San Francisco’s Art Season has arrived and there are a ton of delightful art parties, fairs, fundraisers, concerts, films, and gala type events happening all over the place.  From fancy to grassroots, outdoor to indoor, high art to tech heavy, from the art dealerdriven to the artists running the asylum.  If you like art, artists, and eating and drinking, the next couple weeks are a wonderful and curious jaunt around SF.  You can get a decent view of what’s happening in the art world, not just here in the city, but around the world too.

YBCA Opening Night Party

There are a zillion things going on this weekend, but the cool art kids are going to start at the YBCA opener; listening to soul records, sipping drinks, eating cotton candy and ‘sailing origami paper boats in the Bamboo Courtyard’.  The new ‘Futurefarmers: Out of Place’ exhibition is about deconstructing how our food is produced, from rural farming to food policy.  There’s going to be a live art project to check out, a performance from Hazy Loper and music all evening from the soulman, DJ Primo.

Friday Apr 20 7PM
$12 in advance
Info Here

The Young & The French take the Symphony!

It’s college night at the Symphony, so if you’re a student, you get to choose from the best seats available.  Every seat, from the balcony to the front row is just $20.  Yeah, it’s 420 at the Symphony and your broke, college-ass is getting the best seat in the house.   The concert music is by legendary French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel, with an internationally acclaimed singer Susan Graham to boot, and much much more.

FRI, APR 20, 8PM
@ Davies Symphony Hall
STUDENTs get hooked up here
Regular tickets here

Food Themed Art Party & Fundraiser

For generous people who like eating great local food and supporting local art and artists, there’s the Root Division Taste gala.  There’ll be 20 local chefs and mixologists donating all kinds ‘art-inspired food’, while a silent auction of art, products, and gift certificates from over 80 local artists and businesses raises money for a great cause.   It ain’t cheap, so tell your rich friends about it.

THURSDAY, APRIL 19, 2018
HOST: 6 PM  |  VIP: 6:30 PM  |  EVENT: 7:30 – 10 PM
Root Division
Tickets here

It’s a dance party in City Hall

This time Daybreakers has really done it.  They got City Hall to let them throw a dance party in the goddamn foyer.  Daybreaker is a morning yoga and bass music dance party full of costumed ravers of all backgrounds.  You’ve got the ‘closeted corporate executive’ raver, the ‘I’m sober now but still hella get down’ raver, the ‘I’m just a fitness person learning about rhythm for the first’ raver, and my personal favorite, the “I just can’t pass up a chance to wear my costumes’ raver.  There’s no better way to start your day in San Francisco, than at a at dance party.

Daybreaker City Hall
Sat, April 21, 2018
Yoga: 9am – 10am | Dance Party: 10am – 12pm
SF City Hall, 1 Dr Carlton B Goodlett Pl
Tickets & Info

Oakland Historical Garden Party

A museum we only recently discovered existed, is having its 150 year birthday party, and if it’s a nice day I can’t much think of a nicer setting to eat tasty things and talk about art.  There’ll be ‘hors d’oeuvres’ and live music by ‘Russ Taylor & Swing Shift’.  We don’t know anything about this mysterious historical place or the band, or if there will be a bar, but we do know we like garden parties, and odd historical museums full of antiques from all over the world.

Pardee Historic Home Museum’s Sesquicentennial
Sunday at 4/22,  4 PM – 6 PM
Reservations & Info

cinematic reverie

Did you know the YBCA has a really cool movie theater?  They do, and this film on the intense beauty of the night sky in the Atacama Desert, Chile, looks beeeeeeautiful.  The desert location is world renowned for its star visibility, it’s where our astronomers put their big fancy telescopes, so you can imagine how gorgeous this film will be, it’s been described thus, “Cielo transports us to a space, quiet and calm, from which we can ponder the infinite and the unknown.”

Apr 26-29 730pm
YBCA SCREENING ROOM
Tickets & Info

80 artists Transform a Hotel

Artists take over all the hotel rooms and remake them in their own image.  It turns a hotel into an art theme park, so yes, it’s pretty fucking great.  Food, drinks, art, artists creating in an art-themed wonderland, all weekend long.  The stArtUp Art fair in SF is a really great art fair.

Opening Night Party Friday, April 27, 7-10pm
Sat & SunFair, April 27 – April 29
Hotel Del Sol,
Tickets Info

Art Market

A big, fancy, Fort Mason, international art gallery extravaganza.  Seventy galleries from around the world featuring modern and contemporary art, along with art-themed talks, food vendors, and another artsy programming.  This is a good event if you like to take the pulse of the international art world, to see what’s trending on the global contemporary art market.

April 26 – 29, all day
Fort Mason Festival Pavilion
Info here

Art, Tech, & Design Fair

Sometimes, when I read the phrase “where ___ & ___ meets in silicon valley”, I throw up a little bit in my mouth.  But not so much in this case.  This new fair brings together some world-class artists, designers, and technologists with a very interesting schedule of speakers and possibly awesome exhibits as well.  Silicon Valley investing in art for reasons other than ‘profit’ or ‘market disruption’ is to be encouraged, hell in a way, this is a meeting of San Francisco old and new.

If so what
VIP Opening, Thursday, April 26, 03-09pm
Fri-Sun April 27, 12–9pm
Palace of Fine Arts
Tickets & Info