Where bay meets brush: Pier 29 reimagined as hub for SF's artists
State of play: Despite SF's rich legacy, the arts scene has largely been overshadowed in recent years by the tech sector and the doom loop narrative. Limited funding and high costs of living, including rent and supplies, have also forced artists out of the city.
Yes, but: A vibrant arts and culture scene is critical to San Francisco's comeback, the mayor's office has said. The sector generates $1.45 billion in economic activity annually, a 2017 study found.
It also drives conversation around innovation and promotes self-expression.
Driving the news: The Community Arts Stabilization Trust's (CAST) new partnership with the San Francisco Port Commission will transform Pier 29 from a long-vacant warehouse to a cultural hub that houses exhibitions, residencies, performances and other creative events.
Zoom in: CAST, known for its pop-up activations across the city, will manage a 47,000-square-foot indoor event and art space as well as a 23,000-square-foot outdoor area that overlooks the bay.
A residency program called Art + Water will provide "pod" studio spaces to emerging local artists in six-month cohorts, with a focus on providing access to underserved and under-resourced artists.
"At a time when studio space is ever-less affordable, and art instruction costs a fortune, Art + Water will bring both together in one radically accessible space," author Dave Eggers, who will spearhead the residency with San Francisco Arts Commission member JD Beltran, said in a statement.
Pier 29 has largely remained vacant since its use during the America's Cup races of 2013 and currently serves as a location for occasional parking and infrequent special events. CAST is investing $300,000 of its own funds for tenant improvements, while the Port is contributing $500,000.
Key components of the facility include:
A walk-in gallery with rotating exhibitions that will allow visitors to view working artists and purchase local art.
An exhibition space on the Embarcadero with artworks curated by Rene De Guzman.
A publicly accessible venue that will be available for other arts and culture organizations to put on free and low-cost programming.
What they're saying: "We've been approached by a number of artists over the years for large-scale open spaces, things they could really imagine building out for these otherworldly experiences that they produce for the audience," CAST CEO Ken Ikeda told Axios. "But of course, they've been cost prohibitive, or there have been other challenges, and that's where we stepped in."
Film screenings, music shows and art barges — the possibilities are endless, Ikeda said.
"We see this as a constantly reimagined space, and also a space that won't feel stale, because every time you come back ... it's going to look and feel different," he noted.
The intrigue: Part of CAST's goal is to enable a "higher level of clustering" so that art spaces become regularly frequented destinations, Ikeda told Axios.
It could anchor a whole row of restaurants and help facilitate community development that becomes a district of sorts, he suggested.
"It's not just the economic benefits, but it's also for sustainability, which is our focus," he said. "We need to make it difficult to deny the impact of arts, and therefore make it difficult to displace them."
What's next: The lease is a two-year term, but CAST will have the option to request a two-year extension once it expires.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Forbes
6 hours ago
- Forbes
Ron Howard Talks Challenge Of Finding Distribution For New Film ‘Eden'
On paper, Eden has everything a studio would seemingly want for a potential hit film. To begin with, it's directed by Oscar-winning filmmaker Ron Howard, has a stellar cast including Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas, Daniel Brühl and Sydney Sweeney, and it is all rooted in a compelling true-life historical tale. And yet, nearly a year after the murder mystery thriller set on a remote island in the Galápagos staged its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival, Eden is finally arriving in theaters. While the backing of a studio is absent, an indie distributor — Vertical — had the smarts to realize that Howard had a refreshing story on his hands to share with moviegoers. Eden, after all, is not based on existing IP or is a prequel, sequel or whatever overused 'quel' is in fashion these days, but is a fascinating true-crime tale from the early 1930s that until the past few years has remained a footnote in history. In a recent Zoom conversation, Howard said that he knew going in that Eden — which was produced under his and longtime collaborator Brian Grazer's Imagine Entertainment banner — had to be made with an independent movie mindset. 'We made it very efficiently and at a price point that I think was very responsible because I knew it wasn't a studio kind of movie. I never thought it would be,' Howard said. 'In fact, it took me years to commit to making the movie because I always knew it was going to push me outside my comfort zone. 'I also knew that from a commercial standpoint it was going to be risky and would need to be done in a very particular way,' Howard added. 'I found that when we had the script and I had this great cast, I felt like, 'Let's just do it as an indie.'' Luckily for Howard, he wasn't blindsided by the difficulty in landing distribution for Eden because he well realizes that no matter your stature in show business, the model of making movies and television in Hollywood is in a constant state of flux — especially in the era of streaming. 'The thing about the distribution is, audiences are determining this and the patterns are just changing, but the medium [of filmmaking] has as much potency and power as ever,' Howard observed. 'I'm thrilled that companies like Vertical are picking up the mantle and are fighting to get movies [like Eden] into theaters and be seen. They're making a business out of it and it's a business that's working. 'That's what we as artists need and we as film lovers need, but we also have to recognize that's the way people see films and TV shows," Howard noted. 