Avidly awaited SFMOMA to reopen on a grand scale

Alexander Calder “Double Gong” (1953); metal and paint; 60 x 132 x 132 in. (152.4 x 335.28 x 335.28 cm); The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © Calder Foundation, New York / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York less Alexander Calder “Double Gong” (1953); metal and paint; 60 x 132 x 132 in. (152.4 x 335.28 x 335.28 cm); The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; © Calder ... more Photo: Courtesy SFMOMA Photo: Courtesy SFMOMA Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Avidly awaited SFMOMA to reopen on a grand scale 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

It will be all about the collection when the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art opens its doors to the public May 14 after a three-year rebuilding that roughly doubles its size and triples its gallery space. Among the works being installed — a head-spinning 1,900 objects or so — the opening shows will feature more than 600 new and promised gifts, in addition to hundreds of old favorites. It will also include some 260 major works from the much larger Doris and Donald Fisher Collection, on loan for 99 years, that was the rationale for expansion.

The museum will make an official announcement of its inaugural exhibition plans Wednesday.

In addition to its opening shows, SFMOMA will present several major temporary exhibitions examining the work of California artists in its first year of operation. “Bruce Conner: It’s All True” will open Oct. 29, after premiering at New York’s Museum of Modern Art this summer. “Matisse/Diebenkorn,” co-organized with the Baltimore Museum of Art, comes to San Francisco in the spring of 2017. Not yet officially announced, a retrospective of photographs by Los Angeles artist Anthony Hernandez will open in September, while a later photo show will be the museum’s second to feature the Bay Area’s Reagan Louie. There’s also talk of a Robert Rauschenberg retrospective in the fall of 2017.

The focus on collections as the museum is unveiled should come as no surprise. Some institutions that have built extraordinary new facilities have highlighted the architecture: In 1989, in fact, Ohio State University famously opened its Wexner Center for the Arts without a single work of art on display, the better to show off the building’s daring Peter Eisenman design. Some places have partied: New York’s New Museum opened in 2007 with round-the-clock free admission (for 30 hours). Last year’s debut of the Whitney Museum of American Art featured — guess what? — the history of American art.

“I don’t think we have that kind of a historical story to tell,” said SFMOMA Director Neal Benezra. “Our story is that this is a community that has really come to believe in this institution, and has really committed itself in multiple ways. Through not just the gifts of funds to build it, but the really extraordinary outpouring of art that’s coming our way.”

But to what end is this extensive collection being built? What does Benezra want us to get out of the experience of visiting? And whom is it for?

“Too often people grow up with the perception that contemporary art is difficult,” he said. “‘It’s elitist; I can’t possibly understand it.’ In fact, I feel quite the opposite. That given some reasonable tool, contemporary art is much more accessible than historical art. If you look at a 15th century altarpiece, now that’s complicated art. Looking at a Mark Rothko painting, and just falling into it, emotionally and visually — that’s something that anyone can experience.”

In late January I walked through the galleries, bustling with installation activity, alongside Gary Garrels, senior curator of painting and sculpture. Here, floor by floor, is a preview of the art that will be on view at the opening:

First floor

Richard Serra’s “Sequence” (2006): Already visible through the museum’s glass wall on Howard Street, Serra’s monumental steel sculpture occupies its own gallery, which will be open to the public free of charge.

Second floor

“The Campaign for Art: Drawings, Part I” (through Sept. 18): The museum will have its first exhibition space specifically designed for the special viewing requirements of works on paper (low light levels, intimate spaces). The first of a two-part show, it will highlight new gifts of works made between 1914 and the 1970s.

“Open Ended: Painting and Sculpture Since 1900”: A “primarily geographic” reinstallation of the permanent collection “will feel familiar” to SFMOMA fans, Garrels says, starting with the beloved “Femme au Chapeau (Woman With a Hat)” (1905) by Henri Matisse.

“Paul Klee in Color” (through September): Sixteen paintings and watercolors, the museum’s 45th exhibition of Klee works draws upon an extensive 1980 gift from Carl Djerassi.

