San Francisco feels like a museum itself. One day, I found a place where Anselm Kiefer’s artworks expressed strong and powerful feelings that deeply moved me.
A modern art museum in San Francisco, commonly referred to as SFMOMA to distinguish it from the more widely known Museum of Modern Art in New York.
San Francisco doesn’t have many art museums. At least not compared to Los Angeles on the West Coast. This is just my personal opinion, but I feel it may have something to do with the city’s beautiful scenery. Since there’s so much visual enjoyment just walking around, people might not feel the need to go to a museum.
When it comes to art museums in San Francisco, the main ones would be the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and the de Young Museum. SFMOMA was closed from 2013 to 2016 for renovation and expansion, and therefore, it gives the impression of being closed when I visit San Francisco. My first visit was in 2017. At that time, the renovation still seemed to be ongoing and only limited space was available. So it didn’t leave much impression. However, during my visit in 2024, I felt amazed by how much the collection had grown and how impressive the museum had become.
The museum is in downtown San Francisco, on the south side of Market Street, which runs from the northeast to the southwest through the city center. Though the area south of Market Street doesn’t generally feel very safe, the surroundings around the museum are likely fine.
The building has seven floors. When I visited in 2024, the seventh floor had no exhibits, but artworks filled the first through sixth floors. For a museum located in the city center, each floor is quite spacious.
What made this museum truly memorable for me was the exhibition of two artists on the sixth floor. One was the Gerhard Richter Gallery, and the other was the Anselm Kiefer Gallery. Each consisted of about two rooms filled with their works.
Gerhard Richter’s gallery was impressive, showcasing his signature abstract works with a wide range of colors. However, I was even more struck by the richness of the Anselm Kiefer gallery. Kiefer’s works are known for their large scale, and all ten or so pieces on display were of that monumental size—some even included sculptural elements. The paintings, roughly 2 meters tall by 4 meters wide, stood in a spacious setting that allowed them to truly breathe.
Anselm Kiefer’s works often deal with historical themes and carry a dark, haunting atmosphere and this was certainly true at this museum as well. The moment I stepped from the Gerhard Richter gallery into the Kiefer gallery, I could feel the air shift. While I had seen Kiefer’s works in other museums before, it was usually just a single piece on display. So encountering an entire space filled with his works was both refreshing and intensely powerful. I felt overwhelmed because his art radiates so much energy.
As for the other exhibited works, befitting the name of the Museum of Modern Art, many artists from the 1900s were featured. Here is a list of the notable artists on display.
Gerhard Richter、Anzelm Kiefer、Jasper Jones、On Kawara、Yayoi Kusama、Mark Rothko、Cy Twombly、Andy Warhol、Donald Judd、Dan Flavin、Bruce Nauman
On the lower floor, there were also exhibitions of photography and contemporary art, offering a wide variety. The café on the fifth floor had a nice atmosphere, with a terrace seating area displaying sculptures, creating a relaxing space. In the exhibition rooms, the staff were unobtrusive, giving the impression of a museum that is thoughtfully attentive to its visitors.
Finally, I would like to mention the restrooms in this museum. The restrooms on each floor are painted uniformly on the floors, walls, and ceilings. Each floor has a different color. For those who have a favorite color, I recommend visiting the restrooms on each floor.
Visited in 2017, 2024
Basic Information
■ Name：San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
■ Address： 151 3rd St, San Francisco, CA, USA
■ Homepage：https://www.sfmoma.org/
