Latest news with #SFMOMA
Yahoo
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
How to Build a Culture
Earlier this week, the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles, originally expected to open in 2023, announced another delay until 2026 and confirmed it had already cut a significant portion of its full-time team. Likewise, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art recently laid off 29 staff amid a projected $5 million deficit. Theaters in Berkeley and Los Angeles have, in recent years, suspended seasons or warned of closure. Even the Philadelphia Orchestra has experienced ongoing difficulties since merging with its performing arts center to remain solvent in 2021. Across the country, cultural institutions are shrinking, consolidating, or disappearing. Amid this physical disappearing is also a philosophical one: Many institutions have lost clarity about whom they serve or why they exist. The League of American Orchestras offers a clear example. Over the past decade, the League has received nearly $1.2 million from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), much of it in support of initiatives centered on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Through programs like the Catalyst Fund, Inclusive Stages, and the League's Equity Resource Center, the League has framed DEI not as one priority among others, but as the defining lens for how orchestras should understand their purpose, their audiences, and their internal structures. Increasingly, the work of cultural institutions justifies itself through language and policy frameworks that are largely internal to the field. The link between funding and the public has frayed. Federal programs have mirrored that drift. The NEA's grant language in recent years emphasized 'capacity building,' 'access strategies,' and 'administrative equity plans.' ArtsHERE, launched in 2023, directed over $12 million toward 'equity-centered frameworks,' focused more on internal processes than public-facing work. The long-term cultural impact of these efforts remains unclear. But that approach is now being reassessed. Whether or not the Trump administration succeeds in eliminating the NEA and other cultural agencies, the programs funded via these agencies are no longer assumed to reflect the public interest. For the first time in years, there is an opening to reconsider how public funding in the arts should be used and what it should be used for. Some ventures already point the way. The Lamp, founded in 2020, is a journal of Catholic arts and letters supported by a small team and the Catholic University of America. It has built a national readership through editorial seriousness and clarity of purpose. Wiseblood Books, founded in 2013, is a small Southern press publishing fiction, poetry, and monographs grounded in craft and moral imagination. Both have earned attention through focus and substance, despite working with limited resources. They show what becomes possible when good work is pursued steadily and with conviction. Yet efforts like these remain rare. One way to replicate these efforts would be for the NEA to create its own cultural accelerator—a short-term program focused on helping serious new institutions take root. The model exists in other fields. Y Combinator, one of the best-known startup incubators, has launched companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, and Stripe by offering early-stage ventures structure, mentorship, and a public debut. The goal is to help founders establish the conditions for something lasting. Such a model could serve the arts. Each year, a small cohort of groups could be selected based on artistic merit, public purpose, and clarity of vision. These might include a regional theater company, a music ensemble, a press, or a journal of letters and criticism. Participants would receive direct support for legal incorporation, fiscal sponsorship, board development, and strategic planning. They would also receive modest seed funding to design their first season, publication cycle, or exhibition. Finally, each group would be formally launched in partnership with a national institution, giving them public validation and immediate reach. These public partnerships would be particularly critical, as they would give new ventures a clear point of entry into cultural life. A chamber ensemble might debut at the Kennedy Center. A press could collaborate with the Library of Congress to republish forgotten works. A community archive might curate an exhibition with the American Folklife Center. These affiliations would not guarantee success, but they would offer visibility, legitimacy, and an audience. Most early-stage institutions never get that chance. Making their work visible from the start would raise expectations and the stakes. This kind of support would fill a gap in the NEA's current structure. Most of its funding supports specific projects—performances, exhibitions, research, or short-term community engagements—not the formation of institutions. Rather than steering artistic content or reinforcing messaging, the NEA would identify promising founders, coordinate institutional partners, and provide structural tools for early success. The goal would equip serious efforts to begin well—and let the venture do the work of growing well. Such a program would raise familiar questions. What happens if a group draws criticism? What if leadership changes shift priorities? Those are valid questions, but those risks are already part of every public arts program. What matters is whether judgment is applied with seriousness and tied to some shared understanding of the public good. This kind of work has a foundation. The English philosopher and critic Roger Scruton wrote that beauty is a value to be pursued for its own sake. It draws us out of ourselves and teaches us to care for what we inherit and what we make. Beauty invites memory, responsibility, and