Here are few other things I liked at SFMOMA (with minimal commentary—and believe me I could bore you with plenty of commentary).
From Katharina Fritsch comes Kind Mit Pudeln (Child with Poodle). The installation includes 224 poodles surrounding a baby. Fritsch hints that this might be a reaction to the story of Faust, who while walking home sees a black poodle and brings it home, unknowingly inviting Mephistopheles (the devil) into his home. Or maybe the dogs are heroes, guarding the baby. It’s either creepy or heart warming.
Arturo Herrera’s 2000 work I Am Yours is made from cut industrial felt. I don’t know what it means but I like it.
You gotta love Kiki Smith. This work is beautiful and disturbing all at the same time. The photo does not do justice to the haunting glass eyes. Here is a sculpture called Lilith that hangs strangely on the wall.
If I didn’t know better, I’d swear this is a sculpture by Jeff Koons. But this predates Koons by at least 60 years. La negresse blonde (The Blond Negress) was created in 1926 by Constantin Brancusi. I love the innovative form that brings to mind so many images. And the sexy, shiny, seductive finish is well ahead of its time.
Finally, (and I’m about to go out on a big limb here) here is the work that changed art more than any other—Fountain by Marcel Duchamp. I love crazy, provocative, outrageous, challenging, silly, emotional, horrifying, kind, happy art. And in my life, all that art starts with this work. Marcel Duchamp definitively answered the question, “what is art.” And then he asked a more provocative question, “what is the artist?” Thanks Marcel.
Artist Clifford Still is all over the art-world news these days even though he’s dead. Why? Well Clifford’s attitude toward his art is unique. Still kept almost all of the hundreds of paintings he created, about 95 percent were in his estate when he died in 1980. Stranger still, he allowed almost no one to see these works—he ordered them to be sealed off from the public and from scholars after his death.
Still had a big ego, even by artist standards. He despised galleries (which he called “sordid gift shoppes”) And he wasn’t much kinder to critics, curators, and museums. I don’t even think he liked collectors. I’m not sure he’d be happy about me looking at his paintings. He even refused to give his paintings names because it might encourage deplorable interpretations.
Clifford Still’s will was one sentence: “I give and bequeath all the remaining works of art executed by me in my collection to an American city that will agree to build or assign and maintain permanent quarters exclusively for these works of art and assure their physical survival with the explicit requirement that none of these works of art will be sold, given, or exchanged but are to be retained in the place described above exclusively assigned to them in perpetuity for exhibition and study.”
Still’s heirs have had a hard time finding a city to undertake such a demanding requirement. Caring and maintaining for so many paintings is an expensive proposition. But believe it or not, as part of the city’s amazing race to create a serious art presence, Denver, Colorado will be the new home of the Clifford Still Museum, which is currently under construction.
Why am I boring you with all this information? Because one of the few places you can see a significant group of Still’s work is at SFMOMA where an entire gallery is dedicated to the artist, probably because the artist demanded that no other work could be shown in the same space. Or maybe the curators are just afraid that if they included other artists in the gallery, Still would wake from the dead and rip their hearts out. Someday I want to be a crazy artist.
Not only did the Faberge, Tiffany, Lalique exhibit make me think back to my youth. A walk through San Francisco had the same effect—for similar reasons. My parents ran Paris Jewelry in Worland, Wyoming for nearly 50 years. They retired and closed the store just a few short years ago. I worked at Paris Jewelry for much of my youth. So imagine my surprise when I encountered Paris Jewelry alive and well right in the heart of San Francisco.
You may recall that last November I took another trip to San Francisco. During that trip I visited The Art of Participation at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). As part of the exhibit, Felix and I participated in a work called The Gift by German-born conceptual artist Jochen Gerz. As part of the installation, thousands of museum goers were photographed during the first month and half of the exhibit. Both Felix and I had our pictures taken. All those pictures were printed, framed, and hung in rotation on a wall at SFMOMA. As a thank you for our willingness to participate, we were invited to the closing reception on Sunday, February 8, 2009.
At the reception, thousands of other participants joined us to receive a gift from Mr. Gerz. Each person received one of the photographs from the exhibit. Felix and I too received our “gifts.” The artist made it clear, that he didn’t want anyone receiving his or her own photograph. 
Duanne, the person in front of me almost received a picture of one of his friends, until the artist realized the situation and chose to give him another photo. I received a picture of his friend Mary. Later, Duanne asked me if I would trade. But I couldn’t do it. I told him that I felt it wouldn’t be in keeping with the wishes of the artist. And after all, this was a gift from Mr. Gerz—how could I simply trade it away. I don’t think Duanne was necessarily happy but he seemed to understand. And I told him I’d e-mail him with pictures of the photo in its final location.
