Mungo Thomson, “Half Full, Half Empty”, 2014. Image courtesy of Minnesota Street Project.

Ongoing to February 29– The Art Report at Minnesota Street Project: Beginning January 2020, there will be a new series of artist talks and artist events in a casual space at Minnesota Street Project. The Art Report is programmed by a cooperative group of Bay Area-based art contributors. These free public events will vary in concept and are hosted every Wednesday evening from 5-8pm. The Art Report is located at 1275 Minnesota Street, Gallery 211.

February 5: Bob Linder
February 12: Aleesa Alexander
February 19: Nancy Lim
February 26: Graham Dalik

(left) Yarrow Slaps, “Excerpts From a NY Trip”, 2020. (right) John Martin, “Untitled”, 2016. Images courtesy of Guerrero Gallery.

Ongoing to February 22– Yarrow Slaps: NA(w)LA(se) nostalgia..ancient wunz..labor..self-exploration and John Martin: A Keychain Full of Tools at Guerrero Gallery: Slaps’ paintings speak to the construction of identity and selfhood. There are tributes to great players such as the WNBA’s Lisa Leslie and rap greats such as the recently passed Nipsey Hussle, with other figures taking on a more imaginary and even godlike presence. Deftly bouncing from subject to subject, the exhibition brings together a collection of Slaps’ work focusing on everything from the construction of identity and selfhood, to memory and the divine.

John Martin creates drawings from memories of time spent with his family on their Arkansas farm. Through his extraordinary imagination, John transforms everyday objects into talismans of sharp-toothed animals and goofy characters. His early, genre-based work is depicted in lively colors that cover the entire surface of the paper. Martin’s works both mimic functionality in their form, while subverting practicality through his outrageous animal mash-ups, larger-than-life Leatherman tools, and mysterious signifiers. Guerrero Gallery is located at 1465 Custer Ave.

Sean McFarland, “Clouds 5”, 2019. Image courtesy of Casemore Kirkeby.

Ongoing to February 29– Sean McFarland: 4.5 billion years a lifetime at Casemore Kirkeby: In 1789, Horace-Benedict de Saussure created the cyanometer, an instrument for measuring ‘blueness’, specifically the color intensity of blue sky. The blueness of the sky is something we can tangibly see and relate to within our existential timespan, our lifetime. These early cyanometers were made with Prussian blue pigment, the same blue dye found in the cyanotype process. When taking a photograph, we think of a single exposure as capturing a moment in time and place, a before and after described by the picture. Multiple exposures challenge or attempt to understand the act of making a record by increasing time’s density in a single frame when two moments become one. We have had life on earth for 4.5 billion years and the show is an attempt to grapple with the un-measurable through images. The exhibition is comprised of large-scale cyanotypes of the sky, handmade silver gelatin prints, and a video work. The exhibition is a synesthetic invitation to experience one sense through another, the flow of time in the static image. Casemore Kirkeby is located at 1275 Minnesota Street, #102.

Leilah Babirye, (left) “Ssekabaka Kimbugwe Kamegere (King of Buganda)”, 2019. (right) “Abakyala Baneko (Women Who Mind Their Own Business)”, 2019. Images courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents.

Ongoing to February 28– Leilah Babirye: Gwe Is Ye Nze, Lekka Mbele Nze (You Are Not Me, Let Me Be Me) at Rebecca Camacho Presents: Through a multidisciplinary practice that engages a personal and historical narrative, Babirye transforms marginalized materials into objects that address identity, liberty and power. Babirye arrived in the United States in 2015, fleeing dangerously homophobic conditions in her native Uganda after being publicly outed in a local Kampala newspaper the year before. Works in the exhibition employ traditional West African carving techniques mixed with ceramics and found objects including metal, plastic and wood to create portraits representing a composite of LGBTQI identities. Babirye’s work challenges conservative interpretations of existence and the experience of entering Babirye’s sphere is one of beauty, hope and change. Rebecca Camacho Presents is located at 794 Sutter Street.

Lydia Ourahmane, “Lith”, 2019. Image courtesy of The Wattis Institute.

February 6 to March 28– Lydia Ourahmane: صرخة شمسية Solar Cry at The Wattis Institute: This exhibition, the artist’s first solo museum show in the United States, is an orchestra. The voice of a female opera singer chanting two slightly different musical keys fills the gallery with monotonous sound, and an assemblage of recordings the artist took in Sefar, a desert plateau in the Sahara, vibrate through the walls. Sounds and silences become pressure points, in a choreography of repetitions, for the physical experience of negative space. A solar cry is one where silence is sovereign. It’s a cry that thickens all the interruptions and the intervals between sounds. She creates a context where some of those cries might be felt, even for a short moment, and where they can leave traces behind as they pass by. The Wattis Institute is located at 360 Kansas Street.

