What’s on now at San Francisco museums, April 23 to 30

Shows opening soon

• “Kunié Sugiura: Photopainting,” April 26 at SFMOMA.
• “Buttons On!” the first-ever retrospective for artist Beau McCall at the Museum of Craft and Design, opens May 11.

Shows closing soon

• Chinese in the Richmond, at the Chinese Historical Society of America, closes May 4.
• “Dress Rehearsal: The Art of Theatrical Design”  at the Legion of Honor will close May 11.

The gallery scene

Ashley Voss at Voss Gallery, on the corner of 24th and Bartlett streets, developed a local gallery guide that she updates weekly. Check out the guide’s Instagram account and website.

At the museums

The Chinese Historical Society of America

This museum is new to our list, thanks to Maya Michael, the archives and public programs coordinator, who alerted me to the society at 965 Clay St. It has a rich offering of exhibits and public programs, including “Chinese in the Richmond,” which documents that history and closes on May 4. Replacing it and opening on May 10 will be “Challenging a White-Washed History: Chinese Laundries in the U.S.”

Also at the museum: “We are Bruce Lee: Under the Sky, one family,” and “Living in Chinatown: Memories in Miniature,” sculptures by Frank Wong, who attended Galileo High School, became a set designer and now lives in Chinatown.

Asian Art Museum

“Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War” features works from the video artist’s show representing Taiwan at the 60th Venice Biennale. It is the artist’s first North American solo show.

The Art Newspaper listed it as one of the must-see shows at the 2024 Biennale.

The museum also has a series, “Take Out Tuesdays,” where you can meet online to talk about a piece of art with docents and others. 

General admission is free on the first Sunday of every month, and the special exhibitions are discounted. Here is more information for free and reduced-cost admission. 

Coming up: The Spring Art Market on the first weekend in May.

SFMOMA

The museum’s “Ruth Asawa: Retrospective” is open, and Mission Local contributor Teresa Moore calls it “astonishing.” The exhibit, Moore writes, illustrates that “there was no line between living a full life and making astonishing art, no limits on inspiration, no place that wasn’t a good place for creation and appreciation.” 

The exhibit, which includes more than 300 works, follows a loose chronology, from Asawa’s student years at Black Mountain College through her later years raising a family in Noe Valley. Read our full review here.

Upcoming events:

Sunday, April 27, 2 p.m.

Talk: “Imprints: Asawa and Friends.” RSVP here.

Thursday, May 1, 4–8 p.m.

Free First Thursday: Create and Connect

Inspired by Ruth Asawa’s dedication to using art as a means of collaboration and community building, this First Thursday event, curated by Ruth’s Table, invites visitors to take part in one of Asawa’s signature hands-on art making activities. Led by SCRAP and Asawa’s daughter Aiko Cuneo.

The evening also features a special performance by Nobuko Miyamoto, created as an offering to Asawa. Event details here.

“Kunié Sugiura: Photopainting,” opens on Saturday the 26th of April. From the website: “The exhibition charts the arc of Sugiura’s long career, beginning with undergraduate work from her Cko series that reflects her sense of isolation as a foreign student in Chicago. Prints made after her move to New York in 1967 demonstrate her use of canvas as a support and new process of working on a large scale.” The work is mesmerizing.

Photography should figure big into your museum visit. The photography of Group f.64, a collective dedicated to “true” photography, rejected photos that mimicked painting. The collective included Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Edward Weston and contemporaries like Hiromu Kira. It will be up until July 2025. 

The SFMOMA is also displaying Kara Walker’s “Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine),” an installation that touches on power dynamics and the exploitation of race and sexuality. In its review, The San Francisco Chronicle wrote that the concepts “feel ambitious and epic, yet the ability to get close to it lends the piece an intimate quality.”  I found it more perplexing.

The New York Times reviews the installation here, writing that Walker “is highlighting the superhuman capabilities of A.I. as only she can.”  

“Table Manners” features nearly 100-year-old tableware, flatware and drinkware. The exhibit explores the dining experiences across different cultures.

The 2024 SECA Art Award exhibition celebrates local artists Rose D’Amato, Angela Hennessy, and Rupy C. Tut.

Here is some of their work.

Admission is free on the first Thursday of every month for Bay Area residents, although it is recommended you reserve your ticket in advance. Here is information for free and reduced-price admission. 

de Young Museum

“Isaac Julien: I Dream a World,” is open at the de Young Museum. A review on KQED calls the show “thrilling.” The first U.S. retrospective of the London-born video artists features 10 major video installations and explores various themes, including migration and museum appropriation of African artists.

