Approximately 80
Speculative Conversations
on the

80^th Anniversary

of the

San Francisco Museum
of Modern Art

Saturday
October 17
2015

Amanda Eicher, Artist
with Shari Paladino, Assisting Artist
Graphic design: Christine Wong Yap

This project is supported by
Public Dialogue
at the
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

Can We Talk About Art
is a mapping project created by the artist Amanda Eicher

for Meeting Points: Stories in Art from the Urban Frontier, a celebration of the 80th anniversary of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Participants in Can We Talk About Art are organized geographically on the map according to their everyday locations. By no means a comprehensive guide, the map identifies a diverse array of expertise where it exists in the city and the greater Bay Area. Exact locations, times, and points of conversation for each person participating on Saturday, October 17, 2015, from noon–6 p.m. are listed below, organized alphabetically by the participants' last names.
This guide, in web and mobile formats, is also available online at sfmoma.tumblr.com and amandajeicher.com.
For convenience, the map can also be viewed as a googlemap.

** Indicates limited availability.

A Gathering of Experts at Rincon Annex: Researchers, Tourists, and Guides

Simon Addarich

Visitor, Musician

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–2 PM

"It was a little bit of a history class [coming to see the Rincon Annex murals]. The impact of Francis Drake getting here—being from New York I had never thought about this other ocean being discovered."

Gray Brechin

Historical Geographer, UC Berkeley

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 3–4 PM

Put down your cellphones and look at what's around you—there are cities which are ephemera. San Francisco is a stage set of a city—it's already almost all burned down once—it's not going to be here always."

Chris Carlsson

Co-Director, Shaping San Francisco

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 1–2 PM

"In the 1930s there was a working class that knew itself and found itself interested in public art, and now we don't think there is a working class any more, let alone that we ourselves might be members of it."

Al Ciabattoni**

Guide, San Francisco City Guides

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"These murals were painted during a very complex time, when there were class disparities not unlike those you see today. I share the history of these murals and I hope my audiences make their own connections and take away parallels. It doesn't always happen."

Barbara Davis

San Francisco City Guide

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"The Rincon Annex murals were controversial. In 1953 Congress debated whether they should be destroyed. Prominent San Franciscans, including the heads of our three museums, defended them, and they were left in place."

Lisa Eriksen

Museum Educator, Museum Consultant

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"The model of the curator being the content expert is being replaced by shared authority. How art is discussed is a lot more democratic. I think this project is a model for the kind of programming we are going to see more of—art that is modeling the transformation of the art museum as the keeper of art, situating art within the community."

Devonique Johnson

Security Desk, Rincon Annex Post Office

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"I look at it every day—we have a lot of work to do, but I see it all the time. I grew up around here, and I didn't know much about the history, but I started reading about it in books, and now I see it every day when I'm working."

Deshana Jones

Security Desk, Rincon Annex Post Office

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"They're beautiful. They took a long time to paint! I look at them for a long time. The only one I really know about is this one: It became controversial because they asked the artist to paint the Indians in Western clothes."

Leslie Finlev

San Francisco City Guide, Rincon Annex Post Office

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–1 PM

“I’m a third generation San Franciscan, and I’ve always loved my city. My very first real job in college was at the Rincon Annex Post Office, and the labor history of San Francisco has always been so interesting to me.”

Pat Kong

Security Desk, Rincon Annex Post Office

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"Public art is everything to me. I am an artist and a muralist, and it means a lot to be here in San Francisco doing this."

Stella Lochman**

Public Dialogue Associate, SFMOMA; Native San Franciscan

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"It's such a privilege and a power to be able to see a better San Francisco and make a better city—for us to say yes to it, and help make it happen. What can't you do at SFMOMA? Unless you're putting someone in physical danger, nothing is really off limits."

Caille Millner

Journalist, San Francisco Chronicle

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 2–3 PM

A lot of the students who went to San Francisco Art Institute later went on to create some of the murals in Coit Tower. When I think about San Francisco visually, I think that mural style is associated in my memory–but also in the collective memory–with what the city looks like."

