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

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

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

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

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

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

Gallery Sessions: Helen Shewolfe Tseng
Helen Shewolfe Tseng draws from their divination practice in a tour through Rituals of Devotion.

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

Gallery Sessions: Liz Hernández
Liz Hernández leads a conversation on mythology, tradition, and imagination in Rituals of Devotion.

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

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

Gallery Sessions: Sam Sharkland
Visible Light film curator Sam Sharkland brings a discerning eye to works on view in Color Code.

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

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

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

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

In Conversation: Heather Dewey-Hagborg and Annalee Newitz
Artist and biohacker Heather Dewey-Hagborg and science writer Annalee Newitz engage in a lively discussion about art and science.

Red Culebra: Let Us Speak Frog
An experimental music performance with animation and live dance explores imagined ecologies

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

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

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

seen only, heard only through someone else’s description
Short films offer new temporal spaces for considering how images and narratives construct meaning, artifice, and memory.

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.

LIVING IN MIRRORS: the life that belongs to me
A selection of short films by women artists explore the moving power of portraiture and feminism.

Lawrence Weiner: OUT OF SIGHT
A participatory social sculpture by Lawrence Weiner highlights the playful themes in 'Next to You.'

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

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.

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

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.

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

Celebrando la Cultura: Los Cenzontles in Watsonville
A free concert with performances by Mexican American performing arts organizations celebrates the Bay Area’s vibrant community of farmworkers.

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

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
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](https://www.mcevoyarts.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Featured-Card-100-640x420.jpg)
Lessons of the Hour
An immersive, meditative portrait of Frederick Douglass by British filmmaker and installation artist Isaac Julien.

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

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

Celeste-Marie Bernier, Judith Butler, and Isaac Julien in Conversation
This online conversation with Celeste-Marie Bernier, Judith Butler, and Isaac Julien, explores Douglass’ legacy and the influence of key historical figures

Screening: New Labor Movements: Movement IV. Creation/Emergence
Filmmakers discuss contemporary visions of America and concepts of transnational Blackness as embodied in this collection of short and eclectic films.

Elegance Bratton, Jovan James, Jenn Nkiru, Leila Weefur, and Rizvana Bradley in Conversation
Curator Leila Weefur and filmmakers discuss resonant themes and topics in New Labor Movements' final chapter, Creation/Emergence.

Abolition Citizenship: Frederick Douglass and Art Education
Isaac Julien’s Lessons of the Hour is explored as a pioneering artistic effort at the intersection of education, curatorial practice, and immersive installation.

Isaac Julien and Deborah Willis in Conversation
The history of photography and its potential as a tool for racial justice guides this scholarly conversation between Deborah Willis and Isaac Julien.

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

Erica Deeman: In Our Likeness
An at-home educational art project about photography, portraiture and representation, inspired by Frederick Douglass.

Abolition Then and Now: Robin D. G. Kelley and Isaac Julien in Conversation
Artist Isaac Julien and historian Robin D.G. Kelley discuss Julien’s 'Lessons of the Hour' as part of UC Santa Cruz’s ‘Visualizing Abolition’ event series.

Angela Davis and Isaac Julien in Conversation, Moderated by Sarah Lewis
Activist and scholar Angela Davis joins artist Isaac Julien for a conversation about the influence of Frederick Douglass on contemporary movements for racial

B. Ruby Rich, Kass Banning, Warren Crichlow, and Isaac Julien in Conversation
Isaac Julien is joined by editors and contributors to Film Quarterly for a discussion about sensorial immersion and human rights in the artist’s moving-image

Isaac Julien and Leila Weefur in Conversation
Artist Isaac Julien and curator Leila Weefur appear in conversation to discuss their exhibitions concurrently on view at McEvoy Arts.

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

certainty is becoming our nemesis
An international collection of short films on transformation and self-invention, inspired by Virginia Woolf’s Orlando.

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

Brontez Purnell as Orlando as Brontez Purnell: “My” Journey
Brontez Purnell explores Virginia Woolf’s Orlando in an immersive, multidisciplinary performance.

In Conversation: Paul Mpagi Sepuya and Julia Bryan-Wilson
Photographer Paul Mpagi Sepuya and professor Julia Bryan-Wilson discuss the artist’s work in this online conversation co-presented by McEvoy Arts and UC Berkeley.

