Everything You Wanted to Know About Black Art Week – Just Ask
Black Art Week
Various Locations
San Francisco & East Bay
October 1 – 5
Thomas, Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman (Maya Angelou) outside SF Main Public Library
Building on the momentum of last year's groundbreaking debut, Nexus: SF/Bay Area – Black Art Week returns to honor the vibrant creativity and cultural impact of Black artists across our region. This dynamic week-long celebration brings together arts organizations, galleries, creative hubs, and visionary Black artists for a series of exhibitions, open studios, events, programs, and immersive experiences. Black Art Week also coincides with the reopening of the refurbished MoAD (Museum of the African Diaspora).
Recently, I detailed some remarkable exhibitions that also will be featured during Black Art Week. You can read entire Blogs dedicated to Black Art, such as Sticking Family, which describes BAM/PFA’s current installation: Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California, OR Stories Untold regarding Fort Point’s building-wide installation Black Gold. I won’t repeat that information here.
Click here for the entire Calendar of Events for Black Art Week.
Below, I’ve singled out two-to-three events for each day that have set my heart pounding. Perhaps you will want to cancel all your appointments for the week and immerse yourself in the dozens of events. Either way, try to make time to go back to MoAD, which is reopening on October 1, after a six+ months renovation.
Wednesday, October 1
9:00 (SF) Portrait of a Phenomenal Woman: A Monument to Honor Dr. Maya Angelou for the San Francisco Main Library. Repeated daily. San Francisco Main Library, Larkin Street.
In 2018, the city of San Francisco passed legislation to increase the representation of women in the public realm to 30 percent - through the installation of monuments and public art (and renaming city streets and buildings). At that time, there were only two monuments dedicated to women out of almost 90 monuments in the city. As part of the endeavor to rectify that gender disparity, San Francisco named a woman of color, Dr. Maya Angelou, to be honored with the first sculpture.
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10:00 (Oakland) Black Panther Party Legacy. Repeated daily. Black Panther Museum
The Dr. Huey P. Newton Foundation was established in 1995 by David Hilliard, former Chief of Staff of the Black Panther Party, and Fredrika Newton, Black Panther and widow of Huey P. Newton. The organization is dedicated to protect the Black Panther Party legacy and assure it lives on despite COINTELPRO, the FBI’s program to discredit, disrupt, and destroy, Black leaders.
In a period when activists, professionals, and scholars alike seek to connect prior and current movements, the Black Panther Party Museum enables people around the globe to learn, engage with, and be inspired by the teachings of Huey P. Newton and the collective Black Panther Party.
10:00 (SFO-International Terminal) Women of Afrofuturism Repeated 10.2 (when it will be curator-led)
Afrofuturism, an artistic and sociopolitical liberation movement, examines the past, questions the present, and reimagines the futures of Black people. Afrofuturism explores the Black experience through a combination of science fiction, magical realism, mythology, history and technology in genres ranging from literature and music to fashion, film and visual arts.
The SFO Museum is the only museum in an airport that is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. While you are there, step over to the Domestic Terminals 1, 2 and 3 to enjoy other parts of the Museum
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11:00 (SF) UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & The Universe Repeated daily. MoAD
(6:00 Opening Reception on 10/1.)
This groundbreaking exhibition explores the intersections of Blackness and the cosmos. It invites visitors to reimagine Blackness not as fixed or earthbound, but as infinite – expansive, unknowable, and cosmically rich.
Thursday, October 2
10:00 (SF Historical Society) We Were There. Repeated Saturday 10/4.
The Museum of San Francisco’s first community-based exhibit, spotlights the devastating impact of government-led urban renewal in the 1950s–1970s. It documents the displacement of thousands – primarily African American and Japanese American residents in the Western Addition – through powerful, rarely seen photographs from the Burden Archive.
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11:00 (Oakland Museum, Great Hall) Black Spaces: Reclaim & Remain Repeated daily.
Through art, architecture, and archival research, the exhibition traces how Black American communities have creatively resisted dispossession and reimagined spaces of home and belonging.
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Noon (SFMOMA) Suzanne Jackson: What Is Love. Repeated daily.
