Week of 05.25.25
Thing one: Arleene Correa Valencia’s Codice Del Perdedor / The Losing Man’s Codex
On view May 31 – July 19, 2025
Opening reception: Saturday, May 31 from 3 – 5pm; remarks at 3:45pm
Catharine Clark Gallery continues its Spring 2025 program with three solo exhibitions: Arleene Correa Valencia’s Codice Del Perdedor / The Losing Man’s Codex (South Gallery), featuring new works on Amate paper; Alejandro Cartagena’s In Between Spaces – Entre Espacios (North Gallery), a survey of major photographs and photocollages; and Nanci Amaka’s Cleanse / Three Walls (Media Room), a three-channel video installation recently presented at the Hawai’i Triennial 2025. All three exhibitions consider themes of migration, memory, and intergenerational healing.
Arleene Correa Valencia creates works on Amate paper, the same material her Indigenous Mexican ancestors used to record their migration stories. Correa Valencia drew inspiration from the Codex Boturini, which depicts the migration from Aztlán to the founding of Mexico-Tenochtitlán. This codex illustrates mothers carrying their children on their backs in search of safety and home. Correa Valencia remarks, “When I saw this, I was reminded of how our story of migration is a universal experience that never ends. The Losing Man’s Codex addresses the battle between good and bad, and everyone who stands between the two sides. When I was younger, my father told me a story of how losing is a noble act, one to be proud of, one that gifts us with joy and the opportunity to learn—a horizontal state of being in which all who lose stand together in community, while those who win stand alone. I made this work with the intention of reflecting on the current state of our community being hunted down by ICE, but also to celebrate our strength and resilience—to take pride in the beautiful ways in which we can come together and protect each other.” In 2022, Correa Valencia was able to return to Mexico for the first time since her departure at the age of 3.
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LOCATION: Catherine Clark Gallery, 248 Utah Street, San Francisco, CA 94103
HOURS: Tuesday – Saturday | 11:00AM – 6:00PM | Sunday – Monday | closed
Arleene Correa Valencia
Solas Pero Siempre Juntas / Alone But Always Together, 2024
Acrylic, textile, and thread on Amate made by Jose Daniel Santos De La Puerta
Sheet: 58 ¾ x 47 inches
Frame: 62 13/16 x 51 1/16 x 2 ¾ inches
thing two: Amanda ba: For Sport
ONGOING: May 22, 2025–June 27, 2025
Micki Meng is pleased to present For Sport, the debut San Francisco solo exhibition of Chinese American painter Amanda Ba and her first show with the gallery. The exhibition features a suite of new figurative paintings that deepen Ba’s exploration of identity, spectacle, and power.
Over the past five years, Ba has gained prominence for her transgressive figurative paintings depicting East Asian female subjects who defy the trope of the idealized, obedient, hyperfeminine woman. Informed by literary theory, anthropology, and her cultural heritage, Ba uses the painted medium as a visual extension of her ongoing inquiry into how power and culture are absorbed and expressed through the body. Whether painting an eroticized, red-fleshed warrior (as in her breakout exhibition The Incorrigible Giantess, 2022) or an otherworldly Titan resting amid the wreckage of an entropic cityscape (as in her 2024 exhibition Developing Desire at Jeffrey Deitch), Ba’s ongoing fascination with uninhibited figures revolves around the interplay of identity and politics.
In For Sport, Ba turns to the environment of athletics. Across seven paintings, she portrays athletes in motion: boxers, skiers, synchronized swimmers, basketball players, weightlifters, and hunters, each drawn from various sources, including sports photography, self-portraiture, and live models she has brought into the studio. Through these bodies in action, Ba examines how competitive sport reflects and reinforces cultural ideologies, national mythologies, and global hierarchies.
LOCATION: Micki Meng, 1720 Armstrong Ave A, San Francisco, CA 94124
HOURS: By Appointment only
Amada Ba, For Sport
Derick Davies, Oakland California showing in The Grand Gallery
Thing Three: east bay open studios
ONGOING: May 31 - June 1 & June 7 - 8, 2025, 11am - 5pm
East Bay Open Studios (EBOS) is a free community event where 150+ artists across the East Bay open their studios to the public. Meet artists, find inspiration, support the arts, and celebrate our vibrant arts community.
LOCATION: Various, See website for full list of participating artists and map
HOURS: Saturday and Sunday, 11 AM to 5 PM
