SF/Arts Monthly - October 2020

FRE E

M O N T H L Y

GUIDE TO SAN FRANCISCO ARTS

CHANEL MILLER EXHIBIT ON VIEW AT THE ASIAN ART MUSEUM 3 CAAMFEST MOVES FORWARD WITH CREATIVE PROGRAMMING 5 BAY AREA ART GALLERY ROUNDUP 7 Cover image: Andy Goldsworthy Reworked sticks on river boulder Hunter Creek, Colorado.

Courtesy Haines Gallery, San Francisco.

O CTO B E R 2020

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Exhibit Lights up the Asian Art Museum B Y G R A C E H W A N G LY N C H

Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion Rendering 2020. Courtesy Asian Art Museum

Creative Measures Bring Chanel Miller's Art Exhibit into Public View

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ow do we deal with trauma? And how do we move forward? Those are questions that any of us might be asking at the moment. But long before our lives were upended by the coronavirus, Bay Area artist Chanel Miller was grappling with these questions.

Miller’s debut museum exhibit I was, I am, I will be can now be seen from the Hyde Street exterior of the Asian Art Museum. If her name sounds familiar – yet hard to place – perhaps it’s because she was first known as Emily Doe, the victim of sexual assault on the Stanford University campus. Her statement from that 2016 trial went viral, and last year she stepped out from behind the veil of anonymity with her memoir "Know My Name."

That book – and accompanying video – caught the attention of the Asian Art Museum’s Head of Contemporary Art Abby Chen, who says, “Not only is she an amazing writer, she’s also this great visual artist. But of course, she’s incredibly young.” At the time Miller was 27 years old and had never had her artwork displayed in a museum, much less one she had frequented with as a child with her mother.

Chen and the staff at the Asian Art Museum began the process of collaborating with Miller, who is mixed-race and asserts in the introduction of her book, “I am also half Chinese. My Chinese name is Zhang Xiao Xia.” With a therapist for a father and the Chinese born writer and filmmaker Zhang Ci as her mother, Miller had the kind of creative childhood that goes against the popular ideas about the turbocharged environment of Palo Alto, where she attended Gunn High School during the years marked by a series of student suicides. As children, young Chanel and her sister were allowed to draw on the walls of their bedroom.

“Whenever I was upset, I’d take a Sharpie to the wall and sit for hours and let these creatures come to life. I could create landscapes that don’t have narrow borders. I was having these marking on my wall, thinking, ‘Oh, I remember when I was going through that.

And that’s the scene that came out of that feeling.’”

At their first meeting with the team at the Asian Art Museum, Miller brought her portfolio and covered the table with sketches. “She is very good at telling stories,” Chen noticed. “By the time I looked at the portfolio, I was like, ‘This is really good.’”

The original idea was for Miller to paint the figures directly on the gallery walls, just as she did in her childhood bedroom. But that presented challenges. The first being that the space – the Brayton Wilbur Foundation Gallery in the new Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang

© Mariah Tiffany. Image courtesy of the artist.

Artist and author Chanel Miller's show, "I was, I am, I will be" is on public view at the Asian Art Museum.

Pavilion – was still under construction. And Miller was traveling frequently to promote her book and had plans to move to New York City at the beginning of March.

The final touches were being put on the new Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion on March 16, when the city of San Francisco announced a shelter-inplace order. Air travel from the East Coast seemed too risky. So Chen had another idea: Miller’s sumi ink and acrylic designs would be scanned and reproduced on enormous vinyl panels and installed on the three walls in the gallery. Even though the museum remains closed and the addition has yet to be fêted with a grand opening, its first exhibits are visible without even setting foot in the building. At night, Miller’s black and white figures – including one lying on its side, one sitting peacefully cross-legged, and one stepping out of the frame – are illuminated and visible from Hyde Street. “If you're outside, you can witness it walking left to right. Or right to left, but it's not meant to be read in a linear way. The whole journey of healing is never linear,” explains Miller, who hopes the piece will be seen as universal, and not

confined to her particular experience. “My main fear, besides safety, when I disclosed my identity was that I wouldn’t be allowed to expand or talk outside of the topic of sexual assault.” Miller is continuing to explore new themes and new mediums, with dreams of creating graphic novels for children.

