If, as Aristotle observed, the aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things but their inward significance, then museums are ideal places to contemplate the greater meaning of our fast-paced world.
Here then are some of the best exhibitions, either recently-opened or soon-to-open, in museums around the San Francisco Bay Area.
Lebbeus Woods, Architect -- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art will be presenting Lebbeus Woods, Architect, starting on February 16, showing 175 works of the influential architect culled from the past 35 years. Though few if any of Wood’s designs were ever built, Woods established himself as a creative visionary exploring the potential for architecture to transform both individuals and society.
Woods dealt mostly with the imagined and the proposed, though he also took special interest in addressing issues related to damage caused by both natural and man-made disasters, including war (Zagreb and Sarajevo) and earthquakes (San Francisco, following the Loma Prieta quake in 1989).
SFMOMA began collecting Woods’s work in the mid-1990s, and many of the drawings and models in the exhibition highlight items from this collection. The exhibition is perhaps even more fitting considering the current expansion underway at SFMOMA. "As the museum embarks on its own physical transformation,” notes Dunlop Fletcher, Acting Department Head/Assistant Curator of Architecture and Design, “the exhibition marks an opportunity to consider the meaning and implication of such a shift."
The exhibition is on display from February 16 to June 2, 2013.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
San Francisco, CA
Garry Winogrand -- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art launches an exciting retrospective of renowned photographer Garry Winogrand starting on March 9th, featuring some of the artist’s most recognizable images together with first looks at a largely unexamined segment of his work.
Born in New York City in 1928, Winogrand quickly established himself as a prolific chronicler of American life and culture. Roaming the streets of New York in the mid-1960s with his Leica 35mm camera pre-focused, Winogrand captured the mood and attitudes of the time, often with his subjects completely unaware. He continued in a similar vein on trips across the U.S.
While Winogrand left an abundant body of published work, perhaps more intriguing is the approximately 6,500 rolls of film (over 250,000 images), unproofed and uncataloged, that were discovered following his untimely death at the age of 56. This retrospective, the first in 25 years, draws heavily from these images with roughly half of the photographs having never been exhibited or published and over 100 having never been printed.
Divided into three parts, the exhibition features Winogrand’s New York-based work, photographs taken across America, and Winogrand’s late period up to his death in 1984.
The exhibition is on display from March 9 to June 2, 2013.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third Street
San Francisco, CA
Rembrandt’s Century -- de Young Museum
The de Young Museum, part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, examines the impressive art of printmaking in the 1600s in Rembrandt’s Century, an exhibition that highlights the amazing contributions and achievements of Dutch master Rembrandt and his contemporaries.
Timed to complement the concurrently-running Girl with a Pearl Earring: Dutch Paintings from the Mauritshuis, also at the de Young, Rembrandt’s Century draws principally from the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s extensive collection of the artist’s works on paper. As exhibition curator James Ganz explains, “More than any other fine objects, prints circulated extensively throughout the 17th-century art world, broadcasting artistic, political, and scientific development far and wide.”
In addition to Rembrandt, the exhibition features works by artists such as Adriaen van Ostade, Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione, and Jusepe de Ribera, as well as graphic artists such as Jacques Callot, Wenceslaus Hollar, and Lambert Doomer.
The exhibition is on display from January 26 to June 2, 2013.
de Young Museum
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA
Rising Dragon: Contemporary Chinese Photography -- San Jose Museum of Art
The years between 2000 and 2012 (both Years of the Dragon in the Chinese zodiac) represented unimaginable growth and change in all aspects of Chinese society, including the economy, culture, and politics. Rising Dragon: Contemporary Chinese Photography, a new exhibition on display at the San Jose Museum of Art, explores this unprecedented transformation through the eyes of 36 mainland Chinese photographers and more than one hundred images.
Featuring artists such as Wang Feng, Zhou Hai, and Wang Wusheng, among many others, the images present a portrait of rapid modernization that, at the same time, retain the unmistakable traces of a multi-millennial artistic legacy. Interpretations too abound as the seemingly ceaseless transformation of a city skyline (Wang Feng) stands in stark contrast with the environmental impact of unchecked economic growth (Zhou Hai).
While many of the photographers featured in the exhibition are well known within China, most are just beginning to receive attention here in North America. Rising Dragon: Contemporary Chinese Photography therefore offers an engaging glimpse into the fastest growing, and arguably most dynamic, region of the world as seen through the eyes of its emerging and established artists.
The exhibition is on display from February 2 to June 30, 2013.
San Jose Museum of Art
110 South Market Street
San Jose, CA
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