Now in its third edition, San Francisco Art Week returns January 17–25, 2026, marking the first major art moment of the year in the Bay Area. As both a spring kickoff and a winter close, the week signals renewed energy across the city’s museums, institutions, and public spaces. For this edition, Whitewall has selected a cross-section of the Best San Francisco exhibitions that reflect the city’s unique relationship with innovation, landscape, and experimentation.
At San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA), Suzanne Jackson presents a sweeping solo exhibition spanning six decades. Elsewhere, Bay Area–native Lily Kwong takes earth quite literally, unveiling a 3D-printed, living dome that merges technology with ecological process. Closing the week, Liss Fain Dance dissolves the boundary between audience and performer with an immersive installation that turns spectators into participants. Together, these artworks capture a city where art evolves in direct dialogue with its environment.
Suzanne Jackson: “What Is Love”
SFMoMA
SoMA (South of Market)
Suzanne Jackson, “Wind and Water,” 1975; The Museum of Modern Art, New York, acquired through the generosity of the Modern Women’s Fund, Alice and Tom Tisch, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz, Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis, Michael S. Ovitz, Ronnie F. Heyman, and Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida. Courtesy of the artist and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA).
This exhibition marks the first major museum retrospective of Suzanne Jackson, bringing together artworks created from the 1960s to the present. Co-organized with the Walker Art Center, the survey traces Jackson’s sustained engagement with color, light, and structure—formal elements she employs to explore memory, movement, and resistance. Rooted in Black and Indigenous ancestral knowledge, histories of migration, and ecological awareness, Jackson’s compositions resist fixed interpretation. Rather than illustrating struggle outright, the artworks hold social, political, and environmental tensions in motion, allowing meaning to emerge gradually through material and gesture.
Raised in San Francisco and later living in Fairbanks, Alaska, and Los Angeles, Jackson encountered dramatically different landscapes that continue to shape her material language. Watercolor, acrylic, and raw pigment give rise to animals, plants, hearts, and hands—recurring motifs that reinforce an enduring connection between human life and the natural world.
What we love: The exhibition reads as both personal archive and cultural record. As Jackson notes, “The change now is about me pushing to the next level…I’m just going to keep painting and writing until I can’t anymore.”
Suzanne Jackson at SFMoMA
September 27, 2025–March 1, 2026
The Donum Collection
Donum Estate
Sonoma County
Anselm Kiefer, “Mohn und Gedächtnis (Poppy and Memory),” 20173. Courtesy of Robert Berg and the Donum Estate.
The Donum Estate, celebrated for its single-vineyard, single-appellation Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Northern California, is also home to one of the world’s largest publicly accessible private sculpture collections. Spread across its Sonoma landscape are more than 60 monumental sculptures, where contemporary art unfolds at architectural scale amid vineyards and rolling terrain. During San Francisco Art Week, Donum extended its cultural reach by serving as an Official Partner of FOG Design+Art. As part of the partnership, the estate hosts the fair’s preview gala and sponsors the conversation “Between Light and Legacy: Suzanne Jackson & Alteronce Gumby in Conversation,” reinforcing Donum’s commitment to dialogue between land and contemporary practice.
Beyond the fair, the collection remains open to visitors, offering an immersive way to experience sculpture in the open air, where scale, nature, and imagination intersect. Pieces by Ai Weiwei, Louise Bourgeois, Lynda Benglis, Doug Aitken, and Ghada Amer anchor the experience.
What we love: Reminiscent of the great art gardens of southern France, Donum offers a rare synthesis of viticulture and sculpture—an experience that lingers, even after leaving with a bottle in hand, making this one of the Best San Francisco exhibitions of the week to see.
The Donum Collection at Donum Estate
January 17-25, 2026
Tara Donovan: “Statagems”
ICA SF
Financial District
Tara Donovan, “Stratagems” (installation photo), 2024, CDs, concrete, stainless steel. © Tara Donovan, Courtesy Pace Gallery. Photography by Melissa Goodwin.
For San Francisco Art Week 2026, ICA San Francisco partnered with SHVO at the Transamerica Pyramid Center to stage a temporary pop-up exhibition presenting “Stratagems” sculptures by Tara Donovan. Known for transforming mass-produced materials—plastic cups, paper plates, rubber bands—Donovan employs assemblage and repetition to recalibrate how everyday objects are perceived, making this one of the Best San Francisco exhibitions of the week to see.
For “Stratagems,” the artist worked with recycled CDs, assembling vertically oriented sculptures that respond to shifts in light, weather, and atmosphere. As daylight dances across the glass-walled space, the Stratagems subtly transform, producing an experience grounded in physical presence and environmental flux. Installed within the building’s glass annex, the exhibition establishes a dialogue between sculpture and architecture, positioning the natural elements of light and air as active collaborators rather than external forces.
What we love: ICA SF’s adaptive exhibition model allows contemporary art to surface beyond traditional museum walls—here, reflecting the city itself through material, movement, and scale.
