SF Art Events: Week of 09.28.25
THING ONE: Harry Bertoia, In the great oneness: Drawing, Sculpture, and Sound
Ongoing - October 11, 2025
Hosfelt Gallery mounts the first major West Coast presentation of Harry Bertoia’s work since his 1956 exhibition at SFMOMA.
One of the defining figures of Mid-Century Modernism, Harry Bertoia (1915–1978) made sculptures, drawings and jewelry; designed furniture that would prove to be iconic; executed more than 50 large-scale architectural commissions; and experimented with sound by performing on sculptures he crafted to be both formally beautiful and euphonic. More than 60 sculptures and drawings from the 1940s to late 1970s illustrate the technical skill of a master and vision of a genius.
In sculptures, made primarily from bronze or beryllium copper, Bertoia frequently referred to nature as a means of expressing the infinite. Forms suggest blossoms, grasses, seedheads, willows or corals. Others seem to refer to totemic figures, mineral deposits, meteorites or mycelium. The surfaces -- sometimes polished, sometimes sensuously encrusted, can seem sedimentary, biological or botanical.
In 1960, Bertoia began making sculptures he called “Sonambients,” which are as much about the sounds of vibrating metal as they are about the form of an object. In them, Harry Bertoia re-imagined the very purpose of sculpture, turning it into a multi-sensory encounter -- visual, tactile, and acoustic. This was revolutionary.
Though renowned for his furniture, ambitious public projects, and sculpture, Bertoia’s mostly unknown works on paper are the constant throughline -- and perhaps heart -- of his practice. Delicate and sensuous, they provide an intimate view into a maestro’s imagination. Each is immediate, intuitive, inventive and not surprisingly, virtuosic.
LOCATION: Hosfelt Gallery, 260 Utah Street, San Francisco, CA (map)
HOURS: Tu, W, F & Sa: 10am–5:30pm, Th: 11am–7pm, Closed Sun & Mon
Thing two: Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior
ONGOING - January 25, 2026
The Cantor Arts Center presents Shahzia Sikander: Collective Behavior, a career-spanning exhibition of the internationally renowned New York-based artist. For more than three decades, Shahzia Sikander (born 1969, Lahore, Pakistan) has been reframing South Asian visual histories through a contemporary feminist perspective. Sikander’s command of diverse media and traditions, from historical South Asian miniature paintings to digital animation, reveals a vibrant visual universe that reimagines the past for our present moment. Throughout her practice, she considers diasporic experiences, histories of colonialism, and Western relations with the global south and the wider Islamic world, often through the lens of gender and body politics.
Rather than proceeding chronologically, Collective Behavior follows Sikander’s primary ideas and inquiries throughout her work, rooted as they are in a recurring lexicon of forms, figures, and ideas. Beginning with Sikander’s extraordinary undergraduate thesis work, The Scroll, the exhibition explores Sikander’s role as an American artist, a Pakistani artist, a Muslim artist, and a feminist artist. Perhaps most significantly, it situates Sikander as a transformative global citizen and artist committed to disrupting established historical narratives.
LOCATION: Cantor Arts Center, 328 Lomita Drive at Museum Way
Stanford, CA 94305-5060 (map)
HOURS:
Monday & Tuesday: CLOSED
Wednesday: 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Thursday: 11:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m.
Friday: 11:00 a.m.–6:00 p.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Sunday: 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Shahzia Sikander (Pakistani American, b.1969), Fixed, Fluid, 2022, glass mosaic with patinated brass frame, Courtesy of Dr. Fatima Zuberi © Shahzia Sikander
THINGS THREE: Nimah Gobir, Better dey come
Installation view
Ongoing - October 18th
Johansson Projects presents Better Dey Come, a solo exhibition by Nimah Gobir. Combining painting, photo transfer, fabric, and embroidery, Gobir blends memories across time and geography by drawing inspiration from her Nigerian heritage and upbringing in California. Peppered with personal ephemera such as handed-down cloth and family photo albums, Gobir’s work is rooted in domesticity and connection, sifting through the nuances of Black identity while referencing her specific familial experiences. Utilizing quilting cottons, and at times more ceremonial African wax prints, Gobir patches together a synthetic family history that is both widely recognizable and utterly specific. Compounded with the incorporation of personal photographs from the 1980s and 90s into her painted interiors, her work interrogates the nature of portraiture, memory, and nostalgia through intimate representations of family life. Gobir explores these thorough lines across generations, finding resonance among her current daily rituals, childhood, and family’s past: braiding hair, sitting for a meal, washing dishes, posing for a group picture. Her mixed-media work collapses time and space, leaving the viewer in a kaleidoscope of memories that diffuse into the present moment.
Better Dey Come runs from September 13th to October 18th with an artist walk-through and reception on Thursday, October 2nd at 5 p.m.
LOCATION: Johansson Projects, 2300 Telegraph Ave. Oakland, CA (map)
HOURS: Thurs-Sat 1-5