Along with "I was, I am, I will be," the Asian Art Museum is unveiling the debut museum exhibits of two other women from the Bay Area. On the exterior of top level of the new wing is Mumbai street artist Jas Charanjiva’s "Don’t Mess With Me," one of her Pink Lady pieces created in response to the gang rape and murder of a young woman on a bus in Delhi, India. The bright pink face appears billboard-like at the top of the pavilion, fitting since Charanjiva was raised in Berkeley and influenced by the murals of the Mission District. On the street level is "Pattern Recognition" by San Francisco artist Jenifer Wofford, a Filipina-American who is one of three women in the artist group M.O.B. Pattern Recognition is a vivid graphic piece that calls attention to the Asian American artists who have called the city home through the decades. “Together, they demonstrate this new direction made visible by the Asian Art Museum,” explains Chen, who came to the museum in January 2019 with a vision for raising the prominence of contemporary artists from both sides of the Pacific. The grand opening for the Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion has been postponed indefinitely, and in the meantime, the Asian Art Museum will be presenting virtual events.

Find the full calendar at Asianart.org. The large vinyl renderings of Miller’s triptych will be on view in the Brayton Wilbur Foundation Gallery, a gallery overlooking Hyde Street in the new Akiko Yamazaki and Jerry Yang Pavilion.

These images will be visible both day and night through the gallery’s long windows. Miller’s process drawings and sketches will be presented across the street from the museum in the San Francisco Main Library (when it is able to reopen for in-person service). → Chanel Miller: I was, I am, I will be Ongoing Asian Art Museum asianart.org

Publisher: Geraldine O'Brien. Editor: Catherine Barry. Publisher Emeritus: Elizabeth B. Crabtree. Regular contributors: Heather Desaulniers; Laura Fraenza; Jesse Hamlin; Evan Karp; Jean Schiffman; Mark Taylor; Sura Wood.

San Francisco Arts Monthly is published each month. Email sfartsmonthly@gmail.com for advertising inquiries or general information. © Copyright 2020. All rights reserved.

SF/Arts Monthly is supported by Grants for the Arts and is a member of Intersection for the Arts.

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Literary Lineup

BY EVAN KARP

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Jericho Brown © Brian Cornelius. Image courtesy of LitQuake

he Bay Area produces a yearround parade of literary events, and that has not slowed down – it's just all virtual now. Booksmith, Green Apple Books and City Lights are all producing numerous events per week, and Nomadic Press, The Racket and The Poetry Center at SFSU all deserve your attention. But October is always festival month here. See what's going on below, and be sure to check out our new website at SFArts.org for full schedules and a guide to many other upcoming events. → Berkeley #UNBOUND October 4 baybookfest.org A full day of free programming addressing the present moment, with a panel on literary futurism as a blueprint for the future, featuring Aya De Leon, Annalee Newitz, Ishmael Reed and Shanthi Sekaran; a talk by Judith Butler on nonviolence; “Strangers In Their Own Land” author Arlie Russell Hochschild on the nation's divisiveness, with john a.

powell, director of the Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley; a panel on sustainable and equitable food with Alice Waters, Saru Jayaraman and Davia Nelson; and Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of Berkeley Law, in conversation with Congresswoman Barbara Lee on “How the Constitution Can Save Us.”

Our Songs Came Through,” the first historically comprehensive Native poetry anthology, co-edited by Harjo; an event with Foglifter Press: Eyeing the Margins; author appearances by Obi Kaufmann, Tommy Orange, Natasha Trethewey; and a 12-hour-long Lit Crawl, produced with participating sister Lit Crawl cities ranging from Boston to Angers, France.

