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Frank Smigiel

@fsmigiel

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Chief Curator @fortmasoncenter // former Exhibition + Museum Studies Chair @sfaiofficial (RIP) // San Francisco // just looking —

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Labor Day Looking Back: some early Summer art dives while back East; made some rounds & (mostly) missed the heat waves – Studio Museum, *Fade*; Greater New York @ PS1; *Costume Art* @ Met Museum; *New Humans: Memories of the Future* @ New Museum; Morgan LIbrary, *Peter Hujar* + *Friends Who Came to See Me: Drawings from the Collection of John Ashbery*; 2026 Whitney Biennial; Public Trust, Philly; *Rising Up: Rocky and the Making of Monuments* @ Phila Museum of Art; Carnegie International

Antonio Darden, *Untitled (Perform 2)* (2026)

Tom Thayer, *Counterdoses for the Home* (2026)

Kameelah Janan Rasheed, *Escape Orbit* (2026)

Kameran Neal, *Down the Barrel (of a Lens)* (2023)

Piero Penizzotto, *The Council of las Tias (Mary, Millagros, Cynthia, Nereyda)* (2026)

Joe Brainard, *Untitled (True Love)* (1971)

Bruce Weber, *The Dowager Duchess of Devonshire* (1995)

Daria Martin, *Soft Materials* (2004)

Giannina Censi, from *Aerodanza* series (1931)

Peter Hujar, *Andy Warhol and trees at night with flash, New Jersey* (1974)

Red Grooms, *Summer Still Life* (1978)

Jose Maceda, about *Ugnayan” (1974)

Kimowan Metchewais, polaroids

Daniel Faust, *Presidents* (1983-2023)

Larry Fink, *Blue Horizon, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, January 1989 – December 1994*

Firman Ichsan – 80’s/90’s fashion photography, Jakarta by @fsmigiel

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a month ago

Thawing out in So Cal from last week’s deep summer fog manifestation of *ICE. CAR. RAGE.,* a reimagining of the almost-unbelievable *Ice. Car. Cage.* 1997 piece by Jess Curtis, Jules Beckman, & Keith Hennessy. In the new work, instigated by Gabriele Christian, jose e. abad, Styles Alexander, & Clarissa Dyas move through key elements of the original — an autonomous car; an ice block; a dog cage — while raising site-specific histories (Black Quartermasters!), present- tense facts (“We don’t even live here anymore!”), and the futures (even “Cold as Ice”) only their movement can muster. I’ve been lucky to work with these remarkable artists — most recently on last summer’s DIASPORADICA — & I’m luckier to witness how they make Fort Mason’s somewhat wild grounds into a launching pad for a million wilder thoughts, dreams, & states of being.
Big Thanks not only to the artists but also to all the great folks at GRAVITY for trusting us both with this piece & the Jess Curtis archive — the latter providing the building blocks for our summer exhibition, *PLEASE. STAY. TOUCH. Jess Curtis Experiments with Gravity*. Curators Seth Eisen & LisaRuth Elliott expertly brought Jess’s practice into vivid relief through the community that nurtured him — & they continued that ecosystem in weekly artist activations by Maria Silke, Abby Crain, & jose e. abad.
I’ve been a little down on artistic promise given the Bay Area’s doom-ish art loop of collapsing orgs + departing artists, but ICE. CAR. RAGE. feels like an adrenaline shot to my heart (Up! Up! Up!). Carrying this summer forward…
Shout out too to Rachel Howard’s extensive review + meditation on performance & exhibition in last week’s SF Chron. Link in bio. taken in Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture by @fsmigiel

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2 months ago

Last week’s still point: jose e. abad’s work-in-progress *after the world, a gesture* with Nik Kniehase — our final artist-in-residence activation for *Please. Stay. Touch. Jess Curtis Experiments with Gravity.* If only we could hit Repeat.

It’s the last two weeks for the exhibition & just a few days till 2 major performance events over here. First up: Friday to Sunday’s SF Aerial Arts Festival. Tix link in Bio.

