Frank Smigiel
@frank-smigiel.bsky.social
Arts in San Francisco
now: Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture; then: SFMOMA; SFAI (RIP)
U Delaware English PhD who fell into the 20th c. art world — thanks U Arts (also RIP), Rosenbach + Whitney Museums
Just looking.
now: Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture; then: SFMOMA; SFAI (RIP)
U Delaware English PhD who fell into the 20th c. art world — thanks U Arts (also RIP), Rosenbach + Whitney Museums
Just looking.
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Thousands of rare American recordings — some 100 years old — go online for all to enjoy
A collaboration between UC Santa Barbara and the nonprofit Dust-to-Digital Foundation
laist.com/news/arts-an...
A collaboration between UC Santa Barbara and the nonprofit Dust-to-Digital Foundation
laist.com/news/arts-an...
Thousands of rare American recordings — some 100 years old — go online for all to enjoy
The project, which will include some 50,000 songs from private record collections, is a collaboration between UC Santa Barbara and the Dust-to-Digital Foundation.
laist.com
November 20, 2025 at 2:07 AM
Thousands of rare American recordings — some 100 years old — go online for all to enjoy
A collaboration between UC Santa Barbara and the nonprofit Dust-to-Digital Foundation
laist.com/news/arts-an...
A collaboration between UC Santa Barbara and the nonprofit Dust-to-Digital Foundation
laist.com/news/arts-an...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
While the reasons for Suda’s dismissal were not immediately clear, several events in the past months have pointed to internal dissent at the museum.
Philadelphia Art Museum chief exec Sasha Suda has been dismissed
While the reasons for Suda’s dismissal were not immediately clear, several events in the past months have pointed to internal dissent at the museum.
www.inquirer.com
November 4, 2025 at 6:31 PM
While the reasons for Suda’s dismissal were not immediately clear, several events in the past months have pointed to internal dissent at the museum.
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Massive, sad news for Philly
Pierre Robert Has Died at the Age of 70
The terrible news is true.
www.phillymag.com
October 29, 2025 at 6:58 PM
Massive, sad news for Philly
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Publishers Hedi El Kholti and Dan Simon remember their friend Gary Indiana on the anniversary of his death: “I took Horse Crazy home with me and read it over the weekend, and I was amazed. It felt like a major personal discovery.”
“You’ll See, a Lot Will Happen When I Die.” Remembering Gary Indiana
At the time of Gary Indiana’s death on October 23rd, 2024, the writer was at work on several new projects with both his current publishers, Semiotext(e) and Seven Stories. Here Hedi El Kholti of Se…
buff.ly
October 23, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Publishers Hedi El Kholti and Dan Simon remember their friend Gary Indiana on the anniversary of his death: “I took Horse Crazy home with me and read it over the weekend, and I was amazed. It felt like a major personal discovery.”
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Read this article about it by one of the founders of Art+Water, Dave Eggers.
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...
The Story of Art + Water
For fifteen years or so, I’d been kicking around the idea of resurrecting the artist-apprentice model that reigned in the art world for hundreds of...
www.mcsweeneys.net
October 16, 2025 at 8:14 PM
Read this article about it by one of the founders of Art+Water, Dave Eggers.
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...
www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/the...
“Documents reviewed by The Art Newspaper show that BXP, the property company leading the demolition effort and redevelopment of the Plaza, has largely been responsible for maintaining the Vaillancourt Fountain for almost 50 years.”
news.artnet.com/art-world/va...
news.artnet.com/art-world/va...
Fate of San Francisco's Brutalist Fountain in Question as New Documents Emerge | Artnet News
New documents show the property developer pushing to demolition Armand Vaillancourt's sculpture is responsible for maintaining it.
news.artnet.com
October 15, 2025 at 7:53 PM
“Documents reviewed by The Art Newspaper show that BXP, the property company leading the demolition effort and redevelopment of the Plaza, has largely been responsible for maintaining the Vaillancourt Fountain for almost 50 years.”
news.artnet.com/art-world/va...
news.artnet.com/art-world/va...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Two very good essays on the selected writings of Okwui Enwezor, recently published by Duke University Press. One is by Oluremi C. Onabanjo:
4columns.org/onabanjo-olu...
