We are all looking for a way to brighten our interior and exterior lives in these economically stupid times, and the “Art in Storefronts” program is bound to hit all your experiential sensors in the best way. You may or may not feel like empty storefronts are rubbing the crappy times... More >>

Now a first cause for almost as many useless D.I.Y. imitators as Nirvana, Animal Collective is overrated yet impossible to dismiss. Every time the mania seems ready to die down, the band ensnares fans anew with a song like "Peacebone" or "Summertime Clothes." Same with Collective figurehead... More >>

Ken Russell adapted the Who's 1969 classic rock opera for the big screen in 1975. Tommy tells the story of a British youngster rendered deaf, dumb and blind after witnessing his mother's infidelity while his father is away fighting for the empire in World War II. Highlights of the film include... More >>

At weekly pub trivia night Brain Farts, your quizmasters BeBe Sweetbriar and Pollo Del Mar wish to know: “Are you smarter than a drag queen?” The answer is almost inevitably both yes and no. You may be smarter than a queen in that you would not spend that much money on footwear... More >>

The art at "Gallery Hijinks Inaugural Exhibition" is all about examining the tensions between various opposites. Brynda Glazier’s sculptures contrast utopian idealism and dystopian decay, while Lisa Congdon explores modernism versus deterioration. Ryan Riss is a pop-art enfant terrible,... More >>

Katja Leibenath's oil paintings are inspired by China Basin and embellished with the artist's sense of place at "Genius Loci." The artist's reception is today at 6 p.m. More >>

Katherine Sherwood's latest wall sculptures are dress forms with paintings for heads; brilliant. More >>

Kathryn Spence presents new animals. They're made from old stuff: "pants" is one of her favorite materials. She likes "string" and "sweaters," too. But her work has a very un-stuffed-animal-like ferocity, and the animals appear to be simultaneously relaxed and ready to rip a mouse in half --... More >>

Nicole Buffett’s “Matriarch” is a new exhibit of abstracts by the Berkeley painter. Her work often features a star character: A recurring shape that’s half lace bit and half thready, gossamer jellyfish, it attaches itself to fields of poured paint in little schools, like... More >>

British artist Stanley Donwood combines the words and colors used in two forms of advertising -- spam and billboards -- to create an overwhelming atmosphere that is at once attractive and troubling at Fifty24SF Gallery. His paintings use words such as Brain, Sex, Blood, Desire, Risk, Now, and... More >>

Thrillpeddlers, well-known for blowing dust and gristle off Grand Guignol plays from early-20th-century Paris, are setting their sights a bit closer to home for this year’s Theatre of the Ridiculous Revival. Forty years ago, the Cockettes — a lurid, shimmering, acid-soaked theater... More >>

Interpreting anonymous vernacular and "found" photography is usually a nice time: There's no artist or movement in the way, pushing you to interpret the work in particular ways, chastising you if you can't. A neat-looking picture found at a thrift store can be just that — neat-looking. If... More >>

Your refrigerator reveals a lot about you. We've always known this, in a medicine-cabinet sort of way, but it took artist Mark Menjivar to really freak us out. He traveled around the country with a large-format 8-by-10 camera, quickly opened the doors of people's refrigerators, blocked any... More >>

The success of Andy Goldsworthy’s Spire means we get more outdoor art in the Presidio. Yes! Nevada City–based art group For Site (“art about place”), emboldened by the crush of people who come to see Goldsworthy’s poignant pile of sticks, now gives us “Presidio... More >>

Fritz Liedtke offers a counterpoint to popular culture's glorification of Angelina Jolie and her fellow fit-and-skinny vixens: photos of women with eating disorders. Even better, he lets them tell their stories with short and poignant essays, as with 19-year-old Em, who says her own mother was... More >>

An art show that draws inspiration from The Catcher in the Rye and social media -- occurring at the dawn of another goddamn school year -- is best left in the hands of adolescents. At "Teen Age: You Just Don't Understand," curators Ken Goldberg and Catharine Clark have done just that, picking... More >>

Painter Clare Rojas likes wrinkles on people's faces. While this makes her a near-terrorist — if anyone stops trying to stop aging, capitalism may grind to a halt — it's only one of her many defiant ways. She also likes to paint full-frontally naked men, and that's just, you know, not... More >>

With the seemingly perpetual California budget crisis ringing in everyone’s weary ears, we’ve heard lots about the disproportionate amount of money allocated to prisons instead of schools and other social institutions. But for many California residents, prison is either home or where... More >>

Curated by designer Yves Béhar, the innovative exhibit "TechnoCRAFT: Hackers, Modders, Fabbers, Tweakers, and Design in the Age of Individuality" promises "the latest in do-it-yourself and collaborative design." The people at Droog accomplish this by picking up sledgehammers, smashing... More >>

No other sexually ambiguous club night wears its Kierkegaardian handle quite as well as Gay/Not Gay. Guests walking into El Rio on a Monday evening immediately succumb to a meltdown of libidinal uncertainty and psychological ambiguity. Fortunately, DJs Mrs. Robinson and Jenny Hoyston spin a... More >>

You may want your retro-soul weekend parties to be packed, sweaty blasts full of vintage grinders. But on Monday nights, the smooth, sugar-melting tones of ’60s soul music work as relaxing tonics to calm party-frazzled nerves — and that’s where Black Gold comes in. Hosted by... More >>

You can blame Al Gore for the dearth of quality punk rock in the jukeboxes of America. Not because of his li’l censor-happy P.M.R.C. wife (who’s done plenty of damage, no doubt), but because Al had to go and invent the internet. What a bum! Even dives with great jukes are phasing out... More >>

New York editor Juliette (Patricia Clarkson) travels alone to Cairo to meet her husband, who works for the United Nations in Gaza. When hubby gets stuck across the border, Tareq (Alexander Siddig), his former bodyguard, steps in as Juliette's chaperone. Fluent in English and supposedly highly... More >>

During the New England summers of her childhood, author Elizabeth Strout fell in love with the physical world: the seaweed-covered rocks along the coast, hidden wildflowers in the deep woods — and suspected dead bodies? Well, maybe not, but that’s what she presents to her lead... More >>

As a self-described "logical extension of a free public library," our local free walking-tour company is, like most libraries, a fascinating mash of nerdy and white-hot rad. The San Francisco City Guides walking tours happen every day (except major holidays), are free, and follow in the... More >>