…Space” (Robert Irwin, Larry Bell). In celebration of the debut, the Cantor Center has organized “Robert Frank in America,” an exhibition of photographs by the Swiss emigre best known for the 1959 book “The Americans.” The show features 130 of Frank’s images from the ’50s and ’60s, most from Stanford’s permanent collection and including a few from the classic book. Curated by Peter Galassi, formerly of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the exh…

…ianism that encourages each visitor to experience both individual works and groupings in their own way. In other words, the Andersons may have collected and donated the art, but each visitor is made to feel like the collection is their own: the sense of sharing is profound. As I ambled through the galleries I could almost hear Hunk and Moo asking me: “What do you think?” A great deal has been written about some of the collection&#8217…

On September 21, the Anderson Collection building opened at the Palo Alto campus of Stanford University—our frequent partner-in-crime when it comes to celebrating the West. Designed by the same team that created Stanford’s stellar Bing Concert Hall, the structure houses 121 works of modern and contemporary American art, all donated by Harry W. and Mary Margaret Anderson. Of course, we’re most excited about the pieces that have a Western flavor:…

Showcases for Art in Silicon Valley At Stanford University, an Arts District Grows By JORI FINKEL NOV. 13, 2014 PALO ALTO, Calif. — The birthplace of Yahoo and Google, Stanford University is now ramping up and showing off its cultural resources. Construction of a $235 million arts district near Palm Drive, the grand tree-lined campus entrance, is well underway here. Last year, the $112 million Bing Concert Hall opened. This year came th…

Palette Cleanser: A new campus museum quietly serves up a visual banquet. By Lydia Lee It’s tempting for designers to try to turn art museums into works of art themselves. But what if the client’s directive is just the opposite? A new campus museum in the Bay Area by the New York–based firm Ennead Architects may disappoint those hoping for a bigger architectural statement. However, as designed to house the 121 works of the Anderson Collection,…

Arty Reason to Visit Palo Alto: The Anderson Collection Stanford University is now home to a prized assemblage of 20th Century American art thanks to generous Palo Alto collectors Harry and Mary Margaret Anderson and their daughter, Mary Patricia Anderson Pence. Doing the only thing a grateful beneficiary could do in the face of such an important endowment, which includes works by such blue chip artists as Jackson Pollock, Wayne Thiebaud, and El…

The art of music: String quartet captivates visitors to the Anderson Collection As part of an effort to engage visitors in fresh and unique gallery experiences, the Anderson Collection at Stanford University treated museum visitors to a special performance by the St. Lawrence String Quartet. Music lofted through the gallery as the quartet performed a mix of classic and contemporary arrangements to a packed crowd of onlookers. The combination of…

…Durst, Donald Lacey, Natasha Muse, Loren Kraut, Kabir Kabeezy Singh, Joshua Raoul Brody, (retired politico) Tom Ammiano, and a bunch more are scheduled to perform. The wine is from the Pat Paulson Vineyards, founded by the late Pat Paulson, a regular decades ago on the Smothers Brothers and a joke candidate for President in 1968.  So it’s bound to be have an amusing but pointedly satirical bouquet. Details for the Sharon Meadows show on Sunday f…

If you’d been dragging your feet on getting to Palo Alto for the Anderson Collection’s Nick Cave exhibition (of Soundsuits, not Bad Seeds fame), now is the time. In addition to person-sized sculptures made for shimmying, the free collection displays Abstraction and the Movies March 1-17 only. Curated by current Stanford undergrad Carlos Valladares, Abstraction and the Movies pairs works from the Anderson Collection with images and posters from f…

…s Glimcher. “There was no significant presence by a commercial gallery in Silicon Valley,” he explains. “When an amazing thing comes on the market, (art collectors in the area) can’t always get on a plane and go to New York to see them. So now that really amazing thing will come to them.” And there is certainly evidence of an increasing appetite for contemporary and modern art in the suburbs. Art Silicon Valley/San Francisco, which highlights pos…

When Mary Margaret “Moo” Anderson, a prominent Bay Area philanthropist, died last week at age 92, many were quick to note that she and her husband, Harry W. “Hunk” Anderson, had transformed Stanford University’s art collection through their donations. Just before she died, however, Anderson planned to leave the museum an additional gift—masterpieces by Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning. The Anderson Collection, a museum of modern and contemp…

Abstraction From a Different Origin Eamon Ore-Giron invites the viewer to consider culture as a collective, living concept that evolves through destabilizing identity. DENVER — From wall texts to articles, every introduction of artist Eamon Ore-Giron highlights his father’s familial ties to Peru as well as his mother’s roots in Arizona. The notion that he is the offspring of two cultures suggests his art is a visual manifestation of Spanish col…