They really are related. Modern art museums are something you endure to complete assignments for unpleasant humanities courses that are required for your degree. Most of the content is disgusting or boring.

I'd much prefer to see a Saturn V, mummy, XB-70, stegosaurus fossil, Space Shuttle, enigma machine, US constitution, SR-71, or moon rock.

The best museum in San Francisco is probably the cable car museum.

If you're out here in future, you'd probably enjoy the museum ships SS Jeremiah O'Brien and USS Pampanito. They're right next to the tourist trap pier at Fisherman's Wharf. https://www.ssjeremiahobrien.org/ https://maritime.org/uss-pampanito/

The DeYoung is mostly special exhibits, right? I've been to a couple that were pretty good but, in general, SF is pretty weak in terms of museums. (And I admit I just don't personally care for much of what's in SFMoma.) Though that's generally true of the West Coast with a few notable exceptions like the Getty.

> The DeYoung is mostly special exhibits, right?

No, though like most museums it has and actively promotes special exhibits.

The DeYoung permanent collections, IIRC, are mostly non-European regional collections, with some particular-media focussed collections

I suspect the major SF art museum you'd probably dislike the least is the Legion of Honor.

I guess the permanent collection at the DeYoung didn't make much of an impression the last time I was there for a special exhibit. Never been to the Legion of Honor.