This spring there is a bounty of visual art options exploring identity and significant moments in our culture. Ancient Chinese kingdoms are to be reexamined, a premier Oakland art center celebrates its 50th anniversary, and artists explore the concept of work in a highly anticipated group show.
‘Day Jobs’
How often have artists heard the question “but what’s your day job?” This show curated by Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center Director Veronica Roberts invites 36 American artists to ponder how the necessity of work for financial survival has shaped the visual arts. This new iteration traveling from the Blanton Museum of Art at the University of Texas at Austin will include a larger selection of works by California artists, including Margaret Kilgallen, Jay Lynn Gomez, Barbara Kruger, Ahree Lee, Jim Campbell, Narsiso Martinez and Sandy Rodriguez.
11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. March 6-July 21. Free. Cantor Arts Center, 328 Lomita Drive at Museum Way, Palo Alto. 650-723-4177. www.museum.stanford.edu
‘Place: Reckonings by Asian American Artists’
The Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose and Montalvo Arts Center will present “Place: Reckonings by Asian American Artists,” a joint exhibition at the two campuses. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of Montalvo’s Sally and Don Lucas Artists Residency Program, the showcase will feature 11 California-based Asian American artists including Ranu Mukherjee, Wanxin Zhang and Stephanie Syjuco, and the artist collectives Mail Order Brides and Related Tactics.
The show, co-curated by Montalvo’s Judy Koong Dennis and ICA SJ’s Zoë Latzer, ties the history of racism in America to the Villa Montalvo site a century ago when it was the home of California Sen. James Duval Phelan, remembered largely for his racist policies aimed at preventing Chinese, Japanese and Korean immigration. The exhibition will culminate in a symposium on the Montalvo campus.
Noon- 5 p.m. Thursday-Sunday. March 23-Aug. 11. Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose, 560 First St., San Jose. 408-283-8155. www.icasanjose.org. •8 a.m.-sunset. March 23-Aug. 11. Montalvo Arts Center, 15400 Montalvo Road, Saratoga. 408-961-5858. www.montalvoarts.org
‘Irving Penn’
Irving Penn was one of the most celebrated photographers of the 20th century, with a career that encompassed everything from fashion and portraiture to documentary photos and even cheeky images of food. This exhibition will celebrate Penn’s diversity as an artist with a special focus on images photographed during San Francisco’s legendary Summer of Love movement in 1967.
9:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. March 16-July 24. $15-$30. De Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, S.F. 415-750-3600. deyoung.famsf.org
‘!!!!!’
In the first solo museum exhibition in the United States for British artist Rachel Jones, a new series of 12 oil pastel landscapes will make its debut. The works aim to challenge and combine previous aesthetics of the artist to create images that will blur the lines between the figurative and abstract. Curated by Erin Jenoa Gilbert, the series is inspired by Black writers and the distinct visual and audio style of cartoons.
11 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. March 27-Sept. 1. Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission St., S.F. 415-358-7200. www.moadsf.org
‘Creative Growth: The House That Art Built’
As part of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s partnership with Creative Growth, the Oakland art center for the developmentally disabled, the museum will host an exhibition celebrating its first 50 years. In addition to a new Bay Area Walls mural commission painted by Creative Growth artist William Scott, the show itself will include work by Dan Miller, Camille Holvoet, Judith Scott, Susan Janow, Dwight Mackintosh, John Martin, Donald Mitchell, William Scott and Ron Veasey.
1-8 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Monday. April 6-Oct. 6. $19-$25. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., S.F. 415-357-4000. www.sfmoma.org
‘Phoenix Kingdoms: The Last Splendor of China’s Bronze Age’
This look at the lost Bronze Age kingdoms along the Yangzi River from the Zhou dynasty will include more than 150 artworks from five Chinese museums exploring the art, lives and spirituality of the cultures that were eventually conquered by the Qin Shi Huangdi empire.
Curated by Fan J. Zhang, the exhibition is centered on the ancient Zeng and Chu phoenix-worshiping states. Many of the objects are recent archaeological discoveries that will be exhibited for the first time.
1-8 p.m. Thursday; 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Friday-Monday. April 19-July 22. $20. Asian Art Museum, 200 Larkin St., S.F. www.asianart.org
‘A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration’
The “Great Migration,” the 1940-1970 period when Black Southerners began to move throughout the country, created communities in the Northeast, Midwest and West, forever broadening the culture of these regions. (Between those years, the Bay Area’s own Black American population increased by nearly 300,000.)
In the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive’s major spring show, 12 contemporary artists including Mark Bradford, Zoë Charlton, Theaster Gates Jr. and Carrie Mae Weems will present specially commissioned pieces capturing the reverberations of that period.
11 a.m.-7 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. April 13-Sept. 22. $10-$14. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2155 Center St., Berkeley. 510-642-0808. www.bampfa.org
Reach Tony Bravo: tbravo@sfchronicle.com