→ Peninsula Virtual Bookfest through October 29 sanmateocountypoet.org

→ Berkeley Poetry Festival October 23 – 25 facebook.com/BerkeleyPoetryFestival

Organized by San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto, the Peninsula Virtual Bookfest presents children's book authors Christina Newhard, Gayle Romasanta & Justine Villanueva, and illustrator Lynnor Bontigao on Oct 3; YA writer Cody Tolmasoff on Oct 5; poets devorah major, Jason Bayani and James Cagney on Oct 13; Francesca Bell, Barbara Berman, Joe Cottonwood, Peter N. Carroll, Ken Haas, Kathleen McClung, Connie Post and Lee Rossi on Oct 25; and additional readings by Kai Coggin, Tureeda Mikell, Dena Rod, Michael Simms and more to be announced.

documentaries, which encompass issues from climate change and racism to gender equality and war and peace.

UNAFF’s theme for 2020, the Power of Empathy, is certainly on target. “The Invisible Line — America’s Nazi Experiment,” however, examines how quickly empathy can vanish under the right circumstances. Emanuel Rotstein’s disturbing film recounts the notorious psychological experiment developed in 1967 by Ron Jones, a Palo Alto high school history teacher. Designed to understand what enabled average Germans to accept a sadistic Nazi regime, the project went awry when students embraced the allure of domination and replicated a mini fascist state on campus. In “Picture of His Life” the daring underwater photographer, Amos Nachoum, who swam with great white sharks and cavorted with gigantic anacondas and crocodiles in their watery lairs, treks to the Arctic Ocean and the ends of the earth to pursue an elusive quarry, the polar bear, for the last magnificent shot of his career.

BY SURA WOOD

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f all the art forms thrust into the digital sphere, film is proving to be best suited to weather the storm. While nothing equals the immediacy of seeing a movie on the big screen, shoulder-to-shoulder with fellow moviegoers in a darkened theater, viewers had become accustomed to streaming from a host of platforms before the virus closed multiplexes and movie palaces. Some of your favorite local festivals and repertory theaters have met the moment, offering rotating content online that hungry audiences can turn to in the fall. Here are suggestions on where to look.

→ Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive, BAMPFA bampfa.org BAMPFA opens its vaults to film aficionados through its “watch from home” program. Craving a French/Italian gangster flick? Then, Claude Sautet’s chilled-to-perfection crime movie, “Classe tous risques” (1960), admired by the likes of Bertrand Tavernier, Hong Kong action master, John Woo, and Jean-Pierre Melville, is just the ticket. The plot concerns a desperate French hoodlum (Lino Ventura) who, after being sentenced in absentia and condemned to death, goes on the run, making his way from Italy to Paris with an unlikely assist from Jean-Paul Belmondo. “Helmut Newton: The Bad and the Beautiful” reassesses the life and controversial career of the decidedly politically incorrect German-born fashion photographer. Indulging taboos and a lurid erotic imagination, he was often criticized for his objectifying images of women and labeled a misogynist by Susan Sontag with whom he’s seen sparring in a clip from a TV show. Director Gero von Boehm takes

Litquake's highlights include "Crazy Rich Asians" author Kevin Kwan with Amy Tan; a celebration of Juan Felipe Herrera's new book “Every Day We Get More Illegal” with Jericho Brown; a launch, with U.S. Poet Laureate Joy Harjo and Jennifer Foerster, of “When the Light of the World Was Subdued,

advantage of abundant interviews with his subject shot before Newton’s death in 2004, while investigating the artist’s formative influences — Leni Riefenstahl for one — and talking to the women he photographed such as Isabella Rossellini and Charlotte Rampling, who share candid, sometimes trenchant observations. → Fort Mason FLIX - Drive-In through Oct. 18 fortmason.org/flix Fort Mason FLIX, which bills itself as the city’s first drive-in theater, will be screening primarily mainstream movies six days a week, twice daily, on a jumbo 40’ x 20’ high definition screen with the Bay providing a spectacular backdrop. → United Nations Association Film Festival, UNAFF October 15-25 unaff.org

→ SF Dance Film Festival October 18-25 sfdancefilmfest.org San Francisco Dance Film Festival, a reliable source for artistic, original approaches to the merging of dance and cinema, arrives with a lineup that emphasizes jazz dance and tap, including profiles of two iconic dancer/choreographers whose accomplishments have been upstaged by their more famous partners. “Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back” traces the vagaries of the 70-year career of this charismatic tap dancing sensation, from his childhood, when he performed in an act, modeled on the Nicholas Brothers, with younger sibling, Gregory, whose fame would eclipse his own — their complicated competitive relationship is touched on here — to his film debut in Coppola’s “The Cotton

Amos Nachoum, "Picture of His Life." Image courtesy of UNAFF.

