Artsource Blog

Check back here from time to time to get updates on what we like, exhibits to see, and art related ideas. If you’re interested in more information about what you see here, please email us.

To Do List: September

Top left: Nina Zurier, “Artificial Landscape 531/530” 2024, glazed porcelain. Bottom left: David Ireland, “Untitled” 1994, enamel paint on gelatin silver print. Top right: Jamie Sterling Pitt, “Untitled” 2025, acrylic and flashe on recycled exhibition wood, live oak pollen, Turk’s cap, bayou water, and artist frame. Bottom right: Takming Chuang, “Helen, Ray, and Malachi Visit NY” 2025, clay, bin, liner, produce bag, artist’s original c-prints from late ’90s. All images courtesy of 500 Capp Street.

Saturday, September 6 from 3 to 8pm: The Fall Invitational presented by 500 Capp Street, Et al., and Slash: This collaborative fundraising event celebrates the Bay Area arts community and raises funds to sustain future programming for each organization. The main event is an exhibition and sale which features over 70 artists including Jenny Holzer, Dewey Crumpler, Jim Goldberg, and Maryam Yousif. Additionally a raffle will be held featuring artist-led experiences and performances from Gao Ling and Maria Silk. The event will be held at 500 Capp Street, San Francisco. Purchase tickets here.

 

Top: Kelly Ording, “Hope” 2025, acrylic on canvas. Bottom left: Brett Flanigan, “Highway 89” 2025, glazed stoneware. Bottom right: Alicia McCarthy, “Untitled” 2024, acrylic on canvas. Images courtesy of Pt.2 Gallery.

September 13 to October 26 – Kelly Ording: Calling You Back to Me; Alicia McCarthy, and Brett Flanigan: Melt solo exhibitions at Pt.2 Gallery: Kelly Ording’s work is a celebration of minimalism, beauty, and patience. She navigates structure and space through slow and intuitive processes of hand dying and painting to create geometric compositions. Alicia McCarthy starts her compositions from the center and radiates outward, weaving strands in and out to build complex patterns leaving in imperfect lines and drips. The loose geometry of Brett Flanigan’s glazed stoneware is reminiscent of outstretched landscapes. His abstract work revolves around self-imposed games or rules, which produce patterns, probability, repetition, and logic.  Opening reception will be held on September 13 at 6 p.m. Pt.2 Gallery is located at 1523b & 1525 Webster Street, Oakland.

 

Left: Michael Hall; Center: Helia Pouyanfar; Right: Elizabeth Estrada. Images courtesy of Recology SF AIR.

September 12, 13 and 16 – Michael Hall: Song Cycle; Helia Pouyanfar: Addendum; and Elizabeth Estrada solo shows at Recology SF: The Recology Artist in Residence program is a space for collaborations and initiatives which go beyond the traditional artist residence program in order to support Bay Area artists. This residence program pushes artists to develop their practice in tandem with deeply engaging with sustainability and community outreach. The three artists featured are Helia Pouyanfar, Michael Hall, and Elizabeth Estrada. Pouyanfar is a sculptural and photographic artist who investigates the transient state of the refugee body and the fluid relationship to space. Hall’s drawings, paintings, and videos examine how objects act as markers of time and place while also holding personal histories, collective desires, and cultural phenomena. Estrada is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice spans painting, poetry, sculpture, and performance, all which intertwine to investigate themes of spirituality and body politics. Recology Art Studios are located at 503 and 401 Tunnel Avenue, San Francisco.

Tuesday, September 16 from 5-7:30 p.m. artist talks: Elizabeth Estrada at 6, Michael Hall at 6:30, and Helia Pouyanfar at 7.

 

Top left: Asma Kazmi, “After Jahangir” 2021-2022, photograph, performance, and painting series. Top right: Kelly Finley, “lotus house wishes” 2023, vinyl, thread, archival family photo, steel, sewing needle. Bottom left: Sholeh Asgary plans to string up 41 transistor radios in Wentworth Alley and intends to produce a broadcast of the sonic composition of the alley. Bottom right: Taro Hattori, “”Rolling Counterpoint” 2016-1017 multi media installation variable. Images courtesy of Edge on the Square.

