Locals gather at Moth Belly Gallery in the Tenderloin, as part of the neighborhood’s First Thursday Art Walk, on Feb. 6, 2025.
Dan Gentile/SFGATE
A grant of a quarter of a million dollars seems like it would be the best news an arts organization could hope for these days, especially as the Trump administration cuts funding for the National Endowment for the Arts. But for the Tenderloin First Thursday Art Walk, a potential injection of $250,000 has caused a rift, leading its former organizer to disavow the event and several galleries to drop out of the popular monthly tradition entirely.
The Tenderloin First Thursday Art Walk has become something of an institution, operating for more than a decade and growing to include up to 25 different galleries and storefronts. For the past four years, it’s been stewarded by John Vochatzer of Moth Belly Gallery, and operates on a budget of about $20,000 — for printed maps, web services, and photography — from the Tenderloin Community Benefit District. Vochatzer has written that the event was the most important night of the month for generating revenue to keep his gallery open, but that it’s not enough, and he expects to close up at the end of 2026.
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The potential grant that would grow the event’s budget more than twelvefold is part of a broader $5 million Larkin Street Revival project coordinated through the TLCBD. The funds, donated by billionaire Ripple founder Chris Larsen, are earmarked for neighborhood improvement projects that include decorative security gates for businesses, street cleaning, street ambassadors, better lighting, and community events like concerts and performance art, which Vochatzer fears will spark gentrification.
“Chris Larsen is not your run-of-the-mill wealthy patron of the arts. He is perhaps the single most active billionaire in lobbying to push San Francisco further right,” wrote Vochatzer in an email to SFGATE.
The collective of gallery owners put the new funding up to two votes over the past few months, both resulting in favor of taking the funds. As a result, Vochatzer dropped out of the collective, as have two other galleries — Rosebud Gallery and the Birdcage.
Low Key Skate Shop at 679 Geary St. in San Francisco’s Tenderloin District.
Screenshot via Google Street View
“A lot of people that voted ‘no’ were just kind of fearful of like what strings are attached, if this is like the first move of a neighborhood being gentrified or rebranded,” said Low Key Skateshop owner Justin Marks, who voted “no” but will continue participating as organizer of the event. “So a lot of us don’t really want to be in realms with some money that we consider kind of dirty money. It really divided everyone.”
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Vochatzer’s objection has to do with the source of the funding for the Larkin Street Revival project, and Larsen’s broader civic philanthropy, which includes investments in surveillance technology and funding moderate political causes. Larsen is also one of the primary funders of the Civic Joy Fund, which organizes the similarly named monthly block party Downtown First Thursdays. According to Vochatzer, DFT clashed with the Art Walk over similar branding early in the event’s run, and he turned down an offer to collaborate with the street fair based on accusations that the event was “art washing” the neighborhood.
In an email to SFGATE, Vochatzer also claimed that he was required not to speak out publicly against DFT or the Civic Joy Fund in order to keep receiving the grant from TLCBD. For him, the fact that TLCBD was accepting money from the Larkin Street Revival project, and thus Larsen by proxy, was grounds for severing ties and even returning the recurring $20,000 grant. He has also refused to hand over the event’s Instagram account to the new organizers, instead turning it into an archive.
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“We are very much in the position we’re in as a society right now because of the lobbying, hoarding, monopolizing, and mass privatization happening at the hands of people like Chris Larsen,” Vochatzer wrote. “We’re expected to be grateful for scraps while they gradually buy up everything under the sun. That’s not the type of city or world I want to live in, and I have my doubts as to how effectively one can combat and protest these forces when they are themselves being bankrolled by them.”
Aerial view of San Francisco at night.
Michael H/Getty Images
According to Marks, the skate shop owner, the $250,000 in funding has not yet been received and it’s questionable as to whether it will come to fruition, although the TLCBD told SFGATE that the funds are still set aside for the Tenderloin First Thursday Art Walk. Marks posited that some of the delay in distribution is because management of such a large sum would be a logistical challenge for such a grassroots event.
“Is the best way to start a nonprofit? Are we supposed to hire somebody, a financial adviser? … It’s just really complicated when it comes to accepting money on that level,” Marks said.
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Some within the group proposed that were the art walk to receive the $250,000 in funds, it could be used to place ads in art magazines like Juxtapoz to promote the walk or to create an educational community art space in the neighborhood. Or it could simply be reinvested in the Tenderloin art community, as grants to the artists themselves, Marks suggested.
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“If we were to take this money, we should just give it right back to the artists and give it right back to the community. That would be the only way that I could see moving forward with this money,” Marks said.
Regardless of the disagreements, the show will go on the night of June 4.
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“I’m hoping once we get over this hump more, we’ll realize that we’re still the same old funky art walk, independent gallery owners just trying to host art in the neighborhood,” Marks said.