For over six decades, Suzanne Jackson has created lyrical, awe-inspiring paintings influenced by her deep respect for the natural world and continual belief in the connection between all living things. Jackson’s life has been driven by her search for creative freedom, along with a bohemian spirit she absorbed from the San Francisco ethos of the 1950s and 1960s in which she was raised.
Friday, October 3
11:00-3:00 & 5:00-8:00 (SF Marrow Gallery) Nguyen Smith: …and here’s where I come in
Nguyen Smith presents a compelling new body of works on paper that represents both a formal and conceptual pivot in his art. Known for exploring diasporic memory, forced migration and speculative architectures of Black resilience, Smith here turns inward – repositioning himself not only as maker, but as subject. While his distinct material sensibility persists – gestural mark-making, repetition and collage – these new works introduce a reflexive element, with Smith’s own figure (… here’s where I come in) entering the composition as witness, intercessor and symbolic vessel.
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1:00 (Oakland - Johansson Projects) Better Dey Come Nimah Gobir. Repeated 10.4
(5:00-8:00, Talk & Reception with the artist.)
Gobir is an Oakland based artist and educator whose work is rooted in the domestic interior. Often drawing from family photographs and other personal ephemera, she combines painting with embroidery, patterned textiles, and photo transfer to create patchwork portraits of intimate memories and family histories. The child of Nigerian-born parents, Gobir’s work explores the enduring results of diaspora and the renewal of belonging to a home.
Saturday, October 4
11:00 (Oakland - Norton Factory Studios) Tiffany Conway, Open Studio Repeat 10/5
Conway will host a special open studio experience inviting visitors into her vibrant world of storytelling, spirituality, and celebration of the African Diaspora. Known for her bold figuration, bright color palettes, and imaginative compositions, Conway's work offers a powerful exploration of memory, identity, and the Black experience.
I can personally add that you will leave with a smile on your face. Her featured female figures radiate joy and power.
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1:00-5:00 (SF, 2830 20th Street) Ramekon O’Arwisters, Open Studio Repeated 10/5
Step inside the world of the renown visionary artist whose work sits at the intersection of craft, community and cultural resistance. Best known for his ongoing fabric and social-art practice, Crochet Jam, O’Arwisters blends traditional African American craft traditions with contemporary art practices to create participatory installations that explore healing, identity and liberation.
A San Francisco-based artist and former curator, O’Arwisters’ work reclaims the domestic ritual of crocheting – often viewed as feminine or decorative – and transforms it into a radical, inclusive, and tactile form of expression. Through bold textures, repurposed fabrics and improvisational forms, he invites you to challenge social norms and embrace the power of collective making.
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6:00 (SF Ferry Building) Afropolitan Ball Celebrates 20 Years of MoAD
This year’s black-tie celebration will mark two decades of MoAD’s impact on art, culture and community.
Sunday, October 5
1:00-3:00 (Oakland, 4210 Market Street) Demetri Broxton Open Studio
Step into the richly layered world of an artist whose work bridges ancestral memory, spirituality and material culture. Known for his intricately embellished mixed media pieces, Broxton draws upon African and Filipino heritage, Southern craft traditions and hip-hop aesthetics to explore themes of identity, power and protection.
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3:00 (SF Roxie Theatre) Assembly – Documentary & Conversation with Filmmakers
Assembly is a genre-bending journey into an uncategorizable Black and queer future. Part documentary, part multi-sensory performance, the film takes audiences behind the scenes of Rashaad Newsome’s groundbreaking installation at New York’s Park Avenue Armory, transforming a bastion of white military power into a vibrant celebration of queer joy, resistance and possibility.
Assembly
movie poster
Blending music, dance, projections, sculpture, holograms and African fractal patterns, Assembly channels the energy of the queer underground while delivering sharp political commentary. At its center is Being (a Digital Griot – Griot is a West African storyteller and musician who preserves oral traditions and histories). Being appears as a voguing, storytelling, non-binary AI, informed by the writings of Black feminist thinkers. From breathtaking visuals to powerful tributes — including an homage to Black trans women and a journey to Ghana to commune with enslaved ancestors — Assembly is at once a vision of intergenerational resilience and a love letter to queer Black excellence.
