Fall 2015 exhibitions and public programs
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI)
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
This fall at SFAI, artists and scholars from around the world animate art history and lead adventures into new territories of contemporary art—from an underwater studio to the far edges of performance. SFAI’s exhibitions and public programs provide direct access to artists and practices that advance our culture.
Events are free and open to all.
Walter and McBean Galleries exhibitions
Alejandro Almanza Pereda: Everything but the kitchen sank
Walter and McBean Galleries: Through October 3
Diego Rivera Gallery: Through December 12
Reception: Friday, September 11, 7–9pm
Almanza is 2015 recipient of the Harker Award, which supports artists in residence at SFAI. During his residency, Almanza transformed the Walter and McBean Galleries into an underwater studio for experimentation and the production of new still life photographs and video, which will be presented through October 3.
In SFAI’s Diego Rivera Gallery, Almanza challenges the ongoing instrumentalization of Latin American identity and artistic practice through a fluorescent scaffold that constructs a luminous intervention with Rivera’s historic fresco The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City (1931).
Leslie Shows
Emanuel Walter Gallery
November 7–December 12, 2015
Reception: Saturday, November 7, 7–9pm
Leslie Shows (BFA 1999) recently spoke of a desire to “make work that is so secret from myself that I would be seduced into making it.” Shows’ new paintings dissolve previous imagery akin to abstractions of pyrite and glaciers to crawl out of, and back into, the landscape. Varying in scale—from picture-sized to room-scale installations—the work shivers in light. They evoke the unknown, and are particularly unknowable. Even as they slip from your grasp, one is compelled to learn their sensuous, urgent vocabulary.
G.H. Rothe: Seven Paintings
Atholl McBean Gallery
November 7–December 12, 2015
Reception: Saturday, November 7, 7–9pm
Following G.H. Rothe’s death in 2007, the artist’s son discovered a cache of paintings far afield from the artist’s known oeuvre. Seven Paintings is the first-ever public presentation of these hidden works that unveil stunning and frank pictures of sex between aging couples. Rothe’s exquisitely lucent tempera paintings show ecstasy cascading through myriad triggers—the pure color of radiant jewels, sheer and slumping flesh, euphoric expression, un-gendered faces, and the unexpected eroticism of geriatric bodies.
Fall 2015 public programs
Karen Finley
Presented in partnership with City Lights Books
Tuesday, September 15
Leigh Ledare
Tuesday, September 22
David Getsy
Friday, September 25
Peter Plagens
Tuesday, September 29
Emily Mast
Friday, October 2
Ron Nagle
Winifred Johnson Clive Foundation Distinguished Painting Fellow
Tuesday, October 6
Maria Elena González
Friday, October 9
Philippe Rahm
Presented in partnership with swissnex San Francisco
Tuesday, October 13
Narcissister
Tuesday, October 20
Ronak K. Kapadia
Friday, October 23
Mariana Castillo Deball
SFAI + Kadist Artist in Residence
Tuesday, October 27
Zarouhie Abdalian
Friday, October 30
Nate Page
Friday, November 6
Sarah Thornton
Friday, November 13
William Cordova
Presented in partnership with Headlands Center for the Arts
Tuesday, November 17
Leslie Shows
Winifred Johnson Clive Foundation Distinguished Painting Fellow
Tuesday, December 1
The Walter and McBean Galleries, established in 1969, present exhibitions at the forefront of contemporary art practice. The gallery serves as a laboratory for innovative and adventurous projects and commissions new work from emerging and established artists. Together, SFAI’s exhibitions and public programs catalyze the creative processes of its student-artists and thinkers, and creates intimate connections between the SFAI community and the public.
Join SFAI’s mailing list: sfai.edu/eventmail
SFAI’s exhibitions and public programs are made possible by the generosity of donors and sponsors. Major support is provided by Grants for the Arts.
Program support is provided by the Harker Fund of The San Francisco Foundation, The Phoebe Snow Foundation, Kadist Art Foundation, The Winifred Johnson Clive Foundation, and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. Ongoing support is provided by the McBean Distinguished Lecture and Residency Fund, The Buck Fund, and the Visiting Artists Fund of the SFAI Endowment.
