Spring 2015
San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) is a place for new questions and adventurous ideas. Join SFAI for a spring season of exhibitions, screenings, and lectures that provide direct access to the artists and practices that advance our culture.
Lectures and exhibitions are free and open to all.
Walter and McBean Galleries exhibition
M. Lamar: NEGROGOTHIC
January 30–February 28, 2015
Curated by Hesse McGraw, Vice President for Exhibitions and Public Programs
Opening: Friday, January 30, 7–9pm
Performance of Surveillance Punishment and the Black Psyche: Friday, February 13, 8pm
M. Lamar’s exhibition NEGROGOTHIC strips the American enterprise to its hardcore components of race, sexuality, violence, and optimism. In imagery that links the histories of slavery and Robert Mapplethorpe, and through sound that connects Lamar’s operatic counter-tenor with doom metal, the artist offers a searing and soaring portrait of the contemporary United States.
Through an immersive video projection, a haunting soundtrack, large-scale prints, and sculptural props, Lamar unveils a stunning, epic vision of black male figures in transition. Lamar’s expansive narrative draws from his own African American heritage, and performs a cultural grand tour that bridges the slave ship and bondage imagery, lynchings with capital punishment, and the Negro spiritual and contemporary protest. In this fearlessly constructed landscape, Lamar projects ecstatic resistance toward both the subjugated and essentialized black male.
Here we witness the violence of our past and freedoms of the present, alongside the ongoing inability of the American justice system to materially protect black lives. Lamar painfully evokes injustice, even as he occupies the transcendent, empowered role of the diva.
M. Lamar works across opera, metal, performance, video, and sculpture to craft sprawling narratives of racial and sexual transformation. His work has been presented internationally, most recently at Participant Inc., New York; New Museum, New York; Södra Teatern, Stockholm; Warehouse9, Copenhagen; WWDIS Fest, Gothenburg and Stockholm; The International Theater Festival, Donzdorf, Germany; Cathedral of Saint John the Divine, New York; Performance Space 122, New York; and African American Art & Culture Complex, San Francisco.
Spring 2015 public programs
Jennifer A. González
Friday, January 30, 4:30pm
Asuka Ohsawa
Friday, February 6, 4:30pm
Eva Franch i Gilabert
Tuesday, February 17,7:30pm
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Friday, February 20, 7pm
Mariah Robertson
Tuesday, February 24, 7:30pm
Eva Hayward
Friday, February 27, 4:30pm
Lewis Hyde
Tuesday, March 3, 7:30pm
Shaun Leonardo
Friday, March 6, 4:30pm
Jon Rubin
Tuesday, March 10, 7:30pm
Mel Chin
McBean Distinguished Lecture
Tuesday, April 7, 7:30pm
Jonn Herschend
Friday, April 10, 4:30pm
Michael Jones McKean
Tuesday, April 14, 7:30pm
Annie Lapin
Tuesday, April 21, 7:30pm
Erick Beltrán
Friday, April 24, 4:30pm
Constance M. Lewallen: Conversation + book release of 500 Capp Street
Tuesday, April 28, 7:30pm
SFAI’s exhibitions and public programs provide direct access to artists and practices that advance our culture. The Walter and McBean Galleries, established in 1969, present exhibitions at the forefront of contemporary art practice. The gallery serves as a laboratory for innovative and adventurous projects and commissions new work from emerging and established artists.
Join SFAI’s mailing list to receive monthly updates about lectures, special events, and exhibitions: sfai.edu/eventmail
SFAI’s exhibitions and public programs are made possible by the generosity of donors and sponsors. Major support is provided by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.
Program support is provided by the National Endowment for the Arts, Harker Fund of The San Francisco Foundation, The Phoebe Snow Foundation, Mental Insight Foundation, Walter and Elise Haas Fund, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Kadist Art Foundation, Fort Point Beer Company, Gregory Goode Photography, Meyer Sound, The Lucas Family Foundation, and Thomas J. Fogarty, MD. Ongoing support is provided by the McBean Distinguished Lecture and Residency Fund, The Buck Fund, and the Visiting Artists Fund of the SFAI Endowment.
