Mickalene Thomas (American, born 1971) ]Le d\u00e9jeuner sur l’herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires,’ 2010. Rhinestone, acrylic and enamel on panel 120 \u00d7 288 in. The Dean Collection, courtesy of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Mickalene Thomas \/ Artist Rights Society (ARS), New York<\/p>\n
San Diego gets a lot of love as a tourist destination<\/a>. Rightly so.<\/p>\n The beaches, the weather, the zoo, the golf, the Gas Lamp District, Balboa Park, La Jolla, Coronado Island, gateway to Mexico.<\/p>\n Between your fish tacos<\/a> and reef safe sunscreen, don\u2019t forget about San Diego\u2019s overlooked arts scene. Signature special exhibitions and milestone anniversary\u2019s make summer of 2026 a perfect time to visit \u201cAmerica\u2019s Finest City\u201d for paintings, glass art, architecture, sculpture, street art, and more.<\/p>\n \u2018Giants\u2019<\/p>\n The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego<\/a> is the sole West Coast venue hosting \u201cGiants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys.\u201d Set to the soundtrack of Marvin Gaye, this landmark presentation draws from the personal collection of musical and cultural icons Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys. <\/p>\n Organized by the Brooklyn Museum in 2024, \u201cGiants\u201d features 130 works from 37 Black American and diasporic artists from Africa, Europe, the United States, and the Caribbean. The monumental paintings tower in both scale, conceptual depth, and technical skill. <\/p>\n Giant artworks.<\/p>\n Not included in any of the previous venues, a 25-foot work by Mickalene Thomas has been added to the exhibition, shown with the Dean Collection for the first time. The work is inspired by Edouard Manet\u2019s 1863 Le d\u00e9jeuner sur l’herbe.<\/p>\n Giant artists.<\/p>\n Icons of modern and contemporary art fill the Dean Collection: Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kwame Brathwaite, and Gordon Parks<\/a>. Large-scale works by Derrick Adams, Arthur Jafa, Titus Kaphar, Amy Sherald, and Nina Chanel Abney populate the exhibition, speaking to Black joy, resistance, and cultural legacy through paintings and photographs.<\/p>\n The exhibition opens with an introduction to the Deans\u2019 creative lives and inspirational journey. \u201cBecoming Giants\u201d honors their introduction to collecting with a display of BMX bikes recalling Dean\u2019s upbringing in the Bronx alongside a piano used by Keys early in her career. <\/p>\n \u201cGiants\u201d can be seen through August 9, 2026, at MCASD\u2019s campus across the street from the Pacific Ocean in La Jolla. Spend a day among the absurdly picturesque hamlet\u2019s boutique shops, restaurants, seals, and sea lions<\/a>.<\/p>\n Art in The (Balboa) Park<\/p>\n San Diego’s Balboa Park at twilight in San Diego California USA<\/p>\n getty<\/p>\n Twelve hundred acre Balboa Park<\/a> houses museums dedicated to air and space, science, automobiles, natural history, and Comic-Con. San Diego\u2019s best-in-the-world zoo<\/a> is next door. Balboa Park also houses a puppet theatre, a House of Charm, and The Old Globe. You\u2019ll find Centro Cultural de la Raza, gardens, walking trails, and the San Diego Museum of Art<\/a> celebrating its centennial this year.<\/p>\n SDMA first opened as the Fine Arts Gallery of San Diego on February 28, 1926. Its year-long celebration begins with an exhibition rooted in the institution’s history<\/a>, showcasing archival images and ephemera from the SDMA Archives and the San Diego History Center. <\/p>\n Through September 7, experience \u201cForging a Legacy: 15 Years of Landmark Acquisitions<\/a>,\u201d highlighting profound acquisitions and promised gifts received by the Museum over the last 15 years. SDMA has made great strides augmenting its core collections of art from East Asia, South Asia, the Islamic world, Europe, the United States, and Latin America, as well as in the area of photography. The majority of gifts were donated by the community, and include stunning examples by Lucas Cranach, Albrecht D\u00fcrer, Jusepe de Ribera, John Singer Sargent, and Francisco de Zurbar\u00e1n, as well as Impressionist and Modern paintings by Claude Monet and Pablo Picasso, Japanese woodblock prints, and cutting-edge Contemporary work.