“Nicki Green: Firmament” exhibition, 2024. Image courtesy of The CJM.

Ongoing to February 2 — Nicki Green: Firmament at The CJM: Transdisciplinary artist Nicki Green’s first museum solo exhibition delves into questions of identity, transformation, and reinvention of Jewish traditions through new and existing artworks in ceramic, installation, fiber, and more. Inspired by the concept of the firmament—a dividing form referenced in the Torah that separated the earth from the heavens—Green reimagines the gallery space as an environment of welcome and liberation centering trans and nonbinary bodies. By reclaiming parts of her Jewish upbringing, reinventing functional forms of ceramic objects, and reimagining ways of embracing different genders and sexualities, Green challenges and expands the binary limits of our society. The CJM is located at 736 Mission Street in San Francisco.

Marie Watt, “Skyway”, 2024, reclaimed blankets, ham radio tower. Image courtesy of Catherine Clark Gallery.

Ongoing to November 14 — Marie Watt: Telegraph at Catherine Clark Gallery: Marie Watt’s Telegraph is her second solo presentation at Catherine Clark Gallery and her first to encompass the gallery’s expanded space. Radio towers constantly inspire Watt’s practice, especially as her Portland studio overlooks a radio tower in the West Hills. Her newest works explore innovative materials, including neon, welded steel, tin jingles, and textile, as part of a deeper meditation on what it means to communicate across languages, geographies, and generations. Catherine Clark Gallery is located at 248 Utah St in San Francisco.

Binh Danh, “Mather Point, Grand Canyon”, 2016, Daguerreotype. Image courtesy of ICA San José.

Ongoing to February 23 — Binh Danh: Works from 2006-2024 at ICA San José: In conjunction with the ICA San José Fall Benefit and Art Auction and tribute to Binh Danh, the ICA is showcasing a condensed retrospective of Binh Danh’s work. For over a decade, Danh has traveled across the American West, making Daguerreotypes of scenic vistas on silver plates in a mobile darkroom he calls Louis, after Louis Daguerre. The exhibition consists of 16 works across several projects, including Chlorophyll-based organic pieces, community-focused projects, Daguerreotype images, and his most recent series of portraits on decorative plates. ICA San José is located at 560 S 1st St in San José.

Helina Metaferia, “The Work”, 2019-2024, participatory installation. Nandipha Mntambo, “Love Quest”, 2022, leather, timber. Jessica Monette, “Kat 4”, 2021, acrylic & oil on canvas. Images courtesy of MoAD.

October 2 to March 2 — Helina Metaferia: What We Carry To Set Ourselves Free, Liberatory Living: Protective Interiors and Radical Black Joy, and Jessica Monette’s Unveiling Histories: A Fabricated Archive at MoAD: MoAD opens 3 exhibitions during the inaugural Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week (October 1 to 6), an annual celebration that will bring together institutions, galleries, creative spaces and artists to showcase the Black artist community through special programming. What We Carry to Set Ourselves Free is a solo project by interdisciplinary artist Helina Metaferia that engages both the interior and exterior of the museum. The research-based project is an extension of the artist’s ongoing By Way of Revolution series, foregrounding the often-overlooked labor of BIPOC women and gender-marginalized people within activist histories and in the present. Liberatory Living features 16 contemporary designers’ and artists’ works and environments dedicated to the global necessity for Black people to cultivate domestic interiors not only as spaces of revolutionary action, but also of radical joy and revolutionary rest. Jessica Monette’s Unveiling Histories: A Fabricated Archive delves into her heritage, weaving tangible yet elusive threads of ancestral legacies from the Middle Passage to Hurricane Katrina. MoAD is located at 685 Mission St in San Francisco.

Saif Azzuz, Untitled, 2024, mixed media. Eduardo Navarro, “Breathspace”, 2020, pastel on paper. Images courtesy of Saif Azzuz and KADIST SF.

