Edward Hopper

Heres how seriously SFMOMA takes Intermission (1963) -- we bet you won't read it all: Collection SFMOMA, purchase in memory of Elaine McKeon, chair, SFMOMA Board of Trustees (1995-2004), with funds provided in part by the Fisher and Schwab Families; © Heirs of Josephine N. Hopper, licensed by the Whitney Museum of American Art; photo courtesy Fraenkel Gallery

Cultural institutions in San Francisco continually search for new acquisitions. Alexis Coe brings you the most important, often wondrous, sometimes bizarre, and occasionally downright vexing finds each week.

Next Thursday (May 17), moneyed admirers of American artist Edward Hopper can bid on the painting Bridle Path (1939) at Sotheby's for an estimated $5 million to $7 million. SFMOMA described the work as being "of interest to Hopper scholars as an atypical work by the artist." In the very same press release, the museum announced the acquisition of Intermission (1963), which is "recognized as one of his best works."

But this is not an article about SFMOMA's recent acquisition, or even its "deaccession" of Bridle Path, which might confuse regular readers of this series. Recent Acquisitions has reported on additions to Bay Area cultural institutions, whether esoteric pieces or adorable fuzzy animals. It is important to understand, however, that acquisitions have a necessary accomplice within the world of collections strategy: the deacqusition, better known as the deaccession.

Institutions are rarely as forthcoming as SFMOMA, and with good reason: Certain news organizations have treated the process as scandal. When mistakes were made, they made headlines. Any sale, trade, or donation might ignite a firestorm of controversy, creating a false sense of urgency.

This unwanted attention has put cultural institutions on the defensive. Indeed, it was challenging to find arts employees willing to discuss the subject on record, if at all, but transparency is imperative - particularly when the process of deaccessioning is not only crucial, but necessary.

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Evgenia Arbugaeva

We think like the photojournalist (natch): Shoot absolutely everything interesting, from every angle and setting, and from the bigger set you're sure to get a handful of good shots and one that just nails it, the image that wows people and could speak for the whole shoot. Now imagine this on a grand scale -- say, 500 photographers from around the world submitting work to a group of professionals. From those, the top 50 photographers are chosen, and from each a single representative image. Say hello to "Contents: Love, Anxiety, Happiness, and Everything Else," which begins tonight (Thursday), at Rakyo Photo Center, home of an old-timey photo booth and unforgettable openings.

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Owen Smith

Building the Iron Horse

On May 27, the Golden Gate Bridge turns 75. If you were one of the 300,000 who walked across the bridge when it turned 50, you remember the unsettling sway, and the later reports that the convex profile of the bridge had been flattened by our collective weight. And you remember that it didn't matter. Euphoria was high. Dianne Feinstein (who was mayor at the time) tossed the $800 Fedora of Willie Brown (who was speaker of the Assembly) into the sea like a Frisbee. Half a million people pushed together on the waterfront to see the bridge turned into a golden waterfall; even with advances in pyrotechnics, few fireworks displays have been as lovely. Why? Because the bridge is gorgeous.

That's the only reason an art exhibit titled "Artistic Visions of the Golden Gate Bridge" could be anything but cheesy crafts-fair death. That is the title of the exhibit at George Krevsky Gallery -- the show opened just this week and is one of 75 tributes to the bridge -- and it's in good hands. (Remember this is the same gallery that brought us "The Art of Baseball," which was far more than just a rah-rah for the hometown nine.)

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Sylvia Sleigh

The man's exposed ankle in Lawrence and Susanna Delagado in an interior (1968) is more significant than it looks.

Cultural institutions in San Francisco continually search for new acquisitions. Alexis Coe brings you the most important, often wondrous, sometimes bizarre, and occasionally downright vexing finds each week.

In one painting, a nude man poses as a reclining odalisque, a female slave in an Ottoman seraglio. In another, a man's bare back meets the viewer as he directs his attention to five male companions. Sylvia Sleigh (1916-2010) had no problem challenging art history in her paintings, exposing traditional themes as stereotypical at best, and degrading at worst. Women had too often been "painted as objects of desire in humiliating poses," Sleigh once said. "I don't mind the 'desire' part, it's the 'object' part that's not very nice."

Sleigh's subjects were no gods of antiquity favored in Renaissance art, but rather their human counterparts, resplendent with body hair and contemporary apparel. By inserting the male figure into the traditional female role in the 1970s, Sleigh criticized traditional gender roles.

Many of Sleigh's works, however, sought to equalize the genders on canvas. One such example, Lawrence and Susanna Delagado in an interior (1968) was exhibited in November at the SOMArts Gallery, to be placed at a Bay Area cultural institution upon the show's conclusion. Sleigh's estate tasked the Women's Caucus for Art with placing the oil painting, and group president Janice Nesser-Chu contacted Dr. Stephanie Hanor, the director of the Mills College Art Museum.

