Californians believe that most of the great new ideas, innovations and trends are generated and nurtured in our free-thinking, unconventional state, then emanate outward to the rest of the world, which has to catch up.
March comes in like a lion, so the saying goes, but the same could be said of January, judging from the crop of new exhibitions roaring out of the gate in this brand-New Year.
The country may have been taken over by philistines eager to cut funding for the NEA and other arts organizations they deem wasteful or nefarious, but at least for the Bay Area in 2018, there's reason for guarded optimism.
"Gods in Color: Polychromy in the Ancient World," a stimulating new exhibition at the Legion of Honor, features reconstructions of mostly Greek and Roman objects painted in authentic pigments that restore their rightful color.
"Robert Rauschenberg: Erasing the Rules" covers six decades of the prodigious, free-ranging career of the iconoclastic gay artist whose body of work has been called "the visual equivalent of the great American novel."
Wonder is difficult to come by these days, but it's right there in full view in "Teotihuacan: City of Water, City of Fire," a new exhibition at the de Young Museum.