“Art of Northern California: Three Stories” (through November): To launch a gallery where the museum plans to regularly present Bay Area and California works, a concise exhibition will deal with Conceptual art (Lynn Hershman Leeson, Tom Marioni, et al.); the UC Davis group including Robert Arneson, Wayne Thiebaud and William T. Wiley; and “personal” approaches of Joan Brown, Jess and Lee Mullican.

“Learning to Love You More” (through Aug. 21): In the new Koret Education Center, San Francisco artists Jonn Herschend and Will Rogan (founders of The Thing Quarterly) will curate a presentation of a Miranda July/Harrell Fletcher project begun in 2002.

Third floor

“About Time: Photography in a Moment of Change” (through Sept. 25): Most of the third floor is devoted to the new Pritzker Center for Photography, a 15,000-square-foot series of galleries and collection spaces. Effectively a museum within the museum, the center opens with a broad collection survey spanning 180 years of the medium’s history.

“California and the West: Photography From the Collection Campaign” (through Sept. 5): Some 200 newly donated works — “landscape photographs,” broadly defined — made between 1856 and 2014.

“Alexander Calder: Motion Lab” (through Sept. 10): A dedicated Calder gallery, with adjacent outdoor sculpture terraces, will regularly present the witty and inventive works of the much-loved artist. The Fisher Collection, with something like 40 sculptures, is particularly rich in Calder works, greatly enhancing strong existing SFMOMA holdings.

“Model Behavior: Snøhetta’s First Concepts for SFMOMA” (through Jan. 16, 2017): A look at the models and drawings used in planning the new building.

Fourth floor

“The Campaign for Art: Modern and Contemporary” (through Sept. 18): Selections from the approximately 3,000 new works donated in anticipation of the new building, including a gallery full of Joseph Beuys works and paintings by Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg and Jackson Pollock.

“Approaching American Abstraction: The Fisher Collection”: Among the highlights are 26 extraordinary paintings and sculptures by Ellsworth Kelly. The entire progression of a visit to the fourth floor dead-ends at an octagonal gallery (“chapel-like,” Garrels calls it) devoted to seven major Minimalist works by Agnes Martin.

“New Work: Leonor Antunes” (through Oct. 2): The Portuguese artist, currently looking great in a group exhibition at San Francisco’s Jessica Silverman Gallery, is designing a site-specific installation that will make reference to design works by such historically significant women as Anni Albers and Ruth Asawa.

Fifth floor

“Pop, Minimal, and Figurative Art: The Fisher Collection”: Strong holdings in the work of Philip Guston and a tantalizing mini-survey of Chuck Close stand out, along with a crop of the biggest names in Pop (Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol) and Minimalism (Donald Judd).

“British Sculptors: The Fisher Collection” (through fall 2017): From Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore to Antony Gormley and Anish Kapoor, this is a promising selection to inaugurate an annual sculpture rotation in a sunlit gallery.

“Claudy Jongstra: Aarde”: A big, site-specific, wool and mixed natural media mural by the Dutch designer.

Sixth floor

“Typeface to Interface: Graphic Design From the Collection” (through Nov. 27): Some 250 works from the collection, looking at the changes in design from the analog era to the digital.

“German Art After 1960: The Fisher Collection”: Strong ties to the late SFMOMA curator John Caldwell, a specialist in contemporary German art, led the Fishers to invest deeply in Georg Baselitz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Sigmar Polke, Anselm Kiefer, and Gerhard Richter, each of whom will be presented in galleries dedicated to their work.

Seventh floor

“The Campaign for Art: Contemporary” (through Oct. 30): A rich array of gifts of art made since 1980; Charles Ray’s solid stainless steel “Sleeping Woman” (2012) is a standout.

“Film as Place” (through Oct. 30): The museum’s ability to exhibit media arts such as video, electronic and sound works will be greatly enhanced in the new building. This exhibition will combine long-term installations with a rotating program of projections. Among the highlights is sure to be Beryl Korot’s influential “Dachau 1974” (1974), an early example of multi-channel video as art.

Charles Desmarais is The San Francisco Chronicle’s art critic. E-mail: cdesmarais@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @Artguy1