Berit Potter

Visiting Faculty, San Francisco Art Institute

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 2–3 PM

"One of the things I find really interesting was how many women were shown at SFMOMA during Grace McCann Morley's leadership. The numbers are pretty staggering—you see a real unfolding of women's voices."

Dan Sheehan

San Francisco City Guide, SFAI BFA 1966

Rincon Center, 12–3 PM

"The murals at Rincon Center are unique in that they were painted with approximately 91 revisions, an impetus created by many pressure groups; it really puts into context the complexity of art, politics, and free expression."

Taylor Shoolery**

Program Associate, Research and Content, SFMOMA

Rincon Annex Post Office, 121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"Stories are such an important part of how we think about art. For people walking into a museum feeling a bit out of place, the process of storytelling can be a really valuable entry point, and can also be done collaboratively."

Rob Spoor

Coordinator, San Francisco City Guides

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"I started to do this kind of volunteer work because I wanted to preserve the history of the city—a city I fell in love with. Although the city has changed, controversy surrounding public, government-funded artworks in the United States has not changed that much."

Susan Warble

Mural Enthusiast

Rincon Annex Post Office
121 Spear Street, 12–3 PM

"The murals bring back a lot of memories: I remember when I was little, my parents went to San Francisco and brought us back 'coolie suits,' my brother and I, like those you see in Refregier's mural, of the building of the transnational railroad at Rincon Center. I think back on that now, and it reflects the racism that existed then, and the murals represent the racism of their time."

Sit down to lunch with an Arts Commissioner

JD Beltran

Artist; President, San Francisco Arts Commission

Yank Sing Restaurant, Rincon Center Food Court
121 Spear Street, 1–2 PM

Art and architecture are essential parts of the narrative of a culture. When people travel, and they go to a new city, what's the number one thing they go to see? It's the museum."

Kimberlee Stryker

Landscape Architect; Lecturer at UC Berkeley, Department of Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning, College of Environmental Design; San Francisco Arts Commissioner

Yank Sing Restaurant, Rincon Center Food Court
121 Spear Street, 1–2 PM

"While much of our efforts [as arts commissioners] are related to civic design, we also focus on how the arts can be better integrated into civic projects so people can encounter art in unexpected ways. I am interested in how public art is experienced by the citizens of San Francisco, especially in outdoor places. I'd like to hear from others how we could bring more awareness and enjoyment of various kinds of art into our lives every day."

1930s Arts and Design at the San Francisco Railway Museum

Justin Bower

Front Desk Worker, San Francisco Railway Museum

San Francisco Railway Museum
77 Steuart Street, 12–6 PM

"I'm new in town, but when I look at the murals in this city, I see an awareness of the socioeconomic realities of our world and in San Francisco."

Brian Leadingham

Manager, San Francisco Railway Museum

San Francisco Railway Museum
77 Steuart Street, 12–6 PM

"I always send people to see the murals at Rincon Annex and Coit Tower, because they are not things that people can easily discover on their own. Someone might just look at [these landmarks] from afar and not ever go inside—they are a very beautiful, well-maintained part of our city's history."

Take a moment to talk to a MUNI driver

Anthony Leval

Driver, MUNI

MUNI F-Line, 12–6 PM

"To be honest, no—I have never been inside the museum. I know about the murals though; I know how to appreciate that they are a part of the history of activism. There is information there, a before and an after."

Phil Moore

Driver, MUNI

MUNI F-Line, 12–6 PM

"Public art is important because it tells you about a city's people. Even if you are looking at it and thinking, 'What in the world is this?' It comes from someone's ideas, and that can tell you a lot about who lives there."

California Historical Society

Michaela Peterson

Guest Services, California Historical Society

California Historical Society
678 Mission Street, 12–6 PM

"What if we could only have public art on the outside wall of every building? Then what would the conversation be like in the city? Communicating, bonding, understanding, sometimes I think to myself, 'When did that stop?'"

