Tags: San Francisco Art Institute

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SFAI Filmmaking: The Personal as Radical Expression

By Marcos Ortega on Wed, 21/01/2026 - 03:05

The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) Film Department was founded in the late 1960s by Robert Nelson and Lawrence Jordan and for over 50 years attracted young artists who were excited by film as a form of poetic expression. The exceptional faculty — George Kuchar, James Broughton, Gunvor Nelson, Ernie Gehr, Al Wong, Janis Crystal Lipzin, Steve Anker, and the department’s founders — encouraged students to find their voices and stretch artistic boundaries in ways that reflected San Francisco’s freedom of lifestyle and radical experimentation.
Dates:
Sunday, January 25, 2026 - 13:00
Venue:
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - San Francisco, United States
SFAA Spotlight: Al Wong (online)

By Marcos Ortega on Fri, 01/08/2025 - 15:57

Join us on August 4th for a special spotlight featuring Al Wong, San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) alum (MFA 1972) and former faculty, in conversation with curator and writer Tanya Zimbardo. This discussion will explore Al Wong’s life in art, the evolution of his practice, and his reflections on teaching, experimentation, and legacy. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear from a pioneering voice in West Coast conceptual art and experimental film.
Dates:
Monday, August 4, 2025 - 10:00
SFAI x Canyon: Mike Henderson

By Marcos Ortega on Tue, 09/04/2019 - 14:39

Before becoming an accomplished painter and blues guitarist, Mike Henderson studied with Robert Nelson in the SFAI Film Department; between the 1960s and 1980s he sustained a filmmaking practice, creating a remarkable body of work that renders black experience and the joys and struggles of making art with humor and idiosyncrasy. He joins us to present his film The Shape of Things alongside canonical work from Nelson and George Kuchar, two of the filmmakers and teachers most closely associated with film at SFAI, and Bruce Conner, whose work and legacy has helped to define alternative cinema in the Bay Area.

Dates:
Wednesday, April 10, 2019 - 19:30
Venue:
San Francisco Art Institute - San Francisco, United States
SFAI Film Department x Canyon: Kerry Laitala

By Marcos Ortega on Wed, 27/03/2019 - 11:03

Filmmaker, “media archeologist,” and interim chair of the SFAI Film Department Kerry Laitala makes use of decaying cultural relics and antiquated medical technologies to resurrect images and artifacts that have been forgotten. For her screening on April 3, she will present her own work together with haunting, melancholic work by Phil Solomon and the recently departed Barbara Hammer–as well as a special performance of her recent expanded cinema work Chromatic Wheels, with a live score by Jon Leidecker.

Dates:
Wednesday, April 3, 2019 - 19:30
Venue:
San Francisco Art Institute - San Francisco, United States
SFAI x Canyon: Scott Stark

By Marcos Ortega on Fri, 22/03/2019 - 07:06

Filmmaker Scott Stark will show a selection of his Super-8mm and Regular 8mm films from the 1980s, screened here as newly-scanned high resolution digital versions that offer scale and detail not always seen in the celluloid originals. These early small-gauge works are experiments in the magical capabilities of the 8mm film camera, and are comprised of images and sounds derived from the commonplace: garish elements surgically extracted from the patina of popular culture. Sometimes shot in public spaces with a wry element of performance, the artifice of the films’ constructions is laid bare, the camera being a participant as much as an observer, making each film a record of its own process of production.

Dates:
Monday, March 25, 2019 - 19:30
Venue:
San Francisco Art Institute - San Francisco, United States