(1/2)
4columns.org/onabanjo-olu...
(1/2)
Okwui Enwezor
4columns.org
October 13, 2025 at 1:16 AM
Two very good essays on the selected writings of Okwui Enwezor, recently published by Duke University Press. One is by Oluremi C. Onabanjo:
4columns.org/onabanjo-olu...
(1/2)
4columns.org/onabanjo-olu...
(1/2)
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Over 16 years, Hyperallergic has been home to over 2,500 voices in independent art journalism. Now, it's time for a new Editor-in-Chief. Welcome, Hakim Bishara.
Meet Hyperallergic’s New Editor-in-Chief
After 16 years in the role, I'm passing the torch to Hakim Bishara as I transition to the role of editor-at-large.
hyperallergic.com
October 6, 2025 at 3:11 PM
Over 16 years, Hyperallergic has been home to over 2,500 voices in independent art journalism. Now, it's time for a new Editor-in-Chief. Welcome, Hakim Bishara.
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Beauford Delaney’s final self-portrait is a moving testament to his lifelong quest to accept his sexuality, especially when seen alongside his first portrait of James Baldwin. Free post; no paywall. Full essay here: garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/on-beaufor...
October 5, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Beauford Delaney’s final self-portrait is a moving testament to his lifelong quest to accept his sexuality, especially when seen alongside his first portrait of James Baldwin. Free post; no paywall. Full essay here: garthgreenwell.substack.com/p/on-beaufor...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
My nomination was approved! 🎉
In 2026—the 250th anniversary of his birth—Moses Williams, a master silhouette artist, will be honored with a PA historical marker.
For too long, only his enslaver, Charles Willson Peale, was remembered.
#MosesWilliams250 #TellTheFullStory
@vruss.bsky.social
In 2026—the 250th anniversary of his birth—Moses Williams, a master silhouette artist, will be honored with a PA historical marker.
For too long, only his enslaver, Charles Willson Peale, was remembered.
#MosesWilliams250 #TellTheFullStory
@vruss.bsky.social
September 21, 2025 at 10:21 PM
My nomination was approved! 🎉
In 2026—the 250th anniversary of his birth—Moses Williams, a master silhouette artist, will be honored with a PA historical marker.
For too long, only his enslaver, Charles Willson Peale, was remembered.
#MosesWilliams250 #TellTheFullStory
@vruss.bsky.social
In 2026—the 250th anniversary of his birth—Moses Williams, a master silhouette artist, will be honored with a PA historical marker.
For too long, only his enslaver, Charles Willson Peale, was remembered.
#MosesWilliams250 #TellTheFullStory
@vruss.bsky.social
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Trump’s promised review of Smithsonian exhibitions was too much for these historians. So they pushed back using good old-fashioned email lists. news.artnet.com/art-world/ci...
Meet the Historians Documenting Every Object at the Smithsonian
A group of citizen historians, alarmed by Donald Trump's targeting of Smithsonian museums, are on a mission to document their displays.
news.artnet.com
September 26, 2025 at 6:37 PM
Trump’s promised review of Smithsonian exhibitions was too much for these historians. So they pushed back using good old-fashioned email lists. news.artnet.com/art-world/ci...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
The University of the Arts’s archive, which might hold almost a million items, could've ended in a dumpster.
But now it will now live on at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
But now it will now live on at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
The University of the Arts’s archive will now live on at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania
The collection, which might hold almost a million items, could've ended in a dumpster. But now, it will be HSP's largest and will cost an estimated $500,000 to catalog, conserve, and digitize.
www.inquirer.com
September 22, 2025 at 12:22 PM
The University of the Arts’s archive, which might hold almost a million items, could've ended in a dumpster.
But now it will now live on at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
But now it will now live on at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
I had to track down this 1986 photo of designer Willi Smith's Lispenard St loft from NY Mag because it showed his friends' art: Christo & Jeanne Claude's prints, the painting Keith Haring made for him for New Years, and Dan Friedman's Africa-shaped coffee table greg.org/archive/2025...
