Between the grand opening of the gargantuan new SFMOMA, the emergence of a buzzing young arts district, and the recent arrival of mega-galleries Gagosian and Pace to the Bay Area, San Francisco is having a ‘super-major moment’, quipped LA gallerist Hannah Hoffman. Last Thursday, she and 54 other exhibitors launched the inaugural Untitled San Francisco, the latest addition to the art world’s growing calendar of global events.
The West Coast edition of the annual Miami Beach fair took place within the rusty, corrugated confines of a former warehouse on Pier 70, giving it a decidedly scrappier feel than the plush, red-carpet holdings of the city’s coinciding FOG Design+Art fair. Untitled certainly had blue-chip works to offer local and visiting power collectors, with galleries that, in Miami, would have featured at Art Basel.
Jill Magid's 'Roof Terrace with spout', 2015, is part of a body of work exploring the late Mexican architect Luis Barragán.
Hannah Hoffman Gallery brought works by Sam Falls and Barbara Kasten, while Galerie Perrotin’s spread included Elmgreen & Dragset, Sophie Calle, and Maurizio Cattelan. Galleries like Madrid’s Max Estrella courted the ever-elusive, tech-mogul art collector with digital work such as Daniel Canogar’s Ripple (2016), a DayGlo screen of scrambled CNN clips. The gallery also brought Bilateral Time Slicer (2016), Mexican artist Rafael Lozana Hemmer’s interactive selfie machine that had been a hit at Untitled’s Miami Beach edition the month before.
But the real highlights of this new fair were the works you were unlikely to see at any others, including those from local institutions like the 500 Capp Street Foundation. The estate of the late American artist David Ireland presented limited-edition prints of his sketches, offering a rare look into his hand-drawn archives.
'Neutral (Itchy)', by Anouk Kruithof, 2017.
Next door to Galerie Perrotin was Casemore Kirkeby, a young gallery housed in San Francisco’s much buzzed-about Minnesota Street Project complex that had never shown at any art fairs before. A specialist in photography ‘in all its forms’, according to associate director Jennifer O’Keeffe, its highlights included Anouk Kruithof’s Neutral (Itchy) (2017), pictured above, comprising streaks of colour printed on a PVC curtain and pinned to the corner with metal bars; or Owen Kydd’s Heavy Water (2015), hypnotic video footage of a black droplet of water.
Prosjektrom Normanns brought work by Ann Iren Buan to the fair. Pictured, A Pull of the Sun and Moon, 2015
Prospect, by Chris Engman, 2016, presented by Luis De Jesus Los Angeles
Institutions like 500 Capp Street gave the fair a sense of local identity, printing works from the late artist David Ireland’s archives
Untitled (Scheme #2 M.O.C.A. L.A.), by David Ireland.
Harmony Murphy Gallery was part of the fair’s sizeable Los Angeles contingent. Pictured, Self portrait from March 2016, by Kathryn O’Halloran, 2016.
Things As They Are #39, by Erin O'Keefe, 2016, at Denny Gallery
The fair programming included artist Constance Hockaday’s Attention! We’ve Moved, 2017, a series of performances in collaboration with The Lab on queer identity and displacement that took place during a series of bay cruises.
Newz!, by Math Bass, 2016.
For emerging galleries like Manhattan’s FOUR AM, Untitled San Francisco marked its first fair appearance. Pictured, Vayyyyyyyyyse, by Robin Cameron, 2015.
INFORMATION
For more information, visit the Untitled San Francisco website
-
This ingenious London office expansion was built in an on-site workshopNew Wave London and Thomas-McBrien Architects make a splash with this glulam extension built in the very studio it sought to transform. Here's how they did it
-
The bespoke Jaguar E-Type GTO melds elements from every era of the classic sports carECD Automotive Design’s one-off commission caters to a client who wanted to combine the greatest hits of Jaguar’s E-Type along with modern conveniences and more power
-
Casa Sanlorenzo debuts in Venice as a new hub for contemporary artThe luxury yachting leader unveils a stunning new space in a palazzo restored by Piero Lissoni – where art, innovation, and sustainability come together
-
Photographer Geordie Wood takes a leap of faith with first film, DiversGeordie Wood delved into the world of professional diving in Fort Lauderdale for his first film
-
New book celebrates 100 years of New York City landmarks where LGBTQ+ history took placeMarc Zinaman’s ‘Queer Happened Here: 100 Years of NYC’s Landmark LGBTQ+ Places’ is a vital tribute to queer culture
-
San Francisco’s controversial monument, the Vaillancourt Fountain, could be facing demolitionThe brutalist fountain is conspicuously absent from renders showing a redeveloped Embarcadero Plaza and people are unhappy about it, including the structure’s 95-year-old designer
-
A major Takashi Murakami exhibition sees the world in kaleidoscopic colourThe Cleveland Art Museum presents 'Takashi Murakami 'Stepping on the Tail of a Rainbow', exploring outrage and escapist fantasy
-
The alternative art fairs championing emerging artistsThe lower barrier to entry to these smaller and specialist art fairs make them hubs of grassroots creativity, allowing emerging names to establish a foothold in the industry
-
Ai Weiwei’s new public installation is coming soon to Four Freedoms State Park‘Camouflage’ by Ai Weiwei will launch the inaugural Art X Freedom project in September 2025, a new programme to investigate social justice and freedom
-
Leonard Baby's paintings reflect on his fundamentalist upbringing, a decade after he left the churchThe American artist considers depression and the suppressed queerness of his childhood in a series of intensely personal paintings, on show at Half Gallery, New York
-
Desert X 2025 review: a new American dream grows in the Coachella ValleyWill Jennings reports from the epic California art festival. Here are the highlights
