A little SFMOMA on the way home last night. Wanted to be sure to catch the Joseph Cornell before heading East for Xmas. Also did a quick check on the Olafur Eliasson frozen car thing,

The Joseph Cornell is quite an extensive exhibit spanning his entire career of boxes (mostly), assemblages and collages. Not always as interesting as the noisy commentary cards (who writes that junk?) but interesting and enjoyable for all of the lovely carefree chance coupled with the careful craftsmen like building of them. The care of the truly devoted hobbyist more than the artistry of the "Artist" seems to be at place here. That coupled with the fabulously messy studio pictures helped me to overcome my natural resistance to such highly touted important work. I think they look like fun to make and might be an interesting project for me (or some variation perhaps online not unlike Bell Book and Scandal but more built from the material without the existing underlying narrative driving it).

The frozen car which is supposed to be all about cars and the environment and global warming was just silly. What an effort and then to put a freezer in the museum to house it? The frozen heart of the institution? Pretty (though hard to see that with the noise of the annoying art people seriously discussing it in the room--Are you going to write about it? Yes. Beautiful, really I think. Yes. I like it, don't you. Yes, important I think.) But it didn't make me think of cars and the environment at all. I thought of old fashioned frozen dinners that came on actual aluminum trays and those old ice cube trays with the lift handle for breaking the ice out. The only environmental thoughts I had about global warming were what is the carbon footprint of this folly?