Saturday, September 13 from 4 to10 pm: Super Flex: Powered by Alter Egos and Shadowed Selves presented by Edge on the Square in SF Chinatown: Addressing the current erasure and division in America, this annual contemporary art festival uses the idea of alter egos to represent devices for play, camouflage, and for flexing. These alter egos are considered as collaborators, and enable exploration to activate different avenues of exploration, liberation, and expression. Using art as a vehicle for positive change and community empowerment, this festival is a call to action for solidarity, and celebrates creativity, possibility, and empowerment. Featured artists and collectives include: Ramon Abad, Sholeh Asgary, Salenie Beanie, Vincent Chong aka Crystal Monkey, Culture Shock LA, Kelley Finley, For You, Grant Avenue Follies, Yoon Chung Han, Taro Hattori, Asma Kazmi, LionDanceME, Simon Liu, Sepia Lux, Robyn Mallery, Non-Alien Box, seiji oda, Tiffany Sia / Speculative Place and Alex Nguyen-Vo, SNJV, Tymeansthankyou, V. Vale, Karen Tei Yamashita, Wong Kit Yi, Rene Yung. Super Flex takes over four streets in SF Chinatown—Grant Avenue, Waverly Place, Ross Alley, and Wentworth Place.

 

Photo by Renee Zellweger. Image courtesy of the artist and Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco.

September 19 to November 1 – Julio César Morales: My America at Gallery Wendi Norris: Morales focuses on the history of immigrant labor and the fragility of the interdependence of the United States and Mexico in this new exhibition. The large scale sound installation and eight new watercolors added to his “Gemelos” series both invite the viewer to explore migration, labor, and underground economics. These multidisciplinary works contemplate the act and history of immigrant labor, and challenge the concept of ‘America’ in the context of the present social climate. Gallery Wendi Norris is located at 436 Jackson Street, San Francisco. 

Ongoing to December 1 – Julio César Morales: “OJO” at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art: After nearly a decade in Arizona creating work about the border, this sister exhibition presents work from Morales about his return to California. This exhibition interrogates the history of the border, and what may lie ahead for the people on both sides. The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art is located at 245 Old Davis Road, Davis. 

 

Shawn Sanders, Shantae Robinson and Christopher Robin Duncan “Untitled” 2024, acrylic paint, marker, sun and time on fabric. Image courtesy of BAC.

September 20 to November 16 – PULLEY A Collaborative Exhibition with NIAD Art Center curated by Christopher Robin Duncan at Berkeley Art Center: Upending the convention of the traditional group show, ten NIAD artists and Christopher Robin Duncan have collaborated with one another, creating works that prioritize a shared creative process. This exhibition features fabric canvases, wearable fabrics, and ceramic sculpture. The sun-bleached canvases featured are site specific, and document the adaptive, responsive, and the mutual exchange between artists working across the disability spectrum. Berkeley Art Center is located at 1275 Walnut Street, Berkeley. 

 

Installation view, Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread, 2025. Image courtesy of BAMPFA.

Ongoing to February 1 – Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread at BAMPFA: Starting her practice in the 1940s during Korea’s independence from Japan, Lee is recognized as one of the first fiber artists in Korea. With works spanning more than five decades, beginning in the 1950s and concluding in the early 2000s, this is the first North American survey of Lee ShinJa’s work. As she was not formally trained, this exhibition showcases Lee’s subversion of dominant traditions of craft, she utilized salvaged yarn from old garments, mosquito nets, grain sacks, and more. Confusing art and craft, found objects and made art, Lee creates large-scale sculptural forms which showcase the new pathways she has created for the possibilities of fiber artwork. BAMPFA is located at 2155 Center Street, Berkeley.

Wednesday, September 17 at 12:15 – Curator’s Tour: Victoria Sung on Lee ShinJa: Drawing with Thread: BAMPFA Senior Curator Victoria Sung addresses the artist’s monumental textile works and the arc of her long and innovative career. No reservation needed.

