Today I had the pleasure of taking a tour of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. As this was the first art museum that I have ever attended, needless to say it was an impressive experience. I had heard many good reviews from friends about the museum, so while in San Francisco for the weekend I decided that the MOMA would be a priority.
Just entering the museum is impressive as the whole things is built in such a way that it is almost a work of art in and of itself. It’s organized into different categories by it’s floors, dividing exhibits and art mediums, and has a central empty space running from the ground floor all the way to the ceiling of the 5th.
The first floor was a general painting/sculpture floor with a variety of artists, more of a general exhibit floor. There were a great number of pieces that caught my interest, many of which were in specific collections. The Urban Inks collection is a series of hand-inked posters drawn by freehand advertising shows at a local theatre. On the opposing wall was a collection of posters designed as advertisements for different headliners performing at the Fillmore theatre.
The second floor was devoted solely to artwork based on photography and had some amazing pieces. It’s astounding what some people can do with a camera. For example, there was a picture taken of a man’s living room with an upside-down double exposure of the houses across the street imposed on top of it. The result was an eye- and mind-bending product that took a bit of time to puzzle out. Also in the same vein was a picture of a gas tank at a federal prison that was exposed multiple times on multiple sides, resulting in a confusing image that conjured the feeling of motion. On the flip side, there were many equally stunning photographs of simple aspects of life. One example was a picture of a barbershop in Rome. It just struck me as a perfect snapshot of life in and of itself. It might have been in a different time and place, but the photograph just seemed to quietly assert that life has a certain commonality through whatever place and time you may be in.
Moving up to the third floor, we saw yet another general sculpture/painting floor, though many of the exhibits were more specific and many of the paintings were extremely prominent in the art world. The famous portrait of Frida was hung alongside that of she and Diego Riviera. I guess I just hadn’t assumed that this museum was really prominent enough to have such famous works, but it was a pleasant surprise. In addition to other such artists, like Salvdor Dali, there were some fascinating works by artists I had never heard of. A man held in a psychiatric facility for severe psychosis produced one such exhibit. The pencil-on-paper sketches were wild and otherworldly, confusing my mind but still fascinating it.
Unfortunately we did not spend as much time as I would have liked on the fourth floor and only saw one of the large featured exhibits. Anselm Keifer created some fantastic works focused on the relationship between God, Man, and the devil, a collection entitled “Heaven and Earth”. There was a large focus on representations of angels and demons in abstract forms. A prime example was a huge canvas painted various dull and splattered colors with a large bent plane propeller fixed to the top-center part of it. Suspended were a number of shapeless lumps with tags on them naming a number of biblical angels. The piece was titled “A Hierarchy of Angels.” This artists interpretation of his ideas was of the most unique things that I have ever seen and kept me walking through the gallery wanting more.
The fifth and final floor contained much of what I really expected going into a modern art museum. Much of the more abstract sculpture was saved for this floor. As you come up the stairs and cross what they call the “Turret Bridge” (looking down through the metal floor affords you a view of a five story drop straight to the gallery ground floor) you are greeted by a large gold statue of Michael Jackson reclining with a golden sheep on a bed of golden and red flowers. There were many very interesting sculptures and paintings on this final floor, one of which rather confused me. It was a apparently solid black panel of canvas, which through its apparent plainness stood out in the large gallery room filled with such crazy sculptures as a massive sharp looking aluminum sunburst. But as you got closer, you could see that the apparently solid black panel was actually a series of many smaller panels, with a very faintly blue cross shape appearing in the center as you approach.
Overall, I highly recommend a visit to the MOMA the next time you happen to be in San Francisco. Of all the things I’ve had the opportunity to do in the city, this was definitely one of the most intriguing and rewarding. The parking availability was great and relatively fairly priced, there’s a discount for card-carrying students, and there’s always new exhibits entering and keeping things fresh. I’d even consider going again before anything has changed in order to have a little more time to sit and examine more of the art that I glossed over in my haste to get to lunch.
