“No other scholar has contributed as much to the study of California art,” says critic and curator Michael Duncan.
Author Archives: Clayton Schuster
Clayton Schuster is a writer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. Most of his days are spent being bossed around by his dog Willow and finding cool, weird, and unusual things to write about for Hyperallergic, Sartle, and other outlets. His book, "Bad Blood: 27 Feuds, Quarrels, and Rivalries from the History of Art, will be out next year.
The Horrors of the Atomic Age Through Artists’ Eyes
The art and literature in Invisible Colors turn our gaze toward the blinding fury of the atom’s explosion in its singular purpose to raze and slaughter.
Looking at the Legacy of Jess in California
An exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art positions the artist known as Jess as the center of a creative nexus, bringing together his works with a smattering of California artists.
A Visual Alphabet for an Oral Language from the Ivory Coast
The Bété people did not have a writing system for their spoken language, so Frédéric Bruly Bouabré created one and used it to describe the scenes in his artworks.
The Sweet Chaos of the Bay Area’s Artistic Heritage
Way Bay visualizes the currents of unbridled creativity that have coursed and flowed throughout the San Francisco Bay Area over the last two centuries.
Bay Area Counterculture Is Still Alive at the San Francisco Art Book Fair
Vendors embraced the idea of San Francisco, the capital of all things counter-culture, whose art scene is still notable for being idiosyncratic and truly weird.
How a Jewish Storytelling Tradition Is Reflected in Contemporary Art
With varying degrees of success, a show at the Contemporary Jewish Museum in San Francisco looks at how storytelling can help us access spirituality.
Wander the Lost City of Teotihuacán in Minecraft
At San Francisco’s de Young Museum, an interactive dive into the ruined pre-Columbian metropolis.
The Intimate Abstractions of Franklin Williams, an Unsung Master from the ’60s
Franklin Williams’s work is the kind that challenges a viewer and demands the labor of self-reflection to resist knee-jerk reactions.
Sarah Lucas Squashes Rodin’s Idealism
At the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, an exhibition marking the centennial of Rodin’s death juxtaposes his work with Sarah Lucas’s materially soft but conceptually tough sculptures.
Revisiting the Witty Work of 1970s Bay Area Nut Artists
Parker Gallery’s multimedia Nut Art survey intersperses new work with original pieces from the 1970s.
The Idiosyncratic Oeuvre of a 1970s Nut Artist
A retrospective of Roy De Forest, who described what he and his colleagues at UC Davis were making in the 1960s as “Nut Art,” is fun, innovative, and ambitious.