San Francisco - Alison Bing [75]
The steel structure incorporates the brick facade of the Jesse St Power sub-station, an 1881 industrial structure rather oddly ornamented with cream-colored cherubs and garlands. Some architectural critics call it creative adaptive reuse, others call it pure hodgepodge. Either way, the exhibits inside are impeccably curated, compelling and heavy-hitting. Recent shows have included Warhol’s Jews: Ten Portraits Reconsidered – their West Coast premier – and vintage Russian Jewish theater posters from 1919 to 1949, the years when Marc Chagall joined forces with avant-garde theater people in the former Soviet Union.
ZEUM Map
415-820-3320; www.zeum.org; 221 4th St; adult/child under 2yr/student & child $10/free/8; 1-5pm Wed-Fri, 11am-5pm Sat & Sun, 11am-5pm daily summer; 30, 45; & Powell St
No velvet ropes or hands off here: kids have the run of the place, with high-tech displays that double dare them to make their own music videos, claymation movies and soundtracks. Jump right into a live-action video game, and sign up for workshops with the Bay Area’s superstar animators, techno-wizzes, robot-builders and belly dancers.
HOSFELT GALLERY Map
415-495-5454; 430 Clementina St; admission free; 11am-5:30pm Tue-Sat; 27, 30, 45, F, J, K, L, M, N; & Powell St
Trancelike states are often induced by Hosfelt, where visitors step from gritty SoMa sidewalks into dreamy, meticulously detailed interior worlds. Close inspection of Russell Crotty’s giant orbs reveals nocturnal landscapes painstakingly sketched with a Bic pen, and Marco Maggi’s minutely carved stacks of office paper make paperwork seem sublime.
SOUTH PARK Map
enclosed by 2nd, 3rd, Bryant & Brannan Sts; 10, 30, 45, 76, N, T
‘Dot-com’ was the word on the street here in the mid-’90s, when venture capitalists plotted website launches in parkside cafes with tattooed 20-something techies. But speculation is nothing new to South Park, which was planned by a real-estate speculator in the 1850s as a bucolic gated community.
Though the South Park development itself never quite took off, a plaque on an office building around the corner at 601 3rd St marks the birthplace of Jack London, esteemed author of The Call of the Wild, White Fang and many other popular adventure stories. Otherwise the neighborhood retreated into obscurity, and Filipino American war veterans formed a quiet community here until the dot-com boom. Nowadays it seems even the birds in the trees are twittering about another South Park venture, founded here after the dot-com bust: Twitter.
NEW LANGTON ARTS Map
415-626-5416; www.newlangtonarts.org; 1246 Folsom St; admission free; noon-6pm Tue-Sat; 12, 19, F, J, K, L, M, N; & Civic Center
Strange is the norm at New Langton, where artists have done odd and occasionally unprintable things since 1975. This nonprofit is where Tony Labat stepped into the boxing ring with his critics and Harrell Fletcher distributed newspapers by teen reporters he’d commissioned to collect good news from their neighbors. Don’t miss the Musée d’Honneur Minuscule, a window box in the entryway featuring small, ambitious works, such as Jill Sylvia’s tiny cityscape made from accountants’ ledger paper.
ELECTRIC WORKS Map
415-626-5496; www.sfelectricworks.com; 130 8th St; admission free; 11am-6pm Tue-Fri, to 5pm Sat; 5, 6, 7, 14, 21, 31, 71, F, J, K, L, M, N; & Civic Center
In the gallery/printmaking studio that calls itself ‘The Land of Yes,’ anything is possible – including Marcel Dzama’s gangs of vampire toddlers and Sandow Birk’s modern take on Dante’s Inferno, starring traffic-jammed LA as hell and San Francisco as a foggy purgatory. Also, it’s an affordable alternative to museum stores, and sales from some print editions benefit nonprofits.
CALIFORNIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY MUSEUM Map
415-357-1848; www.californiahistoricalsociety.org; 678 Mission St;