SAN FRANCISCO, November 3, 2022 – This fall and winter, San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) hosts a wide array of exhibits in its public spaces. Always free, the exhibits feature the work of several San Francisco-based artists, including the City’s 7th Poet Laureate Kim Shuck in collaboration with visual artist LisaRuth Elliot. There is also a fun exhibition featuring artwork created by SFPL workers, showcasing their many hidden talents. Descriptions of each show follows. More information can be found at sfpl.org.

OPENING SOON

What unseen thing blows wishes across my surface?
Starting Saturday, November 5 the Main Library hosts a selection of works from What unseen thing blows wishes across my surface?, a poetry and art collaboration between San Francisco’s 7 th Poet Laureate Kim Shuck and artist LisaRuth Elliott. A public program on Thursday, November 10 features a poetry reading by Shuck and a book release.

In the spring of 2020, when the worldwide pandemic caused San Francisco to issue a stay-at-home order, many artists and writers struggled to continue their artistic practice amid such global turmoil. That was not the case for Shuck and Elliott who began writing daily poems and creating a collage a day as the pandemic began.

While their artistic practices are very different, Shuck and Elliott share common interests and views—they live across the freeway from one another and often look at the same things. They decided to come together in 2020 and 2021 to collaborate on a writing and visual art project. The result is a stunning series of 300 works of art and poetry that has since been turned into a book, What unseen thing blows wishes across my surface? The work is meant to encourage San Franciscans to contemplate their own lived experiences during the pandemic, a time in which we were forced to acknowledge the tangibility of our interconnectedness.

What unseen thing blows wishes across my surface? was made possible with a grant from the San Francisco Arts Commission.

November 5, 2022–February 16, 2023
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, 6th Floor

Poetry reading by Kim Shuck
Thursday, November 10, 2022, 6 p.m.
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, Latino/Hispanic Community Room, Lower Level

Mothers and Daughters – Generations of Female Immigrants

Starting November 12, this exhibition of seven portraits painted by San Francisco-based artist Tsungwei Moo honors and acknowledges the contributions and untold stories of female immigrants. The series is deeply personal for the artist who immigrated from Taiwan as a child and who lost her own mother recently. According to Moo, the paintings are a “self-examination and exploration of the relationships between mothers and daughters.”

The seven portraits include female immigrants from Taiwan, China, South Korea, Japan, India, Canada, Haiti and Mexico. In her artist statement, Moo says, “There are many great women like my mother and grandmother. They dedicated their lives to their families and moved from country to country to provide the next generation a better life. Many immigrant women in our community help to shape our city, San Francisco. They should be remembered. As a daughter and as an artist, I feel it is my responsibility to learn, to research, and through my creation, share those untold stories.”

November 12, 2022–March 30, 2023
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, 3rd Floor

ART/WORK II – An Exhibition of Artwork by San Francisco Public Library Workers

Did you know that many of the people who work in the Library every day to select and process the collections, run amazing programs and myriad other jobs that keep SFPL open and accessible to all are artists themselves? Opening on December 10, the Library is thrilled to present an exhibit of art created by staff and organized by the Art, Music and Recreation Center. The staff art show offers staff an opportunity to share their work and deepen connections with one another as well as the public they serve every day.

SFPL staff members were invited to submit artwork for inclusion, and they responded with photographs, drawings, paintings, sculptures, etchings, prints, fiber art and artists’ books in a wide range of styles, both abstract and figurative. Participating staff have varying levels of formal training, from none to advanced degrees. Some are exhibiting their work in public for the first time.

December 10, 2022 – April 9, 2023
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, Jewett Gallery

CURRENTLY ON VIEW

Bringing the Opera to the People and the People to the Opera

In honor of the San Francisco Opera’s centennial, materials from the San Francisco Public Library highlight the ways that San Francisco Opera has drawn upon the local community to realize its performances and create a dynamic social scene that nourishes the people of San Francisco.

Through January 12, 2023
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, Art, Music & Recreation Center, 4th Floor

The Hand Bookbinders of California 50th Annual Members Exhibition

For many, the smell of the paper and glue, the feel of the page, the crack of the spine when you open it for the first time, make encounters with books feel romantic, nostalgic and, maybe even, a little bit magical. San Francisco Public Library partners with The Hand Bookbinders of California (HBC) to present a new exhibition entitled The Hand Bookbinders of California 50th Annual Members Exhibition, a celebration of the art of fine bookbinding.  Seventeen hand bound books on display demonstrate a wide array of modern and traditional binding techniques and materials, including artists’ books, which have been miraculously transformed into sculptural works of art embodying the books’ stories.  

