Page 54 - 2018 Travel Guide to California

MUSEUMS & ART
BY LAURIE WEED
State of the Art
The Left Coast pays tribute to art, science and culture
SAN FRANCISCO
MUSEUM OF
MODERN ART
The first museum on the West
Coast devoted solely to 20th
-
century art, SFMOMA, above,
underwent a major expansion in
2014-2016 that more than doubled
the gallery space to 170,000
square feet, making it one of the
largest museums in the country
and one of the world’s biggest
museums dedicated to modern
and contemporary art.
Whether you prefer to ogle modern art or
antiquities, Ice Age fossils or space shuttles,
the Golden State’s wealth of world-class
museums awaits. With more than 1,000
museums of all sizes across the state,
there’s a lifetime of fine art, science, history
and culture to explore, as well as weird and
wonderful collections for every imaginable
niche-interest, from Star Wars memorabilia
to the legends of Bigfoot. While it’s impos-
sible to do them all justice here, we’ve
attempted to highlight the best of the best.
The Arts
Visiting LA? It’s easy to spend hours in the
West’s largest art museum, the Los Angeles
County Museum of Art (LACMA). Down-
town, the Museum of Contemporary Art
(MoCA) and Geffen Contemporary show-
case the best in 20th- and 21st-century
painting, sculpture and conceptual art. The
Institute of Contemporary Art (ICA LA), for-
merly the Santa Monica Museum of Art, has
recently reopened downtown to great
acclaim. The renowned Getty Museum
includes both the modern Getty Center in
the Brentwood district and the Getty Villa
in Malibu, which focuses on Greek and
Roman classical art. Pasadena’s Norton
Simon displays European and Modern
artists amid a serene sculpture garden. In
nearby San Marino, The Huntington
COURTESY SFMOMA. OPPOSITE: ALEX MILLAUER/SHUTTERSTOCK; VISIT CARMEL
52 2018 T R AV E L G U I D E TO C A L I F O R N I A