Tara Donovan at ICA SF
January 17-25, 2026
Lily Kwong: “Earthseed Dome”
ICA SF
Financial District
Lily Kwong, “EARTHSEED DOME,” 2025. Fabrication by Atelio and WASP 3D. Visualization by Landworks Studio. Courtesy of ICA San Francisco and the artist.
The second collaboration between ICA San Francisco and SHVO, under the Pyramid Arts initiative, unfolds outdoors, extending beyond the iconic skyscraper itself. In Transamerica Redwood Park, Bay Area–based botanical artist Lily Kwong presents EARTHSEED DOME, a site-responsive installation rooted in ecological thinking and material experimentation.
Kwong’s first major installation in the Bay Area—and her most ambitious to date—the project reads as a homecoming. Drawing on ancestral earth-building techniques alongside emerging technologies, EARTHSEED DOME is a living structure made from 3D-printed, seed-impregnated soil. Developed in collaboration with Atelio and WASP 3D, the sculpture foregrounds process as much as outcome. Visitors can observe its construction through nearby retail windows, becoming witnesses to—and participants in—its evolution. Over the spring and summer, embedded seeds will bloom, allowing the sculpture to grow, transform, and ultimately rejoin the landscape.
What we love: Kwong uses nature not as subject, but as collaborator—creating art that quite literally becomes part of the world it inhabits.
Lily Kwong at ICA SF
January 17-25, 2026
P. Staff: “The Prince of Homburg”
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)
SoMA (South of Market)
P. Staff, “The Prince of Homburg” video installation, 2019. Photography by Ruth Clark. Courtesy of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the artist.
Originally commissioned and presented in Scotland, P. Staff brings “The Prince of Homburg” to the United States for the first time since its 2019 debut. Loosely inspired by Heinrich von Kleist’s 1810 play of the same name, the exhibition revisits its source material to examine freedom, repression, desire, and the politics of the queer body.
At the center of the exhibition is a 23-minute video installation that moves between nocturnal scenes of a sleepwalking protagonist navigating a dystopian landscape and daytime footage of scholars, artists, and activists reflecting on contemporary queer and trans identity. The video resists linear narrative, instead unfolding as a meditation on autonomy, discipline, and embodiment. The video is installed in an intimate, cabaret-style gallery with café tables and seating, encouraging a relaxed, attentive mode of viewing. Surrounding prints, photograms, and sculptural elements—including a security fence embedded with impaled objects—extend these themes, visually tethering the physical space to the moving image.
What we love: The exhibition foregrounds identity as unresolved and ongoing, reminding us that questions of freedom and selfhood are continually rearticulated across time.
P. Staff at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
January 17–June 14, 2026
Liss Fain Dance: “End Point | Open Time”
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA)
SoMA (South of Market)
Liss Fain Dance, “End Point | Open Time,” 2026. Photography by RJ Muna. Courtesy of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and the artist.
To close San Francisco Art Week, immersive dance innovator Liss Fain Dance presents a new installation-performance created specifically for the Forum at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. As the installation unfolds, audiences are invited to step directly into the performance—there is no fixed separation between viewer and performer. Visitors may stand, wander, or linger, subtly shaping the choreography through their presence and movement, making this one of the Best San Francisco exhibitions of the week to see.
Nothing remains constant. Movement, light, and sound shift continuously in response to the people occupying the space, transforming the performance into a living artwork that evolves in real time. “This piece is built for people who want to experience art up close,” Fain reflects. “You don’t sit and watch—you move, you notice, and you find your own way through the space.”
Translucent structures, pathways, and open zones create the sensation of moving through a city in flux. An original score by Dan Wool and text by Louise Glück add emotional depth, inspired by Fain’s travels in the Arctic.
What we love: The dance installation functions as a true collaboration, where dance, music, text, and audience coalesce into a singular, unforgettable experience.
Liss Fain Dance at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
January 23–25, 2026
“Art of Manga”
de Young Museum
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Yamazaki Mari (ヤマザキマリ) (born 1967), Shueisha Inc. (Publisher) THERMAE ROMAE redux (続テルマエ・ロマエ), 2024 ©Mari Yamazaki/Shueisha. Courtesy of de Young Museum.
One of the first—and largest—museum exhibitions in the Americas to examine manga as an art form is now concluding at the de Young Museum. Bringing together more than 600 original drawings, the exhibition presents artworks by leading manga artists, many shown publicly for the first time. Highlights include pieces by Akatsuka Fujio, Araki Hirohiko, Oda Eiichiro, Takahashi Rumiko, Taniguchi Jiro, Yamazaki Mari, and Yoshinaga Fumi, among others.
