Diane Andrews Hall “After the Rain” 2023, oil on wood panel. Image courtesy of Rena Bransten Gallery.
December 2 to February 10 – Diane Andrews Hall: Reverberations at Rena Bransten Gallery: The paintings and works on paper included in this exhibit are inspired by the artist’s immediate surroundings and are the culmination of countless hours spent lingering in the garden outside her studio. With light, movement, time, and natural phenomena as subjects, Andrews Hall pays homage to the beautiful complexity of the natural world, rendering birds and plant-life in exquisite detail, with an acute sense of wonderment. Rena Bransten Gallery is located at 1275 Minnesota Street in San Francisco.
Top: Hughen/Starkweather “Coastal Squeeze” ink, pencil, sand and salt on paper. Bottom: Judith Selby-Lang, Richard Lang ” RIDE-ON” pile of beach plastic and toy ATV. Images courtesy of 120710 Gallery.
December 2 to January 20 – Far Away is NOW at 120710: Curated by artist Francis Baker, this group exhibition showcases an emotive collection of works across diverse media, delving into urgent concerns such as record-breaking heat, rain and fire occurrences, the plastic consumption crisis, and the profound impact of human infrastructure on the environment. In addition, the exhibit provides insights into the intersection of Al with our comprehension of information and self-perception. The exhibition features: Brett Amory, Francis Baker, Alicia Escott, Stacy Goodman, Charlotta Hauksdottir, Hughen/Starkweather, Lisa Kairos, Judith Selby Lang, Richard Lang, and Ron Moultrie Saunders. 120710 is located at 1207 10th Street in Berkeley.
Top: Dan Hamilton “Untitled” watercolor on paper. Bottom: Emily Witkin “Untitled” watercolor on paper. Images courtesy of Creative Growth.
December 1 & 2 – Annual Holiday Show at Creative Growth: Creative Growth is a non-profit organization based in Oakland, California that advances the inclusion of artists with developmental disabilities in contemporary art and strengthens community by providing a supportive studio environment and gallery representation. The Creative Growth Studio is home to over 140 artists who work in a variety of media. Facilitated by professional artists, the studio provides artistic support, high-quality materials, and space for painting, drawing, ceramics, woodwork, fiber arts, printmaking, and digital media. Creative Growth is located at 355 24th Street in Oakland.
Việt Lê in their studio. Image courtesy of Headlands Center for the Arts.
Sunday, December 3 at 5pm – Mother | Goddess, Or, Việt Namaste: Queer Vietnamese Indigenous Shamanism at Headlands Center for the Arts: This special event is a spiritual drag show (of sorts): an elegantly bombastic remix of the traditional high-energy, high-stakes, centuries-old hầu bóng Mother Goddess ceremony, followed by a panel discussion with Headlands Bay Area Fellow Việt Lê; traditional lên đồng musicians Anh-Tấn and Hồ Nga Cao (Hà Nội); dancers Jay Carlon (LA), Megan Lowe (East Bay), Johnny Huy Nguyễn (SF); and Janet Hoskins, Professor of Anthropology and Religion at University of Southern California. There will also be special-secret-surprise, world-renowned guests, dance, and music collaborators. Visit this link for tickets. Headlands Center for the Arts is located at 944 Fort Barry in Sausalito.
Gabriel Chaile “Rosario Liendro” 2022, “The Milk of Dreams” installation view at the Venice Biennale, 2022. Image courtesy of BAMPFA.
December 13 to April 14 – Gabriel Chaile: No hay nada que destruya el corazón como la pobreza at BAMPFA: Gabriel Chaile creates soaring clay sculptures that expand on the forms, rituals, and traditions of precolonial cultures in northwestern Argentina, where he is from. Raised in San Miguel de Tucumán, a city on the margins of what was once the Inca empire, Chaile playfully intertwines Indigenous mythologies and contemporary social references with reverence and humor. His bulbous, anthropomorphic sculptures resemble the distinctive ceramics of the Condorhuasi-Alamito peoples which the artist has long admired and described as being “in between two states, as if they are about to become something else.” Rather than replicate their intimately scaled antecedents, Chaile’s larger-than-life sculptures evidence how the cultures and visual forms of his ancestors are unquestionably alive, towering like deities from a new yet familiar cosmos. Some have even functioned as massive earthen ovens from which he has cooked and fed communities, actively functioning as vessels through which we nurture and relate to one another. BAMPFA is located at 2155 Center Street in Berkeley.
Rodrigo Hernández “With What Eyes” 2023. Image courtesy of The Wattis Institute.
December 14 to February 24 – Rodrigo Hernández: with what eyes? at The Wattis Institute: Rodrigo Hernández is a Mexican artist who lives and works in Lisbon. For his first museum solo exhibition in the United States, this exhibition begins with a simple question posed by the Mexican philosopher David M. Peña-Guzmán: Are humans the only dreamers on Earth? Considering the exhibition medium as analogous to a dream, Hernández presents a new body of work that oscillates between the 2D and 3D plane, representation and abstraction, the human and nonhuman. The Wattis Institute is located at 360 Kansas Street in San Francisco.