This spring, the Bay Area arts scene casts its gaze both close to home and across seas and ages.
Beloved Ruth Asawa gets a major retrospective at SFMOMA while Sir Isaac Julien, a UCSC professor, enjoys the spotlight at de Young. Meanwhile, a Dutch choreographer comes to San Francisco Ballet, a renowned South African artist brings a surreal tale of Vichy France to Berkeley Rep, and a Pulitzer Prize–winning play plops a queer Black kid into an adaptation of Hamlet set at a family barbecue.
Here's what's on at SF Bay Area museums, galleries, and stages this spring.
Spring Exhibits at San Francisco Museums + Galleries
Yuan Goang-Ming's retrospective 'Everyday War' depicts unease in his native Taiwan.
(Courtesy of Asian Art Museum)
RBG at 50: Focus on Ceramics
Rena Bransten Gallery’s roster includes internationally known artists such as Dawoud Bey, Rupert Garcia, Amalia Mesa-Bains, Oliver Lee Jackson, Hung Liu, John Waters, and pioneering ceramic artist Viola Frey, who showed here from 1980 until her death in 2004. Frey’s work is featured in the first of a series of exhibits celebrating the gallery’s 50th anniversary. California artists Robert Arneson and Richard Shaw will also be on display. // Through March 29; Minnesota Street Project, 1275 Minnesota St. (Dogpatch), renabranstengallery.com
Making Their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection
The 70 women artists in the collection of Bay Area philanthropist Komal Shah and her husband Gaurav Garg are on display. The exhibition includes works by Judy Chicago, Simone Leigh, and Joan Mitchell along with lesser-known artists, aiming to put them in dialogue with one another and redefine movements like abstraction and minimalism. Craft has its own section and woven, quilted, or ceramic objects are in every room. // On view through April 20, 2155 Center St., (Berkeley) bampfa.org
Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War
The Asian Art Museum presents the first North American solo exhibition of Taiwanese artist Yuan Goang-Ming. Abby Chen, head of contemporary art at the museum, curated his critically acclaimed presentation at the 60th Venice Biennale, as well as this exhibition which includes some of the work that was on view in Italy. Goang-Ming is considered “the father of Taiwanese video art,” and the show presents work representing unease, such as empty streets during an air raid in the country. His videos and installations depicting an unstable world resonate with our desire for peace and security, Chen says. // April 3 through July 7; 200 Larkin St, (Civic Center), asianart.org
Ruth Asawa: Retrospective
When writer and art historian Bridget Quinn toured her book Broad Strokes: 15 Women Who Made Art and Made History, outside of California, she said very few people had heard of Ruth Asawa, a hero of the Bay Area's art world. Thankfully, that's changing. SFMOMA will show about 300 pieces: the delicate wire sculptures she’s known for, plus works on paper, and masks of her friends and fellow artists. // April 5 through September 2; SFMOMA, 151 Third St., (SoMa), sfmoma.org
Isaac Julien: I Dream a World
I sucked in my breath with joy when I heard the de Young was planning Julien’s first American retrospective. Julien, who's been knighted for his work surrounding diversity and inclusion in the arts, splits his time between London and Santa Cruz where he's a U.C. professor. Ten of his wonderful film installations—with subjects including Frederick Douglas, Langton Hughes, and Alain Locke—will be part of the exhibition. While you're here, catch Paul McCartney Photographs (through July 6). // April 12 through July 13; de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, (Golden Gate Park), famsf.org
San Francisco Art Fair
The Bay Area’s longest running art fair presents nearly 100 galleries from around the world. Local galleries are prominently featured and include a highlight East Bay artists and a project by Creativity Explored. First time participants Jessica Silverman and Anthony Meier will showcase local artists Clare Rojas and Chelsea Ryoko Wong and Saif Azzuz, respectively. //April 17-20; Fort Mason Festival Pavilion (Marina),sanfranciscoartfair.com
Beautiful Scars
For Women’s History Month, this Tenderloin gallery spotlights women artists. The show, which will include painting, mixed media and sculptures, aims to honor the experiences of women navigating hard times and focus on stories of healing rather than trauma. Artists include two recently shown at MoAD—Mary Graham as part of the Emerging Artist program and Helina Metaferia in a solo show. Mashonda Tifrere of Art LeadHer co-curates. // March 13 through April 12, 966 Market St, (Tenderloin), jonathancarvermoore.com
Jazz + Classical Music
The first conductor to be awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, Marin Alsop arrives at Davies Symphony Hall in April.