 

Arnold J. Kemp, “Stage” 2024. Image courtesy of YBCA.

Ongoing to January 25, 2026 – Bay Area Then at YBCA: Combining historic and recent works, this exhibition brings together artists who repeatably assert their unique vitality, resourcefulness, and camaraderie in the face of shunned despair and crisis. Through historic and recent works, this show recontextualizes the San Francisco art scene from the past to understand the formative role that the complex web of artist-run and alternative spaces that served as essential outlets for expression, listening, and learning from one another. YBCA is located at 701 Mission Street, San Francisco. Purchase tickets here.

 

To Do List: July/August

Last year’s SF Art Book Fair. Image courtesy of SF Art Book Fair.

July 10 to 13 – SF Art Book Fair at Minnesota Street Project Foundation: Bringing together independent publishers, artists, designers, collectors, and enthusiasts, the SFABF is hosting their annual multi-day exhibition celebrating printed materials of all kinds from around the globe. Hosting over 160 exhibitors at three different on-site venues, the fair situates local histories and perspectives of the Bay Area in conversation with national and international publishing communities. Preview is Thursday, July 10: 6 to 10 p.m. The Minnesota Street Project Foundation is located at 1150 25th st, 1201 – 1275 Minnesota Street, San Francisco. 

 

Mildred Howard, “Junípero Serra” 2025 installation view, image courtesy of 500 Capp Street Foundation.

Ongoing to August 23 – Collaborating with the Muses: Part Two at 500 Capp Street Foundation:  Collaborating with the Muses: Part Two is an installation on the patio of 500 Capp Street, draped in red textile stands a statue of Junípero Serra. This installation is in direct conversation with the Serra statue in Golden Gate Park, which was toppled in 2020 along with countless other monuments during the nationwide protests of the murder of George Floyd. Howard recontextualized this figure by bringing together public engagement and a community centered practice. This piece interrogates public space and collective memory in the midst of the city’s ongoing reckoning with its civic monuments. 500 Capp Street is located at The David Ireland House, 500 Capp Street, San Francisco. 

Saturday, July 12, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. – Subverting Colonial Machinations: Readings and Dialogue with artists Jonathan Cordero and Tricia Rainwater. Reserve tickets here.

Sunday, July 20 – Exploring Untitled Histories/Hidden Truths: Fort Point tour with Anna Lisa Escobedo and Workshop with Malik Seneferu. Tour is at Fort Point from at 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Workshop at 500 Capp Street isfrom 1 to 3 p.m. Tour and Bus tickets here.  Workshop tickets here. 

Sunday, August 10 – Shaping Legacy: Civic Monuments in Transition: Fort Point tour and intimate discussion at 500 Capp Street with Anna Lisa Escobedo. Tour is at Fort Point from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Workshop is at 500 Capp Street from 1 to 3 p.m. Tour and Bus tickets here. Discussion tickets here. 

Saturday, August 23 – Undone and Taken Into Earth: Monument Workshop: Fort Point Tour with Anna Lisa Escobedo and Workshop with Weston Teruya. Tour is at Fort Point from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Workshop is at 500 Capp Street from 1 to 3 p.m. Tour and Bus tickets here. Workshop tickets here. 

Thursday, August 21, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. – Closing Reception: 500 Capp Street. Reserve tickets here.

 

Pao Houa Her, “Untitled (real opium, behind opium backdrop)” from ‘The Imaginative Landscape” series, 2020. Image courtesy of SJMA.

July 11 to February 22 – Pao Houa Her: The Imaginative Landscape at San José Museum of Art: Pao Houa Her’s practice engages with the legacies, potentials, and aesthetics of landscape and portrait photography traditions, examining the complex intertwining of desire, homeland, and artifice. Rooted in the experience of her Hmong community and shaped by family experiences and lore passed down by her elders, Her’s work centers women as the knowledge bearers of both past and future. Using a formally rigorous photographic approach, Her explores constructions of homeland that resonate across diasporas. Opening reception is Friday, July 11, 6-9pm. SJMA is located at 110 South Market Street, San José.

