Ending the Year at SFMOMA

Closed out 2022 with a trip to SFMOMA, in the door at 151 Third Street and straight into the atrium, where the oculus overhead pulls daylight down past a footbridge wrapped in colored panels. The whole space is part of the Snøhetta expansion that reopened in 2016 — seven floors of galleries stacked on top of Botta's original building, nearly triple the space it had before — and it still takes a minute to sort out which floor you're on.

Worked upward from the enormous scrawled mural at the base of the stairs. The abstract expressionist rooms held me longest: a Joan Mitchell tangle of grays and greens, a Baselitz figure hung head-down, then a run of Richters — one that looks like light on dark water, another loud with red and green squeegee drags. A twinned self-portrait split down the middle, woman on one side and cat on the other, was the last thing before heading back down.

A good way to end the year, feet sore, head full.