Posts Tagged ‘museums with children’

Ed Ruscha at the DeYoung

Saturday, September 3rd, 2016


Today, Olivia and I saw the Ed Ruscha show at the DeYoung Museum. Olivia especially liked Ruscha’s later work, the paintings with words like “Rodeo” and “A Particular Kind of Heaven” and “The End,” and the silhouettes of howling wolves and buffaloes, with vertical lines painted through like old film. I liked the early work, the Standard Oil paintings and the photographs of gas stations, structures that seemed graphically distinctive then, and utterly generic today.

As we walked through the exhibition, I remembered working at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, when Ruscha’s great mural, “Brave Men Run in My Family,” was installed. I love how looking at art causes your mind to make associations to other things you’ve seen, other experiences you’ve had, the past. I looked up the mural and saw it was installed twenty years ago, in 1995-96. Before I met Tim, before we got married, before we adopted our children. Another lifetime.

Ed Ruscha and the American West runs at the DeYoung through October 9. See it if you can. ~

 

 

 

 

Images courtesy:

DeYoung Museum

Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego

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Bonnard in SF

Friday, March 11th, 2016

The kids and I saw the Pierre Bonnard show on Sunday. You would have thought I was dragging them for a day of hard labor in a diamond mine the way they resisted, but I digress. By the time we got inside, their bad moods had lifted. The Palace of Legion of Honor Museum is sited on a dramatic cliff overlooking the SF Bay, and views of the Golden Gate Bridge framed by hillsides of redwoods would cheer up anyone. Rubbing elbows with the scads of young, cool SF hipsters viewing Bonnard’s work didn’t hurt.

Either the kids are finally old enough to appreciate painting or we’ve done this so often something’s sinking in, but we made it to the end with only minor fisticuffs. Bonnard’s canvases often include dogs and cats, and spotting them became a game. I sprang for 3 separate AudioTours, which kept us distracted and apart. And as always, the trip ended in the Cafe with a delicious chunk of chocolate cake.

Overall, a success. We recommend!

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