 

 

 

Top middle: Beto De Volder, “Untitled” 2022, ink on paper. Bottom left: Nicole Phungrasamee Fein, “Daydream 2” 2024, pigment ink on paper. Bottom right: Shahzia Sikander, “A Kind of Slight and Pleasing Dislocation (Veiled Shiva)” 1995, vegetable color, watercolor, dry pigment and tea water on wasli handmade paper. Images courtesy of the Hosfelt Gallery.

July 12 to August 16 – Drawn to Drawing at the Hosfelt Gallery: Featuring approximately 200 drawings spanning from the 16th to 21st century, these works reveal thematic and conceptual relationships across time and place. Drawings include European Old Masters, geometric abstraction, photorealism, three-dimensional objects, drawings made with thread, all exploring the intimacy, immediacy, and pleasure of drawing. Participating artists include Rina Banerjee, Harry Bertoia, Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Jean Conner, Jay DeFeo, Jess, Stefan Kürten, José Antonio Suárez Londoño, Emil Lukas, Marco Maggi, Alexandre Kyungu Mwilambwe, Mansur Nurullah, Patricia Piccini, Liliana Porter, Lordy Rodriguez, Gideon Rubin, Thomas Schütte, Shahzia Sikander, Wayne Thiebaud, Cornelius Völker, William T. Wiley, and many others. Opening reception is Saturday, July 12: 3 to 5 p.m. Hosfelt Gallery is located at 260 Utah Street, San Francisco. 

 

“Open House” Image courtesy of Headlands Center for the Arts.

Sunday, July 20 from 12-5 p.m. – Headlands Center for the Arts Summer Open House 2025: Open House is an opportunity to view works in progress, meet current Artists in Residence and Graduate Fellows, attend screenings, performances, and readings. Open House engages visitors in multidisciplinary art experiences, intimate viewing experiences, and personal conversations with current artists about their work. Headlands Center for the Arts is located at 944 Simmonds Road, Sausalito. 

 

Top: Laura Rokas, “Hard to Swallow” 2025, oil on Arches oil paper. Bottom: Michiko Itatani, “Matrix Identity” 2024, oil on canvas. Images courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents.

Ongoing to August 2 –  Laura Rokas: A Meal in Itself and Michiko Itatani: Cosmic Codes at Rebecca Camacho Presents: Rebecca Camacho Presents is featuring two simultaneous solo shows from two female painters. A Meal in Itself features the work of Laura Rokas, she digs up forgotten Betty Crocker and Weight Watchers recipe cards, depicting the strange and peculiar dishes of the 1970s. These recipes centered convenience during a time where women were first entering the workforce while still expected to maintain traditional household burdens of family care and social entertaining. Cosmic Codes features the work of Michiko Itatani and her decades-long exploration and expression of her unique pictorial language. Bringing works together that span 17 years, this show highlights Itatani’s unique and persistent style of real and imagined fantastical spaces. Rebecca Camacho Presents is located at 526 Washington Street, San Francisco. 

 

David Huffman “Cornbread Sky” 2025, oil and collage on panel. Image courtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery.

July 24 to August 30 – David Huffman: A Brilliant Blackout at Jessica Silverman Gallery: A Brilliant Blackout features new paintings from Huffman’s acclaimed Traumanauts series, where Black astronauts journey through abstract, Afrofuturist landscapes. Merging his signature cosmic figures with expressive, gestural brushwork, Huffman creates vibrant worlds that explore themes of healing, displacement, and ancestral wisdom. Featuring both recent works and earlier pieces, these visually rich narratives offer powerful counter-histories and visions of Black self-determination. Jessica Silverman is located at 621 Grant Avenue, San Francisco.

 

Top left: Frederico García Lorca, “San Cristóbal”. Top right: Álvaro Urbano, “Granada Granada” 2023, installation view. Bottom left: Ajit Chauhan, “Erased postcard” 2023. Image courtesy of Ajit Chauhan. Bottom right: Álvaro Urbano, “Viaje a la Luna” 2025, detail view. Images courtesy of the Wattis Institute.

