de young

So one of the highlights of my trip to San Francisco (again, not exactly a sigh-seeing trip) was going to the de young art museum in the Golden Gate Park. My sister wanted to see it, and she had told me it was an architecturally unique building. Generally most things she finds cool, I do too, we are in-sync like that. But the de young is astonishing. Unfortunately it wasn't a sunny day, so we couldn't see the true beauty of the cooper siding. But it is still just an amazing building. It is so massive, looking back at my photos there is absolutely no way to capture the size and scale of the building in a photo.

In addition to the amazing building, we got to see some pretty amazing exhibits. Andy Warhol was a huge exhibit. Two things of particular interest. 1) His involvement in the dance world. He had a lot to do with Martha Graham and many other contemporary and modern choreographers. 2) He worked with Kenny Scharf. One of my childhood friends is Kenny's niece. His artwork used to be all over her house, which I always thought was strange as a child, but now I can see where the influence came from.

We also got to see an Yves St. Laurent exhibit, which was beyond fabulous. They had at least 100 of his couture outfits. They were so extravagant. Some were so timeless I know that I would be in love with it many many years from now.

After we did these two fabulous displays. We went up in the observation tower. While there wasn't much to see due to the fog and rain, you do get a great view of the building and a sense of how massive it is.

Went went through the modern art section lastly and there was one room that housed some of the best pieces of art in the whole museum.

One piece was very moving and also so beautiful. It was pieces of charred wood that had come from a African American Baptist church that had been burned by an arsonist. Hundreds of these pieces just floated in air, hanging from the ceiling.

Another piece was covered in junk...literally junk and then coated in glue and plaster. If you stood close enough to it you could smell its stink.

Then there was what I refer to as "The Tiffany's Art", which was only because it is very shiny and silver.

Outside there were some very amazing pieces of art as well. Nothing beats a giant safety pin....

There was also a large rock that had been covered in silver, pounded, and then polished...if only it had been sunny!