Aggressively Cultured: Sendak on Sendak at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

by Andrew Dalton on October 14, 2009

Every now and then, we like to take some time out of our busy schedules of acquiring and curing hangovers to visit one of the many fine cultural institutions this city has to offer. Whether it’s a tiny gallery on Divis trying to turn a profit or a world-renowned museum beating us to death with their ticket prices – we go so you can decide if you don’t have to.

I won’t go in to too much detail about my (and everyone else’s) excitement over the upcoming adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are and the Barack Obama of Movie Trailers that precedes it, but let’s just say I wasn’t really heading to the CJM to sip overpriced coffees from their cafe. And I think it’s fair to assume the museum is capitalizing on buzz from the movie, especially in an Eggers-happy San Francisco, by plastering buses and billboards with pictures of Sendak’s wild things. So how was the exhibit? Read on for some totally subjective impressions.

The first thing you’ll notice, aside from the 10 dollar hole in your wallet (8 if you’re a student!) is this museum really small. Even with that monstrous cube-thing sticking out of the plaza and threatening to beat down the Catholic church next door, the museum doesn’t seem to have a great deal of square footage devoted to exhibits. I’m fairly sure the Gift Shop has more space than the Sendak exhibit did, even though it’s the main draw right now (more on the other exhibits below).

Anyhow – Sendak! The exhibit is small, but it did manage to show off some of the illustrations I missed because my mom only bought me Where the Wild Things Are and In the Night Kitchen when I was a kid. Speaking of which, did you know that was about the Holocaust? (Answer: duh.) It seems obvious now that I’ve got a college degree, but that’s the kind of hidden, story-within-a-story that Sendak loves. It’s the kind of layered approach that makers of children’s movies strive for, which makes me even more hopey (it’s a word, look it up) for the movie. Hearing him talk about it on the video screens set up throughout the space was actually the highlight of the exhibit, but I couldn’t help but feel like I could have stayed at home and further indulged my obsession with a movie that I haven’t even seen yet for free through the miracle of YouTube. (Note: 3 of them are actually available of the exhibit page on the CJM’s site. -Ed.)

A great deal of the space is devoted to showing Sendak’s drawing process, which isn’t particularly interesting as it really amounts to sketches that look, just as you’d expect, like rough versions of the final product. Aside from that and the videos there was a mildly interesting comparison of Sendak’s work to illuminated texts by William Blake, but even that felt forced as if the curator was grasping to draw some clever connection for the grown-ups while the kids are in the reading corner flipping through the actual books.

So what of the other exhibits? Well, there’s the “Jews on Vinyl” exhibit which amounts to little more than a set of living room furniture in a cavernous, but well-lit, room upstairs with iPods mounted in the coffee table for your listening pleasure. Not that it should bother anyone, but aside from one Bob Dylan track most of the artists aren’t actually Jewish. Instead there are a few soul artists performing covers of songs written by Chosen People (there’s a good commentary in there somewhere) and one Dick Dale surf-rock take on “Hava Negila” that made me wonder why Tarantino didn’t include it in Inglorious Basterds. Once you move past that, you’ll find a “Being Jewish in the Bay Area” (or something) exhibit on your way to the bathroom that is fun if you like looking at other people’s family photos and pictures of challah bread.

On the bright side, I did get to read Where the Wild Things Are again.