SFO Museum

Fresh airport art from SFO, PHL, & Albany Int’l Airports

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SFO Museum presents an exhibit about art from pineapple leaves

At SFO: From Pineapple to Piña: A Philippine Textile Treasure 

The newest exhibit from the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is about textiles made from pineapple leaves.

“Unique to the Philippines, piña is an extraordinary textile made by weaving the fibers of the leaves of the pineapple plant. This light, airy fabric was perfectly suitable to the tropical climate. The textile enjoyed a golden age during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly on the island of Panay, where it was made into shirts, women’s blouses, shoulder scarfs, handkerchiefs, and table linens.“

A new exhibition at Albany International Airport (ALB)

Albany International Airport (ALB) will open a new Gallery exhibition on May 7. The Life Around Us, features recent paintings by Ashley Norwood Cooper and Heidi Johnson, as well as a new site-specific installation, Stream by Laura Moriarty.

Iced Coffee With Friends – by Heidi Johnson

Route pins from PHL Airport

And Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) recently handed out pins created by local artists to celebrate the return of several transatlantic flights. Great idea!

Video Arts Screening Gallery Open at SFO

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After a 20-month hiatus, the video arts screening room at SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is open.

The gallery screens short-form documentaries, experimental films, and all forms of animation. It is located pre-security on the departures level of the International Terminal. Hours: daily, 5:00am to 10:00pm.

With a nod to COVID-19, this month, the gallery is showing the work of four filmmakers from around the world whose work reflects how the pandemic impacts our lives and our interactions.

You can see the films next time you go to SFO. Or you can see them here.

In Sorry for the Inconvenience, by Jane Chow, a Los Angeles-based filmmaker from Hong Kong, a lonely teenager tries to help her parents keep their restaurant afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic in Los Angeles Chinatown.

In Air, Canadian filmmaker David Findlay presents an exploration of the critical importance of physical contact in our interpersonal communication.

Turkish illustrator and animation director Tuna Bora collaborates with London-based animator Jonathan Djob Nkondo in this excerpt from Solipsism.

The film tells the story of a young girl who, amidst self-isolation, becomes lost inside the world that surrounds her.

And in Dancers in the Loop, French filmmaker Julie Rohart identifies inspiration found in the isolation of Paris’ lockdown in the winter of 2020.

Victorian Wallpaper at SFO

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Is SFO an airport or a museum?

Now that we’re back to traveling more, we’re delighted to have the opportunity to visit San Francisco International Airport (SFO), home to the SFO Museum, which is fully accredited by the American Alliance of Museums.

SFO is both an airport AND a museum. So, we always make sure to choose the longest layover we can when changing planes at SFO. Not just because we love airports, but because we also love museums. And the SFO Museum always has multiple exhibitions scattered throughout the terminals.

One of the newest exhibitions is The Victorian Papered Wall, which is on view in the International Terminal Main Hall.

Why have an exhibition about wallpaper?

From the press release:

From its inception, wallpaper imitated luxurious materials, providing a more affordable alternative to tapestries, fabrics, mural paintings, and architectural elements. Crafted in repeating rolls and pasted to walls, this decorative art has an ephemeral quality unlike any other. Wallpaper reflects the design styles popular at the time, and in the late nineteenth century during the Victorian Era (1837–1901), walls richly came to life. English “design reformers” insisted on abstract, flat patterns, opposing fashionable French three-dimensional designs. Meanwhile, the Aesthetic Movement, which burgeoned in England, emphasized artful interiors in the 1870s and ‘80s. Eclecticism prevailed—designers drew freely from world cultures and centuries past.

This exhibition features art wallpapers created by Bradbury & Bradbury, based in Benicia, CA. The company hand silkscreens hundreds of historic designs using oil-based paints. Their most complex paper, St. James, requires seventeen individually applied colors. In addition to Victorian-era patterns, the company makes wallpaper using patterns from the Art Deco era, the 1920s, 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s. We’re hoping to find the wallpaper from our childhood home in there somewhere.

Here are more samples of the wall and ceiling papers you’ll see in six Victorian-era room sets at SFO.

All images courtesy SFO Museum.

Museum Monday: Scientific Instruments at SFO

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SFO Museum : Equinoctial inclining sundial  c. 1865

SFO Museum exhibits rare 19th to early 20th-century scientific instruments

SFO Museum: Double-scope theodolite  c. 1890–1910

The newest exhibition from the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is filled with rare mid-nineteenth century to early twentieth-century scientific instruments.

At a glance, they are clearly works of mechanical know-how and art. But these objects also tell a story about the emergence of modern science and the specialized instruments scientists built and used to explore the world.

From the exhibition release:

When modern science emerged in the seventeenth century, scientists invented specialized instruments to explore the world and universe in a closer, more logical manner. These intriguing devices facilitated the careful study of almost all facets of life through the research and demonstration of ideas and theories. During the nineteenth century, new technologies allowed for the precision manufacturing of scientific instruments. An array of instruments assisted some of the most brilliant minds on Earth as scientists made early discoveries in the fields of electrodynamics and atomic theory.

This exhibition in the Harvey Milk Terminal 1 of the San Francisco International Airport displays a selection of antique scientific instruments and explores their uses. Dates: September 11, 2021, to April 3, 2022.  The exhibit is accessible to ticketed passengers but non-ticketed guests may get access by emailing curator@flysfo.com.

SFO Museum: Geissler tube rotator [with modern tube]  late 19th century
SFO Museum: Helmholtz resonators  c. 1890

Museum Monday: Math at the SFO Museum

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All photos Courtesy SFO Museum

The SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) has kicked off yet another exhibition that might make you miss your next flight. This one is all about mathematics.

Courtesy SFO Museum

Mathematics: Vintage and Modern displays slide rules, early calculating machines, and other math-related objects from the past. Included are teaching tools that help students learn arithmetic, geometry, and calculus, as well as vintage children’s toys and games. To make brains work harder, several works of art in this exhibit demonstrate complex mathematics through sculptural forms. Examples from modern math—knot theory, topology, and ambiguous models—illustrate how math deals with the very dimensions of space. 

Klein Bottle by Cliff Stoll

Here are some more images from the exhibit.

Thacher’s calculating instrument  c. 1903
Millionaire calculating machine  c. 1904

Today we use our lightweight telephones as calculators. But in 1893, Swiss engineer Otto Steigler’s invention, the Millionaire, likely seemed miraculous.

“Made of brass and weighing sixty-seven pounds, this revolutionary machine could perform a direct multiplication,” the exhibit notes tell us. “With a single turn of the hand crank, it multiplied two numbers together and calculated results up to eighteen digits. For decades, banks balanced their books and figured compound interest on Millionaires. “

Rubik’s Cube and other mathematical puzzles

Mathematics: Vintage and Modern is located post-security in Terminal 2 of San Francisco International Airport through May 1, 2022.

The exhibition is accessible to ticketed passengers but non-ticketed guests can arrange access by emailing curator@flysfo.com,