Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal, September 25, 2020—January 24, 2021, installation view at the Institute for Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Photo by Constance Mensch.
September 1 to October 15 – Drum Listens to Heart Part I at The Wattis Institute: This exhibit explores the nuance and nature of the percussive with Drum Listens to Heart, an iterative exhibition that weaves together myriad forms of percussion—physical and socio-political, literal and metaphorical—and juxtaposes instances of physical impact and vibration with forms of control, emancipation, and community-building. The exhibition brings together an international roster of artists presenting works in a variety of media to explore rhythm, pulse, music, cultural history, healing, power, freedom, and control. The show will be presented in three chapters, on view September 1–October 15, 2022; November 9–December 17, 2022; and January 17–March 4, 2023 respectively. The Wattis Institute is located at 360 Kansas Street in San Francisco.
Xaviera Simmons, “Skin Hunger,” 2021, photographs, videos, animations, paintings. Image courtesy of BAMPFA.
September 3 to December 18 –Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration at BAMPFA: Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration considers the foundational roots of confinement from philosophical, sociological, theological, and art historical perspectives to better understand the fact that today’s mass incarceration crisis has been centuries in the making. This exhibition traces images from history that contribute to the entrenched cultural beliefs associated with today’s carceral system. The exhibit features newly commissioned works of contemporary art based on the analysis of art historical images of incarceration. Artists in the exhibition are —Carolina Aranibar-Fernández, Juan Brenner, Raven Chacon, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Ashley Hunt, Sandra de la Loza, Michael Rohd, Paul Rucker, Xaviera Simmons, Stephanie Syjuco, Vincent Valdez, and Mario Ybarra Jr. BAMPFA is located at 2155 Center Street in Berkeley.
Linda Geary “Explode The Flowers” 2022, acrylic and oil on canvas; Reed Anderson “Billie Friend” 2020, acrylic and spray paint on hand-cut paper. Images courtesy of Gallery 16.
September 9 to October 29 – Linda Geary: What Gives and Reed Anderson: No Love Lost at Gallery 16: Bay Area artist Linda Geary presents a new body of work that includes large canvases and mixed media collages. Geary uses collage and other approaches that reference actions of sewing and construction, modes of working that sometimes exist outside of the patriarchal history of painting, and more akin to laying a path of stones or making a quilt. Reed Anderson is known for obsessively layered cut paper paintings. He describes his process as “additive and self generating”. He begins his cut paintings by applying patches or bands of color onto paper before cutting oval and circular shaped holes, then folding the paper and further applying paint through the cut holes, later collaging additional elements onto the work. Throughout the making of these works they exist in constant flux, a dance between cutting, painting, and collaging. Gallery 16 is located at 501 Third Street in San Francisco.
Libby Black “Brooms” 2022, paper, pencil, acrylic paint and glue. Image courtesy of 500 Capp Street.
September 10 to October 8 – Libby Black: The Way Things Also Are at 500 Capp Street. Berkeley-based painter, drawer and sculptural installation artist Libby Black mines the everyday for meaning charting a path through personal history and a broader cultural context to explore intersections of politics, feminism, LGBTQ+ identity, consumerism and more. For her solo exhibition at 500 Capp Street, Black takes inspiration from late conceptual artist David Ireland’s home, archive, art practice, and legacy to both reveal and propose unseen narratives with the House’s domestic spaces and collection. The exhibit also includes works by Maryam Safanasab, AJ Serrano, and Nicole Shaffer. The David Ireland House is located at 500 Capp Street in San Francisco.
Tyler Cross & Kyle Lypka “Nicotiana” 2022 glazed ceramic. Image courtesy of Blunk Space.
September 10 to November 6 – Gravity Corner: Tyler Cross & Kyle Lypka at Blunk Space: Using drawing as a gesture of departure, Cross and Lypka interpret flatness into form. Line drawings on gridded paper developed by Cross act as glyphs or rough architectural plans for the sculptures. Lypka then interprets and expands upon the formal structure of the drawing, stewarding graphite outlines toward an uncertain three-dimentionality in clay. Hand-built, the resulting forms are comprised of hard lines and blind curves made by touch and the human hand. Oftentimes, the final product greatly departs from its original proposal – a mirror images of two shapes, twinning on the page. Blunk Space is located at 11101 CA-1 #105, Point Reyes Station.
Kija Lucas “In Search of Home, Easton 002”, 2013, archival pigment print. Image courtesy of SF Camerawork.
September 17 to December 17 – Kija Lucas: Taxonomy of Belonging at SF Camerawork’s new gallery space: The Taxonomy of Belonging includes work from Lucas’s nine-year project In Search of Home, and consists of photographs of plant clippings, rocks, and other objects that explore the emigration patterns of her family, and Carl Linnaeus’s racial taxonomy. This body of work questions how the scientific frameworks society has inherited from Linnaeus misrepresents Othered communities, while specifically addressing the invention of race in his taxonomy of man. This racist categorization of human beings perpetuates stereotypes and continues to be used widely today. Lucas challenges the frameworks of scientific categorization and the resulting implications of belonging found within the language of “native” and “non-native” plant species. With these works, the artist interrogates how we choose what is considered “natural,” “beautiful,” and “useful.” SF Camerawork is located at Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Blvd, Building A.
Richard Learoyd, installation view of “Fragments”. Image courtesy of Pier 24 Photography.
Ongoing to May 23 – Looking Forward: Ten Years of Pier 24 Photography: This is the second of two consecutive exhibitions celebrating the tenth anniversary of Pier 24 Photography—highlighting a selection of photographers collected by the Pilara Foundation over the past decade. With a focus on single artist galleries, Looking Forward demonstrates their belief that exhibiting photographers’ works in depth is the best way to communicate their visions for a given project or moment in time. To make an appointment to visit, please click here.
Adia Millett “The Embers you Left Behind 3D” 2022, acrylic on panel. Image courtesy of di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art.
Ongoing to October 30 – Adia Millett: Force of Nature at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art: Adia Millett works across a broad range of media – from paintings and textiles to sculpture and sound installation – creating bright, fractal compositions that skirt the boundary between landscape, figure and abstraction. Over the last year, Millett spent countless hours wandering di Rosa’s 217 acres, collecting leaves, feathers and visual impressions that ultimately found their way into her work. Inspired by this ever-changing landscape, Millett created an arresting series of works evoking “earth, water, air and sun—the elements that birthed us and keep us alive.” di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art is located at 5200 Sonoma Highway, Napa.