Lao Voices

Free museum day was last May in California. We went to visit The Legion of Honor and the DeYoung at Golden Gate Park, San Francisco. I remember the DeYoung had been under reconstruction for so long. I actually missed the old DeYoung, or was it the old Asian Art Museum in Golden Gate Park? The old museum had these giant concrete rectangular lily ponds at the main entrance. I remember watching some cute turtles just sun bathing on the rocks. But now they are gone, and the new DeYoung represents the future, all modern and sleek.

If you are into modern art, then you may enjoy visiting the DeYoung. The only thing I was interested in was seeing Vivienne Westwood’s “30 years of fashion” exhibit. I am not a true fan of her work, but I did enjoy seeing her designs in person. They didn’t show too much of her stuff and mainly tried to sell some of her books and t-shirts. I probably would have had more fun looking at pretty dresses at Nordstorm’s or Macy’s.

This is not the DeYoung, but I felt more at ease here. Especially with that lonely Bonsai looking tree and the giant pottery. It is part of Golden Gate Park’s outdoor theatre.

Both museums were really crowded on that foggy weekend. It seem the whole city decided to do a museum day too. Mostly I was really looking forward to the Legion of Honor’s French jewelry collection. But we could barely get a peep at all the glittery stuff. Definitely too much people for me to really enjoy the moment. But I did get to see many other collections and was really inspired by the European decorative art and furniture. The Legion of Honor also has a huge collection by Rodin too. The picture posted here is of the Thinker, situated right at the entrance. If anyone is in the San Francisco area, I would highly recommend visiting the Legion of Honor.

Rodin’s Thinker is perhaps his best known monumental work, first conceived ca. 1880-1881 as the poet Dante. The image evolved until it no longer represented Dante, but all poets or creators. -Legion of Honor, SF