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 6, 5:30 – 8pm

(left) Jacqueline Norheim, “Crossing”, 2019. (middle) Angela Willetts, “Archetype”, video still, 2020. (right) Joe Ferriso, “Crying”, 2019. Images courtesy of Embark Gallery.

February 7 to March 4– Later Days at Embark Gallery: Embark Gallery has been supporting the work of current and recently graduated MFA students in the San Francisco Bay Area for 5 years and unfortunately this will be their last exhibition. Later Days marks the five-year anniversary of the opening of the gallery. To celebrate this milestone, one artist from each of the eight Bay Area MFA programs will showcase how they have grown as artists. The exhibition will explore the passage of time, the archetype of the “Artist,” and the perseverance inherent in creative practice. The participating artists include Carmina Eliason, Joe Ferriso, Jose Joaquin Figueroa, Jacqueline Norheim, Leslie Samson-Tabakin, Courtney Sennish, Wang H.M., and Angela Willetts. Embark Gallery is located at 2 Marina Blvd., Building B, 3rd floor, Suite 330. 

Opening Reception: Friday, February 7, 6 – 10pm

Mickalene Thomas, “Untitled #2” (Orlando Series), 2019. Image courtesy the artist and Yancey Richardson Gallery.

February 7 to May 2– Orlando at McEvoy Foundation for the Arts: The exhibition presents recent and newly commissioned photographs inspired by the themes of Virginia Woolf’s prescient 1928 novel, which celebrates openness, curiosity, and human possibility. In 1992, filmmaker Sally Potter released a now-classic adaptation of the book with Tilda Swinton, who curated this exhibition, in the starring role. Orlando offers a panoply of colors and tastes that seek to liberate traditions of portraiture in photography from the constructs of prescriptive gender or social norms at a moment when debates around identity, representation, and society have reinvigorated the story’s legacy. McEvoy Foundation for the Arts is located at 1150 25th Street, Building B.

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 8, 5pm

Dawoud Bey, “Mary Parker and Caela Cowan, Birmingham, AL”, 2012. Image courtesy of SFMOMA.

Thursday, February 13, 6pm– Dawoud Bey in Conversation with Leigh Raiford at SFMOMA: On the occasion of Dawoud Bey’s major retrospective An American Project at SFMOMA, the artist joins Leigh Raiford, chair of UC Berkeley’s African American Studies program. Moderated by exhibition curator, Corey Keller, Bey and Raiford’s conversation will expand on the representation of blackness as an aesthetic and political act, and the role that photography plays in visualizing history. Since the beginning of his career, Bey has used his camera to represent communities and histories that have largely remained underrepresented or even unseen. Bey sees making art as an act of personal expression and social and political responsibility, emphasizing the necessary work of artists and art institutions to break down obstacles to access, convene communities, and open dialogue. SFMOMA is located at 151 Third Street.

RSVP here.

Davina Semo, “Messenger”, 2019. Image courtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery.

Ongoing to June 28– Davina Semo: Core Reflections at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art: San Francisco-based artist, Davina Semo, works across two and three dimensions, often utilizing industrial materials that examine tensions between nature, society and the self. Semo’s commission for di Rosa draws on the surrounding industrial architecture of the gallery space amidst the expansiveness of the natural Northern California terrain. Semo’s work both invites and implicates the viewer through their highly polished reflective surfaces. Her commission highlights the porous confines of di Rosa’s glass encased exhibition space, offering up a moment for viewers to examine themselves within the uncertainty of exterior forces. Core Reflections invites sustained moments of introspection and contemplation within the permeable precipice of built and organic space. di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art is located at 5200 Sonoma Hwy in Napa. 

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 22, 3:30 – 5pm

Kari Marboe, “Dead Ringer: Duplicating Daniel Series”, 2018 with photocopy of missing Daniel Rhodes sculpture. Image courtesy of Mills College Art Museum.

Ongoing to March 15– Kari Marboe: Duplicating Daniel at Mills College Art Museum: An artwork by ceramicist Daniel Rhobes vanished from Mills College Art Museum’s permanent collection. Pursuing a web of living and archival leads, Kari Marboe attempts to recreate the lost sculpture from a vintage photocopy, an accession number, artist interviews, and research. The exhibition plays with the history of ceramics, the act of translation, and the imbedded failure of trying to make, or be, an exact copy of something else. Mills College Art Museum is located at 5000 MacArthur Blvd in Oakland.

Artist Talk: Wednesday, February 26, 7pm