Our first trip to the new de Young Museum...
…a few weeks ago. Mark and I had never been to the new de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, even though it is just down the street from our apartment, so we finally went. We decided to just pay general admission and see the museum’s permanent collection, since it was our first time, and see the special exhibit on Queen Hatshepsut another time.
We thought it was hard to walk up the first flight of stairs. It was a long, gradual staircase with wide, flat stairs, and somehow it was difficult to build any momentum. There were extra short steps you had to take between each step, and you got out of breath faster than you might think. We thought a ramp or even a shorter, steeper staircase would have been easier to deal with. We both complained a great deal as we walked.
Once upstairs, we found it difficult to find any art. We kept walking down long hallways and coming face to face with locked doors and elevators. We were walking around at random, because Mark said he preferred that approach to the strategy I suggested of taking a map, but soon I prevailed and we got a map. We went to the wing with 20th-century and contemporary art but quickly decided our brains were too lazy to grapple with the cognitive challenge of all that abstraction and complexity; so then we moved along to the wing with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American art, in which things looked like what they were supposed to be. We liked the paintings from the Hudson School, though I incorrectly identified some peacefully grazing cows as a herd of wild buffalo. Apparently I can’t even identify things that look like themselves.
In this wing of the museum, there was a view of the sculpture garden outside. We heard two older ladies comment disparagingly on it in a mixture of French and English. One lady said contemptuously, “Bowling balls and a clothespin! What a way to ruin a garden.” Actually, I should point out that the “bowling balls” were twelve apple sculptures, and the clothespin was a giant safety pin. The other lady said, equally dismissively, “Happy birthday to you. You can have this museum as your present—-garden and all.”
We went outside and sat in the sculpture garden. Mark said he wasn’t that impressed by the safety pin. I think his exact words were, “So it’s a safety pin, except larger! Big deal.” There was a prominent sign asking people not to touch the art in the garden, but during the brief time we were there, we saw at least three young children run up to the apples, sit on them, climb on them, and caress them vigorously. One of the children challenged the idea that there were twelve, as her mother had told her, so she decided to count them herself by running up to each one, touching it, and then shouting out a number. At the end, she triumphantly crowed that there were actually *fourteen* apples, but Mark whispered to me that she had gone straight from 9 to 12, completely disregarding 10 and 11. How incompetent.
Mark said he wanted to go back another time and try to appreciate the modern art again because he felt like he’d let it down. Our second trip to the deYoung will be covered in another tantalizing installment.
We thought it was hard to walk up the first flight of stairs. It was a long, gradual staircase with wide, flat stairs, and somehow it was difficult to build any momentum. There were extra short steps you had to take between each step, and you got out of breath faster than you might think. We thought a ramp or even a shorter, steeper staircase would have been easier to deal with. We both complained a great deal as we walked.
Once upstairs, we found it difficult to find any art. We kept walking down long hallways and coming face to face with locked doors and elevators. We were walking around at random, because Mark said he preferred that approach to the strategy I suggested of taking a map, but soon I prevailed and we got a map. We went to the wing with 20th-century and contemporary art but quickly decided our brains were too lazy to grapple with the cognitive challenge of all that abstraction and complexity; so then we moved along to the wing with eighteenth- and nineteenth-century American art, in which things looked like what they were supposed to be. We liked the paintings from the Hudson School, though I incorrectly identified some peacefully grazing cows as a herd of wild buffalo. Apparently I can’t even identify things that look like themselves.
In this wing of the museum, there was a view of the sculpture garden outside. We heard two older ladies comment disparagingly on it in a mixture of French and English. One lady said contemptuously, “Bowling balls and a clothespin! What a way to ruin a garden.” Actually, I should point out that the “bowling balls” were twelve apple sculptures, and the clothespin was a giant safety pin. The other lady said, equally dismissively, “Happy birthday to you. You can have this museum as your present—-garden and all.”
We went outside and sat in the sculpture garden. Mark said he wasn’t that impressed by the safety pin. I think his exact words were, “So it’s a safety pin, except larger! Big deal.” There was a prominent sign asking people not to touch the art in the garden, but during the brief time we were there, we saw at least three young children run up to the apples, sit on them, climb on them, and caress them vigorously. One of the children challenged the idea that there were twelve, as her mother had told her, so she decided to count them herself by running up to each one, touching it, and then shouting out a number. At the end, she triumphantly crowed that there were actually *fourteen* apples, but Mark whispered to me that she had gone straight from 9 to 12, completely disregarding 10 and 11. How incompetent.
Mark said he wanted to go back another time and try to appreciate the modern art again because he felt like he’d let it down. Our second trip to the deYoung will be covered in another tantalizing installment.
posted by Sarah Goss at 12:12 PM
10 Comments:
I think that if you put metal sculptures outside, these things are likely to happen to them. It irks my plebian soul that birds have more rights to those sculptures than people do. I saw Stonehenge once. It was covered in blithe ignorant birds, but the PEOPLE couldn't get anywhere NEAR the damn things. Anyhow, if the art is sturdy enough to take it, I'm of the "Harold and Maude" touchy-feely-smelly school of sculpture (inasmuch as I have an opinion about it at all).