September 22, 2025 at 2:14 PM
I had to track down this 1986 photo of designer Willi Smith's Lispenard St loft from NY Mag because it showed his friends' art: Christo & Jeanne Claude's prints, the painting Keith Haring made for him for New Years, and Dan Friedman's Africa-shaped coffee table greg.org/archive/2025...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Beautiful profile on Prelinger Library and its founders by @eddiekimx.bsky.social in GazetteerSF: sf.gazetteer.co/face-time-ri...
Face Time: Rick and Megan Prelinger
The archivists and researchers look backward — and forward — in a city where exchange and flow are bedrock
sf.gazetteer.co
September 10, 2025 at 5:34 PM
Beautiful profile on Prelinger Library and its founders by @eddiekimx.bsky.social in GazetteerSF: sf.gazetteer.co/face-time-ri...
Ted Barrow: “Vaillancourt’s fountain blasts with Brutalist vim — massive concrete tubes jutting upward, like a kinetic portrait of the city itself in rushing water and bas-relief abstraction.”
www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...
www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...
Removing the Vaillancourt Fountain will destroy more than an epic skate spot
OPINION: Armand Vaillancourt’s Brutalist fountain has always provoked debate. To destroy it, however, would be to obliterate the last truly insurgent modernist voice left in the Embarcadero.
www.sfchronicle.com
September 6, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Ted Barrow: “Vaillancourt’s fountain blasts with Brutalist vim — massive concrete tubes jutting upward, like a kinetic portrait of the city itself in rushing water and bas-relief abstraction.”
www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...
www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/open...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
The first graf in this obit is the sort of life I aspire to:
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/b...
Rosalyn Drexler, Artistic Whirlwind Who Defied Categories, Dies at 98
www.nytimes.com
September 4, 2025 at 3:31 PM
The first graf in this obit is the sort of life I aspire to:
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/b...
www.nytimes.com/2025/09/03/b...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
In “Vaillancourt Fountain,” skateboarder and art historian Ted Barrow situates everyone’s favorite fountain, currently under threat of redevelopment, on the past and future Embarcadero.
To read SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF A FOUNTAIN, order Issue Two here: sfrw.square.site/product/issu...
To read SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF A FOUNTAIN, order Issue Two here: sfrw.square.site/product/issu...
September 3, 2025 at 6:41 PM
In “Vaillancourt Fountain,” skateboarder and art historian Ted Barrow situates everyone’s favorite fountain, currently under threat of redevelopment, on the past and future Embarcadero.
To read SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF A FOUNTAIN, order Issue Two here: sfrw.square.site/product/issu...
To read SAN FRANCISCO REVIEW OF A FOUNTAIN, order Issue Two here: sfrw.square.site/product/issu...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
wrote about the exhibit here. observer.com/2025/06/art-...
“The First Homosexuals” Is a Dazzlingly Overwhelming Chronicle of Queerness in Art
The curators wanted visitors to understand the vast scale of the contributions of queer and trans artists that art history has overlooked.
observer.com
August 24, 2025 at 11:30 PM
wrote about the exhibit here. observer.com/2025/06/art-...
SF Examiner on RUPTURE's "immersive" *Diasporadica*: “‘Immersion means, in our case, a reckoning with the raw elements of our performance environment, and more broadly, world,’ said San Francisco-based co-creator Gabriele Christian. ‘We don’t do immersion as a numbing agent or an escape.’”
August 23, 2025 at 7:55 PM
SF Examiner on RUPTURE's "immersive" *Diasporadica*: “‘Immersion means, in our case, a reckoning with the raw elements of our performance environment, and more broadly, world,’ said San Francisco-based co-creator Gabriele Christian. ‘We don’t do immersion as a numbing agent or an escape.’”
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Christo Oropeza, the owner of Incline Gallery in the Mission, wants to cultivate emerging artists in San Francisco.
missionlocal.org/2025/08/sf-i...
missionlocal.org/2025/08/sf-i...
