No big city adventure is complete without a visit to the art museum, so of course one of the few mandatory San Francisco itinerary items was to visit the SFMOMA.
So. Forget the massively overcrowded Stein exhibit upstairs. There are like, 3,000 Picasso and Matisse paintings, and although the collection is significant, there are massive globs of people crowding the event; pretty soon all those dabs of paint begin running into each other. I would much prefer to visit that exhibit during a quieter time.
To tell you the truth, there was really only one exhibit that caught my eye:
And Still They Remain
Sequestered into a small side gallery, this dual show by artists Klara Kristalova & Tiago Carneiro da Cunha was by far the most memorable.
Kukuschnik II
I especially fell for the work of Prague-born Klara Kristalova. Working now from Sweden, the ceramics Kristalova creates entranced me with their primitive, sloppy style that nonetheless hinted at deeper emotion lying beneath the glazed surfaces.
Witch
Her childlike and fantasy-induced sculptures often have a disquieting twist: dripping black blindfolds, a suffocating mask of moths, a dark pond surrounding a disembodied head. Kristalova’s immigrant childhood during a struggle against Communism surely provided a basis for these haunting figures.
The Rights of Spring
Twice As Happy
The Catastrophe
For more of Klara’s work, visit her website. I’ll go back to dreaming of one day owning of these pieces.
