Past Exhibitions and Events

Sort By

  • Year

  • Category

Displaying 25 - 131 of 107 results
Exhibition

What are words worth?

Selections from the McEvoy Family Collection illustrate the transformative potential of words in modern and contemporary visual arts.

Screening Room

THESE ARE THE RULES

A look at twentieth century Bay Area video art that addresses power and language, organized by guest curator Steve Seid.

Gallery Sessions

Gallery Sessions: Connie Zheng

Drawing from a diverse palette of many creative practices, Zheng shares her perspective on several artworks in What are words worth?

Gallery Sessions

Gallery Sessions: Dodie Bellamy

Bay Area writer Dodie Bellamy joins McEvoy Arts for a conversation about artworks and ideas in What are words worth?

Film/Video

Memento

Christopher Nolan’s classic feature follows an amnesiac who writes notes to himself to combat memory loss

Exhibition

Rituals of Devotion

Artworks celebrate profound acts of spirituality and love, both earthly and otherworldly.

Screening Room

We Begin Again

Uplifting portraits of interpersonal and spiritual relationships reflect the ways we stay rooted in the past and sustain future generations.

Film/Video

Say Amen, Somebody

This acclaimed music documentary is a joyous, funny, and deeply emotional ode to gospel music and African American culture.

Film/Video

Spirited Away

Hayao Miyazaki’s animated masterpiece explores familial bonds that transcend the boundary between earthly and spiritual realms.

Exhibition

Color Code

McEvoy Arts’ fifth anniversary exhibition celebrates the many ways that color is used to convey meaning and elicit emotion.

Tomonari Nishikawa 45 7 Broadway, 2013 16mm transferred to video, color, sound 5:05 min. Courtesy of the artist
Screening Room

Visible Light

Bold filmmakers use a wide array of cinematic techniques and materials to illuminate the chromatic spectrum through the moving image.

Workshops

Your Intuitive Colorscape

Discover your personal color palette in this meditative experience led by Lise Silva Gomes.

Gallery Sessions

Gallery Sessions: Leah Rosenberg

San Francisco artist and colorist Leah Rosenberg considers the languages of color in select works on view in Color Code .

Workshops

Head Bangers

Take home a custom mask from this workshop led by Toxic Waste Face that investigates color and character tropes.

Exhibition

MYR

Multimedia artworks harness the vastness of time to explore humanity’s impact and longevity on Earth.

Music

Memories to Light

A collage of Asian American home movies with an original score fills San Francisco’s Chinatown with light and sound.

Courtesy of Genevieve Quick
Performance

Hello World

A radical sci-fi fantasy of Otherness and communication told through a live performance and video game.

Illustration by Najeebah Al-Ghadban. Creative direction by MacFadden & Thorpe
Exhibition

Image Gardeners

Experimental portraiture from the McEvoy Family Collection and new artistic commissions cultivate alternative images of selfhood and womanhood.

Lynn Hershman Leeson, Seduction, 1985, gelatin silver print. McEvoy Family Collection. Courtesy the artist; Bridget Donahue Gallery, New York; and Altman Siegel, San Francisco.
Talks & Panels

Person. Woman. Camera. TV.

A lively discussion on technology and the female body with pioneering media artist Lynn Hershman Leeson and feminist scholar Peggy Phelan.

Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK. Courtesy of the artist. Photo by Erin Baiano
Music

Ellen Reid SOUNDWALK

Discover a site-specific, GPS-enabled musical installation with new music by Kronos Quartet in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

Illustration by Olimpia Zagnoli
Exhibition

Next to You

Next to You is a secret reverie for those longing for the energy of a crowd and a meditative space for recovering long dormant senses as a new world unfolds.

Jill Magid Trust, 2004 Single-channel digital video, color, sound Image modified by the Liverpool Police Forensic Imaging Unit 18 min. Courtesy of the artist and LABOR, Mexico City
Screening Room

Hearing Aids

Hearing Aids considers a new sensory sensitivity to our surroundings and a greater awareness of the body’s intricacies of communication.

Chet Canlas, Memories to Light (still), 2021. Courtesy of the artist and the Center for Asian American Media.
Music

Memories to Light: Never Brighter

Composers Danny Clay and Theresa Wong perform a newly commissioned score to accompany a film collage exploring Asian American history.

Alice Sheppard and Laurel Lawson fly through a cloudless blue sky with arms outstretched and their wheelchair wheels spinning. You don’t see the ground, only sky. Alice is a coffee skinned multiracial Black woman with curly hair, and Laurel is a pale white woman with short teal hair. They both wear metallic silver and gold, and Laurel has a wide, peaceful smile.
Film/Video

We Belong

A selection of short films reveal the soft power of dance to spark joy and dismantle dominant narratives.

Radius with Julie Phelps and Marc Kate at McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, San Francisco. Courtesy of CounterPulse. Photo: Robbie Sweeny.
Performance

Radius

A site-specific performance empowers dancers and electronic musicians to create an improvisational zone governed by collaboration and fluidity.

