The de Young was in one of the few museums I visited last September on my vacation out here. We literally stumbled upon it in Golden Gate Park and got the student discount to enter. I remember being impressed by an exhibition featuring Faith Ringgold quilts.

It was interesting coming back with the lens of this class. I once again loved their special exhibition! I followed the audio tour through the Kehinde Wiley exhibition, which was incredibly well done. There was clearly immense care put into the production of the exhibit and surrounding materials, working closely with Wiley.

In the afternoon with Rebekah at Cal Academy, we talked about individual motivations versus institutional ones, a theme that our readings have often explored. I was impressed by the frankness and deliberate work in both institutions we visited, but I agree that it seems less engrained into the institutions themselves.

This may have also been because we were talking with collection managers rather than program designers (and what cool collections!), but it’s interesting to see that tension in such established institutions.