Ongoing to October 11 – Viaje a la luna at The Wattis Institute: Bringing together national and international artists, this show is inspired by a forgotten film script written in the late 1920s by Federico García Lorca, a renowned Spanish Surrealist poet and playwright. The political unrest and instability of Spain in the late 1920s never allowed for the film to be actualized. The works of these artists speculate and build upon themes of the script as well as explore the social conditions and political context in which it was written, and draws a parallel to the present. Participating artists include Emilio Amero, Lola Álvarez Bravo, Manuel Álvarez Bravo, Diane Arbus, Nina Canell, Marc Camille Chaimowicz, Ajit Chauhan, Federico García Lorca, Rosalind Nashashibi, Francesco Pedraglio, Tania Pérez Córdova, Álvaro Urbano, and Danh Vo. The Wattis Institute is located at 145 Hopper Street, San Francisco. 

Saturday, July 12 – Exhibition walkthrough in Spanish: Begins at 11 a.m. at 145 Hooper Street. RSVP here.

Thursday, July 17th – Poetry reading curated by Steve Dickinson: Brings together local poets to respond to the exhibitions themes and legacy of Federico García Lorca for an evening of curated poetry. Begins at 6 p.m. at 145 Hooper Street. RSVP here.

Saturday, August 30 – Exhibition walkthrough in Spanish: Begins at 11 a.m. at 145 Hooper Street. RSVP here. 

Wednesday, September 24 – Film screening with Mary Helena Clark, Peng Zuqiang, and Ana Vaz: Co-presented with the Minnesota Street Project foundation, these three films presented by these three artists investigate how film can become a place for blurred identities, past histories, and the edges of meaning and perception. Begins at 6 p.m. at 1201 Minnesota Street. RSVP here.

 

To Do List: June

Demetri Broxton “Eyes That Have Seen the Ocean Will Not Tremble at the Sight of the Lagoon” 2025, Japanese & Czech glass beads, sequins, cowrie shells, quartz, wood beads, antique silk and rayon chainette, wool, serigraph printed on Japanese sateen cotton, mounted on birch board. Image courtesy of FOR-SITE. 

June 6 to November 2 – Black Gold: Stories Untold at Fort Point: FOR-SITE’s exhibition Black Gold: Stories Untold invites 17 contemporary artists and collectives to reflect on the resilience, struggles, and contributions of African Americans in California from the Gold Rush through Reconstruction (c. 1849–1877). Featuring newly commissioned and recent works, the exhibition sheds light on overlooked histories—examining slavery in a so-called “free” state, the fight for legal rights, the rise of Black entrepreneurship, and the legacy of the Buffalo Soldiers. Black Gold highlights the vital role Black communities played in shaping California’s cultural and political landscape. Participating artists include Akea Brionne, Demetri Broxton, Adrian L. Burrell, the artists of Creativity Explored, Adam Davis, Cheryl Derricotte, Carla Edwards, Mildred Howard, Isaac Julien, Tiff Massey, Umar Rashid, Trina Michelle Robinson, Alison Saar, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Bryan Keith Thomas, Cosmo Whyte, and Hank Willis Thomas. Fort Point National Historic Site is located at the south anchorage of the Golden Gate Bridge at the end of Marine Drive on the Presidio of San Francisco. The exhibition is open Thursday through Monday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

 

Top left: Teresa Baker “Two” 2023, oil pastel on paper, Top right: Dashiell Manley “Places in Common (Joy)” 2025, Clare Rojas “Setting Sun Mountain” 2014 oil on linen. Images courtesy of Headlands Center for the Arts.

Thursday, June 5 at 7pm – Headlands 2025 Auction at Headlands Center for the Arts: Support the rich and diverse arts ecosystem in the Bay Area by attending this annual fundraising event. The Headlands’ Auction features work by emerging and established artists and Headlands Alumni, as well as creative experience packages. The  live auction and party on June 5, is their main fundraising event that supports the big ideas and innovative work that Headlands makes possible. Purchase tickets here.

