Museum News from San Francisco December 2006

Legacy of Life in Internment Camps Captured in Exhibits, New A.C.T. Drama
In 1942 following President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s signing of Executive Order 9066, some 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West Coast were interned in detention camps for the balance of the war. The remembrances of those internees, the art they created and their reactions to returning to San Francisco after World War II form the basis for several new exhibitions and a new play produced by the American Conservatory Theatre.

Among the exhibits:
The Art of Gaman, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, 51 Yerba Buena Lane, 415-227-4888, www.mocfa.org
On view through Feb. 25, 2007, the exhibit gathers more than 50 arts and crafts created by Japanese Americans interned in detention camps. The Japanese word gaman means enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity. Using found materials and later, what they could order from catalogs, internees whittled and carved, painted and etched, stitched and crocheted, creating beauty under beastly circumstances. The exhibit is based on the book (The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps 1942-1946) by local author Delphine Hirasuna published in 2005. Media contact: David Perry, 415-693-0583, news@davidperry.com

If They Came For Me Today: The Japanese American Internment Project, San Francisco Public Library, 100 Larkin St., 415-557-4277, www.sfpl.org
Opening on Jan. 13, 2007 this new exhibit at the Main Library highlights the stories of 15 local Japanese American citizens interned during WWII. On view through March 18, the multimedia exhibition organized by Community Works and students from three local schools, draws on oral histories of internees or the children of internees. A special program on Jan. 20 will honor 13 of the individuals profiled and include student presentations as well as Jeff Adachi, public defender for the City and County of San Francisco, who will discuss the impact of his parents interment on his life; playwright Philip Kan Gotanda, who will read from his play After the War; and poet Janice Mirikatani, who was born in an internment camp. Media contact: Sherri Eng, 415-557-4282, seng@sfpl.org

Philip Kan Gotanda’s new play After the War, is onstage March 22-April 22, 2007 at the American Conservatory Theater. Described as a “powerful valentine to San Francisco,” the world premiere coincides with the 100th anniversary of San Francisco’s Japantown. Directed by Carey Perfloff, the drama portrays an unexpected grouping of characters trying to restore balance to a community that went from being almost a ghost town with the forced evacuation of Japanese Americans to an area with a burgeoning African American population. For more information, telephone 415-749-2250 or visit www.act-sf.org Media contact: Jon Wolanske, 415- 439-2362, jwolanske@act-sf.org

SF Cameraworks Opens New Gallery on San Francisco’s Mission Street
Mission’s Street’s “museum row” in downtown San Francisco has gained another tenant: SF Cameraworks. Located just above the Cartoon Art Museum at 657 Mission St., it is the fifth museum to open in the 600 block of Mission Street, also home to the Museum of the African Diaspora, the California Historical Society and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Historical Society. Just a few steps away are the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Museum of Craft and Folk Art, Zeum and the future homes of The Contemporary Jewish Museum and the Mexican Museum. SF Cameraworks, the Bay Area’s only non-profit photography gallery focusing on emerging artists, was founded in 1974. In addition to a 3,000 sf gallery, the site is home to an education center and 3,000-volume library which includes many rare and out-of-print publications. For more information, telephone 415-512-2020 or visit www.sfcamerawork.org Media contact: Chuck Mobley, 415-512-2020, chuck@sfcamerawork.org

Major Art Exhibits on the Horizon at SFMOMA, Asian Art, MoAD and de Young Museums
The Museum of the African Diaspora (www.moadsf.org) hosts a traveling version of Slavery in New York Jan. 24-April 30, 2007. The landmark exhibit, shown at the New York Historical Society in 2005, features images of the history of slavery in New York and the fight for freedom. Picasso and American Art runs Feb. 23-May 28 at SFMOMA (www.sfmoma.org). Some 40 works by Picasso and more than 100 works by artists such as Jackson Pollock, Jasper Johns among others examines Picasso’s role in the development of American art in the 20th century. From March 3-June 10 Vivienne Westwood, a retrospective exhibition organized by London’s Victoria and Albert Museum, makes its only U.S. stop on an international tour at the de Young (www.thinker.org). A celebration of Westwood’s 40-year-long career, the show honors her fearless non-conformity and singular sources of inspiration which are often found in the past. Original drawings, covers and posters by Osamu Tezuka, one of Japan’s foremost manga (graphic novel) artists will be highlighted in Tezuka: The Marvel of Manga, June 2-Sept. 9 at the Asian Art Museum (www.asianart.org)

November 30, 2006   Posted in: United States West