(Courtesy of SF Symphony)
Midori, violin and Özgür Aydin, piano
A violinist known for her expressiveness, Midori is considered to have redefined classical music. Accompanied by her frequent collaborator, pianist Özgür Aydin, SF Performances presents a program inspired by Federico Garcia Lorca and his poem “Casida of the Lament.” It includes Poulenc’s Sonata, dedicated to Lorca, and Ravel’s “Kaddish,” the Hebrew prayer for the dead. // March 11; Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave., (Civic Center), sfperformances.org
Alsop Conducts Music of the Americas
Conductor and MacArthur Fellow Marin Alsop joins Venezuelan composer and pianist Gabriela Montero to perform Montero’s "Piano Concerto No. 1, Latin." The program also includes Grammy-winner Gabriela Ortiz’s "Antrópolis," a tribute to Mexico City’s dance halls, and fanfares by Aaron Copland and Joan Tower along with Samuel Barber's "Symphony No. 1." // April 10-12; Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness Ave, (Civic Center),sfsymphony.org
Kneebody and Aaron Parks, UpSwing
Terence Blanchard's UpSwing series showcases artists doing something new in jazz. In the last show of the series, prolific pianist and bandleader Aaron Parks plays on a double bill with Grammy-nominated quartet Kneebody, whose musicians who have worked with artists including Prince, Bruno Mars, and De La Soul. // May 22 at SFJazz, Miner Auditorium, 201 Franklin Street (Civic Center),sfjazz.org
Bay Area Theater: Diversity on Stage
'Here There Are Blueberries' takes the stage at Berkeley Rep.
(Courtesy of McCarter Theatre Center)
Wild With Happy
Oscar-nominated actor (Rustin, Sing Sing) and red carpet fashionista Colman Domingo got his start in theater (and met his husband) here in the Bay Area. His 2012 play, Wild With Happy, returns to the stage and takes a road trip with the protagonist and his late mother's ashes. Critics called it sweet, funny, and irreverent. // March 7 through April 6; New Conservatory Theater, 25 Van Ness Ave. (Hayes Valley), nctcsf.org
The Great Yes, The Great No
South African artist William Kentridge’s latest creation for the stage is a chamber opera that fictionalizes a 1941 escape from Vichy France. The cast of characters that includes Josephine Baker, Leon Trotsky, and surrealist Andre Breton. The performance combines video projection, choral music, dance, poetry, and animated drawings. // March 14-16; 101 Zellerbach Hall, (Berkeley) calperformances.org
The fabulous Margo Hall, cofounder of Campo Santo and professor of some lucky students at U.C. Berkeley, directs James Ijames’ Pulitzer Prize–winning Fat Ham. Did you guess that it’s a reinvention of Hamlet? Instead of being a prince, our hero is Juicy, a Black queer man who's struggling with how to think about identity, masculinity, and avenging his father's murder at a family barbecue. //March 20 through April 19; SF Playhouse, 450 Post St. (TenderNob), sfplayhouse.org
Here There Are Blueberries
Developed over the course of a decade by Moises Kaufman, a descendent of family killed at Auschwitz, this play was inspired by one of 116 photos in an album that once belonged to an SS officer at the infamous concentration camp. Rather than depicting its atrocities, the images show its officers enjoying themselves without a trace of remorse. // April 5 through May 11; Berkeley Rep, Roda Theater, 2015 Addison St. (Berkeley), berkeleyrep.org
Dance: From Tango to Scheherazade
(Courtesy of SF Ballet)
Van Manen: Dutch Grandmaster
Legendary choreographerHans van Manen has created more than 150 ballets and worked with international stars including Rudolf Nureyev. The San Francisco Ballet, leaning into its “Transcend the Ordinary” tagline, will highlight van Manen’s style in works that artistic director Tamara Rojo has curated, set to a diverse range of scores with both tango and classical themes. //April 5-19; SF Ballet at War Memorial Opera House, 301 Van Ness Avenue (Civic Center),sfballet.org
Carmina Burana
East Bay company Dana Lawton Dance brings dramatic interpretation in movement to Carl Orff's 1930s cantata Carmina Burana, while god brings the lighting: Two afternoon performances will take full advantage of sunlight streaming through the stained glass windows of Grace Cathedral. // 3pm and 5pm April 26; Grace Cathedral (Nob Hill), tickets at ticketleap.events; danalawtondances.org
Bay Area Dance Week
This 10-day celebration of dance includes workshops, performances, open rehearsals, and classes—all free, and in a range of styles including hip hop, modern, salsa, folk, Bollywood, ballet, and West African dance. The festival kicks off in Union Square. // April 25 through May 4; various Bay Area venues, dancersgroup.org
The spring season brings back choreographer Alonzo King’s Scheherazade for the first time in a decade. Joining the performance is collaborator Ambrose Akinmusire, a Berkeley-born trumpeter and composer who's been compared to the likes of Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, and Chet Baker. The story reimagines One Thousand and One Nights with a score by Grammy-winning tabla master Zakir Hussain. // May 10-18; Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard St., (SoMa) linesballet.org
