The Arts
Mission Local covers San Francisco’s artists and cultural life, from museums and galleries to public art and murals.
A creative free for all at SF Music Day
The cornucopian program features artists exploring chamber music, jazz, new music, bluegrass and various international musical permutations across three stages.
Murals
Original muralists come home to Balmy Alley with a grant to save their work
With a new grant, a group of artists will return to Balmy Alley to restore some of their old murals
‘Not just lanterns and dragons:’ Mural depicts Chinatown through a child’s eyes
Artist and labor organizer Kayan Cheung-Miaw talks about Chinatown, organizing and learning how to draw from a 6 year-old.
1930s mural by famous S.F. artist uncovered in Pacific Heights home
As the owners prepped their house for sale, they found a surprise above their fireplace.
Sprawling new seascape mural decorates S.F. waterfront
Bright and bold, a 4,000-square-foot mural has overtaken the historic bulkhead at San Francisco’s Pier 19½, as sprawling as the octopus tentacles it depicts.
Music, dance and theater
Six decades of duende with Theatre Flamenco of San Francisco
The nation’s oldest flamenco company celebrates its anniversary at Herbst Theatre Oct. 17.
Review: Smuin Ballet’s French Kiss
The company and its director have shown due reverence to the past without being trapped in it.
Magik*Magik Orchestra invites you to a sleepover in the Mission
San Francisco’s first-ever orchestra sleepover concert at the Grey Area/Grand Theater in the Mission.
Museums
SFMOMA highlights career of acclaimed Mexican photographer
Graciela Iturbide is preoccupied with exploring thresholds: between life and death, representation and abstraction, male and female, celebration and mourning.
Review: At YBCA, Dread Scott asks who the flag protects
Dread Scott’s approach in “Defending the Flag” is simple, but the reactions they provoke remain palpable.
What’s on now at San Francisco museums, October 2026
Graciela Iturbide at SFMOMA reviewed along with RM and Ha Chong-Hyun at the Asian Art Museum.
San Francisco’s Lost Art Salon finds forgotten 20th century artists
The two friends wanted to start a business together, but they never thought about opening a gallery to show their own work.
Review: ‘Ausländer,’ Michael Moritz’ family tale of escape, exile and death
An exhaustively researched saga of a family that seems to have been present in virtually every chapter of modern history.
Can $500,000 jump-start the Tenderloin’s theater district?
Three investors are pouring into one Mid-Market block in hopes to revamp the theater and arts corridor.
Photos: It’s Open Studios this weekend in the Mission, and art awaits.
Dozens of artist studios are opening their doors to the public this weekend. Most of them are in the Mission, and quite a few of them are just a few blocks away from each other.
From Palestine to Mexico in search of her parents’ homes: Traces of Home makes its Roxie debut
Filmmaker Colette Ghunim traveled with her parents to Palestine and Mexico in search of the homes they were forced to leave decades ago.
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