October 4 to February 15 — Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions at KADIST SF: Makeshift Memorials, Small Revolutions is a two-part exhibition, concurrently taking place in Houston at the Blaffer Art Museum and at KADIST SF, which traces the cyclical nature of improvised, responsive, and sustained systems of mutual aid, information sharing, and embodied knowledge sets, as well as their intersectional, intimate, and enduring effects in the wake of the COVID-19 global pandemic. The exhibition considers over 40 artists as prognosticators—forecasters of cultural shifts—and traces evolving artist practices and approaches as informed by activism. KADIST SF is located at 3295 20th Street in San Francisco.

Image courtesy of Southern Exposure.

October 19 — Southern Exposure’s 23rd Annual Monster Drawing Rally at The Lab: Combining the energy of a monster truck rally with the creativity of the Bay Area art community, the Monster Drawing Rally is an evening of art-making and fundraising, where over 100 local artists create new work before your eyes. As you witness the creative process with a DJ set by The Baptist, you’ll see new sketches, paintings, and collages available alongside artwork from past years. All participating artists have the option to receive up to a 50% commission of the sale while remaining proceeds contribute to Southern Exposure’s work. Purchase tickets here. The Lab is located at 2948 16th St in San Francisco.

Young Suh, “Consequence”, 2013, archival inkjet print. Bessma Khalaf, “Burnout (Mt Shasta)”, 2023, archival pigment print. Teresa Baker, “Decorate”, 2019, willow, buffalo hide, spray paint, yarn, cotton on Astroturf. Images courtesy of CCA Wattis Institute.

October 19 to December 14 — All This Soft Wild Buzzing at CCA Wattis Institute: All This Soft Wild Buzzing considers the relationship between artists and the natural landscape through a lens of collaboration, listening, and reciprocity. Nature is often viewed as a neutral space, but landscape—with its connotations of ownership and control—is fraught. In direct contrast to this earlier narrative, the nine Bay Area contemporary artists in this exhibition engage with the effects of forest fires, the Land Back movement, the carceral system, belonging, climate change, and the resiliency of Indigenous life, among other topics. Saif Azzuz, Teresa Baker, Christopher Robin Duncan, Nicki Green, Bessma Khalaf, Dionne Lee, Young Suh, Stephanie Syjuco, and Zekarias Musele Thompson invite viewers to consider site, place, and the land beneath and around them. CCA Wattis Institute is located at 145 Hooper St in San Francisco.

Maryam Yousif, “Cosmic Basket: WARAD (Flowers)”, 2022, glazed stoneware. Anthony Akinbola, “Neapolitan”, 2023 durags on aluminum and wood frame. Kathleen Ryan, “Screwdriver”, 2023, onyx, citrine, rhodonite, garnet, agate, tektite, lava rock, turquoise, aquamarine, serpentine, magnesite, amazonite, black tourmaline, jasper, prehnite, ruby in zoisite, marble, amber, labradorite, smoky quartz, quartz, acrylic, steel pins on coated polystyrene, aluminum umbrella, 68’ AMC Javelin trunk. Images courtesy of ICA SF.

October 25 to February 23 — Maryam Yousif: Riverbend, The Poetics of Dimensions, and Spotlight: Kathleen Ryan at ICA SF: ICA SF opens their new space at The Cube with three new exhibitions. For her first museum solo exhibition, Riverbend, Maryam Yousif will debut new large-scale ceramic installations. These ceramic and mixed-media relief sculptures incorporate snippets of personal memory, Mesopotamian and Assyrian mythology, and Iraqi art and architecture. The Poetics of Dimensions, a group exhibition curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah, illuminates the works of visual artists who have honed artistic practices utilizing quotidian materials such as durags, shoelaces, felt, leather, single-use plastic, and more. ICA SF is also spotlighting a selection of sculptures by New York-based artist Kathleen Ryan. ICA SF’s new location at The Cube is located at 345 Montgomery Street in San Francisco.