SFist: Gap's Founder Wants To Open Art Museum

August 8, 2007

Gap's Founder Wants To Open Art Museum

We like art.

We're fine with the Gap retail store.

We're not prepared to make any statements on Mr. Donald Fisher himself.

We will, however, admit that the prospect of Mr. Fisher opening a 100,000 sq. ft art museum in the Presidio has us a touch worried.

After all, isn't THIS one of his?

By SFist Jer in Arts+Events , News , News | Link | Comments (23) | Recommend this! (2) |

Tags: art, Arts, Business, City Life, Donald Fisher, News, News+Sports

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Comments (23)

[1] | 08/08/07 10:45AM

The arrow thing has grown on me. I sorta like it.

It sure beats the fountain/sculpture/whatever at Justin Herman Plaza

[2] | 08/08/07 10:57AM

I just don't want them to get rid of any of the buildings on the old base. I love that bowling ally!

They should put the museum in the old hospital instead.

[3] | 08/08/07 11:03AM

I'm a big fan of public sculpture, and I kind of like the arrow thing, too. It's not great, but it's not bad.

And [1] is right, that Justin Herman Plaza monstrosity is, er, a monstrosity.

I'm excited about the prospect of this new museum. The Fishers are among the world's top collectors of modern and contemporary art, and SF is sort of lacking in that department. The SFMoMA's kind of weak (enough with that terrible design exhibit, already), and the de Young (though I LOVE the de Young) is a bit too eclectic to fully represent the contemporary era.

Plus, they're totally loaded, and totally vain, and I'm sure the space (designed by some legit architects who have worked on museum's before) is going to be amazing.

I think it's great. Go Fishers.

[4] | 08/08/07 11:07AM

I hope it'll have enough parking.

[5] | 08/08/07 11:10AM

It could be SF's answer to the Getty Museum in LA. Unless it turns out as tacky as that Cupid's Chokehold sculpture, which I don't think will happen, this could be a really good thing for SF. Fingers crossed, y'all.

[6] | 08/08/07 11:17AM

You may laugh at this work of art but once you realize that the tip of the arrow emerges from the Indian Ocean (just off Madagascar) you will realize that it is a true work o'fart.

[7] | 08/08/07 11:56AM

a parking lot itself can be a piece of art. it speaks of modernity, and utility, and the human plight. don't you see it???

[8] | 08/08/07 12:02PM

I like Cupid's Span. It's witty. I like the Oldenberg safety pin at the De Young, too. So there.

But in predicting what the prospective museum might be like, it might be better to consider the Richard Serra that's in the lobby of the Gap headquarters building. It's very good -- better than many similar pieces by Serra. The point is that the Gap corporate art-buyer knows what he or she is doing.

[9] | 08/08/07 12:04PM

What is it with Republican swells insisting on erecting party palaces/monuments to themselves inside city/national parks?

Is there nowhere else outside a park in the entire city that can be found to place an eponymously-named building to house their pedestrian and provincial collections, for God's sake?

Or is the only thing FIsher cares about being to be as Muni-inaccessible and as parking-mad as possible?

[10] | 08/08/07 12:36PM

The arrow has grown on me as well. It's that freaking ugly Burning Man sculpture of the whatever type of human that is that seems to be made out of broken down car parts that makes me sick.

[11] | 08/08/07 12:38PM

#9, what is pedestrian or provincial about Oldenberg, Serra, Warhol and Twombly???

Why are you such a negative nay-sayer? How can a museum possibly be a bad thing?

The Fisher's proposal to erect a public art museum in the park is the OPPOSITE of erecting a 'monument to themselves.' They're proposing to make their expansive art collection available for ALL to enjoy.

[12] | 08/08/07 12:39PM

[9] - their collection is anything but "pedestrian and provincial."*** If you're such an exalted aesthete and collector as to dismissively malign it, maybe you should spend less time commenting anonymously on the internet and more time planning your own museum. I'd love to see it.

Grrg - I'm pretty sure the Gap corporate art-buyer(s) are the Fishers themselves.

***These words, by the way, are used most frequently by those eager upwarders feigning cultural or intellectual elitism. Much like "class", "classy", or the derisive "quaint."

[13] | 08/08/07 01:24PM

This is actually my favorite piece of art in the city. It's quirky and fun. But I also happen to be a big Claes Oldenburg fan. How can you not love this man? Just do a google image search for him.

[14] | 08/08/07 01:39PM

I like Cupid's span ... enough to use it as a primary image for my Rincon Hill blog - www.RinconHillSF.org Kinda plays on the whole hearts in San Francisco thing, no?

I'm not a big fan of the Fishers with this Parking for Neighborhoods crap, but it would be nice to have more art on display.

[15] | 08/08/07 01:43PM

#9: you just showed your complete provincialism. Get a clue. Watch a video with Fisher showing off his collection, on sfgate. It's absolutely amazing, and it SHOULD be in a built-up space in Presidio, making that a great destination as opposed to an barren dusty field surrounded by empty buildings, and it will NOT be named eponymously. You should be thankful that Fishers exist and want to donate this to such an undeserving city.

