De Young de Young

by Mira Parker

They kept Thiebaud by the café with the large colored balls and at the ticket counter cappuccinos were being served to a bronze hole in the ground. The Helen Diller Family Court was so full of stones and people dressed in black that the man checking bags started playing the slit drum from Papua New Guinea. Thank God, the place was open all night for Family Day festivities. Numerous site-specific commissions and 45 years of master prints brought Edwin Church to the upper level, where pixels and a $5 exhibition fee applied. No worries, the Pool of Enchantment was a burrowing sink by Warlukurlangu artists, sponsored by Wells Fargo. There was much performing and reclassifying to be had, and Catherine Wagner headed for Northern Territory, decked out in ferns and glass and light. The Phyllis C. Wattis free triangular benches were accompanied by thank-you doors that opened wide for architecture and a sense of place, and the entrance on the concourse level near the Bernard and Barbra Osher wing had a very large safety pin stuck in the ground. Which was fine, since no one was stranded on the Nancy B. and Jake L. Hamon Tower observation floor, because there were several convenient Muni connections and a spectacular dirt pile. Nan Tucker McEvoy’s wing had a sculpture garden with five easy ways to join, and, for the hungry, Herzog & de Meuron’s multifaceted destination hired Fong & Chan to serve up a state-of-the-art landmark—one taking into consideration the natural landscape, creating a particular kind of heaven.

Mira Parker is working for her M.A. in creative writing at SF State. E-mail: marker at speakeasy dot net