Explore the world through these 2017 museum shows
Japanese art and culture, new discoveries from ancient China, hippie culture and the Summer of Love, Monet’s early works and Roy DeForest’s dreamlike narratives are among the offerings coming to Sacramento Valley and Bay Area museums in the first part of 2017.
Crocker Art Museum
216 O St., Sacrameto, 916-808-7000, www.crockerartmuseum.org
As it did in the fall with three exhibitions devoted to glass, the Crocker Art Museum takes a thematic approach for spring with three shows examining the impact of Japanese art and culture on the United States from the 19th century to present.
• Jan. 22-May 5: “Into the Fold: Contemporary Japanese Ceramics From the Horvitz Collection” focuses on the technical virtuosity of Japanese ceramics in in refined and innovative works by 40 artists, many of whom are Japan’s greatest modern ceramists, including Hamada Shoji, one of the founders of the Japanese Folk Art Movement and internationally acclaimed female clay artists working in a field that was traditionally not open to them until after World War II.
• Feb. 12-May 21: “JapanAmerica: Points of Contact, 1876-1970” features nearly 200 works of art and design examining the influence of Japanese aesthetics on American culture through major exhibitions in America from 1876 onward, finishing with a look at the first Japanese World’s Fair held in Osaka in 1970. Also on view are Japanese industrial objects that were influenced by the West that used Western forms and manufacturing techniques while retaining the high level of craftsmanship and detail for which they were famous.
• Feb. 19-May 14: “Two Views: Photographs by Ansel Adams and Leonard Frank” presents documentary images of the internment and incarceration of Japanese Americans in the United States and Canada after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. This moving and historically important exhibition, which opens 75 years to the day Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 incarcerating 120,000 Japanese Americans in camps scattered throughout the American West, is particularly relevant today. Coinciding with the show’s opening, the Crocker will host a “Day of Remembrance” at 10 a.m. Feb. 19 to honor the resilience of Japanese Americans in the camps.
Asian Art Museum
200 Larkin St., San Francisco, 415-581-3500, www.asianart.org
Feb. 17-May 28: “Tomb Treasures: New Discoveries from China’s Han Dynasty” features 100 dazzling Han Dynasty (206 B.C.E. to 220 C.E.) works never before seen in the United States. Recently unearthed in Jiangsu Province near Shanghai, the objects include jade body suits sewn with gold thread, exquisite decorated coffins and domestic items, among them a large silver basin for bathing, a working stone latrine with armrest, a boldly designed ceramic urinal and even two hollow phalluses that could be worn and used.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
151 Third St., San Francisco, 415-357-4000, www.sfmoma.org
March 11-May 29: “Matisse/Diebenkorn” is the first major exhibition to explore the profound inspiration of French modernist Henri Matisse (1869-1954) on California artist Richard Diebenkorn (1922-93) through 100 seminal paintings and drawings – 40 by Matisse, 60 by Diebenkorn – that reveal connections between the two artists in subject, style, color and technique. SFMoMA is the only West Coast venue for this exciting and revelatory exhibition.
Legion of Honor
Lincoln Park, 100 34th Ave., San Francisco, 415-750-3600, www.legionofhonor.org
Feb. 25-May 29: “Monet the Early Years,” the first major exhibition devoted to the French artist’s early career, features 60 paintings that demonstrate the radical invention of his work during the formative years from 1858 to 1872. These daring and surprising works offer a once-in-a-lifetime chance to see Monet’s mastery before Impressionism.
De Young Museum
Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, 415-750-3000, www.deyoungmuseum.org
April 8-Aug. 20: “Summer of Love: Art, Fashion and Rock & Roll,” a 50th-anniversary celebration of the adventurous and colorful counterculture that arose in San Francisco in the 1960s and the vibrant festival in 1967 that crowned it, features 300 significant cultural artifacts of the time including classic rock posters, photographs, interactive music and light shows.
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
2120 Oxford St., #2250, Berkeley, 510-642-0808, www.bampfa.edu
Feb. 8-May 21: “Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia,” examines the radical art, architecture and design of the 1960s and early 1970s counterculture and the resonance of these innovations today seen in natural foods, yoga, ecological concerns and so much more. On view will be experimental furniture, living structures, environments, magazines, books and films that convey the social, cultural and political ferment of the time.
Oakland Museum of California
1000 Oak St., Oakland, 510-318-8400, www.museumca.org
April 28-Aug. 20: “Of Dogs and Other People: The Art of Roy DeForest” explores the artist’s dreamlike and often humorous works through 50 large, colorful paintings and sculptures that span DeForest’s career as a notable California figure in an artistic genre often called Funk Art or Nut Art. The genre is associated with members and students of the original UC Davis art faculty of the 1960s and 1970s, including DeForest, Robert Arneson, William T. Wiley, David Gilhooly and Maija Peeples Bright. A mural by DeForest on the California Energy Commission building at Ninth and P streets is one of Sacramento’s public art treasures.
Manetti Shrem Museum
254 Old Davis Road, UC Davis, 530-752-8500, www.manettishremmuseum.
Opening in April, with exact dates to be determined: “Recent Acquisitions Show” features works donated to the museum in the past two years; “Sadie Barnette,” first solo museum show by an Oakland artist who maps personal mythology and identity construction; “Marc Johnson: YuYu,” a new media exhibition of the artist’s 2014 film, “YuYu,” about a Chinese beekeeper who performs a rite of spring ceremony.
This story was originally published January 19, 2017 at 8:00 AM with the headline "Explore the world through these 2017 museum shows."