United States of Asian America Festival Features Comedy, Theater, Music and More
May is Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, and San Francisco’s Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center is celebrating with its 22nd annual United States of Asian America Festival, two months of...
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Arts Funder Under Fire for Evicting Family Next to David Ireland House
In 1975, David Ireland bought an 1886 Italianate-style home in the Mission District of San Francisco and proceeded to incorporate its existing contents and surroundings into works of art. He coated the...
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One Museum is Not Enough for Suzanne Lacy’s Art of Radical Conversations
Measured in walking distance, the space between Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is physically small (about two minutes if you hit the lights right). But there...
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Rightnowish: Scott La Rockwell and his Portraits of Town Folks
Scott La Rockwell has a deep catalog of fly photos. He’s shot portraits of famous folks like Mike Tyson and Snoop Dogg, as well as everyday folks from Oakland, like Falcon Dave and Nicole Lee. It’s...
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Female Artists Resist Easy Interpretation in SJMA’s ‘Screen Acts’
“For reasons unknown I saw him running,” says a voiceover in Carrie Mae Weems’ 15-minute video People of a Darker Hue. The piece poetically and specifically commemorates the unarmed black men, women...
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Kota Ezawa Talks Protest and Pressure Ahead of 2019 Whitney Biennial
When the 2019 Whitney Biennial opens on May 17, Oakland-based artist Kota Ezawa will be one of just two Bay Area participants in what the New York museum describes as “an unmissable event for anyone...
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‘With(out) With(in) the Very Moment’ Honors Legacies of AIDS Activism Through...
In the back corner of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, a small stack of Cliff Hengst’s Untitled (Signs) series lean against the wall. As a humble pile of acrylic paintings on wood, each panel...
View ArticleRightnowish: Photographer Kate Dash is Changing Perceptions of Motherhood
Kate Dash is tight. Like, in the way you’d describe one of the undeniably cool kids at your school. She has pink hair. She’s a skateboarder who likes to “bomb” down hills in San Francisco. And she’s a...
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‘Guided by Ghosts’ Tells of Chinatowns Born of Racism, Then Lost to History
The last Chinatown of Santa Cruz disappeared after the great San Lorenzo River flood of 1955, known as the “Christmas Flood” because it hit on December 22 of that year. Despite the fact there were four...
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A Public Shore Becomes a Pedestal for Charlie Leese’s Site-Specific Sculpture
Biking to meet Charlie Leese at the watery edge of San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, 23rd Street starts to look less like a thoroughfare and more like a parking lot for trucks. It’s not the most...
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It’s 2019. It’s Time to Revisit Andy Warhol. Do We Have to Spell it Out for You?
Ask anyone to describe the work of Andy Warhol and they can easily rattle off a list of the Pop artist’s most famous subjects: all those Marilyns, Campbell’s soup cans and Brillo boxes, the Marlon...
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‘They’re Walking All Over Us’: Construction Disrupts Artists with...
On Wednesday, April 24, Matt Dostal was working at Creative Growth, the Oakland art studio and gallery for people with disabilities, when a supervisor from the adjacent construction site visited to say...
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An Invisible Infrastructure Guides You Through ‘Handless Operative’
In most spaces intended for leisure or entertainment, it’s the infrastructure that decrees how we arrange our bodies. A theater has seats. A stadium has bleachers. An amusement park line has...
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Hot Summer Guide 2019: A Wave of Bay Area Visual Art
When it comes to summer, museums treat the season much like the movie industry does: blockbuster time. Yes, there might be lines. And yes, there are probably higher ticket prices, not to mention the...
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Meet Darren Powell, the Skateboard Re-Innovator of East Oakland
I get it: tech companies are moving to Oakland. But you can’t tell me “innovation” is coming to town. It’s been here. Man, I grew up watching folks make backpacks out of shoestrings and cereal boxes....
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‘We Can Just Be’: JAGAH Collective Creates Home for South Asian Artists
Before entering “the magic place,” SNJV swipes pink pigment across his eyelids. His sister adorns his slender wrists with clinking, colorful bangles. His mother pins her sparkling clothing to fit her...
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Rightnowish: Vivian Xue Rahey and ‘The Disneyland for Nails’
The work of Pamper Nail Gallery owner Vivian Xue Rahey caught my attention a few months ago, when I saw an Instagram photo of someone’s nails: on each finger were images depicting the transatlantic...
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San Francisco Museums are Free This Summer for Residents Who Receive Public...
This summer, certain low-income San Francisco residents will be able to see de Young’s Ed Hardy exhibit, the Museum of the African Diaspora’s post-colonial Caribbean art exhibit and many, many others...
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Summer Guide 2019: How the South Bay Plans to Party This Summer
Summertime is the right time in the South Bay for getting outdoors, whether your jam is a movie, concert, or strolling after dinner through the art galleries and museums of downtown. People north of...
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At the Wattis, the Aftermath of an Invasion and a Kaleidoscope of Black...
Like Heraclitus’ river, you can’t step into the same Wattis Institute twice. Perhaps that’s because its no-frills, white box architecture doesn’t overpower the art. Or maybe it’s because the space has...
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