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Winston Smith

Let Them Eat Jellybeans , 1981

Winston Smith is among those responsible for giving Bay Area punk rock a visual representation -- and when we say "Winston Smith," we're not talking about the infamous 1984 literary character, but rather the notable Bay Area artist whose work includes politically driven album covers and equally radical collages. He created artwork for music label Alternative Tentacles as well as album covers for the Dead Kennedys and Green Day, among others. A favorite and oft-used vehicle for Smith is the postcard and the poster, each ideal for his incongruous, contradictory, and sometimes shocking juxtapositions.

Some of us here know Smith from circa 1988, from a long-gone SoMa copy store whose owners were affiliated with Smith, Jello Biafra, performance art icon Mark Pauline of Survival Research Laboratories, and members of the Church of the Subgenius. On Sunday, Smith opens the doors of his studio -- which he calls Grant's Tomb. His is the stuff of San Francisco underground legend. Those of you who weren't here (or born yet) back then could learn a lot -- and get some great art -- by visiting.

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Can you envision a "live magazine?" How about an event that combines the best parts of your favorite magazine, like great writing, unusual and illuminating topics, and beautiful, challenging images, with the spontaneity, ephemerality, and added sensory elements such as live music? Pop-Up Magazine is that event, and in its short existence (it has produced six issues in three years) it has become one of the city's most exciting cultural happenings. Tickets to the production sell out in minutes, and presenting at the event has become something like appearing on Saturday Night Live for intellectuals, a high-profile career touchstone earned on stage. Photography and recording is prohibited, so we give you what we can with images from a party associated with the event.More >>

"Moonlight Topaz"

Between 1942 and 1945, 11,200 Japanese-Americans were sent to Topaz Camp. It was located in a parched stretch of desert about 125 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Most of the prisoners were from San Francisco. Some were forced to live in horse stalls at Tanforan Race Track before being shipped there. Two-thirds were U.S. citizens. None had been charged with a crime. Kids lucky enough to turn 17 while at Topaz were administered a two-question loyalty test, which could win them "freedom" through the draft; resistors came to be known as the "No-No Boys" and were immediately shipped to another camp.

Amazingly, in the midst of this madness, an art school was born. Boasting 600 students, the school offered classes in watercolor, architectural drafting, oil painting, and anatomy, taught by 17 reputable instructors. One was professor Chiura Obata, who found his own UC Berkeley students similarly interned. Because writing and photography were forbidden, these images became the only record of camp life, and its primary pastime.

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Eadweard Muybridge

Cultural institutions in San Francisco continually search for new acquisitions. Alexis Coe brings you the most important, often wondrous, sometimes bizarre, and occasionally downright vexing finds each week.

Curator Jamie O'Keefe was conducting a standard inventory check at the San Francisco Fire Department Museum when she noticed tiny lettering in the corner of a photograph: Muybridge Studio.

O'Keefe was floored. Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was best known for his pioneering work in motion photography. (Read a review of his 2011 exhibit at SFMOMA, "Helios: Eadweard Muybridge in a Time of Change.") The photographer was known for using 12 to 24 cameras at a time and his own shutter in an attempt to create images of suspended motion, resulting in a visual illusion of movement. He has been the focus of major exhibitions worldwide, most notably at the Tate Britain, the Smithsonian, and the Bay Area's own Cantor Center at Stanford University.

What's left of his portfolio is sought after by serious collectors and pre-eminent institutions across the globe -- and the images don't come cheap. Artnet estimates that Muybridge's famous Animal Locomotion plates sold, at auction in 2009, for a $45,000.

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Cameron Adams / Flickr

This didn't make the cut.

At its best, public sculpture is stirring and inspiring. At its worst, it's an assault on the senses -- a visual blight that prompts passers-by to avoid eye contact or (in extreme cases) attack the art with invective, graffiti, or even legal threats of removal. San Francisco has its share of divisive sculpture. Consider Cupid's Span, the giant red bow and arrow on the Embarcadero, which is a classic case of good intentions gone awry. Done in 2002 by the New York-based team of Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, the sculpture -- "inspired by San Francisco's reputation as the home port of Eros" -- is whimsical but way too trivial for its size and placement. Life is too short to stand in front of works like Cupid's Span. Instead, visit these free public sculptures, which should resonate with art lovers of all tastes.

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Kellen Breen

American Boys and Girls

Get past the miscellany of dogs and beer, and you'll find a surprisingly refreshing art gallery in the back of Place Pigalle, Hayes Valley's no-frills culture destination.

The exhibition "Paintings by Kellen Breen and Scott Inguito" opened Saturday night to a familiar crowd that was more mainstream than art geek, less tech and more street -- a rare blend of normalcy that was surprisingly more interested in the artwork than being seen. The large-scale oil paintings -- some measure five feet across -- are impressive and thought-provoking without being overwhelming. Breen and Inguito, who share a studio in the Mission, clearly work well together in close quarters, and their work exhibits harmoniously side by side. Where Breen's paintings are visually stimulating and complex, Inguito's focus and nuanced study on the El Camino -- the car, not the road -- is sublime.

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