Out There :: Standing Up for Civic Art Treasures

Recently the arts journalist Tyler Green devoted an installment of his Modern Art Notes blog to the case of the Piazzoni murals' tumultuous fate in San Francisco. Perhaps you remember the tale. The two multi-panel murals "The Sea and The Land" (1932) had hung for years in the Beaux Arts gem of a building that was the old San Francisco Public Library in Civic Center. They were site-specific civic art. The artist Gottardo Piazzoni was an Italian-American immigrant whose great subject was his new home of California. His two library murals illustrated the deep blue ocean and golden-hued hills at the shore, defining features and colors of the local land- and seascape.

When the architect Gae Aulenti unveiled her design for the new Asian Art Museum that would replace the library in the renovated building, the murals, previously installed on either side of the grand staircase, were no longer part of the plan. A great San Francisco art monument was being unceremoniously uprooted, with no plans for further public display.

Green presents convincing evidence that the Piazzoni murals were greatly influential to important California artists like Clyfford Still and Robert Bechtle. "Every year or two I find a new way in which San Francisco's post-war avant-garde painters found him [Piazzoni] important," he writes. "In one way that shouldn't be a surprise: In the first decades after World War II, when art magazines were published in black-and-white, the local meant more than it does now. Artists spent more time absorbing what was around them than they did what was selling in the market centers."

There's a happy ending to the story of the Piazzoni murals, which Green doesn't go into, but we will. The then-San Francisco-based art critic David Bonetti raised such a hue and cry in his columns about the dismantling and proposed disappearance of a great city art treasure that the de Young Museum, which was just then moving into new quarters in Golden Gate Park, dedicated an entire gallery in the new museum to the preservation and presentation of the murals. Today you can contemplate the sea and the land in Piazzoni's great work, just the way generations of postwar California artists did. The art's new home in the great city park, once a rolling expanse of sand dunes leading to the ocean, seems fitting and fine.

We dredge up this old story for a reason. It's a fine example of how a focused and critical press can function as a watchdog for public interest, in a way we can't always expect arts institutions or their directors to be. Another example that comes to mind is when, without any warning, the corporate interests who operate the Palace Hotel dismantled the Maxfield Parrish painting that hung above the bar in its Pied Piper room. It was only the public uproar that followed exposure of the deed in the local press that persuaded management to rehang the Parrish, after cleaning, in its rightful place. (Out There was much relieved, as we were afraid we'd never be able to enjoy a Bombay Sapphire on the rocks at the Palace again, which would have been a real hardship.)

But we worry that the critical function of the local arts press has become more and more neutered or compromised. Arts journalists seem loathe to rock the boat, lest advertisers or their point-men take umbrage, and bloggers don't hold themselves to the same standards they hold others. Case in point: the expansion of SFMOMA that has necessitated the three-year closure of its flagship building. This means the destruction of some of the best features of architect Mario Botta's original design, including the great Italian marble-and-granite staircase in the atrium at its 3rd St. entrance. Architects from Snohetta , the firm that is handling the renovation, assured us that Botta explicitly signed off on the gutting/expansion. But let's be frank, was he really going to object?

At the last press conference held in the old SFMOMA, Out There asked pointedly how many personnel - guards, support staff, cafe workers, etc. - were being laid off during the three-year interim. Museum administrators skillfully deflected the question, and indeed, as a private institution, SFMOMA is under no obligation whatsoever to answer impudent questions about staffing and budgets. But after the presser, one museum staffer came up to us and thanked us for making the point. She was laid off shortly thereafter.

Costumes to Die For

Because Bay Areans love their costumes, we relay the following press release from SFO: "For only the fifth time in our 91-year history, San Francisco Opera is offering up for sale hundreds of stylish and exotic items, including medieval, Biblical, Renaissance, and 18th-century costumes; modern and vintage clothing previously worn in SFO productions; hats, masks, armor, gloves, belts and jewelry; handmade costumes spanning a wide variety of styles and periods; and wild conceptual and fantasy costumes that defy description. Also on sale will be crafting supplies, beads and findings as well as a wide variety of fabrics including vintage textiles, laces and brocades.

"Among the items available for sale are hand-woven Biblical costumes from the 2013 world premiere of The Gospel of Mary Magdalene; spectacular 19th-century costumes from Eugene Onegin; hand-painted fantasy costumes from Pelleas et Melisande; elaborate 18th-century costumes from Don Giovanni; studded leather jerkins from Die Meistersinger; as well as costumes from The Flying Dutchman, Carmen , and Katya Kabanova . The sale includes costumes worn by some of opera's greatest luminaries at San Francisco Opera and pieces by noted fashion designers such as the one and only Gianni Versace.

"San Francisco Opera Costume Shop Sale: Sat., March 22, 10:30 a.m.-5 p.m. (no admittance after 4:30 p.m.), and Sun., March 23 from 10:30 a.m.-4 p.m. (no admittance after 3:30 p.m.) at the San Francisco Opera Scene Shop, 800 Indiana St. (between 20th and 22nd Sts.) in SF. Prices range from $1 to $750; costumes from the special opera luminaries collection are available upon request. Cash and credit card only accepted; no checks. All sales are final and benefit San Francisco Opera. For more information, visit www.sfopera.com/costumesale."