San Francisco History Center, Main Library, 6th Floor

Susan Goldstein

City Archivist, San Francisco History Center, San Francisco Public Library

San Francisco Main Library, 6th floor, 12–6 PM

"Art was seen as work, and people were put to work through the WPA. I can't really imagine that happening now. I thought about it a lot during the recession, because so many people were unemployed—the 1934 strike, the history of the Depression leading up to the creation of these works."

Looking at the city with artists, student artists, and scientist-artists at the Exploratorium's 5th Floor Observatory

Shalini Agrawal

Director, Center for Art and Public Life, CCA

Exploratorium, 5th Floor
Embarcadero Pier 15, 3:30–4:30 PM

I know that it will take decades to change the paradigm. What can I do in the meantime? Become an ally in community. Where do I sit in terms of privilege and experience? I think by quite literally putting people in leadership positions and setting them up for success—if we're not all in the game together, nothing's going to happen."

Sylvia Algire

Associate Director, School Field Trip Explainer Program

Exploratorium, 5th Floor
Embarcadero Pier 15, 3:30–4:30 PM

It was work! You could go to your local city hall and sign up for projects as an artist, as a worker. It wasn't extra—it was infrastructural."

Mary Hogan

Artist/Educator; BFA Candidate, CCA; Facilitator, SPACE at CCA

Exploratorium, 5th Floor
Embarcadero Pier 15, 3:30–4:30 PM

"There isn't necessarily a locus today like there used
to be. There's a big push toward the local, but that's
not such a reality anymore because of the gap
between where people live and where they work.
We are tied to the past of an arts locus in the city."

Tamara Berdichevsky

Artist; BFA Candidate, CCA

Exploratorium, 5th Floor
Embarcadero Pier 15, 3:30–4:30 PM

“I’ve been here four years - this is my fourth. There’s so much diversity - an enrichment through people. I have parents who are very supportive, who told me to get out of Mexico to become an artist. I think I’ll stay a while.“

Lauren Kenward

Artist, San Francisco Resident

Exploratorium, 5th Floor
Embarcadero Pier 15, 3:30–4:30 PM

"It is hard [now] to establish those kinds of spaces for artists. When I think about why art matters to me, I think of community and being able to connect with others. It encourages me to stay and establish myself."

Marina McDougall

Director, Center for Art and Inquiry

Exploratorium Entrance, Pier 15, 4–5PM

"Often we don't put our resources into people enough—we put them into projects, and things, but we could use a resurgence of support like we had through the WPA. That sense of purposeful work that gives people pride—a notion I think we've lost in terms of the civic."

Esther Sadeli

Artist; BFA candidate, CCA

Exploratorium, 5th Floor, Pier 15, 3:30–4:30 PM

"I notice discontent, anger, and sadness on the part of artists, how the tech community has come in and is changing the environment. And I have a lot of friends in the tech industry; they are wide-eyed, and they love San Francisco as an idea. I have always thought that San Francisco's social landscape shouldn't be about artists vs. techies, or natives vs. transplants, but that the two sides can coexist if each gets to know the other."

Susan Schwartzenberg

Senior Artist and Curator, Fisher Bay Observatory

Exploratorium, 5th Floor
Embarcadero Pier 15, 3:30–4:30 PM

"A good chunk of the infrastructure that is now at risk from sea-level rise due to climate change was completed at that moment of the WPA. From here [the Exploratorium's Observatory], I love that we see Treasure Island, the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, and the sea wall—Pier 15 itself was finished in 1930."

Emily Tareila

Assistant Director for Career Development, CCA

Exploratorium, 5th floor
Embarcadero Pier 15, 3:30–4:30 PM

"We try to cultivate in our students not only a curiosity and enthusiasm for their own practice and craft, but an agency as artists that compels them to participate and contribute to our civic democracy."

Embarcadero Histories and Futures

Sarah Brin

Public Programs Manager, Autodesk

Pier 9 Workshop, Pier 9 Drive Aisle, 3:30–5 PM

"The city's arts infrastructure is changing in some significant ways. I am very proud that Autodesk can support artists in many ways—technological and otherwise—that traditional arts institutions can't. If you're interested in process, or in arts and labor, it would seem like you would want to talk about these technologies and their relation to art production now."