Then: *ICE. CAR. RAGE* — with jose, Styles Alexander, & Clarissa Dyas; instigated by Gabriele Christian. Evenings for the Exhibition Closing weekend Aug 14-16. #sfaaf #zaccho #fortmason taken in Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture by @fsmigiel

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2 months ago

Some shots from Abby Crain’s artist-in-residence actions for *PLEASE. STAY. TOUCH. Jess Curtis Experiments with Gravity* – 1st up: Friday night’s *sublunary, sublunary, sublime, sublime* with Styles Alexander, in the gallery. Then: *gravity is a field; i move beside you* on the West (& windy) side of Pier 2. Note the homage to Claire Denis’ *Beau Travail,* if the audio comes through (!). Really wonderful to see the exhibition & Fort Mason through Abby’s eyes. Tomorrow: jose e abad’s work-in-progress *after the world – a gesture* with Nik Kniehase, 5pm. See you there. Friday’s “Rehearsing Others” workshop starts at 4pm. Registration in Bio. taken in Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture by @fsmigiel

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3 months ago

As part of our summer exhibition *PLEASE. STAY. TOUCH. Jess Curtis Experiments with Gravity,* we’re hosting artists-in-residence to engage with Curtis’s legacy and to bring *live* elements into the gallery space. This weekend: Abby Crain invites Tiffany Taylor and Sheldon Smith to sound out the show in a sonic/vocal transcription. Join us Saturday in the Store House gallery at 4pm.
On Sunday, in a collaboration with Arion Press, Crain has invited Lorena Marín and Erasmo Pantoja of Biblioteca Popular Bruce Lee to conduct a group book-making workshop. We’ll think about how folks we’ve lost get remembered in objects (ala the Curtis show itself) and then create our own. We’ll start in the exhibition (Building D) at 1pm & then head over to the Arion Press gallery (across from Greens).
Details and registration at the links below. Abby returns on Friday the 24th & Saturday the 25th. jose e. abad takes the helm right after. And a BIG Thank You to Maria Silke for hosting Xandra Ibarra, Annie Sprinkle, & Beth Stephens as our residency kick-off & to performing/work-shopping her *Screwball* work-in-progress last weekend. Truly some great Starts! taken in Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture by @fsmigiel

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3 months ago

Our *PLEASE. STAY. TOUCH. Jess Curtis Experiments with GRAVITY* exhibition includes an Activation Stage led by artists-in-residence whom Curtis mentored. This Week: Abby Crain joins us for a live vocal transcription of the show with artist Tiffany Taylor (Saturday) & invites Lorena Marín and Erasmo Pantoja to weigh objects – in their case, books – as they mark loss. The latter runs as a Sunday special collaboration with Arion Press. RSVP at the links in Bio. Join us! @setheyezen @weird_little_sister @sfurbanwanderer taken in Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture by @fsmigiel

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3 months ago

Please. Stay. Touch. Jess Curtis Experiments with Gravity — opens at Fort Mason’s Store House (across from FLAX) this Saturday, 3 to 5pm. Sneak preview during Fort Mason Night Market this Friday (5 to 8pm). Excited to get the tape off + the art up on the walls — & to raise some glasses to our guest curators Seth Eisen & LisaRuth Elliott. Excited too to spend the summer (till August 16) with all the worlds Jess helped to make. taken in Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture by @fsmigiel

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4 months ago

Spring is peeking out all around Fort Mason & the seasonal shift also means that our early new year light is reaching its finale. Translation: Anthony McCall’s *First Light* exhibition has entered its final 5 days! Join us today or tomorrow or Friday from 12 noon to 6pm to catch three of McCall’s early solid art works from the Kramlich Art Foundation collection.

Saturday we’re hosting *The First Light Sessions 2*, with musicians David Coulter and Travis Andrews + Andy Meyerson (of The Living Earth Show!) responding to the gallery works live at 3pm. This improvisation-based concert means we’ll have odd Saturday hours: 11am to 1pm; then the show at 3pm; and then reopening for regular gallery-going from 5 to 7pm. I’ll give some remarks at 6pm. Sunday’s last day for viewing runs from 11am to 5pm.

