Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

San Francisco.

Just the name evokes a lot of ideas and stereotypes related to the city, doesn't it? It's just one of those things that comes with being a major city. I could waste everyone's time listing the things San Francisco is known for, but since this is an art blog, I think we can skip the pretense and get on with it, don't you? Long story short, I visited the city to see the Yerba Buena. The visit was...uh, we'll save that for another post. Let's just focus on the gallery itself.

The show going on while I visited was The Way Things Go, a collection of art showing cultural exchange through trade goods and agriculture. Although the artistic mediums varied wildly--ranging from videos to a giant bread mermaid, the theme was consistent through most of the pieces.

You thought I was kidding about that bread mermaid? Nope.

Much of the art had a food theme--seeds, fruits and vegetables, and other natural foods--but there were other goods, such as pottery, textiles, and writing samples. The emphasis of the show was to trace the movement of goods and culture through the colonial era through a post-colonial lens. Migration, culture, and anthropological insight on how life has developed and mingled on a global scale was reflected through these multimedia pieces. Here are a few displays I found to be especially interesting.

San Francisco de Goya: A Better Bitter by The National Bitter Melon Council

Nam Prik Zauguna by Pratchaya Phinthong

Porcelain Pirates by The Propeller Group

Nacireman Field: A Topography of Inventions by Michael Arcega

Golden Teardrop by Arin Rungjang

On a more personal note, that adorable little guy you see next to the piece from the National Bitter Melon Council (there's a thing I would have never guessed would actually be a thing) is my youngest brother. He's in a wheelchair and taking him places can be a challenge, but the gallery was very kind to him and us. They let me take him in for free, so while I was taking him for a ride, I decided to shoot some video of us going through the Wake in Guangzhou: The History of the Earth installation by Maria Thereza. Since his eyesight isn't so good, this was probably his favorite part of the show, due to the sounds from the videos playing at the center of the installation.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the chance to look around for very long, partly because I was supervising my brother and partly because...well, let's just say I was on a time crunch. More on that next time. As for the Yerba Buena, although I liked the show okay, I've been to this city before and I can tell you, it just doesn't compare to the MoMA or de Young Museum. If you're going to go all the way to San Francisco, you'd better make sure you see the best the city has, and the Yerba Buena isn't it.

Still, I'll give them extra points for being so accommodating for my brother. Believe me, decent accommodation for the disabled can be hard to come by in the big city. I'm rating this gallery Novelty M&Ms.

As for the city itself...well, I'm saving that for another post. Stay tuned.