Before leaving the museum, Felix and I decided to document the travels of our photos with a few snapshots in and around the museum. We even took pictures of the two as they watched over our hotel room.
We were worried the photos were too big to carry on the plane and we didn’t want to check them so we decided to ship them. We entrusted them to FedEx. After a hectic afternoon trying to figure out how to package them, we finally packed them up in a rather sketchy box. And then hoped they would make it safely to Salt Lake City.I’m proud to report that the photos arrived in perfect condition just two days later. I haven’t installed mine in a final location because I still want to take a few photos around town before I put it on my wall. SFMOMA has created a Flickr site where recipients of The Gift can post their photos.
Thanks Jochen Gerz. I like to complain that artists, in their scramble to romance the galleries, the collectors, and the auction houses forget about the ordinary viewer. This is one time when I felt like the artist was more interested in me as a viewer than anyone else. And the sentiment was appreciated.This won’t be my last post about The Gift. I’ll keep you updated on Mary’s travels and where she lands.
Anyone who’s willing to listen to my boring musings on art knows that lobsters fascinate me because they show up in the world of fine art so often. And lobsters just seem like a strange creature to get so much canvas time. That’s given me a soft spot for the bright red crustaceans. So I’ve decided to start tracking my encounters with lobsters in art.
While I was at the Legion of Honor I ran into this massive still life complete with lobster. This is Still Life painted in 1666 by Dutch artist Abraham van Beyeren. Enjoy.
Welcome to the Handlery Hotel, home for my most recent trip to San Francisco. This is a comfy hotel, in a great location just off Union Square, and it feels quintessentially San Franciscan. It is not without its quirks. Exhibit A: the view from our room. It consists of a concrete wall a couple of yards outside the window. And if you look out the window in just about any direction (you can actually throw the windows wide open), you find a similar view. (See inset photos.)
At first, this view was unnerving. But after a while it began to grow on me. For starters, this is one quiet room. If you want a great night’s sleep in the middle of San Francisco, I highly recommend room 317 at the Handlery.And the view seems to fit the quirks and cubbyholes of the rest of the hotel, which is a mishmash of maze-like hallways, secret staircases, and mysterious dead ends. If I were a kid, I could spend hours exploring this unusual place. Hell, I’m not a kid and I still went looking for the weirdness.
This is an old hotel that has been lovingly cared for. It offers modern amenities, yet the owners have not modernized so much that the building has lost its strange charm. Combine that with a friendly staff that is never over bearing, a decent onsite breakfast, and reasonable rates, and this is a hotel at which I’ll likely stay again.
As always, I spent a lot of time in museums during my trip to San Francisco. I started at the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park—the first time I’ve ever been to this museum. I went to see Artistic Luxury: Faberge, Tiffany, Lalique. I know we like to think that today’s rich spend fortunes on their luxe brands. But seriously, rich people everywhere need to demand more from their artisans.
Growing up working in a family-owned jewelry store, I was aware of the works of Peter Carl Faberge, Louis Comfort Tiffany, and Rene Lalique through photographs and other stories. These names are legends in the world of jewelry. But even that knowledge did not prepare me for the reality of their artistry.
Pictures were not allowed in the galleries. But that seemed appropriate, because I’ve seen boatloads of photos of works by these artists and they don’t even come close to the reality. (Although I have included a photo from the Legion of Honor’s Web site to set the context.)
All of these houses created amazing work, but my personal preference tends toward the works of Faberge and Lalique. Having said that, you have not experienced Tiffany glass until you’ve seen it in person, particularly the stained glass windows—the glass is not just cut pieces leaded together; they are molded and sculpted and textured to create something that is more like painting than stained glass. They were mesmerizing.
Works from the house of Faberge were even more amazing. The stars? The legendary Faberge eggs with at least a half dozen on display here. These astound. Let’s start with the enamel work—finishes so perfect, so vibrant, so incandescent that you can’t understand until you see. And I won't even try to describe the surprises hidden in each egg.
The eggs dazzled but so did the collection of flowers displayed in carved, rock-crystal vases that were so realistic you’d swear they were filled with water. Take the fluffy dandelion just waiting for someone to blow on it and release it’s seeds. Only this dandelion was crafted from the frailest gold, tiny diamonds, and of all things, asbestos fibers—a newly discovered material at the time.
