Film
Quintessential Movies About California, From Its Paradises to Its Paradoxes
This week, we have a roundup of great movies made in, set in, and/or otherwise about California, the home of the American film industry.
San Francisco
News
Renowned San Francisco Art Institute Is Closing Due to Rocky Finances
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, students learned that the institution does not plan to reopen in the fall.
Art
Four Decades of Dawoud Bey
Bey does not simply document Black life, but Black existence in a nation-state built upon the creation and maintenance of our subjugation.
News
In San Francisco, a Panel Defends Controversial WPA Mural at George Washington High School
On Washington’s birthday, artists, community and Native American leaders, curators, and more talked about why Victor Arnautoff’s “Life of Washington” murals should remain.
Art
Mike Henderson, a Bay Area Pioneer, on His Evolution Through Abstraction
The painter and musician moved West in 1965 to attend the San Francisco Art Institute — the only desegregated art institute at the time. Currently featured in the traveling Soul of a Nation, he continues to make ambitious work.
Art
Gloriously Defiant Expressions of Cultures Perceived as Threatening to the West
At Southern Exposure in San Francisco, South Asian, Southwest Asian, and North African artists evoke the challenges they face in celebrating their cultural origins.
Music
Remembering Patrick Cowley, Pioneer of Dance Music and Occasional Composer of Porn Soundtracks
Melding psychedelia with disco at a fast tempo, Cowley helped refine a new music genre, "Hi-NRG,” which seemed ideal to enhance the hot and sweaty vibe of San Francisco’s gay clubs.
Art
An Archive Reveals a Troubling Picture of Late-19th-Century California
At the California Historical Society, paintings of the state’s beautiful vistas are shown alongside archival materials revealing a more brutal history of displacement, discrimination, and murder.
Art
An Art Film Created With Middle Schoolers in Mind
Artist Nicole Miller sees her film To the Stars as being about potential: “I want the kids to feel like they are part of the narrative of what it means to be an astronaut or a brilliant thinker.”
Art
Photography's Potential as Art and Science in Documenting Ancient Egypt
Signs and Wonders: The Photographs of John Beasley Greene features photographs that focus on ancient monuments and landscapes in Egypt and Algeria from the 1850s, rather than people.
Art
The Longing of the Diaspora in the Digital Era
In The Curved Body of a Pixel, artist Kimberly Acebo Arteche posits that despite its speed and pervasive presence, technology ultimately fails to narrow wide experiential gaps created by geographic distance.
Art
Drawing Attention to a Sinking High-Rise in San Francisco
Postcommodity’s sound piece will play every day in San Francisco until the Millennium Tower is fixed or torn down.