Week of January 16

Drag queens do Plantasia and other happenings this week

Hello, party people, and welcome to the first ever Days & Nights List. We bring you a curated and digestible selection of culture-related happenings, like poppin’ gallery openings, lectures with after parties, and sick poetry readings, plus intel on new spots. 

Our goal is to do these three things for ourselves, our friends, and anyone who subscribes (if we aren’t friends yet, look out…we’re coming for you):

1. Have more fun. We sincerely believe that every day should be fun, and that fun is far from trivial. “How we spend our days is…how we spend our lives,” wrote beautiful weasel-loving writer Annie Dillard. If there isn’t enough fun in your day to day, how will you ever be able to say “that was dope” on your deathbed?

2. Be more IRL. Social media is boring at best and shepherding the apocalypse at worst. We feel better, saner, more loving, and more creative the more time we spend in the world with our friends, our dates, or just ourselves. Plus, we love an opportunity to show off an unstoppable outfit and see what other people are wearing.

3. Make everything easier. We grab the crème de la crème of fun happenings from over 200 social accounts, 80+ newsletters from galleries, artists, event spaces, and more, plus intel we acquire ~*through the grapevine*~, and present it to you as a simple, day-by-day list.

Let us know if you think we’re hitting the mark by replying to this email or dropping in a comment. And now, without a single further ado, we present you: the week.

🆓 = costs $0, 🎨 = art, 🎼 = music, 🎬 = film, 🍸 = drinks available, 🦩 = party vibe

Tuesday, Jan 17

Koak and Beth Van Hoesen openings

2-for-1 opening at this A+ institution in the Dogpatch. See Koak’s Letter to Myself (when the world is on fire) and the late Beth Van Hoesen’s Punks and Sisters. Bonus: Altman Siegel will be at FOG Design & Art Fair this week showing new work from the painter, Hiba Kalache.

Altman Siegel, Dogpatch
6-8p 🆓 🎨 🦩

Thursday, Jan 19

45 galleries in Fort Mason

You’ll see mostly “art” art with the occasional piece of furniture or ~*object*~ on display. Look for hometown gallery heroes like Ratio 3, Altman Siegel, and Pt. 2. And fun, our beloved Night Gallery from LA is here! The full list of exhibitors is here. We’ll be hitting up Fog on Thursday afternoon, drop us a line if you’re there and want to stroll the floor.

Vulnerable moment: Last year’s Fog was a sort of bummer. We saw some profoundly dumb work that was like, painters ripping off Mr. Brainwash which is so meta stupid and dated that we couldn’t even. But we believe in second chances, and that the strongest indicator of having a good time is the vibe you bring to it. So let’s have a blast this year, yeah?

FOG Art & Design Fair, Fort Mason
Thurs to Sat 11a - 7p, Sun 11a - 5p 🎨 🍸

Friday, Jan 20

Golden Hour Drag Show: Syzygy performs Plantasia

Every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, one hour before sunset, Syzygy and drag friends perform a show on the beach, and you’ve never seen anything like it. Catch her performing the complete 1976 album, Mother Earth’s Plantasia, “warm earth music for plants and the people who love them.” ***Tip your queens, btw.

Golden Hour Drag Show at The Sand Ladder, Baker Beach
4:15p 🆓 🦩

Fort Mason Art Walk

Legendary culture institutions The Long Now (our love!), SF Camerawork, FOR-SITE, and FMCAC join forces to present 4 exhibits opening this weekend—read about all the shows here. Never miss the opportunity to grab a cocktail or coffee at the Interval where you can zone out and stare at Brian Eno’s mesmerizing art on the walls.

Fort Mason Building A (meet at the Interval)
6-8p with pop-up talks every 30 minutes 🆓 🎨 🍸

James Sterling Pitt, Ways

James Sterling Pitt’s show is called Ways and we can never get enough of the cool, bold little sculptures he makes. If you can’t get enough, either, good news: Pitt has another show going on this weekend at Blunk Space in Point Reyes Station.

Ratio 3, Mission
6-8p 🎨 🆓 🦩

Saturday, Jan 21

Resting our eyes opens at ICASF

We’ll go anywhere to see local legend Sadie Barnette’s work, who is featured in this new exhibit from the still new ICASF that launched last year. (Her show at SF MoMA is still poppin’ if you want to see it).  And of course, we’ll go anywhere that has an A++ curatorial angle like this one. The show “focus[es] on the liberation and celebration of Black women through the lens of leisure and physical adornment [and] features new and existing works from 20 multi-generational Black artists working across sculpture, photography, video, mixed media, painting, and textile.” Sold.

Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco, Dogpatch
Opening 11a-5p, show runs til June 25 🎨 🆓

Dismantling Monoliths show opening

Dismantling Monoliths is a group show of photos and video from six artists including Oakland-based Marcel Pardoa Ariza whose work is always stunning.

SF Camerawork, Fort Mason
3-6p 🎨 🆓

Avant-garde music nite

In collab with the Wattis Institute and The Lab, you’ve got yourself a night of avant-garde music that frankly we don’t know how to explain. But we can tell you this: whenever we go to Gray Area, we see and hear things unlike anything we’ve seen or heard before, which is special. And there are cocktails.

Gray Area Foundation for the Arts, Mission
7:30p 🎼 🍸

Sunday, Jan 22

Last call for FOG

Closes today at 5:00pm. See Sadie Barnette and artist Ana Teresa Fernández in conversation with Natasha Boas at 12:30pm.

FOG Art & Design Fair, Fort Mason
11a-5p 🎨 🍸

Golden Hour Drag Show: Bedtime Story

Don’t forget your jacket, and tip your queens.

Golden Hour Drag Show at Lobos Creek, Baker Beach
4:15p 🆓 🦩

COMING SOON

Save these dates for these very special events (more on these in next week’s report):

Thursday, January 26

• RELOVE opens at Creativity Explored (who is celebrating their 40th anniversary), in collaboration with the Recology Artist in Residence program. Creativity Explored supports artists based in San Francisco with developmental disabilities, and the work is stunning. Shout out to Guadalupe Ramos, our favorite punk and metal-loving artist whose desert and mountain landscapes are bonkers evocative. 6:00 - 8:00pm 🎨 🆓

Friday, January 27

• In Concert’s first show ever featuring Ocean Escalanti 🎨 🆓

• Cushion Works opens the new show, B.J. Newton: Depositional Records of the Second Coming in Abomination of Desolation from 6:00 - 8:00pm. The story is so incredible you’ve gotta read the statement. 🎨 🆓

• Formerly Incarcerated People’s Performance Project at Piano Fight (shows on 1/27 and 1/29) 🍸

TICKETS TO GET NOW

Boy Harsher is coming to town. When it comes to losing yourself on the dance floor, there’s no better way for us to get inside that beat and outta our heads than with goth-y bleeps and bloops atop a moderately paced beat. Which is why we’re losing our minds that there are two! opportunities to be in the same room as the genius dark electro duo next month. (Back story: Face the Fire is the first Boy Harsher song we heard [it was at the objectively dope Gentle Monster store in Seoul], and whooo boy we got hooked fast.)

Snag tickets for their dj set at Public Works on February 11. Our beloveds will be jamming in the loft for this set, which TBH is our favorite place to shake it. For the full experience, see them play 1015 Folsom Street (tickets here) on February 24.

Catch you next week!