'How and when audiences choose to see them is just something that technology has changed. We've all benefitted from it.' Of course, Howard has rich history in both the film and television mediums, whether it be as an actor from his time on The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days on TV and American Graffiti and The Shootist on film; or behind the camera as the director of such classics as Night Shift, Splash, Apollo 13, Frost/Nixon, The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons and his Best Picture and Best Director Oscar-winning drama A Beautiful Mind — and that's just naming a few. As for Eden, while the story has enough of an expansive history to merit a TV series, Howard wanted something for moviegoers to dissect. 'I really wanted Eden to be a movie, not just a big-screen movie. I love that we're getting it into theaters, but I also wanted it to be a compact story,' Howard explained. 'It's got all these twists and turns, like a little season of a great show like The White Lotus or something like that. I wanted this to be something that you'd see in a compressed amount of time and yet get a feel for all the twists and the impact of what these characters went through [to give audiences] something to chew on and to think about and talk about.' A Trip To The Galápagos Islands Inspired Ron Howard To Make 'Eden' Playing in Thursday previews before opening in theaters nationwide on Friday, Ron Howard's Eden tells the true story of how Dr. Friedrich Ritter (Jude Law) and his wife, Dore Strauch (Vanessa Kirby), flee a crumbling society in Germany in 1929 to begin a new life on the remote isle of Floreana in the Galápagos island chain near Ecuador. Before too long, though, Friderich and Dore's peace is interrupted by new Floreana pioneers Heinz Wittmer (Daniel Brühl), his wife, Margaret (Sydney Sweeney) and Heinz's son, Harry (Jonathan Tittel); as well as a socialite, Eloise Bosquet de Wagner Wehrhorn (Ana de Armas), and her entourage. Eloise, who fancies herself as 'The Baroness,' has grand plans for a resort on the island. However, The Baroness' overprivileged high societal tendencies — as well as deceitful measures — soon cause friction among the small group on an island, leading to mysterious disappearances of some of them and murders of others. While the plight of the group of Floreana islanders has been chronicled before in the 2013 documentary The Galápagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, Howard said his fascination with the story goes back far before the release of that film. 'I had been thinking about this story about six or seven years before the Galápagos documentary appeared. I had encountered this story on a family vacation in the Galápagos,' Howard recalled. 'I had always wanted to go, so we took our kids, who were by then grown kids, young adults. We went and saw the wildlife and it was exceptional, and we did some scuba diving and it was mind-blowing.' However, it was in more of a controlled environment where Howard said he discovered the harrowing tale surrounding the mysterious murders and survival by the group of Floreana settlers in the 1930s. 'We went to the museum and one entire room was dedicated to this Galapagos mystery and these people who had pioneered and disappeared, and the violence that had ensued," Howard recalled. "We could not stop talking about it." Among the things that piqued Howard's interest in the museum exhibit were a pair of books written by survivors Margaret Wittmer and Dore Strauch, both of whom recounted the events in the 1930s in decidedly different fashions. 'I got Margaret Wittmer's book and Dore Strauch's book, which were in the gift shop,' Howard said. ' I read them both, saw that they were kind of pointing their fingers at one another and there were conflicting accounts. Our whole family just couldn't stop talking about it because it's a true crime thriller that really happened. 'On that trip, I started thumbing on my Blackberry — which tells you what era it was — an outline for what a movie version could be,' Howard said. 'I remember [my daughter, actor-director] Bryce [Howard] saying, 'This is a movie, Dad. You should do this.' So, I started collecting information and then some years later, there was the great documentary The Galapagos Affair, which reinforced my excitement about it. The story has been out there. It's been in the public's awareness and I was glad I finally got to make the movie with such a great cast.' And, perhaps best of all for Ron Howard, leaving that comfort zone to tell the story of Eden was a risk worth taking. Howard has certainly been up to similar challenges in the past. After all, he's the young actor who daringly ventured into directing under the auspices of the late prolific indie producer Roger Corman for Grand Theft Auto in 1977, so he's familiar with the territory of realizing a vision guided by passion. The great thing is, Howard is in a position where he can afford to take risks, but ultimately, making a movie that may or may not connect with audiences is a risk that every director on the planet can identify with. Howard's just glad that Vertical had the wherewithal to take the leap with him. 'It's challenging since the studios are a little less adventuresome about what they will support and what they want, but this indie market has emerged as a viable market,' Howard said. 'Actors and directors are also moving back and forth in indies — and also in television, which has its own cinematic feel that is really potent and really powerful. "So, my feeling about it is that, if you're passionate about something — even in this climate where the industry is challenged — you can find your way to make the story you care about, especially if you have some credibility,' Howard added. 'If you can find and rally some strong collaborators, you can find a way — but you have to love it.' Rated R, Eden plays in Thursday previews before opening in theaters nationwide on Friday. Note: Some of the quotes in this interview feature about Eden were condensed or edited for clarity.
