Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
kids 6-12; Tues-Sun 11am-5pm)
for addressing what could be a tourist-trap topic
with academic intelligence. In fact, it's probably not a place where young kids will
have a good time unless they're steeped in pop art. Here, you'll tour several rooms
of works by seminal and well-known comic artists, particularly ones whose efforts
primarily appeared on newsprint. It began in 1987 with an endowment from
Charles M. Schulz, the
Peanuts
creator (for an entire museum devoted to him, see
p. 255), and since then, it's kept busy with up to seven changing exhibitions every
year, and it has published 20 books (so far) on the neglected topic of cartoon his-
tory (the gift shop is excellent). I love anyplace that celebrates unsung Disney
Imagineer Mary Blair, who created the distinctive look of “It's a Small World,” as
the museum did in a well-received exhibition in early 2008.
The
California Historical Society
(678 Mission St., at 3rd;
%
415/357
-
1848;
www.calhist.org; $3; Wed-Sat noon-4:30pm),
the state's official historical group,
has a gleaming building near SFMOMA, and the ground floor hosts changing
exhibitions about state history that have been put together with care. A recent one
was “Past Tents,” about the history of camping in California—a topic that nearly
everyone in town has some experience in, but which usually gets no notice. Even
if you're not interested in what's showing at the gallery, the small but well-inven-
toried gift shop is a strong source for books on state and local history.
The
Museum of the African Diaspora
(685 Mission St., near 3rd;
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415/
358
-
7200; www.moadsf.org; $10 adults, $5 seniors 65 and older, $5 students, kids
12 and under free; Weds-Sat 11am-6pm, Sun noon-5pmhttp://)
is what I call a
Spinach Museum—you go because it's good for you, or you go on a school field
trip, but it's less than satisfying because there are almost no artifacts, only ideas. I
smell lots of cash behind the enterprise, which is essentially designed to teach all
the ways that people descended from Africa have enriched world culture.
Undoubtedly true, that, but sitting in a darkened room while Maya Angelou's
taped voice intones a few wordy narratives from slaves is not an electric way to
bring that concept to life. Worse, the museum contradicts its own scholarship:
Angelou reads that 20 million people were transported from Africa, and a sign
outside the very same room gives the number as 10 million. There are occasional
exhibitions worth catching, such as a recent cool photographic show depicting
families around the world sitting amid piles of what they usually eat in a week,
but in general, it's not worth the high price.
Opened in its latest home in June 2008, the
Contemporary Jewish Museum
(736 Mission St. between 3rd and 4th sts;
%
415/655
-
7800; $10 adults, $5 sen-
iors over 64 and students, free for students under 19, $5 Thursdays after 5pm;
Fri-Tues 11am-5:30pm, Thurs 1pm-8:30pm, closed Wednesday; www.thecjm.org)
has won raves for its architecture, by Daniel Libeskind, who took a 1907 brick
power substation and impaled its roof with powerful, geodesic outcroppings.
(There is a free-with-admission architecture tour scheduled on most days.) Less
celebrated is the museum itself. There isn't much on permanent display. Rather, it
hosts various exhibitions, especially on art and photography, which change so reg-
ularly that deciding whether a visit warrants the ticket price depends entirely on
what's showing right now. Whereas the Museum of the African Diaspora dwells
on the ways black culture has enriched world culture, the Jewish Museum con-
certedly celebrates the reverse: the way the world has enriched assimilating Jews.
Like the museum building itself, the collision of old and new ends up making a