Founded in 1998 by Stanford University lecturer and journalist, Jasmina Bojic, the United Nations Association Film Festival features more than 60 topical social justice and human rights

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"Maurice Hines: Bring Them Back" Courtesy SF Dance Film Festival

Fall Film Guide

→ Litquake October 8 – 24 litquake.org

Organized by Sharon Coleman and MK Chavez, and the City of Berkeley, the 18th annual festival “Poets Who Change the World” honors Michael Warr with a Lifetime Achievement Award. Hourlong sessions include Poetry & Music with Avotcja; Afro-Surrealism, a reading curated by Audrey T. Williams and Trey Keeve; a panel discussion on Afro-Latinx writing led by Raina Leon, with Thea Matthews and Alan Pelaez; Poetry and Dance with poet/dancer Noah James and dancer Ashley Gayle; Milvia Street, with poets from Berkeley City College.

Club,” his years in the Broadway trenches and challenges he faced as a gay black man in show business. “Merely Marvelous: The Dancing Genius of Gwen Verdon” gives deserved, long overdue attention to the phenomenally talented Broadway song and dance superstar. It charts Verdon’s rise to prominence, often overshadowed by a turbulent marriage to flashy choreographer Bob Fosse; his neurotic, outsized personality and sexy on-stage moves had a habit of grabbing the spotlight. The doc covers Verdon’s early years, plagued by rickets and teenage pregnancy, and delivers rare performance footage, home movies and recollections of former cast members and collaborators. → San Francisco Greek Film Festival October 3-10 Online, and Drive-In at Par 3, Poplar Creek, San Mateo grfilm.com As we go to press, The San Francisco Greek Film Festival (SFGFF) announces some of its 2020 lineup which includes a drive-in screening of the 1964 Oscar-winning heist comedy "Topkapi," starring internationally-acclaimed Greek actress and politican, Melina Mercouri. See website for up-to-date information.

CAAMFest Forward B Y G R A C E H W A N G LY N C H

Looking to the Future as the Largest Asian American Film Festival Moves Online © Robert Catto. Image courtesy of CAAMFest

Image courtesym of CAAMFest

Andy Lau and Deanie Ip in a still from the 2011 film "A Simple Life" by Hong Kong auteur Ann Hui. CAAMFest FORWARD will feature this iconic film at a drive-in experience at Fort Mason Center on October 15 and it will be streamed from October 14-18 on CAAMFest.com.

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Image courtesy of CAAMFest

he Center for Asian American Media (CAAM) is producing its second film festival of the year from October 14-18 — mostly online, but with drive-in screenings to keep audiences safely spaced.

The October festival, CAAMFest FORWARD, will showcase more than 40 Asian American and Asian films – both narratives and documentaries – with almost half of the films being world or U.S. premieres.

Opening night's "Coming Home Again" is by filmmaker Wayne Wang who has adapted a New Yorker story

by Chang-rae Lee, portraying an emotional journey of an aspiring writer, who comes home to care for his ailing mother. "Coming Home Again" stars Justin Chon, known for producing films about the Korean American experience such as "Gook" and "Ms. Purple," as well as acting in the "Twilight Saga" series.

New to the fall festival is the addition of two drive-in programs at Fort Mason. One will be a Filipino American History Month event that includes the world premiere of "Lea Salonga in Concert" with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, which will be screened with the documentary "7000 Miles" featuring Bay Area rapper Ruby Ibarra.

