SF Art Events: Week of 08.24.25
THING ONE: INTERMedio, a solo exhibition of oil paintings by Luis Felipe Chávez
August 28 – September 27, 2025
Opening reception: Thursday, Sept. 4 at 6pm
Jonathan Carver Moore is thrilled to present INTERMedio, a solo exhibition of oil paintings by Luis Felipe Chávez (b. 1996), on view from August 28 to September 27. Through composite images that combine architectural and urban sites from both Mexico and the United States, Chávez explores themes of migration, memory, and the fluid nature of cultural identity.
INTERMedio was a project born out of the artist’s journey as an immigrant living in the United States. Raised in a small town in west-central Mexico, Chávez emigrated to the U.S. in 2020, ultimately settling in San Francisco, California. Rather than view these as distinct chapters in his life, the artist seeks to understand how these seemingly disparate places converge both physically and ideologically.
As someone straddling two worlds, Chávez identifies points where these cultures inform each other and in turn shape his own identity. In selecting his subjects, the artist looks for “places where I find a connection within my history, celebrating differences and a declaration of migratory resilience.” The resulting images juxtapose sites of his native and new lands, collapsing them into each other and creating an interim space. “This center describes my relationship in the world and how I perceive it—blending my past and my present.”
Upon first glance, the works appear to be photo collages featuring a singular place rather than two different countries painstakingly rendered in oil paint. This blurring of boundaries and borders is seen in Cathedrals, center? authorities? Guadalajara Jalisco, San Jose California (2020), which depicts the Catedral de la Asunción de María Santísima in Centro, Guadalajara and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph in San Jose, California colliding into the artist’s signature overlapping central plane. The merging of these institutions illustrates the shared histories of religion, art, and power between the U.S. and Mexico. The structures reveal not only the similarities between physical spaces, but also of the people who constructed them and those who operate within them. The artist has said, “We are all building the world, while we build ourselves. Space transforms us, and we transform the space.”
In an age of increasing xenophobia, Chávez responds with a love letter to migration and the intermingling of cultures. Rather than be silenced and made invisible, he invites others to celebrate his position in the INTERMedio. “This intermediate place identifies me and dis-identifies me at the same time. The world doesn't divide, it blends.”
LOCATION: Jonathan Carver Moore, 966 Market Street, San Francisco, CA (map)
HOURS: Tues - Sat 11 am - 5 pm
Thing Two: Elemental II: Photography and the Hand of Nature
John Chiara, Cabrillo Highway at Pescadero Creek Road, Variation 8, 2016
ONGOING - September 4, 2025
“Haines Gallery proudly presents Elemental II: Photography and the Hand of Nature, a group exhibition bringing together photographs by John Chiara, Linda Connor, Binh Danh, Chris McCaw, and Meghann Riepenhoff. Whether printing directly in the landscape, repurposing the earliest photographic technologies and techniques, or building their own cameras, their analog and often experimental methods result in singular objects that draw attention to the physicality of their processes, the materiality of their works, and the wonder and beauty of natural phenomena.
The second iteration of Haines’ eponymous 2023 exhibition, Elemental II brings together new and recent works taken across the American West and as far as the Arctic Circle, and explores themes including landscape and memory, place and belonging, ecological trauma, and environmental stewardship. The exhibition’s title is meant to evoke the active role that nature plays — physically and chemically, as natural forces and natural elements — in composing the works on view.
LOCATION: Haines Gallery, 2 Marina Blvd, Building C, San Francisco, CA (map)
HOURS: Tuesday–Saturday, 10:30am–5:30pm
THINGS THREE: Narrative Implied
Mimi Plumb,Girl in the Mirror, 1972
Ongoing - August 30, 2025
The Robert Koch Gallery is pleased to present Narrative Implied. This exhibition brings together work from eleven artists whose photographs explore narrative concepts, spanning clearly defined stories to more subtle and indirect approaches. The photographs are characterized by what they disclose and what they withhold. Open to interpretation, the included photographs welcome viewers to enter a realm of mystery and uncertainty.
Narrative Implied presents a broad range of visual approaches. Some artists capture elements from their surroundings, operating within established documentary practices, while others develop intentionally staged or fabricated scenes, or work with appropriated imagery. Each examines the emotional and psychological aspects of narrative construction, especially the dynamic between what appears visible and what exists beyond the frame’s boundaries.
The concept of suggested narrative serves as the exhibition’s foundation, drawing viewers into an engaged role, where personal interpretation, memory, and feeling complete what the image leaves unstated. These pieces depend on implication over direct explanation, establishing an environment where the story emerges through quiet suggestion and develops through individual viewer creative thought and emotional connection.
Narrative Implied invites us to consider how narratives unfold through the photographic medium, inspiring contemplation not just of what is visible, but of what is experienced, understood, and envisioned. The exhibition explores the connection between photograph and observer, where personal memory and individual interpretation take form. Whether these scenes emerge from daily experience or careful construction, the varied images challenge distinctions between the actual and the conceptual, encouraging consideration of photography’s varied capacity to both reveal and obscure significance, allowing each person to uniquely engage with and identify with the presented narrative.
LOCATION: Robert Koch Gallery, 49 Geary Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, CA (map)
HOURS: Monday - Friday, 11 am - 5:30 pm, Saturday, by appointment 2 pm - 5 pm
