Events on Wednesday, May 14

Saving Lives, Creating Hope: America’s Response to the Global HIV/AIDS Crisis

Special Event

Saving Lives, Creating Hope

Wednesday 5/14 @ World Affairs Center

AIDS is truly a worldwide epidemic — and many of the countries hardest hit by the disease are often struggling just... 

<em>The Rosenbach Company: A Pop Opera</em>

Performing Arts: Opera

The Rosenbach Company

Wednesday 5/14 @ Kanbar Hall, JCCSF

The Rosenbach brothers were some of the most obsessively successful book collectors of the 20th century. In the skilled hands of... 

Rick Perlstein: <em>Nixonland</em>

Books: Reading

Rick Perlstein

Wednesday 5/14 @ Cody's Books

With mainstream cultural criticism increasingly dominated by ideologues, Richard Perlstein is something of a rarity: an intelligent, self-professed progressive with an... 

Volume and Overlap present Signal w/ Alva Noto, Byetone, and Frank Bretschneider

Music: Electronic

Signal

Wednesday 5/14 @ San Francisco Art Institute - Main Campus

Compared to the Raster-Noton label's austere output, most self-described "minimal" techno sounds positively maximal. The laptop-generated oscillator tones and minute, ice-cracking... 

Ongoing Events

Tim Lee

Art

Tim Lee

Wednesday 5/14 @ CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts

Although it's tempting to dismiss Vancouver-based artist Tim Lee's use of comedy-as-conceptual-device as lacking in depth or social concern, to mistake... 

<em>Redbelt</em>

Film

Redbelt

Wednesday 5/14 @ Various locations

Redbelt, David Mamet's latest, is an absorbing foray into the world of mixed martial arts. An unconventional fight film, Redbelt centers... 

Gareth Moore

Art

Gareth Moore

Wednesday 5/14 @ CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts

Vancouver artist Gareth Moore takes hold of the reins at the Wattis, presenting the ninth solo exhibition in the gallery's ongoing... 

<em>Reclaiming Materials: Four Sculptors Recycle</em>

Art

Reclaiming Materials: Four Sculptors Recycle

Wednesday 5/14 @ Sculpturesite Gallery

One person's trash is another person's treasure — or sculpture, as is the case at Sculpturesite's current exhibition of art works... 

Victor Cartagena: <em>The Invisible Nation</em>

Art

Victor Cartagena

Wednesday 5/14 @ Galería de la Raza

Salvadoran artist Victor Cartagena has worked in the Bay Area for nearly three decades, cataloging heartfelt narratives about cultural displacement, immigration,... 

<em>COLORS Past and Present</em>

Art

COLORS Past and Present

Wednesday 5/14 @ Istituto Italiano di Cultura

In 1991, designers Tibor Kalman and Olivero Toscani, along with clothing label United Colors of Benetton, launched COLORS magazine — a... 

Curatorial Industries presents <em>Self-Storage</em>

Art

Self-Storage

Wednesday 5/14 @ Self Storage

Duchamp had his suitcase-sized monographs. Warhol, his yearly time capsules. Taking its inspiration from Buckminster Fuller's Dymaxion Chronofile — an epic... 

<em>Contempt </em>(1963)

Film

Contempt 

Wednesday 5/14 @ The Castro Theatre

Jean-Luc Godard's 45-year-old masterpiece Contempt is still a conundrum. Coming off a run of shoestring gems, the French New Wave icon... 

Enrique Chagoya: <em> Borderlandia </em>

Art

Enrique Chagoya

Wednesday 5/14 @ Berkeley Art Museum

The first major museum retrospective of Enrique Chagoya's mixed-media work revels in thorny cultural hierarchies and identity politics. Chagoya immigrated to... 

Ryan McGinley: <em>Spring and by Summer Fall</em>

Art: Photography

Ryan McGinley

Wednesday 5/14 @ Ratio 3

Ryan McGinley's metier is youth. The often smiling, and more often nude men and women cavorting in his photos are like... 

<em>2nd Skin: Imaginative Designs in Digital & Analog Clothing</em>

Special Event

2nd Skin

Wednesday 5/14 @ Exploratorium

With a futuristic, tongue-in-cheek vision, the artists featured in the 2nd Skin fashion exhibit challenge the standard notions of practical clothing.... 

<em>The Way That We Rhyme: Women, Art & Politics</em>

Art

The Way That We Rhyme

Wednesday 5/14 @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

American culture always seems poised to pronounce feminism down for the count, when it clearly still has plenty of fighting to... 

Gilbert &amp; George

Art

Gilbert & George

Wednesday 5/14 @ de Young Museum

Gilbert & George, the art-world enfants terribles in natty bespoke suits, celebrate 40 years of having made their lives their work... 

Alex Lukas and Brian Willmont: <em>Feudal Echo</em>

Art

Feudal Echo

Wednesday 5/14 @ Park Life

Some may feel that the twin horrors of global warming and terrorism are hurtling humans into a fiery end of days,... 

<em>Graduation</em>

Film

Graduation

Wednesday 5/14 @ Landmark Opera Plaza

Combining the mischief of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, the solidarity of The Breakfast Club, and the edgy bank... 

