Forced Perspective: The World of Boots Riley, Natural Hand | January 16 - March 28, 2027

Art + Water opens its doors at Pier 29 during SF Art Week, and we couldn’t be prouder of the timing.

We’ve been turning a pier on the Embarcadero into a home for artists. There are studios for twenty resident artists and their mentors, an exhibition hall, a gallery, and enough room for the public to wander in and stay awhile. In January, it all comes on at once.

In the main hall is Forced Perspective: The World of Boots Riley, and we’re honored that our first exhibition belongs to an artist so rooted in the Bay. Boots came up in Oakland, the son of organizers, and has spent decades making strange, funny, beautiful, furious work: the music of The Coup, the films Sorry to Bother You and his newest, I Love Boosters, and the series I’m a Virgo. Now you can walk through those worlds. You’ll find puppets taller than you, miniature cities, storyboards, costumes, and the handmade sets and effects behind the films. The show celebrates the work in progress as much as the work on screen.

In the South Gallery, Natural Hand, curated by Asha McGee, takes a fresh look at the region’s artistic legacy. Ido Yoshimoto, Alicia McCarthy, Isaac Vazquez Avila and Andrea Sonnenberg (TEEN WITCH) all make work by hand, drawing on sign painting, graffiti, woodworking and other kinds of manual craft. The show makes the case that art grows slowly, through years spent with materials, places and the people around you.

Then there’s the San Francisco Scale Model, built by the WPA in 1938 and now on permanent view. You’ll find yourself looking for what’s changed, and for what has stayed the same.

And there’s the Voyager Studio, where on Saturdays anyone of any age can sit down and make something.

Images:

Photographer Pete Lee