<\/p>\n Historically, one of the Museum\u2019s greatest gifts came in 1987 with the collection of Baldwin M. Baldwin, a connoisseur of French painter\/illustrator Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec (1864-1901). Baldwin\u2019s holdings were among the most comprehensive in the world. First shown at SDMA in 1972, these light sensitive works can only rarely be displayed. To commemorate this gift and the Museum\u2019s Centennial, \u201cCaf\u00e9s and Cabarets: The Spectacular Art of Toulouse-Lautrec\u201d<\/a> shares approximately 35 Toulouse-Lautrec pieces, all from the permanent collection. <\/p>\n The once-in-a-generation viewing opportunity can be enjoyed through September 20.<\/p>\n Clearly Indigenous<\/p>\n Balboa Park\u2019s Mingei International Museum celebrates human creativity through multicultural works of folk art, craft, and design. Inspired by the Japanese mingei (art of the people) movement, Mingei cares deeply about design functionality, handmade craft, and bringing out the creativity living in us all.<\/p>\n Opening June 27 and running through September 27, 2026, Mingei presents \u201cClearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass,\u201d<\/a> a nationally touring exhibition giving broader and overdue recognition to a wide range of contemporary Native American and Indigenous Pacific Rim artists working in glass.<\/p>\n Over 100 stunning glass art objects created by 29 artists from 26 different American Indian, Alaska Native, and First Nations tribal communities in the United States and Canada are featured along with two Australian Aboriginal artists and two Maori artists who have collaborated with American Indian artists. <\/p>\n Artworks in the exhibition embody the intellectual content of Native traditions, newly illuminated by the unique properties that can only be achieved working with glass. Whether re-interpreting traditional stories and designs or expressing contemporary issues affecting tribal societies, Native glass artists have created a content-laden body of work. These artists have melded the aesthetics and properties inherent in glass art with their cultural ways of knowing. <\/p>\n Chicano Park<\/p>\n SAN DIEGO, CA, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014 – Visitors to Chicano Park view dozens of murals painted on the concrete stanchions leading to and from the Coronado Bridge. (Photo by Robert Gauthier\/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)<\/p>\n Los Angeles Times via Getty Images<\/p>\n By 1969, following years of \u201curban renewal\u201d\u2013segregation by design<\/a>\u2013San Diego\u2019s Chicano neighborhood of Logan Heights had nearly been destroyed. Interstate 5 plowed through. Then a massive bridge. The city had rezoned the area allowing polluting heavy industry to proliferate the community.<\/p>\n After plans to turn open space promised for a park into a California Highway Patrol substation were uncovered, citizens went ballistic. <\/p>\n Residents occupied the land under the bridge. Some chained themselves to construction equipment. People got loud. They were beaten by police and arrested. They camped overnight. Neighbors brought them food.<\/p>\n After 12 days of resistance, the city and state capitulated; Logan Heights would get its park: Chicano Park<\/a>.<\/p>\n Visitors to Chicano Park on any day can enjoy the largest single site installation of murals in America. Bridge supports are covered with dozens of vibrant murals described by one of the original artists as an \u201copen book of our culture, energy and determination as a people.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Art, resistance, and community, a holy trinity.<\/p>\n University of California San Diego<\/p>\n Complete your San Diego cultural sojourn with UC San Diego\u2019s Stuart Collection of commissioned, site-specific sculpture<\/a>. The sculpture park is free to visit, as is Chicano Park. Installations, including the Fallen Star, are dispersed campus-wide.<\/p>\n If the school\u2019s Geisel Library reminds you of a Lorax tree, good. The building is a tribute to Theodor Geisel\u2014better known as Dr. Seuss\u2014and his wife, Audrey. The Geisel\u2019s lived in San Diego and donated millions of dollars to the school over the years. Upon the author\/illustrator\u2019s death in 1991 and in the years following, the family also donated a large part of his archives<\/a>\u2013drawings, notebooks, memorabilia\u2013to UC San Diego.<\/p>\n More From ForbesForbesChicano Park Day Commemoration Returns To Roots Of ResistanceBy Chadd Scott<\/a>ForbesSan Diego And Tijuana: World Design Capital 2024By Chadd Scott<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mickalene Thomas (American, born 1971) ]Le d\u00e9jeuner sur l’herbe: Les Trois Femmes Noires,’ 2010. 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