Last month I went to the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco to see the sold out Post-Impressionist Exhibit. Let me tell you, it was impossible to buy tickets. The website completely got bogged down by the last minute buyers (including me) a week before the exhibit was scheduled to leave. I gave up trying. By some miracle I saw a tweet that announced that the museum released early morning tickets the weekend before they closed the exhibit. I would finally see the original works by Van Gough and Cezanne in person!
That's where the excitement ended.
I chose tickets for a Sunday morning since we had plans in the city that afternoon. The reality that we had to be out the door and at the museum lobby before 9am hit us when the 6am alarm clock went off. Yuck. I don't even get up that early for work. I sucked down a venti dirty chai and drove since I can maneuver around the City pretty well as long as I know where I'm going. Bubs is not a morning person. He takes care of driving back at night since I hate driving at night. I found the parking garage pretty easily. It was early enough that it wasn't packed yet but as all parking goes in SF it's always expensive. I didn't want to chance missing the time slot so I didn't have time to find free parking on the street.
Now comes the chaos. We had trouble finding will call. We had trouble figuring out where/how to get our audio tour. Which floor to go? That place had no signs ANYWHERE of where to go and what to do. The people who worked there were not much help either. We were shuffled from one floor to another and back again. Bubs nearly bit some dude's head off when he told us that our electronic receipt for the audio tour wasn't acceptable when another guy said it was. There was gonna be a brawl if we weren't getting our audio tours. I calmed the cranky Bubs down and we finally we made it in the exhibit.
It was a little surreal. A little too much and a lot overwhelming because of the hundreds of other people in the exhibit. There in front of me were works of art history to be in awe of and I'm worried that the Museum Nazi Lady would yell at me for accidentally going over the "stay back" line. She meant business. There were many paintings I've never seen and others I was familiar with. Then there's Vincent Van Gough's Starry Night. It was amazing in person. So amazing I had to fight my way to the front of the painting. Then I went back for more and did it again. I don't think I'll ever get to see it in person again unless by some miracle I'll end up in Paris. It probably took about an hour to get through everything. Maybe a little more. Obviously, I couldn't take any pics of the art since it was forbidden.
Afterwards we took an early lunch break at their cafe...very good but so expensive. We ventured through the rest of the museum, which we found surprisingly bare. There were permanent exhibits that weren't that interesting to me. The only other exciting area was the tower 8 floors up that overlooks Golden Gate park...that is, if we could see the park. Unfortunately it was completely foggy outside. The visibility was terrible. I couldn't see past the surrounding street below us. Normally you can see the Inner Richmond on a clear day. It was still very serene up there though in the middle of all that fog. A very San Francisco day.
We left on a bit of a sour note. We purchased 2 tickets for Bub's aunt and the museum screwed that up too. Overall I was slightly disappointed in the visit. You'd think after almost 4 months of having the Post-Impressionist art as their home, the employees would know how to deal with customer service and the crowds.
DeYoung, I hope you get it right next time I visit.
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