Both "Lea Salonga in Concert" and "Coming Home Again" were produced by CAAM. While the cornerstone films will be streamed live or at a drivein, many other programs — such as 9 shorts programs — will be presented on demand, which viewers can stream at their leisure over the five-day festival period.

"Coming Home Again" by Chang-rae Lee and starring "Twilight Saga" actor Justin Chon is the CAAMFest-produced opening feature.

While watching movies online may be a way of life in late 2020, the reimagining of the festival experience is the result of decisions made last spring right after the world changed in ways we could not have expected. With less than two months before the festival, CAAM decided not to cancel or postpone the event, but to research options for producing an online festival.

The Asian American community had already found itself the unwelcome target of an uptick in racist attacks, as a result of anti-Asian xenophobia stirred up as the coronavirus began to spread in the United States. “During these troubled times in this country and across the world, we needed stories that move us towards empathy, compassion, and connection more urgently than ever before,” said CAAM Executive Director Stephen Gong.

But how to move a two-week-long slate of movie screenings, concerts, and parties from beloved theaters like The Castro and Roxie to the Internet?

Coincidentally, CAAM was already at work on producing another major online event, a digital town hall focused on the impact of pandemic-related racism against Asian Americans. Using the skills they honed in preparing for that event, the team worked to plan a 10-day virtual program of film, music, and food called CAAMFest

One silver lining of shifting the festival online is that audiences didn’t have to physically be in the Bay Area; they tuned in from around the U.S. and the world. As businesses began to open up in June, the organization held onto hope that an in-person festival might still be possible in the fall.

“When we pivoted to a virtual festival in May, no one had any idea that sheltering-in-place would become our new normal,” reflects Festival Director Masashi Niwano. “The expertise we’ve gained about screening films and having great conversations online will continue to be relevant as we all move forward.”

But as infection rates began to climb once again over the summer, it became apparent that the city would not yet be ready for large in-person events.

CAAM continued to organize online presentations, teaming up with the nonpartisan group APIAVote to hold the Asian American and Pacific Islander Presidential Town Hall featuring Democratic candidate Vice President Joe Biden and former Governor of Guam Eddie Baza Calvo, representing President Trump’s campaign.

CAAM has also learned from the experiences of partner organizations, such as Frameline, which hosted a drive-in screening in late June. In turn,

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In celebration of Filipino American History Month, CAAMFest features the world premiere of "Lea Salonga in Concert."

CAAM’s festival team has shared its experiences with other local and national event producers.

“I was (and still am) impressed by CAAMFest's Heritage at Home, which was one of the first film festivals in the Bay Area to take place with the virtual platform, just two months into sheltering-in-place,” says Sophoan Sorn, Director of San Francisco's Berlin & Beyond Film Festival. He adds that a challenge facing film festivals is that audiences are fatigued from constantly looking at screens, “We can become ‘virtually tired’ from all the virtual offerings, from mind boggling news to Netflix binging. So, the possibility of an open-air cinema experience in San Francisco gives some refreshing hope for our program planning.”

The 25th annual Berlin & Beyond Film Festival is tentatively planned for spring 2021. Other local festivals are not so fortunate. In late July, the San Francisco Green Film Festival, not only canceled its annual event, but decided to end its run altogether.

All of these changes have taken place during a year when CAAM is also commemorating its 40th anniversary. The organization was born during a time of social, cultural, and political change at the beginning of the 1980s, when Asian American producers and directors wanted to create a space of their own.

Filmmaker and activist Loni Ding organized the National Conference of Asian Pacific Producers in Public Broadcasting on the UC Berkeley campus. Out of that convening was born the organization that would eventually become CAAM. Two years later, they held their first film festival featuring pioneering artists such as Wayne Wang, Emiko Omori, and Arthur Dong.

In a full circle, Wang, now one of the most respected names in Asian American film, will be premiering his latest movie at the opening night of CAAMFest FORWARD. But as with everything CAAM is doing during its anniversary year, expect the festival to focus more on the future than the past.

