SFMOMA Addition

This is for Bay Area locals. We were downtown last weekend and saw that the addition to MOMA is finally more than a framework of girders. It looks like a docked cruise liner and towers over the original Mario Botta building in front of it.

I'm beginning to believe it really will reopen in the spring of 2016.

Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz

Ai Weiwei's wonderful show was constructed completely by volunteers under the artist's remote direction. He's not allowed to leave China. The installation starts at the New Industries Building which is somewhat decrepit but light and airy. Red jacketed volunteers act as guides. The photos are a mixture of mine and Madame Le Chef's.

The first thing you see is a big paper dragon kite. This is the start of the piece "Wind".

This is what the dragon looks out at.

The dragon is surrounded by bird kites.

The second piece is "Trace". It's portraits of political prisoners done in Legos. Although the artist was imprisoned by the Cinese government, he doesn't let any other governments off the hook.

There are books explaining what the people were imprisoned for. In order to see the next piece, "Refraction" you have to go into the very narrow gun gallery and peer through panes of glass which are covered by plexiglass since some of the panes are broken. The reason the corridor was named "the gun gallery" is that the guards observed the prisoners working from there. If a riot broke out, the guards could break the glass and shoot the prisoners.

The claustrophobic nature of the gun gallery is a good preparation for the next pieces which are in the much older central prison building. Madame Le Chef and I agreed that the most moving piece was "Stay Tuned". You were invited to sit in a cell and listen to a song or speech or poem which was broadcast from a square hole in the wall, down near the floor. It was as if you were listening to a message from another cell.

The text was posted on the wall across from the cell. I really liked this poem.

As always, World bless Pussy Riot.

The last piece that we photographed was "Blossom". Various bathtubs, basins and toilets in the hospital were filled with porcelain flowers made in China. That, the beautiful light and the decaying walls transformed them into weirdly sacral objects.

Alcatraz 1/24/15

Madame Le Chef and I went out to Alcatraz to see the Ai Weiwei show (to be covered in the next post). I had not been there in over 20 years and was struck by two things: the decayed state of a lot of the buildings and the stunning setting and beauty of the island. San Francisco didn't have a drop of rain in all of January - the first time that happened since they began keeping records. That was a terrible thing in the long run but led to week after week of superb afternoons. We took the boat out to the island on one of those afternoons.

Some buildings are being held up by inner supports of steel girders.

The views are not bad.

The same fogs and mists that erode the buildings...

Help the plants.

If you can, you should visit Alcatraz while the Ai Weiwei show is on. It's there through April 26th.

Autumn 2014: Part 2

The ocean was still very calm on Thanksgiving day.

The beach was lightly peopled.

The guy on the right, below, who seems to be wearing camouflage, is actually wearing a jacket and pants made from cloth covered in pictures of cats. It's easy to love San Fransisco.

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Just a few days later it started to rain and has been doing it a lot. This was after the rain on November 30.

This was dawn after rain on December 16.

Autumn 2014

We do get a few Autumn colors out here. This was on November 23.

It's unlikely that any of the trees with colored leaves are native to California.

These photos were shot in Mountain View Cemetery in Oakland CA.

The cemetery climbs a pretty steep hill. That is downtown Oakland in the distance.

The weather was unusually mild at San Francisco's Land's End, on Thanksgiving Eve.

The ocean was very calm.

It was beautiful.

New San Francisco

From time to time, Madame Le Chef and I take a walk along the Bay, south of the Baseball Park and next to the new UCSF campus. I've previously posted plenty of pictures from our rambles. The city currently has an insatiable demand for housing and a lot of construction is taking place in that area. San Francisco will remain a working port. (Please click.)

And there are still some large parking lots for the ballpark (here occupied by Cirque du Soleil).

They will certainly be filled in with housing. Construction is all around. In places they are building city blocks all at once.

Finished blocks are awaiting their residents.

The city is changing at a dizzying rate.

True Detective

I've already mentioned my admiration for Cary Fukunaga's first two films. I was eagerly awaiting his next but instead of making a new film, he directed all eight episodes of the first season of True Detective. I should mention that in film, the director is the chief creative force, but with TV the headwriter/showrunner is the chief creative force and directors can come and go. So Nic Pizzolatto gets the major credit for the series and deserves it but I believe that the fact that Fukunaga was the only director led to the visual cohesiveness of the eight episodes and the tightness of the ensemble acting.

The show is set in Louisiana and follows two homicide detectives (Mathew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson) as they try to solve a ritualistic murder. The plot exists in three time periods over 17 years. The episodes are beautiful, crazy, scary, exciting drama. By Episode Four the viewer believes that our heroes face an immense conspiracy. By the final episode the scope of things has narrowed but the ending is still very satisfying. It's available on Netflix. I recommend it.