San Francisco is my adopted home. I lived there for years, I miss it, and would love to return there someday. Lucky for me, my job allows me to make frequent visits to this gorgeous City by the Bay.
After a long but productive day of meetings in San Francisco's financial district, I ran to the Farmer's market in the Ferry Bldg to reward myself with Blue Bottle's cafe mocha (w/ skim milk). I sat on the benches outside Slanted Doors (one of my favorite vietnamese restaurants) and enjoyed my cuppa' while enjoying the views of Angel island, the Bay Bridge, and Oakland.
After that brief respite, I took the J-train (i'd forgotten that this was full of tourists) to visit the SFMOMA on 3rd and Mission. Here are photos of sections of the murals in the lobby of SFMOMA.
I love this Museum and I always try to visit whenever I am in town. Since I had very little time, I went for the visiting exhibitions first. One was an introspective of Richard Avedon. The other was an exhibit of the works by Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams.
For the unitiated, Richard Avedon, is a world-renowned photographer. He is famous for taking black and white portraits of celebrities. One of his most famous (or notorious) work is the picture of a 14-year old Brooke Shields in her unbuttoned Calvin Klein jeans. The other is of a naked Cindy Crawford with a python wrapped around her. But did you know that he was also a bit of a civil rights activist? It turns out, that in addition to taking photos of famous and infamous people, he also chronicled the civil rights movement and used photography to capture and communicate the plight of the people who suffered during the collapse of the mountain west economies in the 1980s (The Reagan Years).
Georgia O'Keefe and Ansel Adams are well known for capturing images of the American landscape- O'Keefe through her paintings (primarily of New Mexico's mountains, deserts, and churches; while Adams' postcard perfect photos of the idyllic life in California and New Mexico are ubiquitous. Until I saw this exhibit, I never realized that they had struck a long-term friendship and had influenced each other's work. O'Keefe was married to Adam's art dealer (J. Steiglitz). Despite the 15-year age difference, they managed to form a friendship. They were part of what was known as the Steiglitz circle. It was interesting to see each artists' interpretation of a known landscape juxtaposed with the other's. Personally, I found Ansel Adams work had more depth and a more sophisticated composition. But to each his own huh? Last year, SFMOMA had a popular introspective of Friday Kahlo. A lot of people liked it. I found it disturbing.
Both visiting exhibitions were very full and it was very difficult to take pictures. I did manage to take photos of some of my favorite pieces from the permanent collection. Below is a photo of The Flower Carrier by Diego Rivera. This is my favorite piece in the permanent collection.
The SFMOMA houses not only paintings (mostly expressionist and impressionist art) but also compositions in mixed-media, photography and other visual arts, and sculptures. I always feel that one has to have a very twisted sense of humor to get modern art. Below are pictures of some of the unusual pieces from the permanent collection.
