Is This Art?

According to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), yes. To me, it's a blue stripe on the wall. Clearly, my artistic sense needs enlightening.

But more on that later.

We had three glorious days in San Francisco ahead of us. We had already visited most of the major tourist sites last year: Alcatraz, Postcard Row (Alamo Square), Fishermens' Wharf, Pier 39, Lombard Street, Coit Tower, Filbert Street Steps, Chinatown and the Science Museum at Golden Gate Park (not to mention our trip to the Castro for Sean to get a 4lb "Kryptonite" sandwich from Ike's Place). We'd ridden the cable cars and biked over the Golden Gate Bridge.

This meant that we could now take things a bit easier, and explore other options.

Unfortunately, perhaps, for you, the reader, this also means there's few "iconic" San Francisco pics in this lot of blog entries. Sorry about that. But there should be enough to keep you interested.......

One thing, however, was firmly established as a San Francisco Institution last year: without fail, breakfast = Dim Sum at Good Mong Kok.

I'll give you a minute to stop giggling.

Nice Food!

And less than 5 bucks gets you more steamed pork buns, tsu mai and wonton than you can throw, well, a pork bun at.

They don't speak much English, but so long as you try, and indicate that you want to see the goodies in ALL the layers of the stacked steamers, you're golden.

The Nat And Sean Dim Sum Breakfast Institution also demands we find a scenic spot in which to enjoy our dim sum spoils. This morning (well, closer to lunchtime if truth be told - the beds at the Orchard Garden are just too darn comfortable) it was Union Square.


Heart:

It was a stunning morning, and there was an open air art exhibition:

Sean about to attack his pork bun!

I am enjoying both my peanut-filled wonton and the view of Union Square:

The art exhibition was fabulous, and a great warm-up for the day.

Earlier, Sean had ventured online to find that i) the weather for the afternoon was meant to turn rather bad, and ii) the SFMOMA were hosting a special exhibition: The Steins Collect. The Steins were a wealthy San Francisco family who lived in Paris for much of their lives, championing the works of the likes of Renoir, Matisse and Picasso before they made it big. The Avant Garde copped a tough time getting their work appreciated, and had it not been for the support of such patrons as the Steins, who knows where modern art would be today?


We lost no time in booking tickets online.


Dim Sum consumed and nicely digesting, we wandered south of Market Street (that's SoMA for the locals), via the Powell-Market Streets cable car turnaround. See? Here's an iconic San Francisco shot!

(It just doesn't have us hanging off of it! Yes, that was last year's news, too).

Five minutes of easy walking took us to the entrance of the SF MoMA:

First things first: while I was SUPER excited about the Steins Collect exhibition, on the whole I can be a bit lukewarm about the whole Modern Art movement.


For example, aspects of David Walsh's Museum of Old and New Art (MONA) in Hobart left me cold. An ice cube melting on the floor? (Okay, so that leaves me cold literally, as well as figuratively. And hey, it's ice. It melts. That's physics, not art). Sides of rotting meat, showing the fragility of the organic form? Encasing a truck in a wall? (Just a waste of truck, in my opinion). Movies of human toileting? (I mean, I can go and defecate on my neighbour's front lawn, but that's not art, that's just disgusting). And if our society is so sanitised and over-processed that we need to place the act of putrefecation of flesh under the umbrella of "art", rather than something we observe as a natural process, then I worry about the direction of said society. And if the idea is to titilate in order to raise people's awareness of social issues, while still keeping these at arm's length by turning them into "art" (viz a viz a chocolate sculpture of the remains of a suicide bomber), at what cost is this occurring? Surely it would be better to sink some of the outrageous bucks this so-called art is worth, into the actual causes themselves?


Maybe I'm missing the point.


And......................rant over.


Bottom line, I wasn't sure what to expect from the permanent exhibits at SFMOMA.


But, with some exceptions (qv the blue stripe above), they turned out to be a lot of fun. And most of them were "real art".


One of the curators saw me with my camera, and, noting my obvious enthusiasm, warmly encouraged me to take as many pictures as I liked. He said "I can see by your huge smile how much you're enjoying yourself".


He was right.


But I'll spare you all the images, and just show you a select few.


Part of a clever installation:

This was one of our favourites (anything with dogs):

Check out how thickly the paint has been applied:

Love this California dude:

To my mathematical mind, this was AWESOME. It's page after page of numerical stanzas by Hanne Darboven, giving visual expression to numerical ordering as a way to record the passage of time. Hanne says she only uses numbers "because it is a way of writing without describing.....It has nothing to do with mathematics. Nothing! I choose numbers because they are so constant, confined and artistic".


Right on.

Warhol!!!!

Heart!

A typical room:

A typical reaction:

Sean ponders where to go next:

A naughty prohibited shot of Matisse's "Woman With A Hat" from 1905, the centrepiece of the exhibition. This piece was considered nothing short of shocking - even Matisse himself wasn't sure about it:

No more photos from the Steins Collect, but suffice to say, it was AWESOME. So much so, that right before we left San Francisco, I left Sean with the bags at the BART station and ran back to the museum to buy the (very heavy) catalogue.


Amongst the permanent exhibits, "Agave" by Elliot Hundley (born the same year as me: 1975 was a good year!) was probably our favourite work, both for colour and ingenuity. It's best called a "sculptural assemblage". Check out its amazing 3D aspects:

Finally, another wonderful, multicoloured, doggie painting.

After all that culture, we'd worked up an appetite, so, after getting stranded in, successively, the Apple Store, The Disney Store, and Macy's, while a huge rainstorm hit, we finally managed to hit the Italian North Beach for an amazing meal at Ristorante Ideale.


We started with an insanely good tuna tartare, and shared a bottle of equally good Italian red:

This was followed by a pizza for Sean, and I had the special of sole cooked in white wine. Bellisimo!

We wrapped up our day by walking up to Ghiradelli Square and getting amongst some ice cream action. This is such a pretty spot at night, with its lights and fountains.

While my ice cream was totally yummy, I have to be totally honest and report that it left me longing for the Penny Ice Creamery. Sorry, Ghiradelli, you've been trumped.

And you might want to replace some of your light bulbs:

Sated, we waddled back to the hotel and collapsed in our uber-comfy bed, dreaming of the Parisian Avant Garde.


Art. I heart it.