 

Margot Wolowiec “Water, Water” 2025 handwoven polymer, linen sterling silver-leafed thread, dye sublimation ink, mounted on hemp support. Andrea Bowers “There Are Secret Passageways (Passage from Deena Metzger, “Sanctuary in a Time of Dread”, Desperate Love Letters to a Wounded Earth, February 4th, 2025) Local Plant Studies, 2025, acrylic on cardboard. Images courtesy of Jessica Silverman Gallery.

June 7 to July 19, 2025 – Margot Wolowiec: Midnight Sun and Andrea Bowers: Hope is Never Silent at Jessica Silverman Gallery:  Midnight Sun is a solo exhibition of tapestries by Margo Wolowiec. Named for the Arctic’s polar day—when the sun doesn’t set during the summer months—this exhibition features eleven round wall works that explore cycles of healing and regeneration. Hope Is Never Silent by Andrea Bowers is a solo show about the power of words. The exhibition includes works that quote the visionary human rights leader, Harvey Milk. Bowers started collecting inspirational texts in college; creating pictures of poetic verses and enlightening catchphrases has been a significant part of her practice ever since. Jessica Silverman Gallery is located at 621 Grant Ave in San Francisco.

 

Cecilia Mignon, folding (i) & folding (ii), Cyanotype on Kitakata Paper. Image courtesy of Re-Riddle.

June 7 to July 19 – Closer Than They Appear at Re-Riddle: Reflections—both literal and metaphorical—have long served as points of inquiry in the history of representation. In Closer Than They Appear, Bay Area artists and designers explore mirrored and reflective materials not only as optical tools but also as philosophical provocations: instruments for examining how we recognize ourselves in images—or fail to. Through multimedia works, sculptures, paintings, and installations, the artists—Elizabeth Barelli, Fyrn Studio, Studio Hecha, Sierra Kanistanaux, Kaarhaus, Medium Small, Cecilia Mignon, Studio Mondragón, Anna Monet Studio, AG Nwosu Ceramics, Alex Olwal, Ellen Posch, soft-geometry, Andy Vogt, and Yaaqee Studio x Saint—engage the reflective surface as an active site, where the gaze can loop, inform, reframe, and deflect. Re-Riddle is located at Minnesota Street Project, 1275 Minnesota Street in San Francisco. 

 

Rebekah Goldstein “Ball and Chain” 2024, oil on canvas. Image courtesy of Gallery 16.

Ongoing to July 3 – Rebekah Goldstein: Full Length Mirror at Gallery 16:  Full Length Mirror is an expansive exhibition that presents a survey of the paintings Goldstein has been making for the past 3 years. It includes large shaped canvas works for which the artist has become known, as well as large rectangular works and small, sculptural works that push and pull at the boundaries of the two-dimensional plane. The exhibition presents a body of work in which Goldstein turns painting into a kind of time travel. Built on years of layering and reworking, her paintings contain a history of transformation. Each of Goldstein’s paintings reflect multiple layers at once: its own material history, references to art history and visual culture, and Goldstein’s personal timeline that spans the past, present, and future. Gallery 16 is located at 501 Third Street in San Francisco.

 

Libby Black “Consider the Oyster MFK Fisher” 2025, Paper, paint, pencil, and glue. Image Courtesy of Anthony Meier.

Ongoing to August 8 – Consider the Oyster at Anthony Meier:  Titled after Fisher’s 1941 publication Consider the Oyster, this exhibition features work across textile, painting, photography, and sculpture by artists who share Fisher’s instinct to excavate the overlooked and elevate the everyday. Their practices defy convention, delving into intimacy, ritual, and transformation to reveal what lies beneath the surface of ordinary materials and moments, and in doing so, expand the possibilities for how we see, feel, and move through the world. Featured artists include Emma Amos (1937-2020), Ruth Asawa (1926-2013), Teresa Baker, Libby Black, Carol Bove, Tracey Emin, Terri Friedman, Yayoi Kusama, Nan Montgomery, Soumya Netrabile, Rel Robinson, Daisy Sheff, Tabitha Soren, and Rosie Lee Tompkins (1936-2006). Anthony Meier is located at 21 Throckmorten Ave in Mill Valley.