the desire to preserve. Public arts funding should support work shaped with that kind of intention—not because it looks a certain way, but because it reaches toward permanence. This vision is not theoretical. By the end of the decade, new institutions could be thriving across the country. A sacred music ensemble in Ohio might perform monthly in historic churches. A regional press could republish forgotten authors and release new fiction set in or inspired by local towns. A theater company might stage both contemporary and classic works for local audiences and schools. These groups would be independent and public-serving. We know this is possible. In Los Angeles, choreographer Lincoln Jones built American Contemporary Ballet from the ground up. Without public funding or institutional backing, he created a company defined by musical integrity, formal precision, and belief in the continuing relevance of classical ballet. Today, it performs both original and canonical works to full houses. His success is not common, but it is instructive. A cultural accelerator would not replace such work. It would give more artists the tools to follow through on what they are already building. The point of such a proposal is to build institutions that carry meaning and serve the public. It is to restore the idea that art is not just for the moment, but for memory. And it is to remind us that culture is not something we inherit intact or outsource. It is something we build—deliberately, carefully—with the courage to create what deserves to endure.
San Francisco Chronicle
08-05-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
SFMOMA employees say leadership is avoiding them after sudden layoffs
A scheduled in-person meeting between leadership at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and its staff to address recent layoffs was canceled, according to the museum workers' union. 'Here's a visual representation of the Museum's current accountability for their decisions to layoff union staff,' read a caption for a photo of an empty conference room posted to Instagram by the SFMOMA Union on Wednesday, April 7. It concluded with a message of protest: 'Cut from the Top. No Layoffs.' SFMOMA confirmed with the Chronicle that the meeting scheduled for 9:30 a.m. Thursday, May 8, was held online and concluded before 10 a.m. A museum spokesperson added that the executive team, including Director Christopher Bedford, would make themselves available for in-person office hours to meet directly with staff. The last-minute cancellation of the in-person staff meeting came a day after the museum's announcement that it laid off 29 employees, or about 7.5% of its total workforce, including more than two dozen union members. Thirteen additional positions, either vacant or soon-to-be, were also eliminated. According to the union, 26 members were dismissed 'with no notice.' In response, union leaders called on staff to wear black and protest during the originally scheduled in-person meeting. The museum said that 'enhanced' severance packages were provided to union employees. In a letter to the community, Bedford called the layoffs 'difficult' but necessary, citing persistent declines in attendance and broader financial challenges. 'We continue to grapple with some hard realities,' Bedford wrote, noting that the museum is adapting to a 'new normal' of approximately 600,000 annual visitors — a substantial decline from the 892,000 reported in 2019. The move follows a previous round of cuts in November 2023, when SFMOMA eliminated 20 positions in response to a 35% drop in attendance since before the pandemic.
San Francisco Chronicle
08-05-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘No notice': Union slams SFMOMA's surprise layoffs as museum cites financial strain
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art laid off 29 employees, sparking sharp backlash from workers and their representatives. The layoffs, announced Wednesday, May 7, constitute about 7.5% of SFMOMA's workforce and include more than two dozen union members. 'SFMOMA is laying off 26 union members today with no notice,' the union said. It called on staff to wear black and protest at a scheduled all-staff meeting scheduled for Thursday, May 8, urging the museum to 'CUT FROM THE TOP' instead of front-line workers. SFMOMA Director Christopher Bedford acknowledged the job cuts in a letter to the community, describing the decision as 'difficult' but necessary. 'We continue to grapple with some hard realities,' Bedford wrote, citing persistent declines in attendance and broader financial challenges. He said the museum is adapting to a 'new normal' of roughly 600,000 annual visitors, down from pre-pandemic levels (SFMOMA counted 892,000 visitors in 2019), and must scale back accordingly. The reduction in staff affected union and non-union employees, and included 20 full-time and nine part-time roles. Thirteen vacant or soon-to-be-vacant positions were also eliminated. The museum noted that 'enhanced' severance packages were offered to union employees. In November 2023, SFMOMA cut 20 positions, citing a 35% drop in attendance since 2019. Despite popular recent exhibitions, including shows by Yayoi Kusama and Ruth Asawa, and its annual Art Bash fundraiser generating more than $2 million in April, Bedford emphasized that tourism and foot traffic downtown remain sluggish. He said that museum leaders are exploring new revenue streams and hoping to grow philanthropic support. 'As these efforts take root, we must continue to be vigilant about our budget and make critical decisions to reduce costs and scale the institution in alignment with our current context,' Bedford said. 'Those reductions, unfortunately, include expenses both unrelated and related to our staff.' The union's bargaining team met Wednesday afternoon to demand answers, saying it will 'begin our fight back on these unjustified layoffs.'