Jafar Panahi, The Mirror (still), Iran, 1997, 95 minutes, Farsi w/ English subtitles
Film/Video

The Mirror

Alison O'Daniel presents this meta-film marvel from Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi in conjunction with her guest curated Screening Room program Hearing Aids.

Linda and the Mockingbirds (still), Dir. James Keach, USA, 2020, 60 minutes, English, Spanish w/ English subtitles
Film/Video

Linda and the Mockingbirds

A road movie soaked in music, culture, and history featuring Linda Ronstadt and Los Cenzontles.

Design by MacFadden & Thorpe. Conly, C. F, and G. K Warren, photographer. Frederick Douglass / C.F. Conly Photographer, 465 Washington St., Boston., None. [Between 1884 and 1890, from negative taken in 1876]. Library of Congress, Liljenquist Family collection
Exhibition

Lessons of the Hour

An immersive, meditative portrait of Frederick Douglass by British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien.

Lonnie Holley, Cyrus Moussavi I Snuck Off the Slave Ship (still), 2019 Digital Video Color, sound 20 min. Courtesy of the artists
Screening Room

New Labor Movements

Emerging and established filmmakers explore contemporary visions of America and concepts of transnational Blackness.

Builder Levy I am a Man/Union Justice Now, Memphis, Tennessee, 1968 Gold-toned gelatin silver print McEvoy Family Collection © Builder Levy. Courtesy of the artist and Arnika Dawkins Gallery, Atlanta.
Exhibition

When Living is a Protest

This exhibition of photography from the McEvoy Family Collection, on view within Lessons of the Hour, is organized chronologically from 1935 to 2015. This temporal

Morgan Quaintance South (still), 2020 16mm transferred to HD video Black-and-white, color, sound 28min. Courtesy of Morgan Quaintance and LUX, London
Online Event

New Labor Movements: Movements I and II

Selections from New Labor Movements, a program of short films exploring concepts of transnational Blackness, are available for online viewing during the

Workshops

Erica Deeman: In Our Likeness

An at-home educational art project about photography, portraiture and representation, inspired by Frederick Douglass.

Charlene Tan Researching and Remembering, Salvaged Post-consumer plastics, 2020 Post-consumer plastic, shade tarp, wood 168 x 60 x 108 inches Courtesy the artist
Exhibition

In This Light

In This Light, a virtual and offsite exhibition, celebrates the resiliency of artists from The Minnesota Street Project Studio Program in times of uncertainty.

Orlando design by Kameron Allen, MacFadden & Thorpe
Exhibition

Orlando

Orlando draws upon the themes of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 novel to celebrate openness, curiosity, and human possibility.

Tilda Swinton and Thomas Jay Ryan in Strange Culture (2007) directed by Lynn Hershman Leeson. Courtesy the artist
McEvoy Arts at Home

Strange Culture

Lynn Hershman Leeson’s genre-bending, bio-tech “documentary” starring Tilda Swinton forecasts uncanny similarities to society’s current moment. 

Brontez Purnell. Photo by Liz Hafalia for the San Francisco Chronicle
McEvoy Arts at Home

Brontez Purnell: In Progress

Oakland-based artist Brontez Purnell participates in a live, online event co-presented by McEvoy Arts and UC Berkeley.

Design by Samantha Maria Xochitl Espinoza
Talks & Panels

It’s a Moment

An Orlando-inspired evening of performances and conversations on transformation and empowerment in the arts.

Film/Video

Sally Potter’s Orlando

A rare 35mm screening of Sally Potter’s now-classic adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s pioneering novel.

Michael Jang's California exhibition poster. Photo: Michael Jang. Type: Kel Troughton
Exhibition

Michael Jang’s California

"Michael Jang’s California" surveys the artist’s varied oeuvre through photographs, ephemera, and complementary works by Jang’s major influences.

Blues is the Word. Courtesy of Kim Addonizio
Performance

People/Places/Performance

Writer Kim Addonizio curates an evening of performance that explores the self, place, and portraiture through poetry, prose, film, music, and more.

What is an edition, anyway? poster illustration by Tucker Nichols
Exhibition

What is an edition, anyway?

Artists and collectors explore the concept of the “edition” as an idea reproduced in limited quantities.

From left: Popsies figurines from the personal collection of Daniel Clowes; original cover drawing for Eightball #8, 1992. Photo: Henrik Kam
Talks & Panels

Gallery Sessions: Daniel Clowes

Daniel Clowes takes visitors through his personal collection of Popsies figurines and their impact on his seminal comic book series Eightball.

Enrique Chagoya (left) with his work One Recession Watchdog (Instant Update), 2019 at the Opening Reception for What is an edition, anyway?, May 21, 2019. Photo: Pat Mazzera
Talks & Panels

Gallery Sessions: Enrique Chagoya

Enrique Chagoya discusses the satire and social commentary of his work "One Recession Watchdog (Instant Update)," 2011.

