Page 61 - 2019 Travel Guide to California

THE SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART (SFMOMA),
right, is one of the largest museums in the country and one of
the world’s biggest museums dedicated to modern and
contemporary art; the walk-through rainforest in the California
Academy of Sciences, below.
library, art collections and 120 acres of
botanical gardens.
San Francisco’s Legion of Honor, in
Lincoln Park, holds an extraordinary per-
manent collection and hosts top-notch
exhibitions from around the world. In
nearby Golden Gate Park, the de Young
showcases the arts of Africa, Oceania and
the New World. The San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art (SFMOMA) reopened in 2016,
and now spans 10 dazzling floors of gal-
leries and 45,000 square feet of free public
art space. Across the Bay, the Oakland
Museum of California (OMCA) is dedicated
to native arts, history and ecology, and
sponsors many family-friendly events and
hands-on activities.
Down the coast, the Santa Barbara
Museum of Art deserves a nod for its ambi-
tious and imaginative exhibitions. San
Diego’s Museum of Contemporary Art fea-
tures a variety of exhibits in the historic
Jacob building downtown (its oceanfront La
Jolla property is closed for expansion, soon
to quadruple its gallery space). For photog-
raphy buffs, there’s the excellent Museum
of Photographic Arts in Balboa Park, as well
as The Annenberg Space for Photography in
LA and Pier 24 Photography Museum in San
Francisco.
Science
The California Science Center in Los
Angeles’ Exposition Park presents exhibits
for all ages on invention, space travel and
life sciences—many of them interactive, all
of them free! Ice Age enthusiasts and fossil-
philes will love the popular and gloriously
sticky La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, an
active geological site in Midtown. San Fran-
cisco’s California Academy of Sciences, in
Golden Gate Park, features the impressive
Steinhart Aquarium, a walk-through rain-
forest with free-ranging birds and
butterflies, the world’s largest, all-digital
planetarium and a “Living Roof” with 1.7
million native California plants. The long
admission lines can be daunting, but it’s
worth the effort. At Piers 15 and 17 on the
Embarcadero, the legendary Exploratorium
houses more than 650 interactive
exhibits—including an amazing “Tinkerers’
Clock” and the crawl-through Tactile Dome.
Designed for explorers under eight,
Sausalito’s Bay Area Discovery Museum is a
pint-sized Wonderland dedicated to
promoting creative thinking. And, while
not a museum per se, the Monterey Bay
Aquarium deserves to be included among
the Wonders of the World for its aston-
ishing displays of sea otters and jellies,
mesmerizing three-story kelp forest and a
staggering million-gallon “Outer Bay” tank.
Culture
California is a rare and enduring alloy of
more than 50 ethnic groups. Its museums
reflect the racial diversity and cultural his-
tory of this melting pot in microcosm.
What follows is but a sample; there are
many, many more to choose from.
San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish
Museum and Museum of the African Dias-
pora (MoAD) provide fascinating insights
into two of California’s most creative ethnic
traditions. A visit to the Asian Art Museum
in Civic Center is the next best thing to a
trip along the ancient Silk Road.
In Long Beach, the Museum of Latin
American Art (MoLAA) features contempo-
rary works of the New World. San Diego’s
tiny-but-mighty New Americans Museum
honors the cultural diversity of immi-
grants through art and storytelling in
Liberty Station—also home to the
Women’s Museum of California, one of
just three museums in the country dedi-
cated to women’s history.
2019 TRAVEL GUIDE TO CALIFORNIA 59