The San Francisco Arts Commission is the official San Francisco County, USA arts council. The city agency was established in 1932 and is appointed by the mayor. The Board of Supervisors must approve its budget.
History
The San Francisco Art Commission's Community Arts and Education Program is an offshoot of the Commission's Neighborhood Arts Program, which supported grassroots community arts programs. It was a national trailblazer in nurturing art in places outside the circles of high culture. The program expanded under the direction of Stephen Goldstine. It was during his tenure, from 1970 to '78, that the program tapped into federal money to help fund local artists. An intern named John Kreidler, who had worked in Washington and would later head the philanthropic San Francisco Foundation, hit on the idea of using federal grants from the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act, or CETA, to employ a slew of local performers, muralists, musicians, poets, gardeners and other artists to work in schools, community centers, prisons and wherever their skills and services were of value to the community. Inspired by the Works Progress Administration's employment of artists in the service to the community in the 1930s, this program was so successful that it became a model for similar programs throughout the US. The SFAC removed the "Early Days" sculpture that was a part of the Pioneer Monument in Civic Center, San Francisco in 2018 and the Statue of Christopher Columbus in Pioneer Park in 2020 due to their controversial nature.
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery is the contemporary art exhibitions program of the Commission. There are three locations for the gallery, with the main gallery located in the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center at 401 Van Ness Avenue, in the heart of San Francisco's Civic Center. The other locations are a storefront art gallery at 155 Grove Street, across from City Hall and Art at City Hall. Founded in 1970, the Gallery commissions new works, collaborates with arts and community organizations and supports artist's projects. Admission to the gallery is free.
Other programs and functions
The art commission has many functions and sponsors many programs. One of its functions is to approve the design of any buildings built by the city. It oversees the selection of "art enrichment" in the forms of graphics, murals and sculpture for civic buildings and spaces. The commission oversees the city-owned cultural centers - among them the historic Bayview Opera House, the Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts and the African American Art and Culture Complex. The commission funds arts programs for elders, homeless people in the Tenderloin and kids at risk, as well as the Filipino community's Parol Lantern Festival and other street festivals and events across town. The Community Arts and Education Program supports programs that enrich the fabric of the communities of neighborhood life, giving opportunities for creative and artistic expression for all people. This egalitarian spirit carries on the values of the people who started the program in 1967 of "nurturing the arts for and by the people where they live and work." Other Arts Commission programs are an annual city art festival and a pops concert series. The commission's Writer's Corps brings writers into public schools. The Arts Commission maintains a database of public art on its website
In October 2019, two weeks after the SFAC announced that artist Lava Thomas' proposal had won the commission for the city’s planned monument to the author and civil rights leaderMaya Angelou, the offer was rescinded by the city over concerns that the work was not a "traditional statue." Supervisor Catherine Stefani led this decision, calling for the SFAC to restart the selection process with clearer criteria for a what constituted a monument. In describing her justification for this decision, Stefani said, according to the San Francisco Examiner: “As I carried the legislation across the finish line to elevate women in monuments, I wanted to do it in the same way that men have been historically elevated in this city.” Thomas had been one of three finalists chosen to create site-specific proposals for the artwork, which was shared on the SFAC website with an opportunity for public comment as part of the Final Selection Panel meeting. According to Thomas, the call saying that the sponsors preferred a more figurative, traditional design did not align with the design brief applicants were given, in which, Thomas stated, the word "statue is crossed out and artwork is replaced." At a meeting with SFAC on October 16, 2019, Thomas stated: “I can’t believe that we’re here two months later with a suggestion that this project be closed, and a conservative, traditional statue in the manner of European figurative traditional monuments that confederate and colonial monuments are based on, that we are here discussing this in this city, San Francisco, that’s known for its progressive politics.” At a public meeting on July 15, 2020, the met to evaluate the status of the city's public monuments and memorials and determine which currently aligned with the city's values. Lava Thomas attended the meeting and read a statement criticizing the process by which her proposed design was rejected. Arts commission officials wouldn't allow Thomas to finish her statement, which caused an outcry of others present at the meeting.