Works from Thomas Cvikota's personal collection on view in What is an edition, anyway?, on view May 24–September 7, 2019. Photo: Henrik Kam
Talks & Panels

Gallery Sessions: Thomas Cvikota

Thomas Cvikota presents works from his personal collection that formed the basis for Mana Contemporary Chicago’s 2018 presentation of 'What is an edition,

Stephanie Syjuco (right) with her work Excess Capital (Double or Nothing), 2019 at the Opening Reception for What is an edition, anyway?, May 21, 2019. Photo: Pat Mazzera
Talks & Panels

Gallery Sessions: Stephanie Syjuco

Stephanie Syjuco elaborates on the themes and objects embedded in her commissioned vending installation "Excess Capital (Double or Nothing)," 2013–.

Bonanza: That's Funny (edition no. 4)
Performance

Bonanza: That’s Funny

That’s Funny is a stand-up comedy performance emceed by Bonanza featuring artists on the mic alongside comedic ringers.

Ala Ebtekar (right) with his work Thirty-six Views of the Moon, 2019 at the Opening Reception for What is an edition, anyway?, May 21, 2019. Photo: Pat Mazzera
Talks & Panels

Gallery Sessions: Ala Ebtekar

Ala Ebtekar discusses his monumental work Thirty-six Views of the Moon, 2019 and marks the fiftieth anniversary of Apollo 11 with a poetry reading.

Introspections
Screening Room

Introspections

'Introspections' presents five short videos that satirize several key moments in the history of American TV and social media culture.

Film still from My Art, 2016. Directed by Laurie Simmons. Courtesy of Film Movement.
Film/Video

My Art

McEvoy Arts presents "My Art," the feature directorial debut from acclaimed contemporary artist Laurie Simmons.

Exhibition

No Time

'No Time' explores human relationships to the natural world in the past, present, and future.

Stalker, directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, 1979
Film/Video

Stalker

McEvoy Arts presents a vivid new digital restoration of "Stalker," directed by Andrei Tarkovsky.

Koyaanisqatsi, directed by Godfrey Reggio (1982)
Film/Video

Koyaanisqatsi

McEvoy Arts presents a film screening of "Koyaanisqatsi," directed by Godfrey Reggio.

Don Hankins
Talks & Panels

Water, Fire, Earth, Air

McEvoy Arts presents a panel discussion with four artists, each focusing on one of the four elements, who discuss their investigations into various causes and

Christopher Willits
Event

Christopher Willits and Danny Paul Grody

Christopher Willits & Danny Paul Grody perform as part of 'For the Sake of Summer,' McEvoy Arts' film and music series featuring an eclectic mix of musicians and

Lomelda
Music

Lomelda and Spellling

Lomelda & Spellling perform as part of 'For the Sake of Summer,' McEvoy Arts' film and music series featuring an eclectic mix of musicians and filmmakers.

Young Lovers
Music

Young Lovers and There’s Talk

Young Lovers & There's Talk perform as part of 'For the Sake of Summer,' McEvoy Arts' film and music series featuring an eclectic mix of musicians and filmmakers.

Tom Palazzolo, Love It/Leave It, 1973
Film/Video

Love it or Leave it

McEvoy Arts hosts 'Love it or Leave it,' a free screening of short, experimental 16mm films, co-presented with Canyon Cinema.

Angelo de Augustine
Music

Angelo De Augustine and Many Rooms

Angelo De Augustine & Many Rooms perform as part of 'For the Sake of Summer,' McEvoy Arts' film and music series featuring an eclectic mix of musicians and

FAN
Music

FAN and Screaming

FAN & Screaming perform as part of 'For the Sake of Summer,' McEvoy Arts' film and music series featuring an eclectic mix of musicians and filmmakers.

Lost in Translation, directed by Sofia Coppola, 2003
Film/Video

Lost In Translation

McEvoy Arts hosts a free screening of Sofia Coppola's 2003 film, "Lost in Translation," co-presented with the Roxie Theater.

Lia Ices
Music

Lia Ices and r beny

Lia Ices & r beny perform as part of 'For the Sake of Summer,' McEvoy Arts' film and music series featuring an eclectic mix of musicians and filmmakers.

Dilexi Panel graphic
Talks & Panels

Dilexi Series Panel

Curator Steve Seid, former Dilexi Gallery owner Jim Newman, and artists Anna Halprin and Philip Makanna discuss the "Dilexi Series," the radical 1969 broadcasts

Christine Marie, Shadows in Stereo
Performance

Shadows in Stereo: Christine Marie

An immersive and interactive 3-D stereo imaging experience, "Shadows in Stereo" questions what role analog techniques play amid digital technology and modern

la mère la mer graphic
Exhibition

la mère la mer

McEvoy Arts' inaugural exhibition, 'la mère la mer,' (the mother the sea) features works from the collection of Nion McEvoy and the collection of his mother, Nan

Six Sensational Ocean Views graphic
Talks & Panels

Six Sensational Ocean Views

McEvoy Arts' first public program assembles an interdisciplinary group of artists, academics, and activists to explore the conceptual currents and depths of 'la