Lava Thomas “East Side Elementary Schoolhouse” 2026 Graphite and Conté pencil on paper, courtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery.
Sadie Barnette “Good People (Decaptych)” 2026 Ash and poplar wood, courtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery.
September 10 to October 24 – Lava Thomas: Lineage and Sadie Barnette: 28, at Jessica Silverman Gallery: Known for her monumental portraits, Thomas’s newest body of work focuses on figures from her own ancestry in post-Emancipation Texas. On view will be eight large-scale graphite and Conté pencil drawings on paper alongside a series of hand-drawn reproductions of archival documentation. Barnette‘s second solo exhibition with the gallery is titled “28” as it is the 28th solo exhibition of the artist’s career to date. The show features new colored-pencil drawings and a new installation in ash and poplar wood that asks questions about perspective and legibility.
Friday, October 2, from 5–7pm– As part of Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week, presented by the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), the gallery will host an exhibition walkthrough with the artist, led by Cornelia Stokes, Assistant Curator of the Art of the African Diaspora at SFMOMA and MoAD.
Martine Syms “SHE MAD: Laughing Gas” 2016, courtesy the artist, KADIST collection. Photo by Jeff McLane, copyright Martine Syms.
September 10 to October 31 – Character Development at Minnesota Street Project Foundation: Co-presented with KADIST, Character Development is a group exhibition that brings together six video installations, each featuring the artist on-screen in different guises and roles. Calling upon cinematic history through citation, reinterpretation, and critique, the artworks in the exhibition address contemporary social issues ranging from consumer culture to feminism, treating characters—in all their instability—as both structure and strategy.
Thursday, September 17, 7pm – Out of Character, a reading: An evening of short readings, connecting six writers’ personal perspectives as a way of decoding the layered meanings of the artworks in the exhibition Character Development, followed by a discussion moderated by Joseph del Pesco, KADIST Americas Director. With readings by Dodie Bellamy, Deena Chalabi, Shona Mei Findlay, Elena Gross, Glen Helfand, and Heidi Rabben.
Liam Everett “Untitled (even if the sea is asleep)” 2026 Ink, oil, sand, wood ash on linen
September 10 to October 29– Liam Everett: The Passenger at Berggruen Gallery: Inspired by quantum biology, Everett’s most recent body of work is shaped by his research on the interplay between light and living beings, particularly the relationship between ultraviolet light, photons, and physiology.
September 10, 4:30 pm: The gallery will host an artist discussion, moderated by Mari Robles, Chief Executive Officer of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Terran Last Gun “Energetic Forces At Play” 2026, Ink and colored pencil on antique “Veterinarian Records” ledger sheets, courtesy of Haines Gallery.
Wendy Red Star “Chiaxxúapilake (Fifty)” 2025, fabric with archival pigment photograph on board, courtesy of Haines Gallery.
September 15 to November 7 – 250 Years, Indigenous Futures at Haines Gallery: A group exhibition centering the work of leading Native American artists, including Victoria Grace Canby, Jordan Ann Craig, Sky Hopinka, Brad Kahlhamer, Terran Last Gun, Jamie Okuma, Wendy Red Star, and Keith Secola. Working across painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, and film, these artists engage contemporary culture, Nation-specific visual traditions, and personal histories in distinct and expansive ways.
September 17 – Opening reception from 5PM – 8PM, during the Fort Mason Art Walk.
Ha Chung-Hyun “Conjunction 25-19” 2025, oil on hemp, courtesy of Asian Art Museum.
September 25 to January 25, 2027 –Ha Chong-Hyun: Retrospective at the Asian Art Museum.: The first major North American museum exhibition by pioneering Korean contemporary artist Ha Chong-Hyun. The exhibition features more than 50 paintings — including two new works completed as recently as 2025 — tracing Ha’s creative evolution over more than six decades.
Andrea Higgins “Self-Portrait with Poppies” 2025 oil on canvas (diptych), courtesy of Hosfelt Gallery.
October 17 to November 25 – Andrea Higgins: Portraits at Hosfelt Gallery: Andrea Higgins is known for her intricate paintings of fabric swatches that draw on the expressive power of textiles to create evocative, abstract portraits. Inspired by childhood trips to Britex Fabrics with her grandmother, and a fellowship in Indonesia where she observed the labor-intensive process of weaving extravagant sarongs, Higgins “weaves” textile patterns with paint.
Sarah Sze, Forever is Composed of Nows (rendering); courtesy Sarah Sze Studio Sarah Sze, Untitled, 2026 (detail); courtesy Sarah Sze Studio Sarah Sze “Forever is Composed of Nows (rendering)” courtesy of Sarah Sze Studio and SFMOMA.
Opening November 21st – Sarah Sze: Forever is Composed of Nows in the SFMOMA Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Atrium. Sarah Sze’s Forever is Composed of Nows transforms SFMOMA’s Evelyn and Walter Haas, Jr. Atrium into a shifting landscape where light, sound, and movement intertwine. Inspired by the ephemerality of images, the fragility of nature, and the passage of time, this site-specific, multisensory commission features three new monumental paintings and a dynamic flow of video projections and rhythmic, pulsating soundscapes that create a fully immersive experience spanning several spaces and multiple floors. The title references a 19th-century poem by Emily Dickinson, whose written work resonates with Sze’s own meditation on time as a continuum of present moments, each adding to the memory of forever.