San Francisco Chronicle
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco lauds Ruth Asawa in stunning SFMOMA homecoming
There's a moment in 'Ruth Asawa: Retrospective' that overwhelmed me as an admirer of the San Francisco artist. Turning the corner in the fourth-floor galleries, I entered a space designed to evoke the living room of Asawa's Noe Valley home, where she lived with her husband, architect Albert Lanier, and their six children, from 1961 until her death. Aged wood and a sense of lived-in warmth put me in the center of Asawa's work as an artist, mother and arts education advocate. The house, where Asawa also kept her studio, was a center of family, community and her arts education advocacy. Dominating the far wall is a photo from 1969 by Rondal Patridge of the room in all its working beauty. Asawa's daughter Addie Lanier and son Paul Lanier and neighborhood kids sit at a large table, baker's clay figures in the foreground. The family dog, Henry, sits in a child's lap. Among the art in the picture are examples of the hanging, looped-wire sculptures for which Asawa is best known. Several of those same sculptures now hang above visitors in the gallery, high enough that you can walk under and stare up into them. 'It was definitely emotional for everybody,' said Henry Weverka, the president of Ruth Asawa Lanier Inc. As Asawa's grandson, he knows that room intimately. 'I think that picture encapsulates my childhood and who my grandmother was.' Janet Bishop, the chief curator of SFMOMA and co-curator of 'Ruth Asawa' with Cara Manes of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, called the living room gallery a testament to the 'seamlessness' of Asawa's life and work. More Information 'It was important to me not to create an artificial separation between Asawa's studio practice and her family life,' said Bishop. 'The house was an epicenter of her production.' 'Ruth Asawa Retrospective" has been in the works for five years and contains more than 300 objects. It is the (overdue) celebration the artist merits. Asawa (1926-2013) remains an enormous presence in San Francisco, with a large concentration of her numerous public projects in the Bay Area found here. Since her death there have been multiple smaller shows of her work across the globe. 'Asawa has had this tremendous resurgence, but my aunts, uncles and my mother have been working at this for 65 years now,' said Weverka, the son of Addie. 'They were the ones who were helping with her public commissions, coiling wire with her in the 1950s, starting to tell her story long before she passed away.' Asawa spent her childhood in Norwalk (Los Angeles County) the fourth of seven children born to Japanese immigrant farmers. Riding on the back of her father's tractor, she would drag her feet in the dirt and watch the curved, symmetrical shapes they would make in the dust. Asawa's daughter Aiko Cuneo said that farm life was one of the experiences that gave Asawa the discipline and work ethic that became central to her art. In 1942, Asawa and her family were incarcerated by the United States as part of Executive Order 9022, the Japanese Internment policy during World War II. Her family was taken to a camp in Rohwer, Ark., but her father was separated from the family and taken to a different camp. To have this exhibition mounted now, as the government again forcibly removes immigrants and their families from their homes is a dark parallel that hangs in the air like one of Asawa's sculptures. But it's also a show filled with beauty, and Asawa's life is a testimony to the triumph of hope and creativity over fear and division. 'Retrospective' begins by tracing Asawa's time at Black Mountain College in North Carolina following her incarceration where she studied with Josef Albers, his wife textile and printmaker Anni Albers, and geodesic dome pioneer Buckminster Fuller (who designed Asawa's sterling silver river rock wedding ring, which is on view.) Asawa's early fascination with repetition is on display in her 'Meandering' drawings, and the organic shapes that would define her sculptures, most notably on an untitled 1948-49 cut paper on plywood work. There's also her earliest experiments with wire using the basket making technique she learned on a 1947 trip to Mexico, beginning with the looped wire basket in which the Albers kept their mail from 1948-49. 