“We could take this moment to simply celebrate our achievements in putting Asian Americans on the screen. But that is not sufficient,” says Gong. “It is vital that we continue to tell authentic stories that bridge ethnic, racial, cultural, religious and geographic divides, and that promote more empathy and understanding. By centering these stories, we are rooting them and ourselves within American history and American culture today.”

→ CAAMFest FORWARD October 14-18 CAAMFest.com

Dance Companies Pivot to Provide Streamed Entertainment B Y H E AT H E R D E S A U L N I E R S

© Andy Mogg

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ulti-hued leaves pooled around the trunk of a tree. Shrubs and plant-life in a transitory state of being - shedding the old and preparing for what’s to come. Fall imagery, to be sure, but I think we can all agree that this year feels equally senescent.

Like so many other fields, the dance community has watched leaf after leaf plummet to the ground recently – cancelled events; postponed premieres/projects; unmarked milestones; abandoned theaters and studios. And yet, the tree that is the performing arts still sprouts promise on its various branches, as a number of burgeoning endeavors burst onto the scene this fall. It won’t be how they were originally planned or imagined, but these examples show that the Bay Area dance ecosystem continues to blossom.

In the middle of October, a beloved SF choreographic tradition returns for its 17th edition, Epiphany Dance Theater’s San Francisco Trolley Dances. Under the direction of EDT Artistic Director Kim Epifano, SF Trolley Dances invites artists and companies to perform in numerous sites around the city. Viewers are then organized into multiple tour groups to traverse the performance route on foot and via public transit. The experience, which is committed to being a free event, is one of layers, textures and varying movement styles as dance and physicality converse with stunning San Francisco vistas and vibrant structures. “SF Trolley Dances has earned a reputation for its grassroots involvement in the communities where artists are sited; building relationships with the residents and businesses along each year's route so that by the weekend of performances, the event feels truly reciprocal with works that are authentic gifts to the neighborhoods they're in,” recounts Epifano, “for the health and safety of everyone this year we have had less interaction with the neighbors along our route.”

2020’s San Francisco Trolley Dances is most definitely on, but different, moving from “the street to the screen,” as coined by its organizers. All the participating companies (an impressive line-up of Arenas Dance Com-

Post Ballet's Jenna Marie, Landes Dixon and Emily Hansel perform for SF Trolley Dances pany, Fog Beast, Post:Ballet, 13th Floor, Zaccho Dance Theatre and host, EDT) will film their respective contributions which Epifano will compile into a cohesive tour. “I'm excited for the opportunity to use video as its own language to not only reveal the movement of the performers, but the topography, architecture and history of the locations along our route,” she shares, “an added bonus is that with video we'll have a chance to reach new audiences, both within the Bay Area and outside it."

time in response to changing culture and political contexts,” Mohr explains, “what began as a feminist platform for shared dance programming has evolved into an intersectional project with an explicit cultural and racial equity agenda.” Each year has a thematic center and for this iteration, that theme is the practice and politics of movement improvisation (fittingly titled Power Shift: Improvisation, Activism and Community). “In the early stages of curation, we tossed around the idea of improvisation equaling freedom - many movers responded that when they improvise, they feel free,” adds Hill, “but what is freedom and who experiences it?”

Spanning two months (September 13-November 22), The Bridge Project features streamed workshops, classes, panels and performances designed to facilitate a deep dialogue about movement improvisation and social justice. And in this journey, a wealth of perspectives and experiences is imperative. “Not only does HMD’s

→ San Francisco Trolley Dances Saturday & Sunday October 17, 18 epiphanydance.org Another mainstay in San Francisco dance, Hope Mohr Dance’s The Bridge Project also shifts to digital and virtual platforms this fall, co-curated by Hope Mohr, Cherie Hill and Karla Quintero.

“Led by working artists, The Bridge Project is an interdisciplinary performing arts platform that has developed over

2020 Bridge Project mark the program’s ten-year anniversary, it’s also the first time the program is co-directed,” relays Quintero, “Hope, Cherie and I envision Power Shift as a space where artists can come together to exchange improvisational tools and practices that can enrich artmaking as well as support community organizing and visioning.”