How one Noe Valley kid turned a detour from S.F. State into a defining arts role
Christo Oropeza, the owner of Incline Gallery in the Mission, wants to cultivate emerging artists in San Francisco.
missionlocal.org
August 20, 2025 at 11:03 PM
Christo Oropeza, the owner of Incline Gallery in the Mission, wants to cultivate emerging artists in San Francisco.
missionlocal.org/2025/08/sf-i...
missionlocal.org/2025/08/sf-i...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
UArts’ Anderson Hall has been sold to become a mixed-use development.
Thunderbird Salvage is trying to rescue everything left behind.
Thunderbird Salvage is trying to rescue everything left behind.
Thousands of abandoned artworks are being salvaged from Philly's UArts
UArts’ Anderson Hall has been sold to become a mixed-use development. Thunderbird Salvage is trying to rescue everything left behind.
whyy.org
August 1, 2025 at 11:48 AM
UArts’ Anderson Hall has been sold to become a mixed-use development.
Thunderbird Salvage is trying to rescue everything left behind.
Thunderbird Salvage is trying to rescue everything left behind.
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Ruth Asawa and David Ireland both left their artistic mark on the Mission.
Today, collaborative art projects in the neighborhood connect people who never even knew them. missionlocal.org/2025/07/ruth...
Today, collaborative art projects in the neighborhood connect people who never even knew them. missionlocal.org/2025/07/ruth...
Ruth Asawa and David Ireland inspire art in the Mission
The two artists never knew one another, but this summer 13 Bay Area teenagers have been making art that connects the two.
missionlocal.org
July 31, 2025 at 11:51 PM
Ruth Asawa and David Ireland both left their artistic mark on the Mission.
Today, collaborative art projects in the neighborhood connect people who never even knew them. missionlocal.org/2025/07/ruth...
Today, collaborative art projects in the neighborhood connect people who never even knew them. missionlocal.org/2025/07/ruth...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Since Monday’s announcement, I’ve heard from folks wondering why SF Oasis is closing. Marke B at @48hills.bsky.social had a heartfelt conversation with D'Arcy Drollinger and does a great job laying it all out. Read here:
48hills.org/2025/07/why-...
48hills.org/2025/07/why-...
Why beloved drag club Oasis is closing—and how its spirit must live on - 48 hills
'I want to see SF continue to have an underground art scene,' says owner D'Arcy Drollinger. 'But this is where we're at, and it's sad.'
48hills.org
July 23, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Since Monday’s announcement, I’ve heard from folks wondering why SF Oasis is closing. Marke B at @48hills.bsky.social had a heartfelt conversation with D'Arcy Drollinger and does a great job laying it all out. Read here:
48hills.org/2025/07/why-...
48hills.org/2025/07/why-...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
New from me — on Mavis Pusey, her survey show open now at ICA Philadelphia (coming next to the Hammer in LA and Studio Museum in NYC) — and the decade of curatorial sleuthing to locate her artworks and fill out her story.
GIFT LINK
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/a...
GIFT LINK
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/a...
This Groundbreaking Artist Vanished. A Decade of Sleuthing Reveals Her Greatness.
www.nytimes.com
July 19, 2025 at 3:42 PM
New from me — on Mavis Pusey, her survey show open now at ICA Philadelphia (coming next to the Hammer in LA and Studio Museum in NYC) — and the decade of curatorial sleuthing to locate her artworks and fill out her story.
GIFT LINK
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/a...
GIFT LINK
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/a...
Reposted by Frank Smigiel
Ann Philbin is awarded the 2025 Getty Prize! Philbin chose @npr.org for the Getty Prize's accompanying $500,000 pay-it-forward grant.
The funds will be split between @npr.org , @kcrw.com , and @laist.com. Read full announcement: gty.art/3Ir9q6N
The funds will be split between @npr.org , @kcrw.com , and @laist.com. Read full announcement: gty.art/3Ir9q6N
July 16, 2025 at 4:15 PM
Ann Philbin is awarded the 2025 Getty Prize! Philbin chose @npr.org for the Getty Prize's accompanying $500,000 pay-it-forward grant.
The funds will be split between @npr.org , @kcrw.com , and @laist.com. Read full announcement: gty.art/3Ir9q6N
The funds will be split between @npr.org , @kcrw.com , and @laist.com. Read full announcement: gty.art/3Ir9q6N