Past Exhibitions

Conversation is an ongoing series of exhibitions featuring a local artist alongside an artist from another point on the globe. The intent of this series is two-fold: on an intimate level it allows for a closer look at the production of two individual artists, and it also informs an expansive perspective of how artists from our region participate in an international contemporary art dialogue. Conversation 5 features paintings and a site specific work by San Francisco-based artist Jamie Vasta and a film by the Toronto-based artist team Nicholas Pye & Sheila Pye

In the field of science, a trace element is a minute component of a whole. It is not insignificant, however, because without trace elements the organism/entity would either not be what it is, or not be healthy. What are the trace elements of a City? Does the urban environment hold secrets or codes that would provide a greater comprehension of its systems, or of its human inhabitants? Each artist in the exhibition was chosen because of their remarkable visual and conceptual strategies for building and communicating complex narratives. The newly commissioned works in the exhibition range from installation to painting to photography, and attempt to reveal or reconcile some of San Francisco's hidden secrets.

Spiraling Echoes: A Sound Sculpture for the Rotunda of City Hall is a newly commissioned site-specific sound installation created by internationally-renowned artist Bill Fontana for San Francisco’s iconic City Hall Rotunda. Specialized speakers mounted around the colonnade inside the dome play an original composition of urban sounds and historic events recorded in San Francisco. Ultrasonic beams of sound echo around the architecture and spiral downward, audible to visitors walking through the Rotunda only for an instant, allowing every visitor a unique experience This Art at City Hall commission coincides with the tenth anniversary of the City Hall renovation. Spiraling Echoes was supported by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts.