S.F. art museums ready to reopen

At SFMOMA, four exhibitions will make their debut with the reopening, most prominently “Close to Home: Creativity in Crisis,” in which seven local artists were commissioned to create work specific to the COVID19 pandemic. There will also be a series of murals commissioned by SFMOMA from Bay Area wall painter Liz Hernández and lensbased artists Erina Alejo and Adrian L. Burrell. These will join existing work by Muzae Sesay and Twin Walls Mural Company to form an ongoing series called “Bay Area Walls.”

Also opening Sunday is “New Work: Charles Gaines,” an installation that explores the history of racism in the United States going back to the Dred Scott decision in 1857, which struck down the Missouri Compromise as unconstitutional and maintained that Congress had no power to forbid or abolish slavery in the territories.

Later this month, SFMOMA plans to reopen Olafur Eliasson’s “OneWay Color Tunnel” on the Oculus Bridge.

But the most broadappealing reopening gesture, will arrive this summer with the longdelayed installation of the monumental Diego Rivera fresco “Pan American Unity.” The work is 75 feet wide and 22 feet tall and will take over the free Roberts Family Gallery on the ground floor at the Howard Street entrance to SFMOMA. Created as a work in progress during the Golden Gate International Exposition on Treasure Island in 193940, “Pan American Unity” is on loan from City College of San Francisco and will be on display at the museum for three years.

SFMOMA members will get a preview on Saturday, March 6.

The de Young’s sister museum, the Legion of Honor, plans to reopen this spring, though a date has not been determined.