 

Arleene Correa Valencia “Casa De La Abuelita / Grandma’s House” 2024, acrylic, textiles and thread on Amate paper made by Jose Daniel Santos de la Puerta in Puebla, Mexico. Image courtesy of Catharine Clark Gallery.

Ongoing to July 19 – Arleene Correa Valencia: Codice Del Perdedor / The Losing Man’s Codex at Catharine Clark Gallery: Arleene Correa Valencia creates works on Amate paper—the same material her Indigenous Mexican ancestors used to document their migration stories. Drawing inspiration from the Codex Boturini, which depicts the journey from Aztlán to the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlán, Correa Valencia references imagery of mothers carrying their children on their backs in search of safety and home. The works in this exhibition reflect on themes of migration, memory, and intergenerational healing. Catharine Clark Gallery is located at 248 Utah Street in San Francisco.

To Do List: May

Isaac Julien, “Maiden of Silence (Ten Thousand Waves)”, 2010, Endura Ultra photograph. Image courtesy of de Young Museum.

Ongoing to July 13 – Isaac Julien: I Dream a World at de Young Museum: Over the last 25 years, artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien has created immersive, multichannel video installations exploring power, politics, and personal experience through the lens of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Featuring 10 major video installations made between 1999 and 2022, alongside select early single-channel films including Looking for Langston (1989), this exhibition is the first comprehensive survey of Julien’s work in a museum and his first retrospective in the U.S. Shot across Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, and Asia, Julien’s works untangle the web of post-colonial conditions that shaped the lives of individuals and societies across the globe. de Young Museum is located at 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr in San Francisco.

 

Alec Soth, “Lee”, 2023, pigment print, edition of 9 + 4 APs. Image courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery.

Ongoing to May 23 – Alec Soth: Advice for Young Artists at Fraenkel Gallery: Advice for Young Artists explores the cultivation of creativity through playful and surprising photographs made at undergraduate art programs. Rather than offering the guidance promised by the show’s title, the series presents reflections on artmaking at different stages of life, exploring the connections between photography, time, and aging. Inspired by Walker Evans’s Polaroids of young people, the photographs range from bright still lifes made from art department props to enigmatic images of students and oblique self-portraits. Fraenkel Gallery is located at 49 Geary St #450 in San Francisco.

 

Mattea Perrotta, “Letters Never Sent”, 2024, oil stick and plaster on canvas. Nick Gorham, “Passage”, 2025, oil on canvas. Images courtesy of Et al. Gallery.

Ongoing to May 31 – Mattea Perrotta: The Forgetting of Air and Nick Gorham: Sun Turn at Et al. Gallery: In The Forgetting of Air, Rome-based artist Mattea Perrotta presents compositions that fuse monumentality with delicacy. Drawing from personal memory and the art historical lineages of the many cities she has inhabited, Perrotta crafts a painterly language of abstract forms and tonal gestures. Her works invite viewers into a meditative space shaped by cultural observation and emotional resonance. In Sun Turn, Nick Gorham explores the liminal space between landscape and abstraction. Rooted in his deep connection to Northern California, Gorham’s paintings balance intuitive mark-making with careful observation. The resulting works evoke internal landscapes as much as external ones, reflecting a search for meaning through painterly process. Et al. Gallery is located at 2831a Mission St in San Francisco.

 

Val Britton, “Transit”, 2025, acrylic, ink, collage, monoprint, and colored pencil on paper. Isca Greenfield-Sanders, “Pink Lake”, 2024, mixed media oil on canvas. Vanessa Marsh, “Grand Teton 8, mid day from Jenny Lake, Grand Teton National Park WY”, from the series “The Sun Beneath the Sky”, 2020, unique silver gelatin lumen photogram. Joni Sternbach, “13.08.30 #4-5 Yuko-Milo”, from the series “Surfland”, 2013, tintype diptych. Images courtesy of Berggruen Gallery.

