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Feasting on Memories, Serving the FutureNEW YORK TIMES

2010-02-21T09:22:00.001-08:00

Perhaps more than any other work on display at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, “The Brown Sisters” by Nicholas Nixon captures the essence of the institution’s 75th anniversary celebration. The work is a set of 35 photographic portraits, made annually since 1975, of the artist’s wife and her three siblings standing in the same order. The museum acquired the artwork in 2000, and, as of now, there is no official end date to this act of creation.

Just as the past and future fuse in Mr. Nixon’s photographs, so the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, founded in 1935 as the San Francisco Museum of Art, is taking a Janus-like approach to its milestone year.

Arts organizations often use anniversaries as an excuse for self-flattery and financial opportunism. The recent 30th anniversary celebration for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles — with its ritzy gala headlined by Lady Gaga and the Bolshoi Ballet and a no-holds-barred campaign to raise $60 million — threatened to eclipse the opening of the museum’s important anniversary show, one of the largest exhibitions in its history.

Closer to home, the San Francisco Mime Troupe’s 50th birthday last year focused more on its glorious past than its uncertain future. But SF MoMA has managed to keep in balance the elements necessary to celebrate a major milestone, including innovative programming, fund-raising and outreach.

With new multimedia tours, inventive collaborations with local and international artists and, most significantly, ambitious new expansion plans, the museum is intent on looking ahead. Two weeks ago, officials said they had raised $250 million in just six months, letting the museum double its endowment and put $150 million toward the building of a new wing and other development. These plans emphasize that this institution, unlike others that have been around for a while, is as proud of its present and future as it is of its innovative past.

To be sure, the yearlong celebration, a series of shows and events, offers plenty of backward looks. The freewheeling core exhibition, “The Anniversary Show,” which runs through Jan. 16, 2011, features more than 400 works from the museum’s permanent collection. And “Focus on Artists,” which runs through May 23, explores the museum’s past relationship with 18 influential artists, including Richard Serra, Diane Arbus and Andy Warhol.

Still, the historical “Anniversary Show” doesn’t come across as the typical self-aggrandizing archival survey. The museum may have been the first art institution to give a then-unknown Jackson Pollock his first solo museum show, in 1945, but the exhibition, which features his “Guardians of the Secret” (1943) among others, doesn’t play up such accolades.

At first glance, the second floor appears to resemble the schizophrenic found-object collages of local Mission School artists like Barry McGee (whose “Untitled,” an undulating montage of hundreds of framed drawings and photographs, is on display). Works by such well-known artists as Pollock, Alexander Calder, and Arshile Gorky share space with a selection of 1950s bright watercolors by teenage artists from Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Galleries devoted to the museum’s collection of antique Olivetti typewriters and archival footage of its television programs from the early 1950s contrast glaringly with Jeff Koons’s glossy ceramic sculpture “Michael Jackson and Bubbles” and Penelope Umbrico’s “5,377,183 Suns From Flickr (Partial) 4/28/09,” which consists of snapshots of sunsets culled from the Flickr image-sharing Web site.

Yet for all its eclecticism, the exhibition proffers an interesting, if slightly obscure, curatorial logic, inspired by the museum’s founding director, Grace McCann Morley. By highlighting Morley’s curatorial interests and borrowing her aesthetic, the show provides fascinating insight into the life of this formidable but little-remembered West Coast art trailblazer.

Morley, who died in 1985 at the age of 85, was the sort of curator who responded to the horrors of war by presenting works that engaged directly with the theme of conflict, like Picasso’s “Guernica,” as well as by shows that served as a lighthearted distraction, like the museum’s 1942 exhibition, “Sawdust and Spangles: Arts of the Circus.” With her broad-minded legacy in mind, the seemingly wacky curatorial approach behind “The Anniversary Show” makes more sense.

That eclecticism extends to the museum’s overall engagement with the here and now. It places a welcome emphasis on local culture by commissioning Bay Area artists from a wide variety of fields to engage with works in its collection. For example, a new audio tour features the San Francisco electronica duo, Loop!Station, responding to James Rosenquist’s “Leaky Ride for Dr. Leakey” (1983) with a song that is as bold and angular as Mr. Rosenquist’s Pop Art painting. Similarly, the museum’s “Muse” advertising campaign pairs local cultural luminaries like the couturier Colleen Quen and the author Robert Mailer Anderson with well-known works from the museum’s collection.

As the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s current efforts show, anniversaries can have a galvanizing effect on an institution and its community. But they must be approached with caution. These celebrations should do more than dwell on the past; they should take stock of the present. And to have something to celebrate 25, 50 or 75 years from now, they should always keep an eye on the future.

Aurelia's Oratorio

2009-12-23T08:24:00.000-08:00

Conceived by Victoria Thierree Chaplin and starring Chaplin's daughter, Aurelia, this whimsical jewel box of a show turns the world upside down and inside out. At Berkeley Rep through January 24.

The Threepenny Opera

2009-12-21T11:52:00.001-08:00

Shotgun Players' take on this Kurt Weill/Bertolt Brecht classic roars with fun and rage. Through January 31.

