Her abstract, dreamy renderings of plants, animals and interior spaces convey a sense of constant movement and change. The eye can next quite fix on a foreground, or an order of operations. Instead, Mukherjee presents fragmented, entropic ecosystems, fitting depictions of our current state of environmental, social and political affairs.
May 28–Aug. 15, 2026
Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
After an onslaught of gallery closures in 2025, this generous group exhibition takes stock of the Bay Area’s commercial landscape and finds reason to be optimistic. Featuring the Bay Area’s “most influential and idiosyncratic” art galleries, and displaying more than 40 artists, Slice of the Pie includes both the time-honored (Crown Point Press, founded in 1962) and the young upstarts (Jonathan Carver Moore, founded in 2023).
The very premise of the show reflects the collaboration that has always shaped the Bay Area scene, where chairs are loaned for artist talks, openings are timed to coincide, and gallerists understand they don’t have to exist in a zero-sum game. Come for familiar faces, new artistic discoveries and a heap of wholesomeness that feels very Fraenkel.
May 31–July 19, 2026
Personal Space, Vallejo
For this show, itinerant ceramicist and erstwhile Bay Area denizen Reniel Del Rosario gathers artists using clay in a way that makes you question “why do this this way?” (I’m paraphrasing here.) Artists include Fred DeWitt, Sahar Khoury, Cathy Lu and six others making work that joyfully, playfully, precariously stretches the limits of their chosen material.
The exhibition is a smaller-scale, more intimate take on Means to an End, aka the 81st Scripps College Ceramic Annual (the longest continuous exhibition of contemporary ceramics in the country), a maximalist show curated by Del Rosario earlier this year.
Will Yackulic, ‘A Certain Slant of Light’
June 6–July 18, 2026
pt.2, Oakland
A friend recently pulled his small, perfect Will Yackulic painting out of its wrapping and I have rarely been filled with so much covetous envy. Not fair! I thought. Then I remembered that my eyeballs would soon be treated to a full show of Yackulic’s satisfyingly rendered, delicate observations of daily life.
A poetic sample platter of previous paintings, to whet our collective appetite for June: a grocery display of fruit, drenched in gold; a quickly painted assortment of beach detritus; light falling across the electric blue shadows of a picket fence.
June 10–Aug. 16, 2026
Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco
For a decade, MoAD’s Emerging Artist Program has introduced audiences to Bay Area artists on the cusp of wider recognition. Selected artists get a three-month show at the museum; audiences get to say “we saw them back when.” Next on the schedule (after Jasmine Ross’ photo show Beauty Plus) is Demetri Broxton, a mixed media artist who is also somehow the executive director of the arts nonprofit Root Division.
In group presentations over the past few years, Broxton’s work has stood out for its density and tactility. With Ancestral Echoes, he adorns archival photographs, printed on fabric, with sequins, beads, shells and tassels. Loosed from history, black-and-white images become ritual objects that shimmer and sparkle, full of the potential for liveliness — or at least sound and movement — once again.
June 12–Oct. 11, 2026
Oakland Museum of California
It seems impossible that this is the first major museum exhibition for local luminary Mildred Howard. And at the same time, thank goodness Howard and us — the current residents of the Bay Area — are here for this! Over the past five decades, Howard has moved between mediums (collage, found-object sculptures, installations, public art), creating a lyrical and materially inventive body of work. Even when artworks come from very personal sources, like a rediscovered 8mm film she shot as a teenager, Howard elegantly abstracts and extrapolates, pulling together both far-reaching histories and present-day realities. Current contender for show of the year.
June 27–Nov. 8, 2026
Museum of Sonoma County, Santa Rosa
The installation is now legendary: the husband-and-wife duo, who had previously wrapped art institutions and monuments, and covered a million square feet of the Australian coast in fabric, worked for four years to erect a 24.5-mile-long fabric fence across the hills of Sonoma and Marin.
It took 18 public hearings, three sessions of the Superior Courts of California, a 450-page environmental impact report and the permission of 59 ranchers. (Much of this often-contentious process is documented in the fantastic Maysles brothers’ documentary Running Fence.) Finally, in 1976, the graceful, undulating, white strip of demarcation was installed. It remained on view for just 14 days. The Museum of Sonoma County transports visitors back to this monumental and ephemeral undertaking. And if it all seems like just yesterday, they’re currently soliciting firsthand accounts!
Residency open houses
Summer Open House
July 19, 12–5 p.m.
Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito
July 2026 Open House
July 26, 3–7 p.m.
Winslow House Project, Vallejo
As much as art benefits from a formal presentation within white walls, there’s something extra special about glimpsing in-progress work at the site of its making. Two local residencies offer opportunities to tour their grounds (one a former military site in the Marin Headlands, the other a grand, historic farmhouse in the heart of Vallejo) and mingle with artists in residence. Expect screenings, performances, tasty foodstuffs and time well spent.
Aug. 5, 2026–July 11, 2027
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive
It’s been 10 years since BAMPFA moved to its Center Street location, and one of the enduring benefits of this site (in addition to easy BART access, red stairwells and great programming), is the museum’s Art Wall. The 63-foot-wide space has hosted urgent statements, pointed investigations and “murals” that stretch well beyond paint on drywall.