(courtesy the artist and Jessica Silverman, San Francisco)
SAN FRANCISCO — In her essay “In the Shadow of Silicon Valley” in the London Review of Books last year, San Francisco art historian and cultural critic Rebecca Solnit evaluated the contemporary iteration of our city with pessimism. Claiming that it has lost its spirit to super-elite tech titans, Solnit deploys the image of the driverless car as metaphor for a soulless wasteland of a city led by a Thiel-Zuckerberg-Musk triumvirate.
What does it mean for our city to be bestowed a dystopian reputation from a regarded intellectual of the Left? Surely, to fully accept Solnit’s argument that SF is a power center devoid of humanism would be an oversimplification that is dangerously close to the alt-right’s destructive “failed liberal city” narrative, and neglects the extraordinary energy, community, capacity, and new art practices found in the Bay. Solnit, it seems, is nostalgic for a countercultural past defined by experimental poetry and the Beats, Gay Rights and AIDS activism, and the 1969–71 occupation of Alcatraz by a coalition of Indigenous people — the city as refuge for weirdos, dreamers, activists, and rule breakers. Fair enough. But many of our artists find positive use for such nostalgia as fodder for the work being made and displayed in the Bay arts ecosystem.
Even as we grieve for our Southern California counterparts and the people of the Los Angeles area, the Northern California art world will gather in the Bay Area from this Saturday, January 18th through next Sunday the 26th for San Francisco Art Week, a loosely organized group of programs, events, and openings orbiting the FOG Design+Art fair. As you’ll see, the Bay’s unique DNA infuses the projects highlighted here.
Hiba Kalache: Embodiment
Altman Siegel, 3067 Sacramento Street, San Francisco, California
Through February 1
I first discovered Kalache’s work in the form of large, vibrant, and intense paintings created in response to the 2020 explosion at the Port of Beirut in Lebanon. Suffering from the extreme sonic and somatic impacts of the explosion, Kaleche returned to San Francisco, where she had earned her MFA, to process this latest chapter of violence.
In Embodiment at Altman Siegel’s new temporary second space in Presidio Heights, Kalache offers equally powerful, frenetic, and physically charged abstractions in a suite of works inspired by the 13th-century book of fables Kalīla wa-Dimna. Whether you unlock the tales of jackals and lions within them, or are just transported by the raw, unrestrained energy of the experience, these paintings of ink, oil, and water will leave you breathless.
Davina Semo: A Serious Celebration
Jessica Silverman, 621 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, California
Through February 22
Davina Semo was in San Francisco’s Chinatown installing her solo show of new sculptures when learned that she had to evacuate her home in Altadena. Walking through the two-dozen-plus hanging bells that constitute most of the show, I could not help but think about fire alarms and bells as sirens. When I spoke to her, however, Semo insisted that this new project remain framed as joyous and celebratory, as per her title.
Semo is first and foremost a sculptor, and the bell — an object she has engaged with for years — is a vehicle to delve further into obsessions with form, materials, patinas, and paints. In A Serious Celebration, the bells hang like party balloons from above, engaging radically in the space even without taking up room on the floor. They feel almost like guests rather than subjects — the strike tones and clappers seem to speak in tongues comedic or wicked, and bickered like angels and devils just above my shoulders.
Kota Ezawa: Here and There — Now and Then
Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, 2 Marina Boulevard Gallery 308, Landmark Building A, San Francisco, California
Through March 9
On a beautiful afternoon last week, I gazed upon artist Kota Ezawa’s new work “Alcatraz Is an Idea” (all works 2024), the real island not far away, visible right outside the gallery from the Fort Mason waterfront. The work refers to the 19-month occupation of Alcatraz and its prison by a cohort calling themselves the “Indians of All Tribes” between 1969 and ’71, which led to the creation of federal laws respecting Indigenous land rights and helped turn the Rock from an historic prison monument into an icon of resistance. In collaboration with writer and activist Julian Brave NoiseCat, Ezawa’s installation features what he calls “video murals,” moving drawings culled from documentation of the 2019 Alcatraz Canoe Journey in the bay, a gathering held on Indigenous Peoples’ Day to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the occupation.
