The New Crocker

Yesterday we went on an outing to the Crocker Art Museum in Sacramento which six months ago opened a large new wing, tripling the museum’s size. We’ve been members of the museum for many years now, but it has taken us a while to see the new addition, despite Sacramento being only a hop, skip, and a jump over the Yolo Causeway from here (which is a lake right now, the Yolo Bypass being full with water diverted from the Sacramento River to prevent a flood after all the rain we’ve gotten this month).

The entrance to the Crocker is at ground level at the new wing now, rather than at the top of the flight of stairs leading to the Victorian mansion of the original Crocker. We stepped inside, stopped at the admissions desk, and then were confused. Score a minus for first-floor layout. To the left was a large open space with lots of table seating. At the far left corner was the obligatory museum cafe, and at the right was the museum store. Where to go to actually see the exhibits was not immediately apparent. A problem to be fixed with signage, but they could have made this clear with a grand stairwell.

We found the stairs, and passed up to the second floor, where there was a display of their new collection of art from Oceania and Africa, along with a handful of antiquities. Up to the third floor then, where there was the main exhibition, the highlight of the visit. This was an exhibition of the paintings of Gottfried Helnwein entitled “Inferno of the Innocents”. Helnwein grew up in post-war Austria where as a child talk of the violence of the years before his birth was repressed, children being too young to understand. Owing something to the art of his adopted town Los Angeles, Helnwein works on large movie screen-sized canvases, his style photorealist, often resembling black-and-white film noir. The loss of innocence of children is a frequent theme of his. I was glad the Crocker now finally has a space that could display exhibits on as large a scale as Helnwein’s.

It used to be that the Crocker could be comfortably toured in an hour or so., That is no longer the case now that it has the new wing, and we didn’t try to see what they’ve done with the paintings in the old building. That will be for another day. We are members after all, and it’s only a hop, skip, and a jump over there.

This post marks the eighth anniversary of Feathers of Hope.