May Arts

Welcome to NOXP’s Monthly Arts post!  This page can always be found at the top bar of NOXP at all times, making it easy for you to access.  Instead of only focusing on exhibits that are opening and closing each month, this monthly art page will list all exhibits on show at a particular museum that month.  This will give a better overview of what is showing at any specific museum.  For museums that also house a permanent collection, I’ve included a small description and link to those collections as well.

I do not list any exhibits showing in galleries.  But I do highly recommend visiting the many art galleries located in San Francisco and the rest of the Bay Area.  On the first Thursday of each month, art galleries in San Francisco stay open late and are filled with festive art-lovers.  Oakland and San Jose have a similar event held on the first Friday of each month.

The museums are listed below in alphabetical order, starting with those in San Francisco and ending with those outside of the city.  Enjoy!

———-  San Francisco Museums  ———-

Asian Art Museum
200 Larkin Street, San Francisco (on Civic Center Plaza) – www.asianart.org

Phantoms of Asia: Contemporary Awakens the Past – opening this month on May 18th!

The museum’s permanent collection is one of the most comprehensive collections of Asian art in the world.  It consists of approximately 17,000 objects that span 6,000 years.  You can see the highlights of the permanent collection here.

The Cartoon Art Museum
655 Mission Street, San Francisco – www.cartoonart.org

Black and White and Read All Over – closing this month on May 6th!

Small Press Spotlight on Ric Carrasquillo – on exhibit until June 10th, 2012.

Darth Vader and Son – on exhibit until August 5th, 2012.

What, Me Worry? 60 Years of MAD – on exhibit until September 16th, 2012

The Contemporary Jewish Museum
736 Mission Street, San Francisco – www.thecjm.org

Do Not Destroy: Trees, Art, and Jewish Thought: An Exhibition and the Dorothy Saxe Invitational – on exhibit until September 9th, 2012.

Stanley Saitowitz: Judaica - on exhibit until October 16th, 2012.

California Dreaming: Jewish Life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush to the Present – on exhibit until October 16th, 2012.

de Young Museum
50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco (in Golden Gate Park) – www.famsf.org

Matter + Spirit: The Sculpture of Stephen De Staebler – closing this month on May 13th!

Arthur Tress: San Francisco 1964 – on exhibit until June 3rd, 2012.

The Art of the Anatolian Kilim: Highlights from the McCoy Jones Collection – on exhibit until June 10th, 2012.

New Dimensions: Prints and Multiples from the Anderson Collection – on exhibit until July 1st, 2012.

The Fashion World of Jean Paul Gaultier: From the Sidewalk to the Catwalk – on exhibit until August 19th, 2012.

The permanent collection of the de Young is rather diverse.  It holds pieces of American art from all periods, along with art from Africa, Oceania and the Americas.  The collection also contains costumes and textiles from a wide variety of Eastern and Western traditions.  You can read more about the collection here.

Legion of Honor Museum
100 34th Avenue, San Francisco (in Lincoln Park) – www.famsf.org

The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860-1900 – on exhibit until June 17th, 2012.

Making the Modern Picture Book: Children’s Books from the Victorian Era – on exhibit until June 17th, 2012.

The museum’s permanent collection largely consists of European artwork – with three galleries of sculpture by Auguste Rodin.  It also holds ancient art from throughout the Mediterranean and the Near East.  To read more about the Legion of Honor’s permanent collection, click here.

Museum of Craft and Folk Art
51 Yerba Buena Lane, San Francisco – www.mocfa.org

Only Birds Sing the Music of Heaven in this World - on exhibit until July 7th, 2012.

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 3rd Street, San Francisco – www.sfmoma.org

Rineke Dijkstra: A Retrospective – ending this month on May 28th!

Paul Klee: Portraits – on exhibit until June 3rd, 2012.

Descriptive Acts – on exhibit until June 17th, 2012.

Mark Bradford – on exhibit until June 17th, 2012.

Photography in Mexico: Select Works from the Collections of SFMOMA and Daniel Greenberg and Susan Steinhauser - on exhibit until July 8th, 2012.

Parra: Weirded Out – on exhibit until July 29th, 2012.

The Utopian Impulse: Buckminster Fuller and the Bay Area – on exhibit until July 29th, 2012.

ArtGameLab – on exhibit until August 12th, 2012.

New Work: Katharina Wulff – on exhibit until September 4th, 2012.