'Her experience at Black Mountain was profound, there were so many ways in which it clicked for her, tapping into her natural resourcefulness and openness to using any sorts of materials,' said Bishop. In 1949, Asawa married fellow Black Mountain College student Lanier in San Francisco, and the 1950s began one of the most productive periods of her life. She not only gave birth to four of the family's six children (two are adopted), but she also began creating the hanging looped wire sculptures that are among her signatures. The galleries with suspended works from that same era feel like walking under the sea amid kelp and creatures of the deep. To see so many of these sculptures at once shows the variety of shape, color wire (from black to copper and gold) as well as the repetition of motifs. Explorations of Asawa's public commissions also feature in the show, including the famed 'San Francisco Fountain' in Union Square from 1973, with figures formed in bakers' clay by Asawa and students from the Alvarado School Arts Workshop then cast in bronze (a touchable test panel is on display), and the nursing mermaid 'Andrea's Fountain' from 1968 in Ghiradelli Square. The connections to Asawa's arts education advocacy and motherhood are easily apparent. Some of Asawa's bronze and clay masks of friends and family members are on display, along with casts of Weverka's hands and feet. A garden on a terrace overlooking Third Street is meant to remind people of the importance of Lanier and Asawa's Noe Valley garden as part of her work, and it sets the stage for the wall mounted and standing tied wire sculptures that echo branches, trees and flowers. Likewise, Asawa's watercolors of fruit, vegetables and flowers, and the botanical drawings from the last decades of her life. In so many of these works on paper, the organic, connecting shapes of the looped wire sculptures still feel ever-present. 'Everything is completely connected,' said Weverka. 'To understand the origins of her work and where she went with it, so many years later, and her continuous exploration of material and form and motif is important. Everything starts from the center and moves outward, and the connectivity across all mediums is always there.'
Time Business News
26-04-2025
- Lifestyle
- Time Business News
Homes for Sale in San Francisco, CA: Embrace Urban Living in the City by the Bay
San Francisco, California, is one of the most iconic cities in the world, known for its stunning vistas, vibrant culture, and diverse neighborhoods. With its rich history, world-class dining, and unparalleled views of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco offers a unique blend of urban sophistication and natural beauty. Whether you're looking for a charming Victorian home, a modern condo, or a luxurious penthouse with breathtaking views, San Francisco CA homes for sale provide a variety of options in this dynamic, world-renowned city. Why Choose San Francisco, CA? San Francisco is a world-class city with something for everyone. Here are just a few reasons why San Francisco is the perfect place to call home: Unmatched cultural and artistic scene : San Francisco is home to a thriving arts and culture community, with museums like the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), historical landmarks like Alcatraz Island, and a vibrant music and theater scene. 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National and International Travel – San Francisco International Airport (SFO) connects you to global destinations, making it easy for frequent travelers to get to anywhere in the world. Find Your Dream Home in San Francisco, CA If you're looking for homes for sale in San Francisco CA , now is the time to explore all the opportunities this vibrant city has to offer. With its rich history, diverse neighborhoods, world-class amenities, and stunning views, San Francisco provides an extraordinary lifestyle for those who call it home. Let Diamond Real Estate Group help you find the perfect home in San Francisco. With our in-depth knowledge of the Bay Area real estate market, we'll guide you through the home-buying process and help you secure the ideal property for your needs. Contact us today to start your journey to homeownership in San Francisco, California. TIME BUSINESS NEWS