And similar to SF Trolley Dances, while moving to digital platforms has meant changes to The Bridge Project’s offerings, Mohr, Hill and Quintero are eager about the possibilities and potential opportunities the new plan affords.

“The virtual format opens events up to attendees not currently living in the Bay Area, possibly even a larger audience than venue capacity would allow,” Quintero continues, “though we are still learning and adjusting.” → The Bridge Project through November 22 bridgeproject.art

ArtSpan: The Show Will Go On

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ven before coronavirus, many artists struggled to maintain their foothold in San Francisco. The pandemic has introduced more challenges, but ArtSpan, the City’s largest organization of studio artists, is not giving up. COVID-be-damned, the show will go on.

“Like many arts organizations throughout the city, we had to adapt to meet these unprecedented times,” says Executive Director Joen Madonna. “Artists need our support and the best way to show that support is to buy art. Open studios will look different, but will provide the same opportunities to engage with artists, get an intimate look at their art practices and purchase their work.”

The virtual adaptation of a 45-year San Francisco tradition takes place from September 16 through October 14, and this year SF (Open) Studios invites visitors

to experience California’s vibrant San Francisco Bay Area art community from wherever they are. Featuring more than 250 artists distributed across multiple, interactive virtual events – a different grouping at each event – SF(O) S offers unique and engaging opportunities to authentically connect with and purchase from a diverse set of creators.

SF (Open) Studios is free to attend virtually.

With a full lineup of artful events ranging from live studio-tours to curated art salons and celebrations, SF (Open) Studios will add a hefty dose of creativity to your fall season.

ArtSpan evolved from SF Open Studios, begun in 1975 by a small group of enterprising artists who concurrently opened their studios to the public annually over one weekend to increase the accessibility of their

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work. Following the devastation of the 1989 earthquake, these artists created a strong organization to ensure SFOS would remain a San Francisco tradition. SFOS has grown exponentially, and in 2019 it spanned four weekends, with more than 800 participating artists and 100,000+ visitors.

The renovated platform will continue to offer the opportunity to connect authentically with local artists and purchase work directly from the unique creatives who contribute to the Bay's cultural vibrancy.

ArtSpan’s 45-year history is rooted in supporting artists through unprecedented times; from earthquakes to astronomical real estate surges, and now a pandemic.

Register at artspan.org/sfos and start building your art collection while supporting living artists.

Gallery Highlights B Y M A R K TAY L O R

Visual Treats Galore Among Bay Area Galleries

→ Andy Goldsworthy "Ephemeral Works" Ongoing hainesgallery.com

A New Mount Rushmore, Joseph "JD" Green, 2015, watercolor pencil on paper, 22.5 x 30 inches

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n an attempt to cool my psyche during an especially intense and smokefilled early September heatwave, I re-watched the 1949 film adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's "The Secret Garden." A childhood favorite, I remembered the beginning of the film vividly.

In it, willful orphan Mary Lennox travels to rain lashed Misselthwaite Manor, the decaying British estate of her uncle and benefactor Archibald Craven. The film opens in the kind of thick black and white cinematography characteristic of the period, the effect akin to a charcoal drawing in motion. Eventually Mary discovers a hidden garden in the center of the property, uncovers a long-buried key, and opens the gate. After Mary and the manor's other children restore the garden to its original splendor, the movie shifts to gorgeous, soft focus technicolor whenever the characters enter the secret garden, which is lushly green with brightly colored flowers in riotous bloom.

While the pandemic has thus far felt similarly sketched in shades of dreary gray, October may signal the return of color as San Francisco's art galleries are open for business. Of course, many have already adopted online programs and by-appointment schedules to continue their work during lockdown. A particularly soothing virtual viewing room at Haines Gallery showcases "Ephemeral Works" created by U.K. artist Andy Goldsworthy during the spring and summer of 2020 at his home in rural Scotland. The viewing room opened in late August online and will continue indefinitely. The exhibition is a collection of new photographs that document gentle, often poetic temporary interventions in the natural environment.

