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Events

Museum of Modern Art, 3rd Street, San Francisco, California, USA

Kara Walker has long been recognized for her incisive examinations of the dynamics of power and the exploitation of race and sexuality. Her work leverages expressions of fantasy and humor to confront troubling histories and dominant narratives, repossessing control in the process. Inspired by a wide range of sources, from antique dolls to Octavia Butler’s novel Parable of the Sower, Walker’s new commission, Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine), considers the memorialization of trauma, the objectives of technology, and the possibilities of transforming the negative energies that plague contemporary society. Here, automatons trapped in a never-ending cycle of ritual and struggle are repositories of the human soul. They recall mechanized medieval icons that evidenced divinity, vitality, and the promise of faith. Situated within an energetically charged field of black obsidian from Mt. Konocti in Lake County — a volcanic glass with deep spiritual properties — Walker’s Gardeners evoke wonder, reflection, respite, and hope. Just past this prophetic vignette, the installation’s namesake, Fortuna, responds to each visitor with a choreographed gesture and a printed fortune fresh from her mouth — an offering of absolution and contemplation.

Events

Museum of Modern Art, 3rd Street, San Francisco, California, USA

Table Manners brings together tableware, flatware, and drinkware from the SFMOMA Architecture + Design collection spanning nearly 100 years. The exhibition celebrates the ways design has shaped our relationship to food, our bodies, and communities, and how dining can be a profound communal and cultural experience. From self-filling wine glasses and teapots made of tea, to crisp modernist spoons and flatware made from discarded CDs, Table Manners explores the performance of dining. The exhibition includes works by Virgil Abloh, Joe Colombo, Zaha Hadid, Roberto Lugo, and many more, accompanied by illustrations and textiles by Lucy Stark.

Events

200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102, United States

Filled with a revolutionary spirit, Vikrant Bhise’s Archival Historicity series offers a dynamic visual archive of the Dalit Panthers, a group dedicated to seeking freedom from caste, gender, and labor inequities for India’s most oppressed and marginalized peoples. Founded in 1972 in Mumbai and taking inspiration from the Oakland-based Black Panther Party for Self Defense, the Dalit Panthers sought to align themselves with their Bay Area counterparts in a global struggle for equality and social change. Bhise’s intimate, postcard-sized works are made up of many layers: painted and printed elements from manifestos and pamphlets interact and overlap with newspaper images, urban monuments, and symbolic cartoons. Installed in a continuous sequence spanning a gallery wall, these selections from the ongoing series “evoke the small, localized experiences that add up to global movements, while underscoring the enduring significance of the Panthers’ call for equality,” says Padma Dorje Maitland, Malavalli Family Foundation Associate Curator of the Art of the Indian Subcontinent. This exhibition marks their first showing in a major museum.

Events

200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102, United States

Chandigarh-based artist Gurjeet Singh’s first show at an American institution offers a moving consideration of the emotional impact of words. Teary Eyes is a soft sculpture stitched together from pieces of dress fabric. Despite a playful, colorful surface, the work conveys a deep vulnerability; this feeling grows deeper as we witness a violent exchange of words in the painting Prickly Words. Portraits of Singh with the figure further personalize the exhibition. “These works explore what it means to be seen, to express yourself, and the power of language to build us up and tear us down,” says exhibition curator Padma Dorje Maitland, Malavalli Family Foundation Associate Curator of the Art of the Indian Subcontinent. “Even if we accept ourselves and feel confident, the wrong word at the wrong time can deeply impact us. Whether Sikh, South Asian, Queer, soft, or hard, Singh’s work addresses the complex challenges of fashioning how we appear in the world.”

Events

Museum of Modern Art, 3rd Street, San Francisco, California, USA

Exploring moments from the rich history of the San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) — before its closure, the West Coast’s oldest fine art school — this exhibition spotlights works by more than 50 SFAI alumni and former faculty included in the museum’s collection. The presentation underscores the school’s crucial role in fostering creativity and experimentation, featuring works across media since the post–World War II era by artists like Ansel Adams, Joan Brown, Miguel Calderón, Imogen Cunningham, Mike Henderson, Candice Lin, and Carlos Villa, among others. The exhibition also includes a dynamic and quirky range of archival materials drawn from the SFMOMA Library and the SFAI Archive. These encompass ephemera from the founding of the school’s photography department, posters for 1950s Beat-era galleries run by artist alumni, student newspapers, and flyers from the punk and new wave music scenes of the 1970s. Taking its title from a line in the final 2022 commencement speech by faculty member and alumnus Dewey Crumpler, People Make This Place is a collaborative effort across the museum in partnership with the SFAI Legacy Foundation + Archive.

Events

151 3rd St, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States

Hicks's first solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art features a site-specific installation in the museum's "New Works" gallery. These works are inspired by objects, textures, and patterns she observed during her settled urban lives or periods of migration. Each piece draws on places that hold special personal significance for her, from the pebbles of her backyard to the towering lighthouse and rugged terrain of the French Île de la Ouesand.

Events

151 3rd St, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States

Writing is not only a language, but also a visual and even tactile form. The renowned artist and educator Josef Albers taught this concept to students at Black Mountain College in North Carolina—a former liberal arts college. Artist Ray Johnson studied there from 1945 to 1948. In an exercise called “typofacture,” Albers asked students in his design class to create drawings that mimicked printed or handwritten text. Students observed the textures of various surfaces—such as spots on a wall or patterns on a raked garden path—and applied this concept to printed text, because printed text bears the imprint of its production process, whether handmade or machine-printed. This activity deeply impressed Johnson, who later became a collage and letter artist whose work (like that of Paul Klee) often combined text with imagery.

Events

200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102, United States Asian Art Museum

Jitish Kallat's installation, Terranum Nuncius, uses audio and video data launched into space in 1977 as a greeting from humanity to the universe. This information was encoded on a "golden record" (gold-plated vinyl record) carried by NASA's Voyager 1 and 2, and has now traveled over 13 billion miles. This information is conceived as a "time capsule" designed to transcend the era of potential extinction for humanity and Earth, while simultaneously introducing humanity and life on Earth to potential extraterrestrial recipients.

Events

151 3rd St, San Francisco, CA 94103, United States

"Reconstructing History" explores the possibility that photographs can both record fleeting moments and capture the history inherent in the present. This installation borrows the title from artist Carrie Mae Weems' series "Constructing History," inviting viewers to imagine the layers of history we encounter through seemingly fixed images.

Events

DrawBridge Arts San Francisco California, United States

Celebrating DRAWBRIDGE’S 35+ years serving Bay Area children & youth with trauma-informed expressive arts.Curated by Evelisa Genova and Dorka Keehn, The Art of San Francisco is a dynamic activation, exhibition, and immersive experience that transforms the Embarcadero Center into a living canvas, illuminating the layered cultural stories of the Bay Area. This project explores the rich intersections of innovation and creative expression that have long defined San Francisco’s identity.