And how about the frigid beauty of an ice pendant and accompanying snowflake brooch. The platinum and diamond frost on the pendant were like looking through a frosted windowpane on a beautiful winter’s eve.
I can’t leave this section without commenting on the brilliant audio tour. So many audio tours border on the silly. But here real people told real stories. Like the Faberge egg given to Princess Grace of Monaco. She loved it so much she kept in on her desk in her personal study until her death, after which her husband hid it away for more that thirty years. Or the woman on the board of the museum who, after purchasing her Faberge egg, was left without a purse to take to a party at which the museum’s head curator would be. She tucked her keys and compact in the Faberge egg and used it as a clutch. The curator nearly had a heart attack.
There's still Lalique to discuss. I’ll try and keep it short. I loved this stuff. Everything is beautiful, but much of it is beautiful in a dark way. Sure, there are flowers and birds and other images of traditional beauty. But there are also insects, snakes, and faces that moan. One orchid carved from bone was so fragile you wondered why it hadn’t wilted under the bright lights. There was a pair of dragonflies carved from bone, the wings so thin you could see through them.
So, to all you rich people that have accumulated more of our society’s wealth than any group since the great depression, I have one thing to say. The least you could do is demand more from today’s craftsmen. Until you’ve spent hundreds of millions on an original creation as beautiful as a Faberge egg or a Lalique hair comb, you’re not doing your part for the economy. Get with it.
Felix and I headed to San Francisco for a few days of fun and festivities. The main reason for our trip will be the subject of another post. But I’ll start with our first day and night.
We arrived Saturday evening on a flight that arrived a full 30 minutes early. But we lost all of that time on the cab ride to the hotel. It was the big Chinese New Year parade and our hotel was at ground zero, Union Square. With so many streets closed, it took forever to get to our hotel.
We stayed at the Hotel Handlery (once again a story for another post) and after finding our room, we immediately went to witness one of the ten largest parades in the country and the “only remaining illuminated parade.” It was really crowded and almost impossible to see anything so we went back to our room and watched it live on TV where it was narrated by Benjamin Fong-Torres. (I’m still trying to wrap my head around that name.)
Afterward we decided to spend a night on the town. I’ve been to San Francisco a bunch but I’ve never really spent any time in the Castro. With help from Matt, the friendly, funny hotel receptionist who obviously knows his way around the Castro, we learned how to take the underground to get there as well as a few ideas for dinner and clubs. The directions for the underground weren’t the best and we ended up paying twice and getting chastised by public-transportation personnel.
We had dinner at a small Italian place called Poesia where the service staff were authentically Italian, complete with sexy accents. When I ordered, our server asked if I spoke Italian, which made me feel good since I think I’ve totally lost my language skills. The food was great and hearing the friendly servers communicate with each other in authentic Italian was fun.
After dinner we did some late night shopping with retailers that were as friendly as the restaurateurs. The highlight was a stop at Out Fit. Here the staff included a hyper-attentive kid even more familiar with the Castro than Matt, a guy with a dreadlock Mohawk knitting scarves, and a young, skinny guy who could not say enough good about a club called Bearracuda. We chose not to go to the Bearracuda.
The hyper-attentive guy recommended a visit to Martuni’s (you can’t make these names up), a piano bar that had me envisioning hyper-attentive guy proudly singing show tunes. Unfortunately we couldn’t find it. Our trek did take us past a corner bar called Twin Peaks, a place Matt said is known to the locals as the "Glass Coffin" because of the big glass windows that let you see into the club from the street. The coffin reference comes from the fact that the clientele tends to be older—Matt said 80 plus but it was a flamboyant exaggeration.
Ultimately we stopped at Mix where there were not one, not two, not even three, but four men in kilts playing pool, including one hulking guy in a sinister black leather kilt offset by large white feather wings, a feather boa, and a rhinestone star brooch. I was surprised to find that all the kilt wearers weren’t even together. Mix is obviously where the kilted pool players hang out. Interesting note, kilted pool players are chatty and were happy to respond to my curious inquiries.
After Mix we stopped at Bad Lands. (More local flavor from Matt: Bad Lands is known to locals as "Sad Lands." He also compared the dance floor to tree rings with the young hot club kids in the center surrounded by concentrically older rings of dancers as you move out.) Bad Lands was a blast with some of the friendliest club goers I’ve ever encountered. And with a music mix that successfully mashed up Groove is in the Heart, I’m a Barbie Girl, and Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It), you can see why the place is packed.
Those San Franciscans may be a little quirky, but it sure makes for a fun night out.
