Akhenaten and his family worshipping the god Aten
Dynasty 18, New Kingdom
Painted limestone, 20 1/2 x 18 7/8 in. (52 x 48 cm)
Royal tomb, Tell el-Amarna
Egyptian Museum in Cairo, TR 10.11.26.4, SR 4/13394
Massimo Listri/De Young Museum
Woody De Othello’s “Out of Body, Out of Mind, ” 2020.
The Rachofsky Collection
Bay Area artist Mildred Howard
Lea Suzuki/S.F. Chronicle
If this summer’s visual arts calendar proves anything, it’s that Bay Area museums and galleries are going all in on spectacle, reflection and local talent.
A long-overdue retrospective honoring Oakland assemblage pioneer Mildred Howard is finally giving one of the region’s most influential artists her due, while the de Young Museum is once again betting on the blockbuster appeal of Ancient Egypt.
Elsewhere, galleries and museums are leaning into ideas around community, labor and spiritual inheritance, with artists like Marcel Pardo Ariza and Woody De Othello exploring deeply personal histories through ambitious new work.
Even better: many of the season’s most exciting shows are free.
‘Slice of the Pie: Fifteen Bay Area Galleries & What Makes Them Different’
In a spirit of community over competition, Fraenkel Gallery has assembled a show that can only be described as the Justice League of Bay Area galleries.
Article continues below this ad
This group exhibition will feature work by more than 40 artists from 15 galleries, highlighting how local art spaces have always pushed boundaries and created new global dialogues. It’s part of how Fraenkel Gallery, founded in 1979, is doubling down on creative collaborations as part of its program.
The 14 other galleries represented in “Slice of the Pie” are Berggruen Gallery, founded in 1970; Rebecca Camacho Presents, founded in 2019; Casemore Gallery, founded in 2015; Catharine Clark Gallery, founded in 1991; Crown Point Press, founded in 1962; Euqinom Gallery, founded in 2015; Hosfelt Gallery, founded in 1996; House of Seiko, founded in 2022; Jenkins Johnson Gallery, founded in 1996; Anthony Meier, founded in 1984; Micki Meng, founded in 2019; Jonathan Carver Moore, founded in 2023; Gallery Wendi Norris, founded in 2002; and Jessica Silverman, founded in 2008. Works will include painting, drawing, prints, sculpture, animation and photography.
10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday. May 28-Aug. 15. Free. Fraenkel Gallery, 49 Geary St., S.F. www.fraenkelgallery.com
‘Mildred Howard, Poetics of Memory’
The Guggenheim fellow is known for her assemblage creations, like her glass bottle houses, and as a socially conscious creator whose work tackles subject matter ranging from apartheid in South Africa to gentrification and racism in the United States.
Article continues below this ad
San Francisco Chronicle Logo
Make us a Preferred Source to get more of our news when you search.
Add Preferred Source
Now, the 80-year-old multidisciplinary artist is finally getting her first major museum retrospective celebrating her five-decade practice.
“Poetics of Memory” will bring together work spanning collages, found-object sculptures and immersive installations that explore signature themes around time, identity and the African American experience.
In addition to archival materials that illuminate the swath of culture and history Howard has seen, the show will debut new and never-before-seen pieces.
11 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. June 12-Oct. 11. $1-$25. Oakland Museum of California, 1000 Oak St., Oakland. www.museumca.org
Article continues below this ad
‘Treasures of the Pharaohs’
After the museum’s wildly popular “Ramses the Great and the Gold of the Pharaohs” drew more than 312,000 visitors in 2022 and 2023, the institution is once again summoning the spectacle of colossal statues, glittering jewelry and ornate sarcophagi for what could become one of the Bay Area’s buzziest museum shows of the summer.
But “Treasures of the Pharaohs” also promises something rarer: the North American debut of artifacts from the so-called “Golden City” of Amenhotep III, rediscovered in 2021 near Luxor and often described as one of the most significant archaeological finds in recent Egyptian history.
Alongside royal treasures and sacred objects, the exhibition will spotlight everyday life in ancient Egypt through tools, furnishings and domestic artifacts spanning nearly 3,000 years of history.
9:30 a.m.-5:15 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday. Aug. 1-Jan. 31. $11-$20; free for children 17 and younger. De Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, S.F. www.famsf.org
Article continues below this ad
‘Las Frutas del Labor’
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive has been on a roll with its annual Art Wall series, using the flexible space where people gather at the museum’s entrance to create work that feels urgent and perfectly geared to contemporary conversations.
Oakland artist and past Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art winner Marcel Pardo Ariza will next use the space to pay homage to the essential, but often unsung, role that art handlers play in galleries and creative institutions. The large-scale photographic collage will highlight Ariza’s work with Ambrose Trataris as co-founder of Art Handlxrs, an organization that supports marginalized communities within the art handling profession. The work will highlight the tools and materials involved in art handling and the hands of the skilled art professionals who use them.
11 a.m.-7 p.m. Wednesday-Sunday. Aug. 5, 2026-July 11, 2027. Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2155 Center St., Berkeley. www.bampfa.org
‘Woody De Othello: coming forth by day’
Oakland artist Woody De Othello is known for creating ceramic sculptures that animate all kinds of everyday items, including clocks, phones and faucets, blurring the lines between object and art. In this exhibition coming from the Pérez Art Museum Miami to the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at UC Davis, curators will consider how De Othello’s choice of objects “carry history, absorb meaning and serve as vessels for both spiritual and emotional experience.”
Article continues below this ad
Notably, De Othello is of Haitian descent, and his work often references African diaspora spiritual traditions like Voudou and Central African ritual objects.
The exhibition will also feature a first look at a new bronze sculpture created specifically for the university.
10 a.m.-5 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday. Mid-August-Dec. 5. Free. Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, 254 Old Davis Road, Davis. 530-752-8500. www.manettishremmuseum.ucdavis.edu