[16] | 08/08/07 01:46PM

I guess I should admit that the main reason I'm not crazy about Cupid's Span is that it's in my line of site from my desk at work and I look at it all day, m-f. So it kinda reminds me of being at work. I can't really be as objective about it as I'd like.

[17] | 08/08/07 02:05PM

From the descriptions, photos and video from the Chron, it looks like the Fisher's collection has many high quality pieces as well as some in depth, encyclopedic collections of some important mid to late 20th century artists. It could be a major cultural asset to SF.

Don Fisher may be a complete prig - of this, I have little doubt. However, the world is filled with capitalist prig behemoths who've left behind wonderful museum collections for all to enjoy: the Frick Collection, the Kimball Art Museum, the Getty Museum, the Whitney Museum, the Gugghenheim, the Barnes Collection.

[18] | 08/08/07 02:07PM

Did anyone else see this line slipped into the middle of the story: "A museum celebrating the life of Walt Disney is also planned at the Main Post." WTF??? Disney in the Presidio? That's not cool. Unless they're putting Walt's frozen severed head on display, I don't want to see any Disney in the city.

As for Cupid's Span, bleh. San Francisco deserves better than such trite and bland public art. I look forward to watching Mayor Chicken John plow it over with his coffee-ground-powered pickup truck.

[19] | 08/08/07 02:19PM

[9] [12] The Fisher Collection is extremely strong; probably impossible to recreate or come close to.

When a private collector gets to this stage of collecting i.e ability to buy anything they want, and size of what they already have, they usually have help but they themselves make the final buying decisions.

Some large collectors have personal curators, and aides for the collection and for potential new acquisitions. You can bet your Dali dollar that they have all kinds of high end galleries and even other private collectors bugging them all the time trying to sell things to them.

Maybe the Fishers should just take over the transbay terminal project and build a museum 1200 feet high in the shape of a pair of Gap Jeans.

[20] | 08/08/07 02:37PM

I saw that Disney thing, too. I wonder if Pixar's behind it.

Wasn't Walt Disney a huge anti-semite? Oh (!) it also appears that he hated the working man!

From all-knowing, all-seeing, completely reliable Wikipedia:

After the 1941 strike of Disney Studio employees, Walt Disney deeply distrusted organized labor. In 1947, during the early years of the Cold War, he testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he branded Herbert Sorrell, David Hilberman and William Pomerance, former animators and labor union organizers, as Communist agitators. (All three men denied the allegations.) Disney implicated the Screen Actors Guild as a Communist front, and charged that the 1941 strike was part of an organized Communist effort to gain influence in Hollywood. However, no evidence has been discovered to support this.
Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that from 1941 until his death, he spied for the FBI on union activity in Hollywood, and illegally intimidated union activists. Since Jews were prominent in the labor movement, some employees felt that Disney's actions were motivated by anti-semitism. However, there is no evidence of this.

The House Committee on Un-American Activities? AYSerious? We're going to ban handguns, legalize pot, hand out "care" to the homeless, and erect a shrine to this mouth-breathing arch-conservative?

Shouldn't someone alert the SEIU? Or the JCC? Or the anti-defamation league? Or some totally bored and well-funded unflagging crusader? Help!

[21] | 08/08/07 06:13PM

Jeremy (aka #19), why such a narcissistic prig? YOU don't want a Disney Museum? Oh. Well. Then I guess it won't happen.

Oldenburg is 100x the artist that "Chicken George" or wetf-his-name-is will ever be! (Besides Wolf would make a better mayor 'cause he is a cutey! SF should only elect HOT mayors!)

My favorite Oldenburg is "Spoonbridge and Cherry" in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden at the Walker Art Institute. He is a riot!

[22] | 08/08/07 09:42PM

i don't get it. if Don Fisher is such a big supporter of SFMOMA why not turn the collection over to them? And with the ridiculous battle between car advocates and car-free park advocates that centered to a great extent around the DeYoung, what kind of battle is brewing over the hoardes of culturistas driving all the way to the Presidio to enjoy a new museum. I mean, the mass transit out there is practically non-existent, even worse than that going to Golden Gate.

And he says he doesn't want to compete with SFMOMA? Come on. MOMA has been pretty week the last few years, their collection could use some strength and a new museum of Fisher's work would definitely draw away limited donation dollars.

Oh, and just to put my two-cents in, I love the big bow and arrow. it's great public art. it's actually kind of subversive.

[23] | 08/09/07 08:39AM

"A touch worried?"

What an ridiculous comment. While I concur the Presidio may not be the absolutely perfect place for the Fisher collection, we should just at least be happy that San Francisco will actually get the collection.

The Fishers could just have easily have agreed to display their art in another city. Then could you imagine the uproar that they didn't choose San Francisco?

It's attitudes such as this author's (and some commenters) that constantly amaze me, and are precisely the reason why our city is always trying to prove itself. So much of our population has a problem with everything, be it a museum, a high-rise or any new building.