The Bald Soprano

2009-11-25T08:26:00.001-08:00

The Cutting Ball Theater's production of this Eugene Ionesco absurdist classic is as slickly-staged as it is nutso. Through December 12 at The Exit Theatre on Taylor Street.

This World In A Woman's Hands

2009-09-24T08:54:00.001-07:00

A couple of years in development, Marcus Gardley's new play about Rosie the Riveter is pretty riveting. The ensemble and music are terrific and the story is compelling. Through October 18 at Shotgun Players.

Awake And Sing!

2009-09-02T12:34:00.001-07:00

Aurora Theatre's production of Clifford Odets' 1934 drama is engrossing for the performances and taut mise-en-scene. Through September 27.

Traveling Light

2009-07-30T21:47:00.001-07:00

In the Joe Goode Performance Group's latest, beautiful site-specific work at The Old Mint Building, old money and new money collide and cancel each other out. Through August 9.

The Master & Margarita

2009-07-17T00:05:00.000-07:00

Four Larks Theatre Company makes an oasis in West Oakland with its loosy-goosy, music and visual art-tinged stage adaptation of Mikhail Bulgakov's masterful novel. At Ghost Town Gallery on San Pablo through July 19.

Private Lives

2009-07-12T22:23:00.001-07:00

California Shakespeare Theater brings Noel Coward to its beautiful outdoor stage for the first time in company history. A lovely production. Through August 2.

The Dybbuk

2009-07-10T07:54:00.000-07:00

Habima Theatre of Israel is in San Francisco for a few days with its production of the great Jewish classic, The Dybbuk. Don't miss it. Through July 12 at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

Jack Goes Boating

2009-06-22T08:55:00.000-07:00

Aurora Theatre's production of Bob Glaudini's savage-sweet urban comedy is remarkable, especially from an acting perspective. All four cast members do an amazing job. Through July 19.

Rabbi Sam

2009-03-16T11:11:00.001-07:00

Solo writer-performer Charlie Varon's latest collaboration with director David Ford at The Marsh -- their first in nine years -- is as soulful as it is raucous. Through April 5.

Monsters and Prodigies: A History of the Castrati

2009-02-06T10:10:00.000-08:00

Teatro de Ciertos Habitantes from Mexico City bring this polyphonic romp through opera history to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Through Feb. 7.

My Children! My Africa

2009-01-21T10:52:00.000-08:00

Marin Theatre Company's riveting production of Athol Fugard's 1989 play My Children! My Africa! resonates strongly with our own times. Through Feb 8.

Abraham Lincoln's Big Gay Dance Party

2008-12-17T23:01:00.000-08:00

Part pop culture-infused political satire, part love story and part high-kicking surrealist “happening,” Aaron Loeb's new world premiere comedy at SF Playhouse, albeit imperfect, is one of the most unusual feats of theatrical expression I’ve seen all year. Through January 17 2009.

The Arabian Nights

2008-12-01T09:29:00.001-08:00

Mary Zimmerman's take on this famous old story about a woman who manages to save her life by spinning tales at Berkeley Rep is as visually lustrous as it is verbally ribald. Through January 4.

The America Play

2008-11-28T08:38:00.001-08:00

Thick Description's slick revival of Suzan-Lori Parks' madcap 1993 play about a black gravedigger who exchanges his shovel for Abraham Lincoln's stove pipe hat, frock coat and beard makes for particularly intriguing viewing in light of Obama's recent ascension to the Presidential throne. Through December 14.

Angry Black White Boy

2008-10-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

Adam Wolf's adaptation of Adam Mansbach's novel Angry Black White Boy at Intersection for the Arts is as rhythmic and muscular and and as it is funny and profound. Through Nov 16.

Shining City

2008-10-19T10:42:00.000-07:00

Amy Glazer's production of Irish playwright Conor McPherson's eerie-psychological drama is stomach-knotting brilliance. At SF Playhouse through November 22.

History Boys

2008-10-09T17:44:00.001-07:00

Despite some dodgy British accents here and there, New Conservatory Theatre Center's production of Alan Bennett's The History Boys is beautifully acted and staged. Through October 26.

The K Of D: An Urban Legend

2008-10-05T10:06:00.000-07:00

Laura Schellhardt's creepy-beautiful coming-of-age play set in a small mid-western town marks the debut of Loretta Greco's tenure as artistic director of the Magic Theatre. A bold and unusual opener. Through October 19.

Vera Wilde

2008-10-03T10:41:00.000-07:00

Chris Jeffries' stimulating musical about two Victorian-era hero-outcasts poses intriguing questions about the nature of revolution. Through October 26 At Shotgun Players' Ashby Stage in Berkeley.

Point Break Live!

2008-07-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

New Rock Theater Productions' most bodacious spoof of Kathryn Bigelow's 1991 surfer action movie gives Keanu a run for his wetsuit. Playing at Fat City in an open-ended run.

Yes, Yes To Moscow

2008-05-31T11:43:00.001-07:00

San Francisco director Mark Jackson's physical theatre, song and German-language-infused riff on the Three Sisters re-imagines Chekhov's famous play in a luminous, hilarious and wistful way. Part of this year's San Francisco International Arts Festival. At Dance Mission theatre until June 1.