Jim Campbell: Explored Views – on exhibit until September 25th, 2012.

Contemporary Painting, 1960 to the Present – opening this month on May 18th!

The museum’s permanent collection consists of 26,000 pieces of modern and contemporary art.  It has strong holdings in photography, paintings, sculpture, design and new media arts.  Click here to read more about SFMOMA’s collection.

The SFO Museum
Located within the San Francisco International Airport – www.sfomuseum.org

International Terminal

Automata: Mechanical Wonders of the Nineteenth Century – closing this month!

A World Examined: Microscopes from the Age of Enlightenment to the Twentieth Century – on exhibit until June 2012.

Moto Bellissima: Italian Motorcycles from the 1950s and 1960s – on exhibit until July 2012.

Terminal 1

Hydration, Libation, and Lift: Airline Inflight Beverage Service – on exhibit until July 2012.

Terminal 2

Sean Nolan: Vietnam – on exhibit until May 2012.

Modern Form: Scandinavian Ceramics 1930s – 1960s – on exhibit until October 2012.

Terminal 3

On Tour with the San Francisco Symphony – closing this month!

Threading the Needle: Sewing in the Machine Era – on exhibit until August 2012.

Aviation Museum

Oceans by Air: Scale Models and Photographs by Jim Lund – on exhibit until July 2012.

Flight Gear: Pilot Equipment from the Open-Cockpit Era – on exhibit until August 2012.

Wooden Wonders: Early Lockheed Aircrafts – on exhibit until September 2012.

The many of the SFO Museum’s exhibits are located in pre-TSA locations – meaning you don’t need to have a plane ticket to see them.  Please check the museum’s website to see the exact locations of their exhibits.

———-  Outside of San Francisco  ———-

Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2575 Bancroft Way, Berkeley (between College and Telegraph) – www.bampfa.berkeley.edu

Sun Works – closing this month on May 6th!

Andy Warhol: Polaroids / MATRIX 240 – closing this month on May 20th!

Tables of Content: Ray Johnson and Robert Warner Bob Box Archive / MATRIX 240 – closing this month on May 20th!

Abstract Expressionisms: Painting and Drawings from the Collection – on exhibit until June 10th, 2012.

The Reading Room – on exhibit until June 17th, 2012.

State of Mind: New California Art circa 1970 – on exhibit until June 17th, 2012.

Himalayan Pilgrimage: Journey to the Land of Snows – on exhibit until June 30th, 2013.

The 42nd Annual University of California, Berkeley Master of Fine Arts Graduate Exhibition – opening this month on May 18th!

Iris & B. Gerald Cantor Center for Visual Arts at Stanford University
Lomita Drive at Museum Way, Stanford – museum.stanford.edu

Memory and Markets: Pueblo Painting in the Early 20th Century - closing this month on May 27th!

Light Works: Dan Flavin and Robert Irwin, Art from the 1960s – on exhibit until July 8th, 2012.

Wood, Metal, Paint: Sculpture from the Fisher Collection - on exhibit until October 13th, 2013.

Central Nigeria Unmasked: Arts of the Benue River Valley - opening this month on May 16th!

Oakland Museum of California
100 Oak Street, Oakland – www.museumca.org

Space-Light-Structure: The Jewelry of Margaret De Patta – closing this month on May 13th!

Question Bridge: Black Males – on exhibit until July 8th, 2012.

Modern Cartoonist: The Art of Daniel Clowes – on exhibit until August 12th, 2012.

The 1968 Exhibit – on exhibit until August 19th, 2012.

All of Us or None: Social Justice Posters of the San Francisco Bay Area – on exhibit until August 19th, 2012.

The museum’s permanent collection consists of artwork, historical artifacts, ethnographic materials, natural specimens and photographs that represent the legacy of California and its people.  You can read more about the collection here.

The San Jose Museum of Art
110 South Market Street, San Jose – www.sjmusart.org

Renegade Humor - on exhibit until July 8th, 2012.

Frank Lobdell: Wonderland – on exhibit until August 5th, 2012.

Braving the Elements: Let’s Look at Art – on exhibit until August 12th, 2012.

To Hell and Back: Sandow Birk’s Divine Comedy - on exhibit until September 16th, 2012.

Mexicanisimo Through Artists’ Eyes – on exhibit until September 23rd, 2012.

The museum’s collection focuses on the 20th and  21st centuries.  They have a focus on new media, West Coast artists and recent movements in art history.  You can learn more about the collection here.

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