown here), is one of his just slightly frightening pieces.  I really like them.  
The pieces are part of the permanent collection and the current show is up to April 2018 – giving many opportunities to pop in again when I am in Golden Gate Park.

Finding Fred Tomaselli Hidden in Orange County

If you love museums as I do, I always suggest joining your local favorite(s).  And, if you can, getting an upgraded membership such as the one I have with the Oakland Museum.  It’s nice to support a much-loved museum, but it also could get you up into the North American Reciprocal (NARM) level.   With my membership, a guest and myself have free access to hundreds of participating museums in the U.S. and Canada.   Before I hit the road, I start at NARM’s site and see what museums will be nearby and what special exhibits are taking place.

With that in mind, I found myself in Newport Beach, California on Saturday.  Away from the beach, it’s a land of sterile office parks and condominiums where signage is discreet and tasteful.  The museum would have been impossible to find without GPS.  But it was worth the effort.

When I realized I had an opportunity to see a new show of Fred Tomaselli’s work at the Orange County Museum of Art, I knew I’d have to head south as part of my L.A. weekend.  Back in the 1990’s San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts hosted one of the best exhibits they have ever had – it was a big show of Tomaselli’s mixed media paintings/collages.  The work incorporated thousands of prescription and non-prescription pills as well as hemp leaves all encased in resin.  That was an amazing show.

The current show, Fred Tomaselli: The Times, fills three rooms and is dominated by a newer direction in his work that began in 2005.  Starting with a front page of the New York Times, the artist modifies the photo by adding paint and occasional collage elements.  The original black and white photos are enhanced with vivid, color details.  The results range from the abstract to geometric patterns, to occasional representational images.  All contained within the boundaries of the original photo.  The modified front pages are then digitized and reprinted, to finalize and preserve the pieces done on unstable newsprint.  The results are often beautiful, even when addressing serious, front page news.  For example, the Hurricane Katrina piece makes New Orleans appear to be inundated by a colorful flood that looks like a mass Sol Lewitt installation.  The pieces seem to work in part because they remain on the pages of the New York Times, rather than removed form their original context.  And surrounded by the original stories, the gravity of the subject matter never seems trivialized even with the colorful art.

Living in San Francisco and seeing some of the exhibits that pass through as over-hyped, blockbusters shows I remain baffled why we, here in the big city, are not getting shows like this one.  I feel confident predicting that Fred Tomaselli’s work is of the caliber where big crowds will line up to see it in museums — a century from now.  In the meantime, we get to see it in quiet exhibits and wait for what comes from him next.

I also need to mention a smaller and complimentary show that is also at the museum right now.  Dieter Roth’s Piccadillies is a series of work beginning in 1969 where the artist took a single postcard of London’s Piccadilly Circus, blew it up and made multiple prints.  Each print was the basis for a new abstract painting with layers of paint that at times follow and mostly obscure the original image.  Seeing an individual piece would be interesting.  The opportunity to have a gallery filled with them and observing the work as a series is the best way to see Roth’s work. 

If you’re in Southern California, you’d better hurry, as both shows close on May 24, 2015.

The SFMOMA comes to the Oakland Museum

I made a visit to the Oakland Museum today.  I was aware they were having a special exhibit where they had borrowed work from the SFMOMA while that museum is closed and under reconstruction and expansion.  I assumed it was work I had seen before and was not expecting anything special – oh how silly of me.  Once again, the Oakland Museum has done an amazing job.  They have integrated their own work and included rarely seen work from both museums’ collection.  Some of the work has never been exhibited before. 

The exhibit, titled Fertile Ground: Art and Community in California is the big don’t miss museum show in the Bay Area right now.  There are four components to the show.  It begins with the 1930’s including WPA art, murals and political work influenced by the San Francisco General Strike of 1934.  The SFMOMA’s Frida Kahlo portrait of her and Diego Rivera looks better than ever and is finally show in context.  After the first section, you pass into the postwar years.  You cross over from Telegraph Hill to North Beach and are immersed in the world of the California School of Fine Arts, Rothko, Diebenkorn, Cunningham et al.  Next it’s up to UC Davis circa 1970 when that little agriculture state university became the epicenter of contemporary art in the Western U.S.  The final component of the show takes viewers to the 1990’s and includes an emphasis on political activism.  There is a series of videos of different demonstrations and political actions back then.  The videos got me all excited when I realized I was at many of those demos.  I have to go and watch them again and look for myself on the walls of the museums.  I already spotted a few people I know.

The show runs through April 12, 2015 and I’ll be back to look a few more times before then.