Visiting the "Jewseum" in SF
Saturday, 4 Mar 2017, 3pm.
We arrived in San Francisco on our weekend staycation too early to check into our hotel. No problem; there were things in the area we wanted to visit. We left our luggage locked in the car at the 5th & Mission parking garage and walked a few blocks over to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF's SoMA (South of Market Area) neighborhood.
The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco
On a historical/architectural note, the CJM- or "Jewseum" as it calls itself with a Twitter hashtag- occupies a building that for many decades was a power company generating station. The original sweatshop factory-looking building was destroyed in the great earthquake and fire of 1906. The present building was rebuilt in the Beaux-Arts style. ...Yeah, it's nowhere near as ornate as the many beautiful Beaux-Arts examples in SF such as City Hall and the War Memorial Opera House, but this was considered very luxurious at the time for a utility station.
This weekend is the third time in recent year I've stayed over in San Francisco in the area around this museum. Having seen it out my window and on my daily walk I've been curious about visiting it. I was especially intrigued during a previous stay when the museum touted a "Jewish suburban life in the latter 20th century" exhibit or somesuch. It seemed amusing that I could go to a museum that would look like the homes of half the people I know.
Alas, that exhibit has moved on. The CJM has no permanent exhibits; it's all guest exhibits. The guest collection in there now is art by Cary Leibowitz. His style is best described as Kitch. Intentional, self aware kitch. ...Which makes it basically hipster kitch, the very worst kind of kitch!
"Do these pants make me look Jewish?" the artist asks in a widely reproduced hand-lettered sign reminiscent of some Comic Sans parody. No, I'd answer, but your tedious self-loathing humor make you look like a ne'er-do-well nephew of Woody Allen who couldn't break in to filmmaking.
There were other exhibits in the museum but few made any sense. "What am I looking at here?" was a question I asked myself many times. Even after reading the caption cards I was still perplexed. Art often gets a bad rap as being self-important and pointless. A lot of what's only display at the CJM sadly reinforces that.
Ultimately it was in the museum gift shop that we saw the most interesting collection of contemporary Jewish culture: a combination of religious worship items, household decorations, clothing, and cultural books. There's something deeply ironic about finding the best representation in a store.
We arrived in San Francisco on our weekend staycation too early to check into our hotel. No problem; there were things in the area we wanted to visit. We left our luggage locked in the car at the 5th & Mission parking garage and walked a few blocks over to the Contemporary Jewish Museum in SF's SoMA (South of Market Area) neighborhood.
The Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco
On a historical/architectural note, the CJM- or "Jewseum" as it calls itself with a Twitter hashtag- occupies a building that for many decades was a power company generating station. The original sweatshop factory-looking building was destroyed in the great earthquake and fire of 1906. The present building was rebuilt in the Beaux-Arts style. ...Yeah, it's nowhere near as ornate as the many beautiful Beaux-Arts examples in SF such as City Hall and the War Memorial Opera House, but this was considered very luxurious at the time for a utility station.
This weekend is the third time in recent year I've stayed over in San Francisco in the area around this museum. Having seen it out my window and on my daily walk I've been curious about visiting it. I was especially intrigued during a previous stay when the museum touted a "Jewish suburban life in the latter 20th century" exhibit or somesuch. It seemed amusing that I could go to a museum that would look like the homes of half the people I know.
Alas, that exhibit has moved on. The CJM has no permanent exhibits; it's all guest exhibits. The guest collection in there now is art by Cary Leibowitz. His style is best described as Kitch. Intentional, self aware kitch. ...Which makes it basically hipster kitch, the very worst kind of kitch!
"Do these pants make me look Jewish?" the artist asks in a widely reproduced hand-lettered sign reminiscent of some Comic Sans parody. No, I'd answer, but your tedious self-loathing humor make you look like a ne'er-do-well nephew of Woody Allen who couldn't break in to filmmaking.
There were other exhibits in the museum but few made any sense. "What am I looking at here?" was a question I asked myself many times. Even after reading the caption cards I was still perplexed. Art often gets a bad rap as being self-important and pointless. A lot of what's only display at the CJM sadly reinforces that.
Ultimately it was in the museum gift shop that we saw the most interesting collection of contemporary Jewish culture: a combination of religious worship items, household decorations, clothing, and cultural books. There's something deeply ironic about finding the best representation in a store.