Sliding-scale tix + RSVP’s at the link above. Photos 1, 2 & 4 by Minoosh Zomorodinia at Jan 23 Fort Mason Art Walk; others are my own. #fortmasonart by @fsmigiel

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7 months ago

We’re a little more than half-way through the run of Anthony McCall’s First Light exhibition here at Fort Mason, so there’s time to brave the rain + bask instead in these pretty magical light plays. Tomorrow, thanks to our great friends at SF Cinematheque, we’re screening McCall’s performance documentary Landscape for Fire (1972), a kind of earth work that led directly to his first solid light work Line Describing a Cone (1973). Line also emerges from the influence of three other artists and their experimental works: Carolee Schneeman’s Plumb Line (1972); Paul Sharits’ Ray Gun Virus (1966); and Hollis Frampton’s Nostalgia (Hapax Legomena I) (1971). I’ll give an intro in the exhibition itself at 6pm. Doors open at 6:30pm at BATS’ Bayview Theater on the 3rd floor of Building B. Films (all save McCall) on 16mm at 7pm.

Sliding-scale tix + RSVP’s at the link. Images: First Light Sessions in-gallery performance with George Brooks (saxophone), Destiny Muhammad (harp), & Dillon Vardo (vibraphone); Landscape for Fire; Plumb Line; Ray Gun Virus; Nostalgia (Hapax Legomena I); First Light install shots; Diane Arbus @ Fraenkel (for FOG) taken in Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture by @fsmigiel

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8 months ago

Hard to fight through the American gloom these days, but our Bay Area new art year has promised reinforcements — kicked off last night for me by Lindsey White’s great talk about art, art schools, & the people who love both. Tomorrow, we join the Kramlich Art Foundation to open Anthony McCall’s *First Light,* an exhibition featuring 3 of his iconic (no other word, sorry!) solid light works from 1973/74. While I’m celebrating here, the great Gina Basso opens a Sky Hopinka show at Slash & Beth Stephens + Annie Sprinkle host a Tit Lit afternoon at Cushion Works with some amazing guests. Let’s go out & see each other & assemble a few Armies of Art Lovers in all their bright lights! Images: 1. Fort Mason install of *Line Describing a Cone*; 2. same of *Conical Solid*; 3. Lindsey White’s *Last Art Scool* @ Hunter College; 4. Beth Stephens & Annie Sprinkle for their *Bazoombas in Love* @ Cushion Works; 5. Sky Hopinka, still from *I’ll Remember You as You Were, Not as What You’ll Become (2016). taken in Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture by @fsmigiel

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9 months ago

Old Year’s passing now but its beauties linger on: January twilight in Kota Ezawa, *Here and There – Now and Then*; Muzae Sesay, *Tall To Watch The Sun Go Down* (pt. 2 gallery presentation at FOG 2025); February visit to KARL introduced me to Aplerh-Doku Borlabi, *Endlessly Love* (2023); The Red Room Orchestra, with founder Marc Capelle, Petra Haden (vocals), Tom Ayres (guitars), Pete Straus (bass), and Jordan Glenn (drums) play “I Left My Heart in SF” for Kota Ezawa’s early March closing; April brought me to Wendel A. White, *Tape recorder used by Malcolm X at Mosque #7, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture* (2016) in his *Manifest* show at Rena Bransten gallery (you will be missed!); missing but celebrating the remarkable Karen Van Dine, artist & muse, at her May memorial; Peter Coyote kicks off Ben Kinmont’s *Our commons are free* at our June opening; July family visit reveals my Mother at her (junior?) prom!; closing weekend visit to Jack Whitten at MoMA – art revelation of the year! – showing just 1 treasure: *Pink Psyche Queen* (1973); back to school Fort Mason research; October jaunt to La Pocha Nostra at St. Joseph’s Art Society (viva Rene Yanez!); closing weekend visit to Ishan Clemenco’s *Calipers* – another art revelation of the year!; more Fort Mason archive discoveries (& dance discoveries always make me think of Margaret Tedesco’s endless moves); Wally Hendrick, *HERMETIC IMAGE* (1961) at the Whitney’s *Sixties Surreal*; NYE filming with Jennifer Locke takes me home. To the future…. taken in San Francisco, California by @fsmigiel

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10 months ago

Some sights from our holiday seasons, including my fave Christmas spirit (Present!) courtesy of John Leech; schoolroom Santa; a 10lb gift of NYRB classics from Clare; trees at home & back home (the Met; Printemps; Rocky); Philly delights, from a surprise snowfall to solo Calder to a Barnes corner to 30th St. station fixer-upper; from Macy’s Santa to a silent Texas twilight — Season’s Greetings to all & to all a Good Day & Night!
(Maybe some selfies next year) by @fsmigiel

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10 months ago