Here and There — Now and Then features several other works by Ezawa, including “Grand Princess,” which charts the progress of the ship — a giant floating resort used to contain an early COVID-19 outbreak — from under the Golden Gate Bridge to the Port of Oakland and its forced quarantine. Reframed as a movie complete with a commissioned cover of “I Left My Heart in San Francisco” (1953) by SF’s Red Room Orchestra, the work depicts the ship as both phantom and floating coffin, a collective reminder of the pandemic and a recent yet forgotten period of protracted grief. (For full disclosure, I will be moderating a conversation between Ezawa and artist Miguel Arzabe on Sunday, January 26 at FOG.)
The Blinding Light
Slash, 1150 25th Street, Building B, San Francisco, California
Through April 19
Slash’s winter group show The Blinding Light, which is curated by Diego Villalobos and includes Raven Chacon, Ishan Clemenco, Manon de Boer, Claire Fontaine, Isabel Nuño de Buen, Carlos Reyes, and Ana Vaz, draws inspiration from the novelist Benjamín Labatut’s When We Cease to Understand the World (2021). A cult favorite book, it examines some of the most consequential scientific discoveries of the 20th century. With each state of scientific advancement, the text suggests, more questions emerge, and reality becomes further blurred and uncertain.
One quote in particular drives the show: “The more complex the object we are attempting to apprehend, the more important it is to have different sets of eyes, so that these rays of light converge, and we can see the One through the many.” The videos and sculptures in the show are accordingly liminal and speculative, but they’re also spiritual, as in Nuño de Buen’s haunting, graceful wall work, which suggest mystical artifacts. Reyes’s “PROMESA (Caguas), 2024,” an enigmatic hanging lampshade with custom circuitry, asks the question directly: What is this show’s promise and what is it attempting to shed light on? Thankfully, The Blinding Light suspends the immediate gratification that most authorly shows over-deliver.
2024 SECA Art Award
San Francisco Museum of Art, 151 3rd Street, San Francisco, California
Through May 26
San Francisco has produced a lineage of artists known for their prolific signage, invented typography, and lettering, notably Margaret Kilgallen, Barry McGee, and Tauba Auerbach. Today, Rose d’Amato emerges as another extraordinary talent. D’Amato comes from a family of sign-makers and automotive pinstripers, carrying forward the artistry of Latinx, lowrider, and working-class communities. Along with Rupy C. Tut and Angela Hennessy, D’Amato was selected as a Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art award finalist.
For the accompanying exhibition — for which she was also asked to create the wall text font, identity, and design — D’Amato installed a suite of layered automotive sign paintings around a central 1955 Chevrolet Panel truck restored in Oakland. In the open trunk, the artist has set up a screen on which we can watch her work, creating the effect of a mobile studio. Using enamel gunshot paint, gold leaf, airbrushing, and her hand, D’Amato uncannily captures both sign and signifier simultaneously.
Ashwini Bhat: What Will It Take / For Us To Awake?
Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St, San Francisco
Ongoing
A symbol of regeneration and resilience, the calla lily is a recurring motif for the Mumbai-born Ashwini Bhat, who now lives and works in the foothills of Sonoma Mountain in the North Bay. “What Will It Take / For Us To Awake?” (2024), which consists of a bronze bell shaped like a calla lily and an accompanying patinated-steel installation, was commissioned by the Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI) for the Asian Art Museum in the City Hall area of SF. Originally made as a reminder of the California fire season, this bell — which museum visitors can toll — suggests a wake-up call that resonates ever more loudly as the SoCal fires continue to rage. The installation is swathed in light, making it feel like you’re in the glass enclosure of a hothouse, a feeling deepened by the fact that it can be seen by passersby in the surrounding busy Civic Center neighborhood through the window.