I agree! Once I got in trouble at the Guggenheim for touching some smashed-car art—which was *begging* to be touched, let me assure you. Not only was I reprimanded, but a museum guard followed me around the rest of the time I was there, walking several paces behind me. I tried to elude him by hiding in the bathroom for awhile, but he was right there when I emerged. You know, sometimes feel like I’m going to touch the art inadvertently, like my limbs are just going to fly out of my control, and especially if the art is tactile-looking. It is similar to the feeling I get on tall buildings that my body is suddenly going to jump, without the permission of my mind.
Yes, you are right--those women were "tsk"ing! I realize the design and layout of the new de Young is controversial, but I didn't think they even made an effort to appreciate it. Sheesh. At least my complaints are all about my own inadequacy in a) being too newly out of shape to climb the stairs vigorously enough, and b) being too mentally out of shape to fully appreciate the contemporary art wing.
Do you know if the safety pin is an Oldenburg? I think we might've seen one just like it in DC in an expansive sculpture garden near the Smithsonian buildings...his bow and arrow at the Embarcadero is quite something. I can see the point of view of those who, like Mark, shrug their shoulders and say "Big deal" but for some reason I like them, too, in a David Byrne-esque way.
I will have to look that up and see if it's an Oldenburg! By the way, I agree with you, Michael... I like things that are themselves, except bigger.
Yep, the safety pin (as well as the bow and arrow on the SF waterfront/Embarcadero) is an Oldenburg. Think he's got the patent on oversized everyday things!
I couldn't stop bitching about those stairs (the low, flat, wide stairs) after the first time I went to the nuevo DeYoung. Regular stairs (like they have across the hall) or a ramp would have been much better. I'm not too keen on the DeYoung layout as there's no obvious "flow" or direction guiding you to the various galleries (I also noticed some problems with the handicap access that I won't go into detail here). In contrast, at SFMOMA I love zooming up the elevators to the 4th/5th floor and then walking down the diverse stairways (a different approach on every level). There was another museum in Europe (name and location forgotten) with *three levels* of a difficult to navigate stairway (very similar in construction to the infamous DeYoung stairs). Imagine the Eurochic attempting to navigate those stairs (the main access for the museum), highly visible with the open plan stairway and glass walls! Didn't like it then and still don't like it now. Looks good, but rubbish for actually descending/ascending...
Michael,
It's funny, you know I like the big old bow and arrow by the bay, so I'm beginning to question my petulant response to the safety pin :-). Actually, the fact that my response echoed (in cruder terms -- and truthfully I like to say boorish things -- to myself or to Sarah -- at art museums just for the fun of it) the snooty French-speaking lady's should have clued me into the need for re-thinking. Maybe I have traumatic memories from my infancy of a daiper-fastening accident! Actually, I do think the hugeness of the safety pin -- ordinarily obviously a tiny household object -- is kind of interesting. I can still definitely picture it and am thinking now about what it means.
Thiking David Byrne definitely helps too!
I really want to go back and look at some of the more modern art. I liked a lot of it, but I'm too partial I think to the more plainly mimetic 19th century stuff (big landscapes, Greek gods, etc.). There were some politically oriented (race issues-based) modern art that I found really powerful though. I think some of the other more "abstract" type stuff is might "threaten" my perceptive abilities because it reveals that images -- that seem to "represent" objects are made up of parts that can be "abstracted" and made (in terms of imitation) meaningless, defamiliarizing are usual processes of perception. But now I sound pretentious and am using too many quotation marks! I have lots to learn about art appreciation.
Katherine, I think you mentioned some frustration with the design. I know the design was pretty controversial. I wonder if some of the confusion and discomfort are intentional -- some way of disorienting our usual way of navigating museum spaces? I don't know. I definitely was bothered by those stairs. Whatever the design intent, poor handicap access can never be justified, aesthetically or otherwise. I'm torn about the actual building. It's definitely strange, and part of me would have loved some beautiful old-fashioned "classic" or Victorian style, but I think at least the outside and the viewing deck up top interested me. But I agree it was kind of difficult to deal with.
My "creative" syntax in my last post eludes explanation.
Or, maybe I can't type or finish a senten...
I LOVE THE SAFETY PIN!!!! I LUUUUVVVV RIDICULOUSLY, INSANELY LARGE VERSIONS OF THINGS! THEY ARE SOOOO FUNNYYYYYYYY. That's why I loved that one scene in Shrek where the guy with the giant head-mask goes running through the queueing ropes and smacks into the wall or falls down or whatever. That's why I love Michael's big head. That's why I love the South Park episode where Mr. Mackay gets high and his head blows up like a balloon and floats out of his shirt and all around South Park. Let's not forget ludicrously large chairs that make you feel all Alice-in-Wonderland-small. Absurdly large things that shouldn't be large are amusinggg. And the head of the safety pin is blue! It's BLUE! That makes it funnier! If you get real close to it, you'll see it's so smooth, too. And the safety pin in balancing upside-down on its head! Craziness! They can't do that - and yet they have! Michael and I saw it last weekend. We are wondering how wacky it would be if it fell over. The tip would probably do a good job piercing whatever it landed on.
Okay, I think the verdict is in: the giant safety pin (and giant things in general, that aren't supposed to be giant ordinarily) are good. Or, at least, funny.
What did you think of the little apples? And the overall museum layout that's caused so much controversy?
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