Artists Gallery Exhibitions

Overview

In keeping with its mission to promote Northern California art, the SFMOMA Artists Gallery presents eight exhibitions each year in its main gallery. Focusing on both new and established artists, the exhibition program consists of solo, group, and thematic shows, and represents a diverse range of art practices, including painting, sculpture, photography, and new media works.

As an extension of the gallery's exhibition program at Fort Mason, solo shows featuring selected gallery artists are on view year-round at SFMOMA's Caffè Museo.

All exhibited works are available for rent or purchase. Please contact the Artists Gallery at 415.441.4777 or artistsgallery@sfmoma.org for more information.

Currently at Fort Mason

Carol Lefkowitz, Toru Sugita, Juan Miguel Santiago

January 12 – February 21, 2013

Opening reception: Saturday, January 12, 2013
1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.

Carol Lefkowitz employs a palette of greens, blues, browns, and an echo of yellow to create graphic patterns that convey rhythm and stillness. By modulating the levels of paint transparency and opacity, and manipulating the tonal values, Lefkowitz offers the audience what she terms, "image-less space."

In this show, artist Toru Sugita presents black-and-white etchings of architectural elements such as bridges, buildings, and utility poles as well as a series of color wood-block prints of landscapes. His prints use a range of grayscale values to reproduce visual information such as distance and proximity, light and shadow, and the relationship of objects to each other. These pictorial elements allow Sugita to explore the physicality of three dimensional space. Originally from Japan, now lives in the Bay Area.

Juan Miguel Santiago is an artist who creates works that explore notions of memory and place. For this exhibition, Santiago will present a series of ceramic sculptures entitled, Place of Origin. These geometric forms placed in a linear organization present the viewer with both a façade and an interior. Santiago exploits the ability of sculpture to present visual information in the round as well as in relief in order to communicate the complexity of experience.

Carol Lefkowitz, Untitled #178, 2012; photo: courtesy the artist

Carol Lefkowitz, Untitled #174, 2012; photo: courtesy the artist

Carol Lefkowitz, Untitled #176, 2012; photo: courtesy the artist

Toru Sugita, Solitude: China Camp, 2012; photo: courtesy the artist

Toru Sugita, Forlorn, 2010; photo: courtesy the artist

Toru Sugita, Humoto: Northeastern Edge, 2011; photo: courtesy the artist

Juan Miguel Santiago, Place of Origin, 2009; photo: courtesy the artist

Juan Miguel Santiago, Place of Origin (detail), 2009; photo: courtesy the artist

Currently at Caffe Museo

Jo Ann Biagini

January 10 – February 12, 2013

Bay Area artist Jo Ann Biagini begins with pages from discarded books as a surface to draw and paint. She develops the work in layers, adding images of insects, animals, and plants. Manipulating scale, line, color, and form, she obscures and reveals elements in the pictures, offering a distinct experience in visual language.

Jo Ann Biagini, The World of Birds, 2011; photo: Sibila Savage

Jo Ann Biagini, Crustacea, 2011; photo: Sibila Savage

Jo Ann Biagini, Undersea Life, 2011; photo: Sibila Savage

Jo Ann Biagini, Dinosaurs, 2011; photo: Sibila Savage

Jo Ann Biagini, Seedlings, 2011; photo: Sibila Savage

Jo Ann Biagini, Yellow Daises, 2011; photo: Sibila Savage

Currently at SFMOMA Garage Windows

Oakland²

September 22, 2012 - June 1, 2013
147 Minna and 150 Natoma Streets

Members of the Oakland-based collaborative 5 Ton Crane, creators of the public art installation Raygun Gothic Rocket Ship on San Francisco's Embarcadero, compose a series of large-scale, multimedia artworks representing various urban locations in Oakland. In each of the SFMOMA Garage Windows on Minna and Natoma Streets, viewers will find up to 80 individually created artworks that together make up a whole. Over 40 participants from 5 Ton Crane's diverse group of artists, "geeks," and inventors participated in this true collaborative effort that highlights seven different Oakland locations.

5 Ton Crane, Crane Grid, 2012; photo: courtesy the artists

Upcoming at Caffe Museo

Cynthia Schuman

February 14 – March 12, 2013

Trained as a figurative painter, San Francisco artist Cynthia Schuman found a natural transition to Color-field painting. She discovered that the expressiveness of abstract painting granted her newfound freedom in her creative process. Working horizontally and manipulating the canvas, she adds metallic powders and crushed crystal that become encased in jewel-like paintings in a spectrum of colors.