Through January 8
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, Skylight Gallery 6th floor

In the Neighborhood: Watercolor Portraits of San Francisco’s Richmond District
In the Neighborhood: Watercolor Portraits of San Francisco’s Richmond District, a variety of paintings by San Francisco artist Robin Galante illustrating the bustling Richmond District, before and during the pandemic. Galante’s artworks spotlight the beautiful scenery of the Richmond as well as its sense of community and persistence.   

When Galante first began the series in 2018, her hope was to preserve the character of her evolving neighborhood through art. Having witnessed rapid changes since she moved to San Francisco in 2003, she painted scenes to capture what she loved about the west side of the City: pastel-hued homes and classic movie theaters, towering cathedrals alongside quirky dive bars. Using watercolor pencils and ink as her medium, she imbues her work with a sense of affection and nostalgia.  

Through January 5
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, Skylight Gallery, 6th floor

Portraits and Stories from Facing Life
Facing Life is a multimedia web-based project chronicling the experiences of eight individuals living through reentry after serving life prison sentences in California by Los Angeles-based documentary photographer Brandon Tauszik and renowned journalist and educator Pendarvis Harshaw. Over two years, Tauszik and Harshaw followed their subjects as they faced everyday challenges associated with reentry. The Main Library hosts an exhibit of portraits and stories from the series as part of the Library’s One City One Book celebration of the This is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life by local authors Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods.

Through December 29, 2022
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, The Bridge Learning Center, 5th Floor

Related Event: Facing Life: Pendarvis Harshaw & Brandon Tauszik in conversation with Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods
Saturday, December 3, 2022, 2 p.m., Main Library, Koret Auditorium

Illustrations by Danien Linnane from This is Ear Hustle

Damien Linnane, artist, author, librarian, Ph.D. candidate and formerly incarcerated, showcases his work from the 2022 One City One Book selection, This is Ear Hustle: Unflinching Stories of Everyday Prison Life. Works include portraits of the book’s authors Nigel Poor and Earlonne Woods, among other vignettes and personalities featured in the book.

Through December 29, 2022
Main Library, 100 Larkin Street, Atrium

Related Event: Damien Linnane, illustrator of This is Ear Hustle
Mon., Nov. 14, 7 p.m., Virtual Program

AT THE BRANCHES

Black Excellence, Black Invention

Have you ever wondered who you have to thank for the common inventions that make our lives easier today? For centuries, the inventions of Black/African American people have been taken for granted and their contributions to society have gone unrecognized. It’s Black inventors who we have to thank for conveniences such as dry cleaning, the lawn mower and everyone’s favorite snack–the potato chip! For decades, Rev. Dr. Carolyn Ransom-Scott has chased the stories of Black inventors in an effort to preserve their memories and add them to the historical canon. Together with the Main Library’s African American Center Manager, librarian Shawna Sherman, Ransom-Scott created the Black Excellence, Black Invention exhibit, and, after a successful run at the Main Library last spring, the exhibit is on view at the Bayview Branch Library. 

Visitors to the exhibit will enjoy learning about Lewis Howard Latimer whose inventions produced better carbon filaments for light bulbs; Alexander Miles who invented automatic doors for elevators; Garrett Morgan, the inventor of the three-way stop light, gas mask and respirator mask; 2019 Congressional Gold Metal recipient Dr. Christine Darden of Hidden Figures fame who worked at NASA for 40 years as a data analyst, engineer, sonic boom researcher, which helped make supersonic planes quieter and Eric Williams, a Bayview resident with more than 20 patents in plastic technology, who improved the modern-day stent used in heart surgeries, to name just a few.

November 19–March 2, 2022
Bayview Branch Library, 5075 3rd Street

The Cockettes: Acid Drag & Sexual Anarchy at the Eureka Valley Branch

If you missed its successful run at the Main Library, you have a second chance to relish in the exuberance and creative extravagance of the legendary Cockettes.  A celebration of the avant-garde psychedelic hippie theater troupe’s 50th anniversary, in conjunction with original member Fayette Hauser’s newly published pictorial history by the same title. This exhibit invokes the Cockettes’ adage “too much is never enough!” Dozens of rare photographs, posters and memorabilia from personal as well as Hormel Center archives depict the pioneering group’s impact on San Francisco’s cultural scene and beyond.

Through January 22, 2023
Eureka Valley Branch, 1 Jose Sarria Court