Amalia Mesa-Bains “Queen of the Waters, Mother of the Land of the Dead: Homenaje a Tonatzin/Guadalupe” 1992. Mixed media installation including fabric drape, six jeweled clocks, mirror pedestals with grottos, nicho box, found objects, dried flowers, dried pomegranate, potpourri.  Image courtesy of BAMPFA.

February 4 to July 23 – Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory at BAMPFA: For over forty-five years, Bay Area artist Mesa-Bains has worked to bring Chicana art into the broader American field of contemporary art through innovations of sacred forms such as altares (home altars), ofrendas (offerings to the dead), descansos (roadside resting places), and capillas (home yard shrines). Presenting work from the entirety of her career for the first time, this exhibition, which features nearly 60 works in a range of media, including fourteen major installations, celebrates Mesa-Bains’s important contributions to the field of contemporary art locally and globally. Opening celebration is Saturday, February 4 from 11am – 7pm.

Max Gimblett “Karma” 2022, acrylic, resin, oil size and Chinese pewter leaf on canvas and panel. Image courtesy of Hosfelt Gallery.

February 11 to April 1 – Max Gimblett: The Beginning of Time at Hosfelt Gallery: Max Gimblett is a painter, calligrapher, and Rinzai Zen monk. Gimblett’s paintings are a harmonious postmodern synthesis of American and Japanese art. Often working on shaped panels or canvases – tondos, ovals, and his signature four-lobed quatrefoil – he marries Abstract Expressionism, Modernism and Spiritual Abstraction with mysticism and traditions of Asian calligraphy.

Ann Hamilton and David Ireland from “Ann Hamilton/David Ireland” at the Walker Art Center (1992). Photo: Glenn Halvorson, courtesy of Ann Hamilton

February 11 to April 29 – Process + Place: Ann Hamilton at 500 Capp Street:   500 Capp Street joins Headlands Center for the Arts for a project created by Ann Hamilton sited in both locations that highlights the deep connection between the two spaces and their shared stories of material and discovery. During a research residency at 500 Capp Street, Hamilton selected objects from David Ireland’s practice, exploring the typology of their forms and materiality, and scanned each to create luminous images that will be on display along with a newspaper print that will be available as a free, take home memento. Further connecting the domestic scale of 500 Capp Street with the institutional scale of Headlands’ studio buildings, Hamilton is developing a sculptural audio element that will call across the distance to connect the near at hand with the far away—a pulse, connection, collaboration reaching across time, then and now. Opening Reception Saturday, February 11, 12-5pm.

Photograph of Mark Thompson (left) and David Ireland using a paintbrush to clean the tin ceilings of the stairwell in Building 944.  Image courtesy of Headlands Center for the Arts.

February 12 to March 19 – Mark Thompson: Semaphore at Headlands Center for the Arts: In 1986 artists David Ireland and Mark Thompson, and a team of collaborators transformed and opened the cluster of former military buildings to artists now known as Headlands Center for the Arts. A lifelong beekeeper, Thompson’s Semaphore harkens back to key works in the Artist’s oeuvre featuring collaboration with living beehives, and transforms the Gym into a multi-sensory installation utilizing sound, video, architectural intervention, and beeswax. With its tight focus and abstracted interplay between human and swarm, Semaphore speaks to the cyclical nature of time and the possibilities of inter-species communication.  Opening reception Sunday, February 12, 3–5pm.

María Magdalena Campos-Pons “

February 23 to April 29 – María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Finding Balance at Gallery Wendi Norris: The inaugural show at Gallery Wendi Norris’ new exhibition space is María Magdalena Campos-Pons: Finding Balance. Campos-Pons addresses issues of history, memory, gender and religion through her work; she investigates how each one of these themes informs identity. The exhibition borrows its name from Campos-Pons’s monumental 28-panel multimedia masterwork, which is the centerpiece of the show. The exhibition will focus on Campos-Pons’s large-format polaroid works, including a complementary array of multi-paneled works that have never been shown by the gallery.

Yaron Michael Hakim “En Bogotá me Quedo” 2022, acrylic on used sailcloth. Image courtesy of SFSU Fine Arts Gallery.

February 25 to March 29 – Have You Seen Me? at SFSU’s Fine Arts Gallery: This exhibition centers on the return of the gaze in contemporary self-portraiture created by diverse artists across diverse media. Featuring work by Marcel Pardo Ariza, Erica Deeman, Yaron Michael Hakim, and Jamil Hellu. Have You Seen Me? focuses on contributions of Latinx Americans, Arab Americans, and Black and mixed-race Americans, with personal histories that include transnational adoption, and the centering of transgender and Queer/BIPOC community, in defiant acts of seeing and being seen. Opening Reception: Saturday, February 25, 1 – 3 p.m.