Latest news with #SFMOMA
Eater
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Eater
Jane the Bakery Goes to the Museum
is the regional editor for Eater's Northern California/Pacific Northwest sites, writing about restaurant and bar trends, upcoming openings, and pop-ups for the San Francisco Bay Area, Portland, Seattle, and Denver. The ground-floor restaurant at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is undergoing another reboot, but this time the incoming collaborator is a well-known brand in the San Francisco culinary universe. Jane the Bakery is set to take the place of SFMOMA's previous restaurant, Grace — and before it, Michelin-starred In Situ from chef Corey Lee — and will open as Jane on Third in August 2025, per an SFMOMA press release. Grace permanently closed as of Monday, June 30. This is the seventh location of Jane the Bakery, and this latest will feature a mix of salads, rice bowls, panini, sandwiches, toasts, parfaits, and 'brunchfast.' That portmanteau of a last category features popular brunch and breakfast items, such as a breakfast burrito, French toast, and a sausage biscuit, per the latest menu details. There will also be a coffee program, with the usual suspects, such as espressos, cappuccinos, and lattes, with cold brew on tap. There will also be chai, matcha lattes, turmeric lattes, and a couple of smoothies to round out the drink offerings. Admission will not be required to purchase food or drinks, and there will be seating available both inside and outside the space. Jane the Bakery Vandalism holds back bakery from reopening Yvonne Hines is looking for some help to reopen her Bayview bakery, Yvonne's Southern Sweets, after being struck with some bad luck. First, a fire at a neighboring building forced the shop to close for repairs in January. Hines was looking to reopen, but was struck with another issue: the store's front window was shattered by vandals on June 6, Mission Local reports. Hines needs help from the community to install a new window and a roll-up gate for the bakery via GoFundMe. Possible Safeway strike teed up for Saturday Safeway employees may be striking this weekend if a deal isn't reached between the company and union leaders ahead of a Friday night deadline, KGO reports. The union is fighting for higher wages and better benefits for Safeway workers, and union representatives say employees could strike as soon as 12:01 a.m. on Saturday, July 26. UFCW Union Local 5 is one of three unions representing 25,000 workers, but it's not certain how many stores could be impacted by the strike. A union representative says it could impact Northern California stores, 'As far south as Bakersfield, up to the Oregon border, and everything in between.' Eater SF All your essential food and restaurant intel delivered to you Email (required) Sign Up By submitting your email, you agree to our Terms and Privacy Notice . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
San Francisco Chronicle
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Amy Sherald cancels Smithsonian show, citing removal of transgender painting
Painter Amy Sherald has canceled her upcoming solo exhibition with the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery over concerns a painting of a trangender woman would be removed. 'American Sublime' debuted at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in November 2024. The exhibition was curated by former SFMOMA staff member Sarah Roberts, and is now on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art. Slated to open at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., in September, the show would have been the first by a Black contemporary artist at the museum. 'Trans Forming Liberty' which depicts a Black, transgender woman in the pose of the Statue of Liberty was among the final pieces Sherald finished for the exhibition before it debuted in San Francisco last year. The painting is over 10 feet tall and shows the model wearing a pink wig and blue gown, holding a bouquet in the style of the monument's torch. 'A painting of a transgender woman is a political painting,' Sherald told the Chronicle in November. 'Being Black is political because I think queerness and blackness can be the same where if a whole bunch of Black people start showing up to a space or queer people,' it becomes a Black or queer space, Sherald finished. The New York Times reported that the artist sent a letter to to Lonnie G. Bunch III, the secretary of the Smithsonian, which runs the Portrait Gallery, in part saying: 'I entered into this collaboration in good faith, believing that the institution shared a commitment to presenting work that reflects the full, complex truth of American life. Unfortunately, it has become clear that the conditions no longer support the integrity of the work as conceived.'' Sherald, 51, is best known for her 2018 official portrait of first lady Michelle Obama 'Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama' and the 2020 painting 'Breonna Taylor,' a painting of the 26-year-old emergency medical technician who was fatally shot by police in Louisville after officers forced their way into her home that was commissioned as a cover for Vanity Fair magazine. Born in Columbus, Ga., Sherald lived and worked in Baltimore for much of her career, winning the National Portrait Gallery's Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition in 2016 for her 2014 painting 'Miss Everything (Unsuppressed Deliverance).' 'American Sublime' features nearly 50 paintings and works on paper by Sherald from 2007 to the present. The artist said in a statement reported by the Times that she had been 'informed that internal concerns had been raised' over the painting. 'These concerns led to discussions about removing the work from the exhibition,' her statement said. 'It's clear that institutional fear shaped by a broader climate of political hostility toward trans lives played a role.' In its own statement, SFMOMA backed Sherald. "Amy Sherald is one of the most important portraitists today, and her work celebrates and illuminates our shared humanity. SFMOMA stands by Amy's artistic vision and respects her decision regarding the presentation of her mid-career survey, American Sublime.' In the days after the 2024 election of President Donald Trump, Sherald called it 'a moment where I'm deeply worried about the lives of Black people and queer people.'