A show of Paul McCartney’s photographs opened on March 1. It includes photographs from December 1963 through February 1964, a period that covers the beginning of the Beatles’ journey from Liverpool, England, to their arrival in the United States and their guest appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. The show will be on through July 6, 2025.

Henri Matisse’s “Jazz Unbound” celebrates the museum’s 2024 acquisition of “Jazz,” the artist’s 1947 artist book on the circus and theater. The exhibit includes 20 color stencil prints and will be up until July 6, 2025.

Legion of Honor

The museum is showing “Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art,” which includes some 60 pieces from his six-decade career, focusing on his “passionate engagement with art history.”  Open through Aug. 17, 2025.

It offers an eye into Thiebaud’s influences, including Edouard Manet, Giorgio Morandi and Richard Diebenkorn. Guess what paintings inspired each of these from Thiebaud?

And check out the March cake picnic that our reporter Abigail Vân Neely documented.

To celebrate the Legion of Honor’s centennial, “Dress Rehearsal: The Art of Theatrical Design” displays costume and set designs inspired by two themes: The history of theater and dance, and the establishment of the Legion of Honor. It will be open through May 11, 2025.

You can view the Legion of Honor’s full list of exhibitions here.

Admission is free every Saturday for Bay Area residents, and the first Tuesday of every month for everyone.

California Academy of Sciences

It is “Dino Days” at the California Academy of Sciences, with 13 life-size animatronic dinosaurs that you can see here in an Insta post.

And on Friday, the museum opens “Unseen Oceans,” a a traveling exhibition produced by the American Museum of Natural History. One of the coolest offerings: Being able to hop into the “driver’s seat of a submersible with a digital interactive game.”

In the Steinhart Aquarium, the “Venom: Fangs, Stingers, and Spines” exhibit is featured, celebrating the aquarium’s 100th year. See stunning visuals at the Morrison Planetarium, a 75-foot dome that transports viewers to the universe beyond planet earth. The Osher Rainforest features 1,600+ live plants and animals in a rainforest-like dome that stretches 90 feet above ground.

Make sure to plan ahead and see the admission and ticketing page for more information. Also, see how you can get a free or reduced rate for your next visit. 

The Tenderloin Museum

“Lady Harriet Sebastian: The Bridgemen,” will be on view on April 3. It is a single painting done by Sebastian, who lived and worked in the Tenderloin for 25 years.

I did not know about the Tenderloin Museum until the San Francisco Chronicle wrote about its planned expansion to 10,000 square feet from 3,000, adding a room for San Francisco’s neon history, including a sign from Hunt’s Donuts, once based in the Mission District and known as the “epicenter of crime.” I so miss the sign that Prubechu painted over in 2019. It was not neon, but nevertheless history. At any rate, I digress.

We caught up with the museum’s preservation of trans history and culture.

There is a lot more going on at the Tenderloin Museum, including the permanent collection that explores the neighborhood’s history and upcoming events, such as a walking tour focused on the area’s LGBTQIA+ history. Other walking tours are listed here.

The Walt Disney Family Museum

The museum is showing rare objects featured in the book “Walt Disney Treasures: Personal Art and Artifacts from The Walt Disney Family Museum.” The objects will change every two months.

Visit the museum’s website for more information on admission costs and reduced ticketing options. 

Exploratorium

Experience After Dark at Pier 15. Every Thursday evening, immerse yourself in more than 700 interactive exhibits. For people 18 and older. The museum advertises a carefree environment with new themes each night. Here is information for reduced admission.  

Museum of Craft and Design (MCD)

Two new exhibits open on May 10: “Buttons On,” the first retrospective for Beau McCall, who has had a 40-year career creating art with buttons.  It is pretty crazy and wonderful what can happen when a particular child sees a jar of buttons collected by his mom. The NewsHour did a piece on the artist:

Also opening on May 10: “A Roadmap to Stardust.” The museum’s website calls it “a modern inquiry into the cosmos and humankind’s eagerness to explore distant planets.” 

The Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

See the center’s website for offerings. 

500 Capp St.

David Ireland’s former residence, now a museum, has guided and self-guided tours on the weekend.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

“The Only Door I Can Open: Women Exposing Prison through Art” is a multimedia exhibition in which eight currently and formerly incarcerated artists reflect on their relationship to their bed.

Entry to YBCA Galleries is free on Wednesdays and second Sundays.

Museum of the African Diaspora

The Museum of the African Diaspora will be closed until September.

Jewish Contemporary Museum

The museum closed in December for at least a year as it works out its financial situation. You can learn more here. Laura Waxmann wrote a good piece for the San Francisco Chronicle about the difficulties museums are facing.

Its closure is a reminder of how important it is to visit our museums.

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