LisaRuth Elliott

Historian and Artist, LisaRuth's Lovin' from the Oven

"White Angel Jungle" Depression-era Soup Kitchen, Across from Pier 23, The Embarcadero, 1–3 PM

"From my Breadmobile, I connect us to the history of this site, to each other, to our own wells of generosity. Breaking bread together allows everyone to bring their gifts to the table and the possibility for human connection arises."

Tanya Hollis

Archivist, Labor Archives and Research Center, SFSU

Embarcadero Pier 15, 3–5 PM

"Art and labor have always been intertwined and both are integral to the history of the city. Workers are artists, artists are workers."

Catherine Powell

Director, Labor Archives and Research Center, SFSU

Embarcadero Pier 15, 3–5 PM

"Labor has always drawn on powerful graphics to communicate its message."

Richard Walker

Professor Emeritus, Geography, UC Berkeley

San Francisco Ferry Building
Southwest Corner, 11 AM–1 PM

"The look of the city and the bay has changed dramatically over time, in part because of how we envision them and in part because of profound changes in the functions of both landscapes. The waterfront has always been a critical urban/environmental frontier, and will continue to be so with global change."

Telegraph Hill and Coit Tower

Paul Chasan

Urban Designer, San Francisco Planning Department

Lombard and Chestnut Streets, 12–3 PM

"We're the city, we have this power—'the police power'—that is, the ability to enforce our rules and laws (zoning codes, permit fees, etc.), which in the end is backed up with a threat of coercion. But there are all these other powers—for example, the power to legitimize an idea."

Marisha Farnsworth

Artist, Designer, Hyphae Design Lab, Urban Biofilter

Lombard and Chestnut Streets, 12–3PM

"I like the idea of these strange happenings and interactions on Market Street. You can perform [on the Block by Block LIZ], eat, sleep, play, conversate, or drink coffee on it; in a protest, it can be dismantled and used as a barricade. What art can bring to urban planning is something open-ended—critical perhaps, or complicated, something unknown and experimental."

Rory O'Connor

Journalist; San Francisco City Guide

Coit Tower, 12–6 PM

"I go up there and I talk to the art. It is a history and a fine art; it is a city in 1934 happening in the twentieth century."

Carlos Prado

Docent, Coit Tower

Coit Tower, 12–6 PM

"The tower and the murals are a panorama of a story, of a situation, and of the Depression. The scale, composition, color, style: I want people to ask, what was the purpose of that?"

Nik Sokol

Tunneling Engineer, Arup

Lombard and Chestnut Streets, 12–3 PM

"It sounds like we're really talking about the permanence of art, and then there's the permanence of urban planning, and then there's the permanence of geology—or the impermanence of all those things."

Vivienne Tong**

Student, UC Santa Cruz

Coit Tower, 12–6 PM

"I guess art is a representation of the time in which it was created and how the artist saw; a lot of people in these murals look like they are spacing out, their heads are to the side, like profiles. At first it feels like these murals add a lot of character and liveliness to the place; it brightens it up a bit, but really it is a historical picture."

North Beach Encounters

Liam Golden

Native San Franciscan

Washington Square Park
Columbus Avenue and Union Street, 4–5 PM

"These WPA murals snuck in as a result of a drastic economic situation, the Depression, directly created—at least in part—by those in power in San Francisco. It's lovely to consider that out of a disaster created without concern for the working class—or non-moneyed, nonwhite culture—that this other narrative can exist in the form of some of the greatest monuments in the city."

Jon Golinger

Lawyer, Telegraph Hill Resident

Canessa Gallery Office
708 Montgomery Street, 1-6 PM

"Jon Golinger put an initiative on the ballot to restore Coit Tower. Ed Lee put in $1 million, and maybe he was thinking the measure would fail. It ended up with 60 percent of the vote." —Anon.

Adam Gottstein

Publisher, Volcano Press;
Grandson of Coit Tower Muralist Bernard Zakheim

Caffe Trieste, 601 Vallejo Street, 2–4 PM

"My grandfather [Bernard Zakheim]'s art was so inextricably woven with politics. It's interesting to think of the murals at Coit Tower as a collection of New Deal artworks, and how these works would be treated if they were in a museum. The preservation of the works at Coit Tower was no accident, and it created more political discussion. Public art and these murals, there is no question as to how they contribute to a culture."