May 1 to June 19 – Val Britton: Ghost Coast, Isca Greenfield-Sanders: Cut From A Dream, and Western Wave: Vanessa Marsh & Joni Sternbach at Berggruen Gallery: Portland-based artist Val Britton’s newest mixed media works form invented psycho-geographic terrains that explore themes of memory, care, and transformation. Combining painting, collage, ink, watercolor, drawing, and cut paper, Britton’s abstract compositions mimic and evoke the intertwining of spatial networks–cosmological, symbolic, emotional, topographic–that we inhabit at each given moment. In Cut From A Dream, New York-based painter Isca Greenfield-Sanders features idyllic landscape paintings and works on paper depicting the fleeting moments of found and collected memories. Western Wave is a photography exhibition by American artists Vanessa Marsh and Joni Sternbach exploring themes of memory, landscape, and the passage of time through historical techniques. Through various photographic processes, Marsh and Sternbach emphasize the tactile, ephemeral nature of their materials—where hand-poured emulsions, exposure times, and environmental factors leave visible traces of the artist’s hand. Berggruen Gallery is located at 10 Hawthorne St in San Francisco.

 

Martin Machado, “My Wake Series 15”, 2024, oil on linen. Image courtesy of Eleanor Harwood Gallery.

May 3 to June 21 – Martin Machado: Fine Dine the Demons at Eleanor Harwood Gallery: In this recent group of works, Martin Machado continues several ongoing series relating to the natural world’s cycles and his experience working on the water as a commercial fisherman and merchant mariner. Machado’s works are painted in oil, both on linen, and on nautical charts collected from international containerships Machado worked on. With equal parts gallows humor and optimism, the moodiness of these new works is also reflected in the show’s title “Fine Dine the Demons” borrowed from the lyrics of musician Adrienne Lenker’s song titled “Once A Bunch.” Eleanor Harwood Gallery is located at Minnesota Street Project at 1275 Minnesota St #206 in San Francisco.

 

Top: David Antonio Cruz, Detail of “thesecretofremainingyoung isnevertohaveanemotion, thatisunbecoming; thosebarriokids”, 2022; Bottom: Masako Miki Detail of painting. Images courtesy of ICA San Francisco.

May 16 to December 7 – Masako Miki: Midnight March and David Antonio Cruz: stay, take your time, my love at ICA SF: As Japanese artist Masako Miki’s largest presentation to date, Midnight March is also the first fully site-responsive exhibition at ICA SF’s new location at The Cube. The exhibition will collapse Miki’s two-dimensional and three-dimensional practices, bringing her paintings known as “Night Parades” to life in experiential form. David Antonio Cruz’s site-specific solo exhibition, stay, take your time, my love, acts as a “love letter” to the Bay Area queer community, layering references to art history, the handkerchief code, leather culture, and iconic sites around the San Francisco landscape. ICA SF is located at The Cube at 345 Montgomery St in San Francisco.

 

Tiona Nekkia McClodden “NEVER LET ME GO XII” 2024, Black jute rope, leather, leather dye and Saphir shoe polish. Image courtesy of SFAC Main Gallery.

May 29 to August 23 – Service Tension curated by Elena Gross and Leila Weefur at SFAC Main Gallery: Service Tension is a group exhibition curated by Elena Gross and Leila Weefur featuring work by Salimatu Amabebe, Ricki Dwyer, Xandra Ibarra, Sasha Kelley, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, and Autumn Wallace. The exhibition will explore the messiness and complexity of the queer body.  The title, Service Tension, is an interpolation of “surface tension,” a phrase that signifies a resistant relationship between two surfaces and the title of the exhibition suggests a playful interrogation of sex, penetration, and power. The works in the exhibition trouble notions of masculinity within queer dynamics as well as sexual desire.  The SFAC Main Gallery is located at 401 Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco.

 

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