Ayana V. Jackson “The Rupture was the story” 2019 photograph. Image courtesy of MoAD SF.
April 5 to August 20 – Black Venus at Museum of African Diaspora (MoAD): Curated by Aindrea Emelife, Black Venus is an exhibition that surveys the legacy of Black Women in visual culture – from fetishized, colonial-era caricatures to the present-day reclamation of the rich complexity of Black womanhood by 18 artists (of numerous nationalities and with birth years spanning 1942 to 1997). This exhibition is a celebration of Black beauty, an investigation into the many faces of Black femininity and the shaping of Black women in the public consciousness – then and now. MoAD is located at 685 Mission Street in San Francisco.
Zarouhie Abdalian “Flutter” 2010. Image courtesy of Kadist San Francisco.
April 14 to August 12 – From the Kadist Collection: be here, or even better, be nowhere at Kadist San Francisco: This exhibition brings together artists who employ sculpture, drawing, video, and sound to probe social and historical structures and infrastructures, such as migration, colonialism, carceral systems, and space militarization. The works commune through memory, language, social and religious alliances, and ancestral knowledge, to summon an “elsewhere” as an act of re/construction. Kadist San Francisco is located at 3295 20th Street.
Scene from last year’s auction. Image courtesy of Southern Exposure.
Saturday, April 29 – PRISMATIC Annual Art Auction at Southern Exposure: PRISMATIC, is Southern Exposure’s 2023 benefit art auction. The Main Event will feature both a silent and a live auction, showcasing over 130 pieces of radiant art from some of the Bay Area’s most luminous new and established artists. Featuring entertainment from local performers, cocktails from Trick Dog, hors d’oeuvres from Work of Art, and the joy of gathering safely with the vibrant SoEx community. VIP Preview Night: Thursday, April 13, 6:00 – 8:00 PM. Purchase tickets here.
Adia Millet “Strata,” 2023. Acrylic on wood panel. Image courtesy of CCA Campus Gallery.
Ongoing to April 28 – Women to Watch 2024: New Suns at CCA Campus Gallery: Each of the artists in New Suns are grounded in their own specific experiences of heritage, ritual, and belonging. Artists Sofía Córdova, Nicki Green, Cathy Lu, Adia Millett, and Genevieve Quick hold different histories of oppression and joy in tension in their work, while sharing a common commitment to the practice of creative world-building. With radical hope, they imagine different practices of coexistence, crafting propositions for life oriented around different suns. CCA Campus Gallery is located at 1480 17th Street, San Francisco.
Anna Sew Hoy “Hard Swamp Ecstatic Return”,2022. Courtesy of SFMOMA.
Ongoing to July 16 – New Work: Anna Sew Hoy at SFMOMA: Los Angeles–based sculptor Anna Sew Hoy’s Growing Ruins rise from the floor in a mesmerizing tangle of hand-built clay arches, found metal cages, and detritus ranging from charging cords to denim scraps. They recall the ruins of a lost city or shelters assembled from the shiny, tech-laden remains of a land destroyed. Three of these towering forms take center stage in Sew Hoy’s New Work exhibition at SFMOMA, alongside coiled clay vessels that recall giant, cartoonish organs and vast fabric webs created by stripping office shirts down to their seams. Taken together, the sculptures embody Sew Hoy’s interest in turning things inside out to explore the relationship between the exterior world (of bodies, buildings, and objects) and interior space (of psyches, emotions, and souls)—and the inevitable porousness between them.
Sarah Hotchkiss “Kai’s Painting” 2021, flashe on panel. Image courtesy of ICA San Jose.
March 31 to August 13 – Altered Perception: Sarah Hotchkiss, Lordy Rodriguez, and Susie Taylor at ICA San Jose: Inspired by the British artist Bridget Riley (b. 1931), who has long been known for her dizzying, vibratory paintings that set the Op Art movement in motion, the exhibition Altered Perception is a tribute to Riley and her life’s work. Altered Perception includes works from three local Bay Area artists: Sarah Hotchkiss, Lordy Rodriguez, and Susie Taylor. 560 south First Street, San Jose.