John Graham

Artist; Senior Editor, Il Fornio Historical Society

Comstock Saloon, 155 Columbus Avenue, 3–5 PM

"This building, a rebuild from the 1906 earthquake— much like the buildings which contain WPA works—has been a vessel for narrative and myth. The walls can talk, a bit, and we can listen to them."

Jeff Gunderson

Special Collections Librarian and Archivist, San Francisco Art Institute

San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut, 4–5 PM

"I think of Joan Brown swimming out of the South End Rowing Club (and doing paintings to reflect her swims), after suing the Dolphin Club because they would not allow women. And of her one time husband–the great printmaker, Gordon Cook, who was a Dolphin Club member. Inside both of these Aquatic Park institutions are remnants of Brown and Cook–even a beautiful row boat named after Cook!"

Paul Mavrides

Artist, San Francisco resident

Caffe Trieste, 2601 Vallejo Street, 3–6 PM

"Like a lot of human endeavors, art is about what is and what isn't: the very field breaks its own rules. The minute you define a parameter, someone crosses the boundary."

Katherine Petrin

Architectural Historian, Save New Mission Theatre, SFNTF

Caffe Trieste, 601 Vallejo Street, 2–4 PM

"I think a lot about which San Francisco buildings are significant, valuable, and why. Who built them, with what materials, and why? What do they tell us about who we are and who we were? Did I mention I love Coit Tower?"

Harvey Smith

Author, Berkeley and the New Deal

Canessa Gallery, 708 Montgomery Street, 4–5 PM

"By the 1930s, as many as 75 artists and writers had studios or apartments with rents as low as $5 per week in the building they affectionately dubbed the 'Monkey Block.'"

Gatherings before sunset at the Maritime Museum and Hyde Street Pier

Carlo Arreglo

Event Coordinator, VISTA Volunteer,
San Francisco Maritime Museum

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 3–6 PM

What's interesting about this place is that some people come with a deep institutional memory of what it was like—[they come to see] artifacts. Hiler's murals are like remnants of a style wiped away by Nazi fascism."

Bernie Barden

National Park Service Public Docent

Maritime National Park Visitors' Center
499 Jefferson Street 12–4 PM

The fictional lost undersea continents of Atlantis and Mu—you see fish you've never seen before [in the Hilaire Hiler murals]: a 9-foot eel, or an octopus with two heads. I suppose some people might be frightened by it, but I think it's intriguing. You recognize things you thought you knew."

Deena Chalabi**

Associate Curator, Public Dialogue, SFMOMA

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 3–6 PM

Often I try to combat a sort of cultural amnesia that seems to accelerate in times of rapid change. By making a connection between the museum and its public mandate to the WPA and its ethics, I'm looking for the possibility of a pathway—looking back to look forward."

Cheryl Conte

Visitor, Maritime Museum

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 3–6 PM

"It's interesting—it fits into the scenery. I assume it is more historical than that, there is a more complicated history, but it just looks like part of the building to me."

John Davey

Maritime Operations Manager, Port of San Francisco

Hyde Street Pier, 12–6 PM

"It is worth preserving the working waterfront and maritime commerce so that ships will continue to arrive from foreign lands. The waterfront is more than a pretty view."

JR Earnest

Ranger, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

Hyde Street Pier, 12–5 PM

"There's a black blob on the [Hilaire Hiler mural], kind of in the corner, and it got the whole crowd talking about oil spills—even before the big Discovery spill—it got people talking about something really big."

John Elrick

PhD Student, Geography, UC Berkeley

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 5–6 PM

"Encountering the social and cultural landscapes produced during the New Deal offers more than a prescription for policy today. It highlights an alternative to contemporary forms of political life and suggests that other ways of being together are possible."

