Manetti Shrem Museum Opening at UC Davis

The new Art Museum on the University of California at Davis campus, on opening day.

Robin studied Art and Graphic Design at UC Davis, but I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Pictured here, folks milling about prior to the ribbon-cutting.

We go to Davis a fair amount, as it's only about 40 minutes away, and has much to offer, including arguably the best Farmer's Market in the entire Bay Area. I can see why Robin misses living there--everything's close, it's easy to walk or bicycle everywhere. It's family-friendly, and hardly any crime compared to where we live and work. Unlike Berkeley or Austin, I'm sure there's not as huge of a fight when the University decides to expand, because Davis is surrounded by farms. The culinary scene is much improved from the old days, in fact today we had lunch at a new Poke place which was superb.

Above is a shot from the long line to get into the building, and this looks like some kind of femme photo set-up geared to girls of all ages (and actual genders) where you can hold pink dolphins, oversized candy, Cinderella costumes and other accoutrements while you get your snapshot taken. A little strange for a museum opening, but like many of the features around, kids with short attention spans need to be occupied.

The lines were pretty long outside and inside the building, but hey! It was free. I was getting impatient while in line, and at first I wasn't very impressed by the work I was seeing. Much of it lacking craft, a legacy of modern trends in Art, and I was thinking halfway through there was going to be nothing that would speak to me, and then I noticed this.

And this.

That.

And now some Artists I've heard of, and know a little bit about. Above and below, Manuel Neri, who has lived in Benicia (I think he's still there), Vallejo's neighbor to the east. I started getting absorbed in this guy's work. 

Wayne Thiebauld. One of the labels quotes him talking about focusing on light around objects in nature, and noticing that edges of things have a different light, in fact the edges have edges. This rendering of a staple gun is a meditation on light, contrasting color, and contrasting texture.

Aside from the work I found engaging, the other big story to this museum opening? Unlike almost every other university art museum I've been to, there's no calvacade of the greatest hits of Art History, no token copy of Picasso, Matisse, Cezanne, Rembrandt or Andy Warhol. Every artist in this show taught at UC Davis in the early days, and back then (and still is, to a large extent), professor artists were free to take risks and pretty much do what they wanted. Though some work didn't appeal to me, it definitely provided context.

http://manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu/about/latest-news.html

For more images: https://photos.ucdavis.edu/bp/#/folder/1742888