Known for its expressive visual language, manga is positioned here as a major creative force with lasting cultural and social impact. The exhibition traces the medium’s roots to Japanese painting traditions, including 18th- and 19th-century woodblock prints, alongside Western comics and satirical illustration. Thoughtfully curated, the presentation follows manga’s evolution across generations, charting shifts in style, editorial practices, and production methods—while also addressing contemporary realities such as piracy and fandom, making this one of the Best San Francisco exhibitions of the week to see.
What we love: Seeing manga’s origins in the late 19th and early 20th centuries alongside contemporary pieces reveals just how radically—and resiliently—the medium has evolved.
“Art of Manga” at de Young Museum
September 27, 2025 – February 1, 2026
Rose B. Simpson: “LEXICON”
de Young Museum
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Rose B. Simpson, “LEXICON” installation, 2025. Courtesy of the artist and de Young Museum.
The public atrium of the de Young Museum, Wilsey Court, is transformed in celebration of contemporary Native American artist Rose B. Simpson and her community in Santa Clara Pueblo, New Meixco. Anchoring the installation are two customized classic cars: Maria, a 1985 Chevrolet El Camino, and a newly commissioned 1964 Buick Riviera, adorned with pottery-inspired motifs that honor Pueblo ceramic traditions alongside the Lowrider culture of northern New Mexico.
A site-specific mural wraps the atrium, translating the forms and rhythms of Pueblo pottery into a contemporary visual language that merges ancestral knowledge with present-day expression. In this work, Simpson considers the automobile as a modern vessel—one that echoes the historical role of pottery as both functional object and cultural carrier. Raised in New Mexico, the artist long envisioned a classic car as a living artwork, shaped by place and community.
What we love: Simpson places Indigenous tradition firmly in the present, where heritage, design, and daily life move forward together, making this one of the Best San Francisco exhibitions of the week to see.
Rose B. Simpson at the de Young Museum
August 30, 2025–February 7, 2027
The McCoy Jones Collection: Textiles from Central Asia and the Middle East
de Young Museum
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Embroidered hanging or cover (suzani) (detail), late 19th century. Cotton plain weave with silk embroidery, 98 x 75 in. (248.92 x 190.5 cm). The Caroline and H. McCoy Jones Collection. Bequest of H. McCoy Jones, 1988.11.468. Photograph by Randy Dodson. Courtesy of de Young Museum.
“The McCoy Jones Collection: Textiles from Central Asia and the Middle East,” 2025. Photograph by Randy Dodson. Courtesy of de Young Museum.
The de Young Museum was honored to receive the McCoy Jones Collection in 1988, a gift comprising more than 1,000 costume and textile objects. Today, the collection includes over 600 carpets from across Central Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East, making it one of the most significant repositories of textiles from these regions in the United States. The exhibit elevates everyday objects—often overlooked—into expressions of artistry, labor, and cultural continuity, making this one of the Best San Francisco exhibitions of the week to see.
The McCoy Jones Collection highlights a wide range of tribal and cultural traditions, presenting nomadic textiles that span utilitarian furnishings, wedding embroideries, ceremonial garments, and contemporary textile sculptures. Among its most striking pieces is a carpet by Faig Ahmed, in which a traditional Azerbaijani pattern appears to dissolve into fluid color and form, reimagining heritage through a contemporary lens. Throughout the collection, stories of craftsmanship, migration, and exchange unfold, celebrating the region’s artistic diversity and innovation.
What we love: The collection reframes textiles as living documents—where function, beauty, and cultural memory are woven inseparably together.
The McCoy Jones Collection at the de Young Museum
November 29, 2025–May 24, 2026
Boom and Bust: Photographing Northern California
de Young Museum
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
Arnold Genthe (1869–1942), Untitled (Howard Street, now South Van Ness, between 17th and 18th Streets, San Francisco), 1906. Gelatin silver print, 7 1/16 x 9 5/16 in. (18 x 23.7 cm). Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Museum purchase, Rhoda Goldman Memorial Fund, 1997.38.1. Courtesy of the de Young Museum.
Within the de Young Museum, “Boom and Bust: Photographing Northern California” traces the region’s layered history through the lens of photography. From the mid-19th century onward, photographers traveled west to document California’s rapid transformation—beginning with the Gold Rush and unfolding into cycles of expansion, industry, and innovation that continue to shape the region today. Alongside progress, the exhibition also acknowledges the environmental consequences of this growth and its lasting impact on the natural landscape and native wildlife, making this one of the Best San Francisco exhibitions of the week to see.
The exhibition features photographs charting San Francisco’s urban development before and after the 1906 earthquake and fire, capturing moments of destruction and renewal. Iconic landmarks such as the Golden Gate Bridge and Bay Bridge appear alongside images of evolving neighborhoods, including South of Market. Together, the photographs reveal a region defined by cycles of boom and decline—and by the resilience of its people.
What we love: As Northern California evolves, so does the photographic medium itself. The exhibition functions as both a regional history and a lesson in how photography shapes—and is shaped by—the world it records.
Boom and Bust: Photographing Northern California at the de Young Museum
October 18, 2025–June 7, 2026