Richard Everett

Curator, San Francisco Maritime Museum

Prismatorium, San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 3–6 PM

"I've worked here 35 years, and I have dreamed about this place more than a few times. I've spent a whole evening in the museum with it pouring rain—in my dreams—and it was the most beautiful thing."

Christian L. Frock

Independent Curator and Producer, Invisible Venue

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 4–5 PM

"The story of Sargent Johnson is relevant to many pressing issues today, from labor to development to civic funding to black lives in public life. Johnson was and remains an extraordinary, radical figure—a black man in the 1930s working as a high level public artist for the government. As Ernest Jolly recently put it: 'Name for me a high level black artist involved in art and government right now.'"

Susan Greider

National Park Service Docent

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 12–5 PM

"The artists had a really strong view. There are two statues facing the beach now; well, there used to be nine. Benny Bufano put the statues on the beach so that children could play on them: ‘Public art is meant to be public, and there's nothing you can do to stop it.'"

Constance Lee Hockaday

Artist

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 3–4 PM

"I think of water as fast land—land is also moving, but water is faster. [On the water], there are these rules of engagement that require you to interact with this constantly moving natural world. It means you can only really own the space you are directly occupying. And I think these rules apply also on land."

Amy Hosa

Exhibit Designer, San Francisco Maritime Museum

HYDE STREET PIER, SHIPWRIGHT SHOP, 3–5 PM

"Years ago I began filling sketchbooks with adventures out on the water or along the city's old industrial waterfront. My exhibit work at the Maritime Museum is complemented by this love affair with water and fascination with historic imagery. I'll be plein air sketching visions of the past and present."

Chris Jannini

Shipwright at Hyde Street Pier

HYDE STREET PIER, SHIPWRIGHT SHOP, 3–5 PM

"My work on historic ships is my art. All of the practical skills and techniques that are needed to maintain these 'greyhounds of the sea'—from hand seaming a sail, splicing an eye in the wire rigging, to laying up a rope thump mat—also have a use in decorative arts (marlingspike seamanship' to a sailor). Turks' head bracelets, a fancy bell rope, a carved figurehead‚ it's all art‚ sailors' art."

Ernest Jolly

Artist

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 4–5 PM

"One of the things I've seen that's interesting to me about Sargent Johnson is that Bufano, who was his mentor, brought him into this project and had him head up the tile installation. As an art student, an artist, and now an academic, [I see that] most of the people who are in public art don't bring people into their practice and help them get to a point where they're independent professionals themselves."

Gary Kamiya

Author, Cool Gray City of Love

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 5–6 PM

"Cities—do they get old, do they get worn out?
I'm naturally an optimistic person—I want to feel
good about my city. This newer generation—
I just don't know what they're going to bring."

Carol Kiser

National Park Service Ranger

Maritime National Park Visitors' Center
499 Jefferson Street, 12–4 PM

"It's like a different world over there, a world that doesn't exist in present time. The colors in the museum were chosen because of the colors in the natural environment surrounding it—a radically different design."

Megan Martenyi

PhD Student, Politics, UC Santa Cruz

San Francisco Maritime Museum 900 Beach Street, 3:30–6 PM

"I'm interested in these artworks because I'm interested in notions of the public now–in the contemporary political terrain, neoliberalism makes me interested in public-ness as a value."

David Pelfrey

Park Ranger, San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

Prismatorium, San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 3–6 PM

"[The Hilaire Hiler murals] are one of the best examples of American jazz on a wall."

Ava Roy

Artistic Director, We Players

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 5:30–6:30 PM

"Site-integrated theater is my tool to support transformative experience in public places—to support intimate engagement with space and foster a sense of belonging.”

Peter Samis

Associate Curator for Interpretation, SFMOMA

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 5:30–6:30 PM

"Grace McCann Morley was unquestionably an aesthete, but she was also an evangelist—scrupulous, impeccable in her correspondence, advocating for artists and giving many their first shows, working extensively in Latin America, upholding cultural diplomacy as the founding director of ICOM and being present for the creation of UNESCO. She was completely engaged on that international level. But she was also willing to reach out and be didactic to meet the needs of the local audience."