Axios
23-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
SFMOMA and YBCA to debut new exhibitions
Two of San Francisco's most celebrated art institutions are debuting a series of new exhibitions through the fall. The latest: Here's the full lineup. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) The museum will unveil six new displays: " People Make This Place: SFAI Stories": An homage to the San Francisco Art Institute's influence on the art world, with works by more than 50 former faculty and alumni. Opens July 26. "New Work": A new commission by fiber artist Sheila Hicks. Opens Aug. 9. " Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love": The retrospective traces six decades of the artist's vibrant paintings and drawings. Opens Sept. 27. "(Re)Constructing History": Showcasing the museum's vast photography collection, anchored by Carrie Mae Weems' landmark series. Opens Oct. 4. "KAWS: FAMILY": Featuring three decades of Brian Donnelly's signature pop-culture-driven art in his first major West Coast exhibit. Opens Nov. 15. "Alejandro Cartagena: Ground Rules": A career-spanning look at the photographer's examination of environmental and social issues. Opens Nov. 22. The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) The fall season opens Aug. 1 with two headlining exhibitions:
San Francisco Chronicle
08-06-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
Kunié Sugiura's groundbreaking art gets long-overdue spotlight at SFMOMA
During a recent morning stroll through her new solo exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Japanese artist Kunié Sugiura paused in front of a wall-size photo of herself that was taken 53 years ago in a New York gallery. 'I don't even know who she is,' said the 82-year-old photographer with a smile, looking bemused at the image of her younger self. In the 1972 photo, Sugiura stands in front of one of her early photocanvases, one similar to those on view in the SFMOMA survey exhibition 'Kunié Sugiura: Photopainting.' It's a semi-abstract photograph of a detail from nature, maybe beach sand, ash or a Central Park stone, which she blew up and then printed by hand on photosensitized canvas, applying graphite to accentuate contrast. The result, like much of Sugiura's work from the 1970s on, looks surprisingly contemporary. She started creating hybrid work that played with the boundaries between photography and painting years before it was popular, and yet Sugiura has only recently received the attention from museums and collectors that she deserves. Just last year, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York bought two of her photopaintings, and the SFMOMA acquired two of the standout images in its exhibition — her 1969 photocanvas 'Yellow Mum,' the cover image of the exhibition's accompanying catalog, published by MACK; and 'Deadend Street' (1978), a sculptural photopainting that juxtaposes a gritty street in Queens, N.Y., with monochromatic black painted panels, divided in the center by empty space. 'Kunié started making color photographs as art at a time when pretty much nobody else was,' explained Erin O'Toole, who curated the SFMOMA show and serves as head of photography at the museum. 'I think that's likely why her work took some time to get attention, because people didn't quite know what to make of it.' O'Toole went on to explain that there was a perceived divide in the art world well into the 1970s between painting, deemed expressive, and photography, regarded as more formal and purely representational — 'Kunié insisted on blurring that boundary.' Unlike the young black-haired artist who exudes tough-girl cool in the 1972 photo, with her arms crossed and her thumbs looped in her bell-bottoms, Sugiura today is calm and cheerful. She said it was gratifying to see more than 60 works from her six decades of artistic experimentationon view together. Touring the newly installed show prompted her to recall positive memories and fruitful, collaborative friendships – like with 94-year-old artist Ushio Shinohara, who's depicted splattering paint with boxing gloves in one of her bold photograms from 1999. 'People might not know this about me, but my life has been the best of the best,' Sugiura said. 'I'm happy I've found a way of life and of working that's stayed interesting for so long.' The SFMOMA exhibition dedicates a room to each chronologically distinct phase in Sugiura's career, spanning from the 1960s to 2021, featuring photocanvases, photopaintings, photograms and x-rays. 'I couldn't believe that her work had never been the subject of a major exhibition in the U.S.,' said O'Toole, who started planning the SFMOMA show after visiting Sugiura in her New York studio three years ago. 'I could already envision how dynamic an exhibition of the full arc of her career could be.' Sugiura was born in Nagoya, Japan, at the height of World War II. Before she turned 2, her father was killed in a U.S. military bombing of the munitions factory where he worked. She showed artistic ability as well as scientific promise from a young age, and enrolled in a women's university in Tokyo to study physics before making the radical decision to apply to art school in the United States. In 1967, just a few days after graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she had been influenced by conceptual photographer Ken Josephson, Sugiura moved to New York and began her ongoing exploration into new ways to approach photography. Her early experimentations involved coating large sheets of canvas with liquid photo emulsion, also called 'liquid light,' which created unique and surprising results. Working at home and at a large scale, she had to use her bathroom as a darkroom and would wash the massive canvases in her tub, wearing a swimsuit to avoid ruining her clothes. She recalled feeling 'very happy' with the results, and it allowed her to marry her science background with creative darkroom improvisation. 'I think like an Impressionist painter,' said Sugiura, 'but I was glad that I didn't have to just do painting because I was very frustrated by it. I also didn't want to just create simple black and whites (with a camera). I saw possibilities in making large images on canvas, a material people assume is for painting.' Her best photopaintings, like 'Deadend Street' (1978), marry Sugiura's eye for natural or architectural detail with an urban sophistication. Unlike Andy Warhol and Robert Rauschenberg, both of whom she cites as influences, she used her own photos, rather than screenprinting mass-media images. Stuck at home during the COVID pandemic, Sugiura revisited her anatomical x-ray series, which she had begun 30 years earlier. During a 1990 hospitalization for a collapsed lung, she became fascinated with the mysterious, anonymous beauty of x-rays which were then printed on thick film stock. 'When I was in the hospital, every four hours they were taking x-rays,' she recalled. 'I said, 'I want to see what you are looking at. I think I could do something very interesting with these images.'' The doctors agreed to give her other patients' discarded films, as long as she blacked out their names (which would surely be a HIPAA violation today). She amassed a sizable collection and created a series of haunting, surprisingly beautiful images. 'X-rays are innocent of gender. Man or woman, we all have the same structure. I might be weird, but I find that beautiful,' she said, standing in front of her large 2021 work 'Vertebra,' a massive grid of spinal column x-rays connected by colorful, interchangeable painted panels. Sugiura said she still makes art almost daily in the same fourth-floor Chinatown loft she's lived and worked in since 1974. 'I used to try to separate living and working, but the whole place is now a place for work,' she said. 'I work every day as much as I can, and I love it.'
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.
