Enjoy Museums for Free at Target Arts & Wonder Weekend
This weekend, Target (you know, that place where you buy diapers and bathroom cleaner and toys and the occasional dress or shirt) presents Arts & Wonder, a free family event with free general admission to six of San Francisco's leading museums and free art activities and performances.
This weekend-long marathon of free family fun kicks off Friday, July 16, 2010 from 5–8:45 pm at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park, where you can turn Target's canine mascot Bullseye into a work of Andy Warhol-inspired "Pup" art and watch a ballet performance celebrating the work of Impressionist painter Edgar Degas. General admission and activities and performances are free, but if you want to see the Birth of Impressionism exhibition (highly recommended!) you'll have to get a special timed ticket—$15 for adults, $10 for children 6–17, and free for kids 5 and under.
On Saturday, July 17, 2010, head to the San Francisco Civic Center and visit the Asian Art Museum from 10 am–5 pm, where you can take a journey from India to Japan as your stroll through the museum's galleries, and take a storytelling tour to learn about gods, goddesses, emperors, philosophers, and more. All exhibitions and programs are free, except for the Shanghai exhibition, which requires a $5 ticket for visitors ages 18 and over (youth 17 and under are free).
Arts & Wonder Weekend wraps up on Sunday, July 18, 2010 from 11 am–4 pm at no fewer than five locations in downtown San Francisco:
- San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA): go BIG and experience larger-than-life artworks and then make your own enormous art
- Contemporary Jewish Museum: visit the exhibition Maira Kalman: Various Illiuminations (of a Crazy World), make fabric buttons, decorate bags, and watch a performance by Sweet Can Productions;
- Museum of the African Diaspora: tour the exhibition African Continuum: Sacred Ceremonies and Rituals and try your hand at Haitian tooled metal sculpture
- Zeum: San Francisco's Children's Museum: sculpt and film your own clay animation and ride their historic carousel
- Yerba Buena Gardens Festival: celebrate the spirit of carnaval with performances by Fogo Na Roupa, Sambadá, Loco Bloco, Bahia Bahia, Chelle! and Friends, Pi Clowns, and more from noon–3 pm.
For more information, visit the websites of the museums listed above, or check out www.onlyinsanfrancisco.com/target.