Jovi Schnell

Artist; MFA Candidate, UC Berkeley

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 4–6 PM

"In some ways, public projects are an extension of what I do in the studio and in the public realm. The difference is that I am working with a committee and a community, it's very dynamic, and there is a new set of criteria to consider in terms of making art that functions as a part of a civic body. I found myself reaching out and knocking on doors to ask, 'What do you imagine this place could be?'"

Lucien Sonder

Park Ranger, Community Outreach,
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

San Francisco Maritime Museum 900 Beach Street, 12–6 PM

"I think there's a parallel to be made between Hiler's capturing of the lost civilizations of Atlantis and Mu, and the state of the arts in San Francisco and Oakland right now—something we want to unearth, or save, or keep current."

Suzanne Stein**

Poet; Editor in Chief, Open Space, SFMOMA

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 5–6 PM

"I spend my days facilitating conversations about art, but most of this work takes place in the digital agora—like many of us I encounter endless strangers but only via avatar. Important to remember, to return to, and to feel the agora of real space—real bodies in real spaces."

Lexa Walsh

Artist, Educator

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 5–6 PM

"I just digitized a tape of the Arts News Services from the 1980s reporting on artists and organizations struggling to keep their spaces. Intersection for the Art's archive reveals that in 1985, when they lost their free rent, they couldn't stay in North Beach due to gentrification. I thought to myself, 'Is this today?' History does repeat itself."

Dominic Willsdon

Leanne and George Roberts Curator of Education and Public Practice, SFMOMA

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 5–6 PM

"For now, all options seem to entail some kinds of hybrid responsibility: private-public or multi-sector partnership, even a kind of bricolage of available agencies, funds, spaces, and opportunities. Can this be more than a patchwork of provisional, uneasy alliances between forces that, at some level, have divergent values? Maybe there are advantages to—and an uneasy justice in—a model of a public sector that is constantly subject to renegotiation and to artistic bricolage. But no form of assembly will guarantee security and equity."

Christina Zeigler

Custodian, San Francisco Maritime Museum

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 12–6 PM

"I get a lot of compliments because even when I want to cut a corner, I can't—because I respect this place. I always say it's better to have than not to have—and this is what I have."

Tanya Zimbardo

Assistant Curator, Media Arts, SFMOMA

San Francisco Maritime Museum
900 Beach Street, 3–4:30 PM

"The Bay Area has an important history of performances and artist-run projects in public space in addition to institutions curating off-site."

Some Contributors may be Difficult to Find on October 17th

Bill Berkson**

Poet

"When I arrived here from New York, I went directly to Bolinas, and I was already on the bill—there was a sign saying 9 Bolinas Poets, and I was there on the poster, with an image of us in a totem formation. Andrew Hoyem had arranged this [at the SFMOMA]—the museum had a very large auditorium, and so poetry readings happened there."

Julia Bryan-Wilson**

Associate Professor, History of Art, UC Berkeley

419 Doe Library, UC Berkeley, 12–6 PM

"'The Making of a Fresco Showing the Building of a City' (1931) depicts engineers, blue-collar laborers, architects, artists, and industrialists working together to create a functioning city. At its center stands a monumentally-sized working man whose hands guide the levers that set everything else into motion. In our current moment of massive displacement and increased class stratification, Diego Rivera's harmonic vision feels more distant than ever, and serves as a pointed reminder about the necessity of valuing populations that have historically made San Francisco so vibrant."

Kevin B. Chen**

Consultant to Public Programs, de Young Museum

"The country did have a model [for support for the arts], 80-some years ago, but what's happening now in 2015, it's an incredibly stark contrast. The privatization of all sectors of the country's economy and the push for artists to become more entrepreneurial is just more evidence."

Will Maynez**

Curator, Pan-American Unity Mural, City College of San Francisco

"Think about taking care of these murals for the next two hundred years—there's a stewardship element—they're the property of humankind."

Ranu Mukherjee

Artist; Associate Professor, Fine Arts, CCA

"I feel like there's so much precarious labor on the part of artists, it brings artists closer to other workers. There's so much to be shared between all the workers who experience precarity."