(JEWISH GROUP) Saying 'adieu' to San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum
A girlfriend once made me a music mix that I played until I knew every lyric by heart. It was only when she broke my heart that I, belatedly, realized that every song was about a breakup. Walking into San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum at the end of 2024 and looking through its five exhibitions gave me a similar, though less tearful, feeling of doom. In hindsight, each show appears to foreshadow an element of the museum’s predicament.
On the outside of the building, three of the exhibits are touted in bright colors. “Leah Rosenberg: When One Sees a Rainbow,” with its prismatic colored artworks, fleeting as a rainbow, is an exploration of the celebration of redemption in the evanescent. “California Jewish Open” is a diverse collection of Jewish-identifying artists from the Sunshine State and their connections to their identity or history. And Nicki Green’s “Firmament” is a nuanced exhibit that foregrounds “destruction” and “regeneration” at the intersection of trans and Jewish culture.
The security guard at the entrance returns my phone, adding “Tickets are over at the counter, entry is free until December 15.” What she means is that the CJM will close on December 15 for what executive director Kerry King says on the museum’s website will be “the period of at least one year.” King, in her turn, means to say that San Francisco’s most famous Jewish museum may well be closing for good. J, The Jewish News of Northern California, will continue to report on the details, but between politics and Covid and the diminishing numbers of people in downtown San Francisco, the CJM’s impact seems to have lessened and the will to plug the increasing financial gap between budget and revenue has likewise diminished.
Moving from the guard to the ticket counter she indicated, visitors see some of the performances that comprise “Looted.” On multiple screens artists repeatedly create and then erase paintings to indicate the thousands of artworks lost and stolen during the Holocaust. It is a simple and affecting idea. I couldn’t help but be reminded, though, of all the shows that appeared and were taken down at the CJM and all the exhibitions that the museum may never get to stage.
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This is sad. I went there on my 50th birthday. I have some great pics from the outside and inside. They had some really interesting exhibits.
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