Washington Post
13 hours ago
- Washington Post
Alex Katz knows when to shut up. This stunning painting proves it.
Great Works, In Focus • #196 Alex Katz knows when to shut up. This stunning painting proves it. In deceptively simple paintings, Katz squeezes more flavor and subtlety out of color than all but a handful of modern masters. Expand the image Click to zoom in Column by Sebastian Smee August 21, 2025 at 11:05 a.m. EDT 5 minutes ago 3 min Alex Katz, who turned 98 last month, paints paeans to summer. There's much more to his repertoire, of course. But anyone who has kept track of Katz's production over the past seven decades will struggle to disassociate his work from long, glittering afternoons in coastal Maine. Zinging color and painterly dash have always been Katz's strong suits. 'Good Afternoon,' a 1974 painting that hangs in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri, builds on a harmony of blue and green that's as eye-flushing and fresh as on the good afternoon when Katz put down his brushes, having concluded (earlier than most painters, you suspect) that it was finished. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement Borrowing from the idioms of movie close-ups and fashion illustration, Katz squeezes more flavor and subtlety out of color than all but a handful of modern masters. The water here is a uniform field, utterly unruffled, taking up most of the picture. Its drenching turquoise sits on the color spectrum between the blue stripes of the paddler's T-shirt and the stretched green band of distant hills and tufted trees. The way Katz differentiates the reflection of things from the things themselves here is brilliant: He slightly darkens the hue of the canoe's reflection, and then, with a cartoonist's efficiency, simply interrupts the outlines of the reflected boat, oar, arm and hat with a few small, horizontal tears. Katz first took to painting outside in the landscape during a spell at Maine's Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in the late 1940s. He liked to paint briskly. He didn't fuss over things. 'It was a kick, it was a real blast,' he remembered. 'It was like feeling lust for the first time.' In 1954, he and two fellow painters took a summer place in Lincolnville, on the coast. 'Being able to see the Maine light,' he explained, 'helped me separate myself from European painting and find my own eyes.' There's something almost Nabokovian — and never sentimental — in the way Katz distills fleeting visuals into abiding, revivified memory sensations. If pleasure were less a feeling than an empirical entity — something palpable that could be pointed at, conserved, perhaps even measured — Katz would be its loyal keeper. Story continues below advertisement Advertisement His work makes me think about the question of finish and how, exactly, it relates to the creative ordeal of beginning. In an era of visual onslaught, and maximum, digitally enabled elaboration, his eye for distillation often points to a refusal even to begin to describe phenomena — like waves or ripples, for instance — that most other artists wouldn't think to omit. This restraint can give his work the charismatic power of an orator who steps to the lectern, then declines to speak. In fact, I often imagine his loaded brush hovering an inch from the canvas, contemplating whether to mark in a few wavelets around the oar, then quietly, silently withdrawing.
New York Times
19 hours ago
- New York Times
The Makers of ‘BoJack Horseman' Take Family Matters by the Reins
On a recent visit to the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, Raphael Bob-Waksberg, the creator and showrunner of the Netflix animated series 'BoJack Horseman,' was staring quizzically at a glass-and-concrete art piece titled 'Slab Foundation With Glass Opening #2.' 'I'm interested in the art in the glass part of it, but I find the rest of it a little opaque,' he told the cartoonist and former 'BoJack' production designer Lisa Hanawalt, who was hanging out with him that day. 'I want to touch this so bad,' she said. 'Well, just go outside and touch the sidewalk,' Bob-Waksberg replied. 'I touched a Monet once,' she answered. 'It looked so touchable that I just walked up and went, boop. And everyone was like, 'Nooo!'' 'I don't regret it,' she continued. 'It was worth it just to feel how chunky it was.' Longtime collaborators, though still in their early 40s, their latest effort is 'Long Story Short,' a Netflix animated series about the Schwoopers, a dysfunctional family of five living in Northern California. Premiering on Friday, the series is Bob-Waksberg's first solo creation since 'BoJack,' with original art by Hanawalt, the show's supervising producer. The voice cast features several 'BoJack' alumni, including Lisa Edelstein ('House') as the family matriarch and Abbi Jacobson ('Broad City') as Shira Schwooper, the middle sibling. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
