Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture, Gallery 308
Jan. 13–March 10
Bonnie Ora Sherk was a local champion of overlooked urban spaces. This show, curated by SFMOMA’s Tanya Zimbardo, is the artist’s first posthumous retrospective (Sherk died in 2021 at the age of 76), and charts her practice of public installations, performances and long-term, radical and DIY projects, like the one she’s best known for, Crossroads Community (The Farm). In honor of Sherk’s (literally) groundbreaking work, the show will culminate in a pop-up urbanism/urban planning symposium in March.
Zanele Muholi, ‘Eye Me’
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Jan. 18–Aug. 11
Zanele Muholi, a self-described visual activist, has long used photography to represent both their own experiences and those of the LGBTQ+ community in South Africa. This show brings together Muholi’s arresting photos (including their self-portraits from the Somnyama Ngonyama series, where everyday objects become dramatic props) with paintings, sculpture and video — in total, over 100 works from the past 20 years. After appearances in group shows like the Contemporary Jewish Museum’s 2019 Show Me As I Want to Be Seen, it’s exciting to get an entire exhibition devoted to Muholi’s powerful work.
Stanford University, Piggot Theater
Jan. 18, 5–9:30 p.m.
The Museum of Trans Hirstory and Art (MOTHA), which some may remember from the Oakland Museum of California’s fantastic, expansive Queer California show, is celebrating the release of its first major publication (!) with an evening of performance, discussion, music and readings. Like the book’s “capacious selection” of 99 significant objects, written about by 100 contributors, this variety show includes a dreamy assembly of local and further-flung talents, including Susan Stryker (Screaming Queens), MOTHA director Chris E. Vargas, artists Geo Wyex and Leila Weefur and The Indigo Menace of the Stanford Drag Troupe. Grab a seat, pick up a book and enjoy a night of lively hirstory.
San José Museum of Art
Jan. 18–April 21
The multidisciplinary research group Forensic Architecture merges art, data science, journalism and activism with their investigations into issues like the Beirut port explosion, police brutality at Black Lives Matter protests, and, in this presentation, a petrochemical corridor along the Mississippi River. Their research on “Death Alley,” Louisiana traces a 300-year history of environmental racism, where the cemeteries of enslaved people are threatened by even more petrochemical facilities. Using methods like 3D modeling, pattern analysis and fluid dynamics, Forensic Architecture explores the many factors affecting residents’ human rights, all within a language that can be strategically deployed to fight such violations.
Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, Pier 2 & 3
Jan. 18–21, (preview gala on Jan. 17)
San Francisco’s most luxuriously carpeted fair turns 10 this year, bigger than ever and with an expansion onto Pier 2 (aka the former San Francisco Institute of Art campus). FOG FOCUS, designed to showcase work by “young and underrepresented artists,” features galleries like Los Angeles’ Commonwealth and Council, Oakland’s Johansson Projects and San Francisco’s Schlomer Haus Gallery, along with a selection of publications by local small presses. The whole Bay Area pulls out the stops this weekend, so be sure to see what your favorite spots are up to, or peruse the “official” guide to San Francisco Art Week. Hot tip: FOG programming brings in a raft of great thinkers and speakers, so consider timing your visit for a specifically interesting roundtable discussion.
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland
Jan. 20–March 24
Just before her death in 2021, painter Hung Liu began speaking with the MCAM about organizing a show of the women artists she taught during her nearly 30 years as a professor at Mills. This show brings together names like Rosana Castrillo Diaz, Danielle Lawrence, Sandra Ono and Mel Prest — artists with vastly different styles and subject matter — on the campus where they once received encouragement and critique from Liu. It’s a fitting memorial for an artist who continues, through the legacy of her influence, to shape Bay Area culture.
