A generous endowment and whip-smart curators allow the Wattis Institute to take on ambitious, sweeping shows – for example, an exhibition reimagining books as pictures and performances. Shows are also occasionally hosted on campus by PLAySPACE, an experimental exhibition program organized by graduate students in the college's curatorial-studies program.
California College of the Arts
The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill
Lonely Planet's must-see attractions
4.23 MILES
When Frederick Law Olmsted, architect of New York's Central Park, gazed in 1865 upon the plot of land San Francisco Mayor Frank McCoppin wanted to turn…
2.44 MILES
Was it the fall of 1966 or the winter of ’67? As the Haight saying goes, if you can remember the Summer of Love, you probably weren’t here. The fog was…
2.06 MILES
If you look close today at the clinker-brick buildings lining these narrow backstreets, past the temple balconies jutting out over bakeries, acupuncture…
2.24 MILES
No one could have predicted the cultural force City Lights would become when it first opened in 1953. Sure, it had a proletarian ethos suggested by its…
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
1.41 MILES
When the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art expanded in 2016, it was a mind-boggling feat that nearly tripled the institution's size to accommodate a…
2.57 MILES
If you want to really see San Francisco, head to Coit Tower, a 1933 art deco beaut designed by Arthur Brown, Jr. and Henry Howard that sits high up on…
5.18 MILES
Few cities boast a structure so iconic as the Golden Gate Bridge, commemorated in everything from films like The Maltese Falcon to not one but two emojis…
1.34 MILES
Welcome to San Francisco's sunny side, the land of street ball and Mayan-pyramid playgrounds, semiprofessional tanning and taco picnics. Although the…
Nearby The Mission, Dogpatch & Potrero Hill attractions
0.15 MILES
Trancelike states are often induced by Hosfelt, where visitors step from gritty sidewalks into dreamy, finely detailed interior worlds. Close inspection…
0.17 MILES
Art revolutions are instigated at Catharine Clark, a showcase for such gorgeous provocations as Masami Teraoka's paintings of superheroine geishas and…
0.21 MILES
Strange fascination is showcased at Jack Fischer Gallery – for example, sketches made by Agelio Batle's graphite skeleton as it jitters across a lab table…
0.41 MILES
All roads in San Francisco's art underground lead to this nonprofit creative community hub under a highway overpass. Shows have featured eviction letters…
0.5 MILES
Upgrade from kitten posters to frame-worthy original SF artworks hand-printed in this working printmakers' studio. Watch prints pulled from a vintage…
0.6 MILES
Art really ties the room together at nonprofit arts center Southern Exposure, where works are carefully crafted not just with paint and canvas, but a…
7. Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District
0.64 MILES
San Francisco's Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District became official in June of 2018. District boundaries include Howard St (northwest), 7th St (northeast)…
0.89 MILES
Take a ride on dazzling mosaic serpent-god Quetzalcoatl, who raises his fierce head from the rubberized ground of this pioneering pocket park…