One that draws the mind back to the colorful Secret Garden is called "Dandelion Fence," an image of buttery dandelions woven into a line across the top of a long section of fence next to a country road.

The bright flowers stretch to the horizon, generating thoughts of eternal repetition and renewal.

→ Victoria Wagner "Everglow" through October 15, by appointment. maybaumgallery.com

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ictoria Wagner's abstract mixed media wood sculptures generate a similar feeling of timelessness and return.

Wagner's practice ponders creation; it literally transforms that which has been destroyed into new constructions. The artist's sculptures begin as chunks of wood, some scorched by the seemingly endless years of Northern California wildfire. She facets her material into geometric shapes, polished and painted in vibrant jewel tones that remind one of squinting into a yellow morning horizon or peering into a bright blue sky. These are assembled into totems that generate the same timeless effect of similar designs by indigenous peoples, recalling the ageless desire to reach out of the earth toward the heavens. Like Goldsworthy, Wagner's work contemplates the eternal.

Creativity Explored's "The Good American" online exhibit runs through November 3. ic landscapes of the American Southwest.

While he is small, he is also central. The images seem less about man's insignificance than about the species as pivot point around which the natural environment is forced to flow.

→ "I'm Not the Only One" Fraenkel Gallery Through October 24, by appointment. fraenkelgallery.com

→ "Lessons of the Hour" McEvoy Foundation for the Arts October 14 - March 13, 2021 mcevoyarts.org

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raenkel Gallery's "I'm Not the Only One" collects images produced over the years by its represented artists and reimagines them through the lens of summer 2020. In this new context they become prescient contemplations on isolation and the desire for connection in the increasingly alienated geography of modern existence. The show's title comes from Mishka Henner's 2015 video of 18 people from around the globe performing the same song on YouTube. The composite image turns a solitary act into a group activity and looks uncannily like the inescapable Zoom rooms of today.

Katy Grannan's 2018 photograph "Gerlach, Schatzi, Nevada" features a woman standing on a bench in her (assumed) back yard raising a wine glass to neighbors on the far side of a sun-bleached fence. Through today's eyes, it appears to be the familiar gesture of socializing at a distance. Johnnie Chatman's self-portraits locate the photographer in the vast, icon-

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ritish born artist Isaac Julien made a splash in the early 1990s with back-to-back arthouse hits "Looking for Langston," a docu-drama about Langston Hughes and "Young Soul Rebels," a narrative exploring the tension between U.K. skinheads, punks, and soulboys in the late 1970s. Now UC Santa Cruz's Distinguished Professor of the Arts, Julien presents "Lessons of the Hour", his 10-screen portrait of Frederick Douglass, at the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts.

Former slave turned abolitionist, Douglass became a world-famous orator, delivering speeches against slavery and in support of women's suffrage in the U.S. and abroad. He was also one of the most photographed men of the nineteenth century. "Lessons of the Hour" deploys its subject's interest in photography as a "means by which Black people could

ArtSpan's SF (Open) Studios features more than 250 artists and invites audiences to attend virtually. Registration and more information at artspan.org/sfos.

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control their likeness beyond caricature" by hanging its ten screens salon style.

This "horizontal montage" frees the eye to concentrate on individual sequences or to contemplate the interplay between images, which were shot in historic locations significant in Douglass's life.

Unfortunately, the message he delivered over a century ago remains embarrassingly relevant to the struggle going on in the streets today. → "The Good American" Creativity Explored through November 3 creativityexplored.org

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here is probably no greater honor or duty for a citizen of a democracy to perform than voting. The U.S. presidential election is Tuesday, November 3. Make sure you are registered to vote, and then check out Creativity Explored's "The Good American", a show wherein artists with developmental disabilities envision the United States through art. The project includes a selection of artworks that alternate between the poignant and the satirical, creating a group sketch of what it means to be a good citizen. Additionally, a series of guerrilla activities is scheduled to investigate how art can "spark an interest in civic participation."