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

Conceiving Ada and Teknolust with Lynn Hershman Leeson
A double-feature of two groundbreaking films starring Tilda Swinton by artist Lynn Hershman Leeson, in conjunction with the exhibition Orlando.

Any Other Way: Celebrating the Life and Work of Jackie Shane
Artist Zackary Drucker and special guests honor the legacy of the late transgender rhythm and blues singer Jackie Shane.

It’s a Moment
An Orlando-inspired evening of performances and conversations on transformation and empowerment in the arts.

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

Blazing and Blasted: Post-Punk Pre-Tech Underground Film in 1990s San Francisco
This collection of underground films paints a highly-charged portrait of San Francisco during a unique period in the city’s filmmaking and cultural history.

In Conversation: Michael Jang, Sandra S. Phillips, and Nion McEvoy
Michael Jang and Sandra S. Phillips in conversation with McEvoy Arts' Founder and President Nion McEvoy about the exhibition Michael Jang’s California.

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.

Garry Winogrand: All Things Are Photographable
An award-winning documentary portrait of the iconic Garry Winogrand and conversation between director Sasha Waters Freyer and SFMOMA’s Erin O’Toole.

No Age: Score for the Day Before
Score from the Day Before is at once a live score, film screening, and tape recording by the punk band No Age.

What is an edition, anyway?
Artists and collectors explore the concept of the “edition” as an idea reproduced in limited quantities.

Alison O’Daniel: The Tuba Thieves
Alison O’Daniel’s 'The Tuba Thieves' (2013–) comprises several short films that center on acts of listening and producing sound.

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.

Poster Making Workshop: Favianna Rodriguez
Favianna Rodriguez leads a political printmaking workshop inspired by editions’ historical roles in social movements.

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

Artist Talk: Alison O’Daniel in Conversation with Tanya Zimbardo
Filmmaker Alison O’Daniel discusses her ongoing series The Tuba Thieves with guest curator Tanya Zimbardo.

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,

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

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.

Noah Cowan: It’s Really Hard to Watch Films Properly
Former SFFILM Executive Director Noah Cowan appraises film’s inherent “efficiency” as editioned art.

Porchlight: Oops, I Did It Again: Stories about Repetition
An afternoon of stories about repetition, hosted by Porchlight Storytelling Series.

True Blue Mirror: Ellen Berkenblit and Sarah Braman
'True Blue Mirror' stages a theatrical dialogue between Ellen Berkenblit's gestural paintings and Sarah Braman's blocky, quasi-mystical sculptures and environments.

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

Curator’s Talk: Mads Lynnerup on ‘Introspections’
Artist and curator Mads Lynnerup leads a conversation about 'Introspections,' currently on view in McEvoy Arts' Screening Room.

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

Artists’ Talk: Ellen Berkenblit and Sarah Braman
McEvoy Arts presents Ellen Berkenblit and Sarah Braman in conversation with curator Kevin Moore.

Take Only Memories, Leave Only Footprints
'Take Only Memories, Leave Only Footprints' is a daily program of videos presented in two alternating cycles in the Screening Room.

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

Meet the Curators: ‘Take Only Memories, Leave Only Footprints’
Exploratorium Cinema Arts curators Sam Sharkey and Kathleen Maguire discuss their Screening Room program.

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

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

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

Screening Room Program with Electronic Arts Intermix
This rotation of single-channel videos by contemporary artists in the Screening Room offers complementary perspectives on themes found in 'Ragnar Kjartansson:

Ragnar Kjartansson: Scenes from Western Culture
'Scenes from Western Culture' explores Ragnar Kjartansson’s fascination with social norms, theatrical artifice, and idle pleasure in an homage to French Rococo

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 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 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.

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

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.

WHEN THE MEDIUM WASN’T: San Francisco’s Dilexi Series
The “Dilexi Series” features groundbreaking video and film works for television created by artists in the late 1960s.

Stories: Philip-Lorca diCorcia & Constance DeJong
'Stories' features photographer Philip-Lorca diCorcia's "A Storybook Life" and writer and performer Constance DeJong's "Radios".

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

Turntable Drawings: Danny Clay and Jon Fischer
An exploration of vinyl records as sculptural and sonic prints, "Turntable Drawings" invites guest artists from various disciplines and students to interact with

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