Art
Charting Chinese History with 17th-Century Jesuit World Maps
Mounted on remnants of the old Ming Dynasty city wall, which once surrounded Beijing, are Western clocks and astronomical instruments for observing celestial bodies.
San Francisco
Books
The Many Identities of Raphael's "Lady with a Unicorn"
The 16th-century "Portrait of a Lady with a Unicorn" by Raphael was altered twice: first by the artist, who replaced a lap dog with a tiny unicorn; then in the 17th century, when the sitter's bare shoulders were covered and the broken martyrdom wheel of St. Catherine of Alexandria was painted over t
News
Display of Canned Parrot Meat Ruffles Feathers in San Francisco
SAN FRANCISCO — PETA and animal lovers can relax: the meat within the metal isn't real. The cans are (of course) part of an art installation.
Books
Crowded by Beauty: A Biography of Philip Whalen
Identified as a member of both the Beat Generation and the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance of the mid-1950s, Philip Whalen (1923-2002) wrote poems and two novels marked by a sensibility that was his alone.
Art
San Francisco Is Losing Its Artists
SAN FRANCISCO — One of this city’s most-discussed recent performances took place on the morning of April 1, 2014.
Art
In the Bay Area, Adjuncts and Artists Unite to Unionize
SAN FRANCISCO — It is no longer a stretch to draw connections between adjunct professors and other workers in the service economy. The corporate university model is deeply invested in the notion that treating all of its employees as disposable labor can maximize profits.
Art
Tracing the Origins of San Francisco's Gentrification
You might call the South of Market area in San Francisco the cradle of gentrification.
Art
Frank Lloyd Wright's West Coast Experiment, Ramping Up to the Guggenheim
Before the quarter-mile ramp of New York’s Guggenheim Museum, Frank Lloyd Wright envisioned a smaller slope on the West Coast.
Art
Transforming Queer Soldiers' Dreams into Art
SAN FRANCISCO — Can the stories of queer soldiers being marginalized, brutalized, and disenfranchised in the United States be considered dreams, or would it be more appropriate to call them nightmares?
News
Oldest San Francisco Arts Nonprofit Suspends Curatorial Programs
SAN FRANCISCO — Intersection for the Arts, San Francisco’s oldest alternative arts space, has suspended curatorial programs and halved its staff, KQED reported last week.
Art
The Inescapable Sounds of the Everyday
SAN FRANCISCO — I visited during a hell of a week for the City by the Bay. With temperatures soaring into the 90s, the sounds of fans, ice cream trucks, and San Franciscans complaining about the heat wave and lack of air-conditioning filled the air.
News
Tech Boom Brings San Francisco Gallery Diaspora
Months before his death in 2011, Steve Jobs told a crowd gathered for the unveiling of the iPad 2: “It is in Apple’s DNA that technology alone is not enough — it’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.”