Best Permanent Collection Addition: Revelations
Anyone who’s visited the de Young in recent months has likely basked in the glory that is Revelations: Art from the African American South, an exciting and very necessary addition to the Fine Arts Museum’s permanent collection of American art. Among the paintings, root and branch sculptures, yard show metal works and Gee’s Bend quilts is my personal favorite: Ronald Lockett’s painted tin and wood wall piece, England’s Rose. Made in 1997, the assemblage remembers Princess Diana, who broke through boundaries of fear and misunderstanding in 1987 when she shook the hands of HIV/AIDS patients in a London hospital. Lockett himself died from complications of HIV/AIDS a year after the work was completed.