Review: the Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science

On March 14, 2009, my husband, and two of my friend's children Nathan and Josh, ages 12 and 15, respectively, went to The Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science, "The Met". Unfortunately, there was very little art or science and not much museum.

The Met is a small museum, in the four story old Fresno Bee Newspaper building. The outside of the building is beautiful and the grounds are manicured with sculptures on the lawn.

The day we went to The Met, they had just ended their Feathered Dinosaur exhibit, and had not been replaced yet. We were the first people in the museum in the morning, and it was fully staffed with people sitting on their desks, talking on their cell phone and chatting about their evenings. There were several desks up front, and it was not clear which desk we should stand at to indicate that we wanted to pay. When we walked in, no one was already sitting at the admission desk even though they had seen us waiting in their garden for nearly ½ an hour.

After a few moments of confusion, a nice woman took our money and explained that the second and third floors were closed but the first and fourth were available. What we didn't understand at the time was that she was a bit insincere. Both of those floors were open, but each was only half full.

The first floor had Crossroads II: The Meeting of Art and Science which included The Dark Side of Light, and Civilization and Cycle: the Science of Restoring our Planet, as well as a small, seemingly disconnected exhibit of semi-random things between them.

The Dark Side of Light is an exhibit mostly about how light affects and damages things. While there are interactive exhibits in the Dark Side of Light, we had to plug the exhibits in and I had to rely on my existing knowledge to explain to the kids I was with what the exhibits actually meant. Most of the section is about how light damages the way things look but none of the light damaged things, such as an old bird feeder and a newspaper, are interesting or relatable.

Their Civilization and Cycle exhibit was interesting but not very powerful. Instead of letting us see what 330 plastic bags, which is what the average American uses in a year, looks like, they put it in a bubble, much like jelly beans in a jar. When you look at jelly beans in a jar, you are not overwhelmed with the number of jelly beans. You are pondering only the number of beans in the jar. The exhibit really misses the opportunity to wow the audience.

Uninspired and very disappointed, we decided to wander upstairs. We were not allowed to go in the elevator alone because they wanted to make sure we did not gallivant in one of the closed floors. It was uncomfortable and weird. Once we got upstairs, another person was dispatched to keep an eye on us, and did, endlessly, the entire time we were up there. I guess he was supposed to discourage us from stealing any of the art on that floor.

While there were four interesting still-life paintings on the wall when entering the fourth floor, it's downhill from there. There are several large glass cases, some with collections of objects donated by what I assume are Fresno locals, unrelated to each other and shoved together. On the other side of the cases, along the walls, are art done by local school children. Some of the art is actually quite inspiring and beautiful. The middle of the room is completely empty and makes viewing the art or spending time there uncomfortable. There are no benches to sit for a time to examine the art, no theme to the art and no natural movement.

The two kids I brought with me were bored to near tears, and the two adults were bored to death. It's hard enough to get a child and a teenager to a museum but when no one can learn anything - it makes taking them next time much harder.

We walked around Fresno before we went into the museum and there were beautiful buildings: there were rundown and decaying buildings, and unbelievably beautiful murals. Instead of going into The Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science, park there and walk around the neighborhood. It's free, it's exercise and it's far more interesting than the Met.

The Fresno Metropolitan Museum of Art and Science
http://fresnomet.org/home.html
155 Van Ness Avenue
Fresno, CA 93721
(559) 441-1444

Closed Mondays
Tuesday-Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.
Extended Hours 1st Thursday of month (ArtHop) to 8:00 p.m.
$9 Adults
$7 Students (with valid ID)
$7 Seniors (62+)
$5 Children (ages 3-12)
Children under age 3 are admitted free.