SF Camerawork

Gallery

Non-profit Exhibition Space

2 Marina Blvd, Building A, San Francisco, CA 94123
Fort Mason

sfcamerawork.org

@sfcamerawork

Open Hours:

Special Events:

Saturday, June 20 | 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM

Artist Talk & Exhibition Walk Through with Chris McCaw

Join artist Chris McCaw at SF Camerawork for a special behind-the-scenes look at the tools, techniques, and adventures that inform his extraordinary photographic practice.

McCaw transforms photography's essential components—light, time, and photosensitive materials—into physical records of duration and exposure, revealing our place within a cosmos in motion.

The artist will discuss the works currently on view in Chris McCaw: Double Day, including a monumental twenty-five-panel piece that traces the continuous daylight of the Arctic summer. Widely regarded as one of McCaw's most significant achievements, the work is being exhibited on the West Coast for the first time.

During this program, McCaw will have one of his handbuilt, large-format cameras on hand, offering insight into the process behind his celebrated Sunburn photographs. Attendees will also have the opportunity to view the artist's custom expedition van, which serves as both transportation and base camp during photographic journeys to some of North America's most remote landscapes.

Part artist talk and part camera demonstration, this program offers a rare opportunity to experience the process behind one of contemporary photography's most distinctive bodies of work.

Saturday, June 27 | 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM

Opening Reception: John Chiara: Bay Panel

Saturday, July 18 | 2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

Artist Talk & Exhibition Walk Through with John Chiara: Bay Panel

Chris McCaw: Double Day | May 21 - June 21, 2026

At the heart of Chris McCaw: Double Day is Sunburned GSP #860 (Double midnight, Galbraith Lake, Arctic Circle, Alaska), 2015, the largest continuous Sunburn McCaw has realized to date. Created during the Arctic summer, this monumental 25-panel work traces the sun’s trajectory across the sky over the course of approximately thirty hours, capturing twice the phenomenon of the “midnight sun” near the Arctic Circle. Measuring more than 25 feet in length and comprising just as many panels of silver gelatin paper, the work is a breathtaking record of landscape and weather, labor, and the passage of time. Though widely recognized as one of the artist’s most significant achievements, the work has never before been exhibited on the West Coast.

Alongside Sunburned GSP #860, the exhibition will feature additional works that illuminate McCaw’s evolving investigations into the material limits and possibilities of photography itself.

John Chiara: Bay Panel | June 26 - July 19, 2026

John Chiara: Bay Panel centers on the six-part, horizontal work from 2020 of the same title, originally commissioned by the Pilara Family Foundation for an exhibition in their former space. Shown only briefly before being placed in storage, the work will now return to public view for the first time. Stretching over 24 feet in length, Bay Panel offers a sweeping meditation on the San Francisco Bay and the city’s layered photographic history.

Referencing the panoramic traditions of nineteenth-century photographers such as Eadweard Muybridge, Chiara’s work captures the Bay’s shifting atmosphere alongside markers of urban development and commercial exchange, including the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco’s distinct skyline, and passing cargo ships, viewed from various vantages across the Bay. At once ethereal and finely detailed, Bay Panel highlights the dynamism and beauty of the Bay Area itself.

Additional photographs included in the exhibition further demonstrate Chiara’s singular practice and his sustained engagement with the landscapes and histories of Northern California.

Artist-led public programs for each show will be announced soon.

Images:

Detail of Chris McCaw, Sunburned GSP #860 (Double midnight, Galbraith Lake, Arctic Circle, Alaska), 2015

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