Inkie Whang: <em>American Debut</em>

Art

Inkie Whang

Wednesday 5/14 @ Frey Norris Gallery

Korean artist Inkie Whang's large-scale, pixelated landscapes explore the tenuous balance between his traditional heritage and the digital age. In the... 

Christian Marclay:<em> Stereo</em>

Art

Christian Marclay

Wednesday 5/14 @ Fraenkel Gallery

Christian Marclay pioneered the turntable as a musical instrument in the late '70s, scratching out experimental sounds with vinyl found in... 

Veronica Graham: <em>Bonus Map</em>

Art

Veronica Graham

Wednesday 5/14 @ CELLspace

Composed of more than 2000 hand-printed cloth swatches, Veronica Graham's sprawling installation Bonus Map takes over CELLspace's wall like cartographic kudzu.... 

Annie Leibovitz: <em>A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005</em>

Art: Photography

Annie Leibovitz

Wednesday 5/14 @ The Legion of Honor Museum

Working since the late '70s, photographer Annie Leibowitz has created both iconic celebrity portraits and intimate views of everyday people. She's... 

Peter Simon and Roger Steffens: <em>The Reggae Scrapbook</em>

Art: Photography

The Reggae Scrapbook

Wednesday 5/14 @ Babylon Falling

The Reggae Scrapbook is a love letter from two eternal fanboys to Jamaica's best-known export. Drawing from their memories, publications, and... 

<em>The Memory Thief</em>

Film

The Memory Thief

Wednesday 5/14 @ Red Vic

The identity of every modern Jew is in some way built upon the memory of the Holocaust. As the generation of... 

<em>Friedlander</em>

Art: Photography

Friedlander

Wednesday 5/14 @ SFMOMA

Over the last half-century, photographer Lee Friedlander has made a career of cataloging America's urban — and increasingly suburban — landscape.... 

Saskia Leek: <em>Thick Air Method</em>

Art

Saskia Leek

Wednesday 5/14 @ Jack Hanley Gallery

Embracing the same kind of provocative ambiguity and loose brushwork found in Luc Tuymans' paintings, New Zealand native Saskia Leek structures... 

<em>The Question Is Known: (W)here Is Latin American / Latino Art</em>

Art

The Question Is Known

Wednesday 5/14 @ Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts

Artist Antony Torres curates this powerful exhibition of 30 artists showing paintings, sculpture, and installations exploring Latino identity. Highlights include the... 

Weston Teruya and Michele Carlson: <em>How I Learned to...</em>

Art

How I Learned to...

Wednesday 5/14 @ Intersection for the Arts

It's a pretty safe bet that elementary schools won't soon be competing with downtown museums and banks for a top architect's... 

<em>After the Revolution: Contemporary Photography from Tehran and California</em>

Art: Photography

After the Revolution

Wednesday 5/14 @ San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery

Between Azar Nafisi's memoir Reading Lolita in Tehran and Marjane Satrapi's graphic novel (and now animated feature) Persepolis, post-revolutionary autobiography has... 

Lacey Jane Roberts: <em>The Master's Tools (Decay Goes Both Ways)</em>

Art

Lacey Jane Roberts

Wednesday 5/14 @ Little Tree Gallery

Little Tree Gallery has now been fortified, thanks to Bay Area artist Lacey Jane Roberts' handwoven barbed-wire fence. Even though every... 

<em>Within Two Hands: The Eye of the Collector</em>

Art

Within Two Hands: The Eye of the Collector

Wednesday 5/14 @ San Francisco Museum of Craft+Design

Peter Voulkos founded the Arts Ceramics departments at both Los Angeles' Otis College of Art and Design and UC-Berkeley in the... 

<em>Protest in Paris 1968: Photographs by Serge Hambourg</em>

Art: Photography

Protest in Paris 1968

Wednesday 5/14 @ Berkeley Art Museum

Forty years after Paris' famous May 1968 protests, the true meaning of the uprisings is debatable — but that's not for... 

Sarah Wagner: <em>Nuclear Family</em>

Art

Sarah Wagner

Wednesday 5/14 @ Patricia Sweetow Gallery

Sarah Wagner turns out delicate textile sculptures that resemble tangled roots and vines. Her faux-plant shapes sprout from the gallery's cement... 

<em>Quarter Century: </em>Creativity Explored's 25th Anniversary

Art

Quarter Century

Wednesday 5/14 @ Creativity Explored

Creativity Explored has long been an outlet for local developmentally challenged adults to express their artistic visions. Now celebrating its 25th... 

<em>Art & Artifice: 75 Years of Design at San Francisco Ballet</em>

Special Event

Art & Artifice

Wednesday 5/14 @ Museum of Performance & Design

Emerging with a rejuvenated image and collection in March, the Museum of Performance & Design mounts an impressive exhibit chronicling the... 

<em>The Rape of the Sabine Women</em>

Art

The Rape of the Sabine Women

Wednesday 5/14 @ SFMOMA

Eve Sussman and the Rufus Corporation's epic video-opera, The Rape of the Sabine Women, is a sprawling, beguiling exploration of classical...