{"id":5723,"date":"2016-06-06T06:52:29","date_gmt":"2016-06-06T10:52:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5723"},"modified":"2016-07-12T06:29:42","modified_gmt":"2016-07-12T10:29:42","slug":"sfmoma-redo-a-hit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5723","title":{"rendered":"SFMOMA Redo a Hit!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SFMOMA\"

SFMOMA main stair (photo: Tom Ervin, used with permission)<\/p><\/div>\n

After visiting the magnificent new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), you may be tempted to hum \u201cI Found My Art in San Francisco.\u201d According to an article in Marin<\/em>, SFMoMA was the first museum in the West dedicated to displaying 20th<\/sup> century art. Jackson Pollock\u2019s inaugural exhibition was held here, for example.<\/p>\n

The 10-story museum addition, which reopened May 14 after a three-year, $305 million makeover, is across from the Yerba Buena Gardens in SOMA (the downtown area south of Market Street) near the Embarcadero.<\/p>\n

“In many ways, the unveiling of the new SFMOMA caps a period of transformation\u00a0that\u00a0speaks to forces at play in many U.S. cities \u2014\u00a0the rehabilitation of what had once been dilapidated urban cores. But the museum is\u00a0also indicative of the role\u00a0that high culture can play in that process.\u00a0With its very presence, a museum can help shift the dynamics of a neighborhood,” says Carolina A. Miranda in the LA Times<\/em><\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
The 145,000-sq.ft. added exhibit space displays some 32,000 works\u2014including large installations by Carl Andre and Donald Judd. Most of the inaugural exhibition works have not been seen before, including the impressive 1,000-piece Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, and numerous donated works by contemporary artists, including a gallery of works by color field painter Ellsworth Kelly, who died in 2015. The museum also includes a permanent center of photography and a temporary exhibit on the history of typography in graphic design.<\/div>\n

Experience it Online<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

The eye-popping exterior redesign by Norwegian architecture firm Snohetta includes an oculus\u2014an eye-like opening\u2014and what the New York Times<\/em> described as a \u201ccrinkly\u201d fa\u00e7ade of fiberglass-reinforced polymer skin that mimics the bobbing waves of San Francisco Bay. Other critics say the exterior resembles a beached cruise ship or a glacial form. An interactive article by Rene Chun<\/a> in Wired <\/em>highlights the museum\u2019s many innovative architectural features.<\/p>\n

The first floor is open to the public and includes exhibition space, a well-curated museum store and, soon, a public restaurant featuring culinary contributions from Bay Area chef luminaries such as Alice Waters. You scale a grand staircase flooded with natural light from the oculus to access the gallery floors. Once inside the galleries, a variety of well-executed architectural and artistic elements reveal themselves.<\/p>\n

The higher floors have expansive windows running alongside the galleries, and wraparound terraces from which glimpses of the cityscape engage the eye and bring natural light in. A third floor gallery of huge Alexander Calder mobiles opens onto a larger terrace flanked by a three-story wall of native plants from nearby Mount Tamalpais that enhance the green building theme.<\/p>\n

\"SFMOMA

Author Jodi Goalstone at SFMOMA (photo: Tom Ervin, used with permission)<\/p><\/div>\n

To minimize crowding and noise, hidden, one-way only stairs take visitors up or down along with easily accessible elevators. Another clever design element is found, oddly enough, in gallery restrooms. Higher floors\u2019 facilities have a different, bold color scheme. The one I visited had deep purple walls and magenta stalls with soft, subtle lighting.<\/p>\n

Because this is a modern art museum, new media is imbedded in the experience. Visitors can explore the museum with an audio tour that provides a personal docent\u2014with a twist. One example: see the museum guided by Hall of Fame baseball broadcaster Jon Miller and San Francisco Giants pitching coach Dave Righetti.<\/p>\n

More to Come<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Coming soon is an app for virtual visits at https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/app\/<\/a>. \u201cSFMOMA\u2019s chief content officer, Chad Coerver, calls the app \u2018a cross between This American Life <\/em>and the movie Her<\/em>,\u2019\u201d according to another Chun article<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For more information on tickets, hours and directions, visit https:\/\/www.sfmoma.org\/<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This guest post is by Tucson-based Jodi Goalstone, who writes the highly entertaining blog <\/em>Going Yard, Offbeat Baseball Musings<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After visiting the magnificent new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), you may be tempted to hum \u201cI Found My Art in San Francisco.\u201d According to an article in Marin, SFMoMA was the first museum in the West dedicated … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"SFMOMA Redo a Hit! - Long-awaited museum renovation meshes architectural innovation and technology to enhance visitor experience","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[186,104,78],"tags":[438,416,373],"class_list":["post-5723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","category-the-morgue","category-travel","tag-fine-art","tag-real-life","tag-san-francisco"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1uj","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5723"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5736,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5723\/revisions\/5736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}