When Kelly Freeman became director of the San Francisco Art Fair three years ago, the event’s focus was the strength of San Francisco and its arts scene. Last year, the fair spotlighted the East Bay.
This year, the 14th edition of the fair—which will be held in Fort Mason’s Festival Pavilion April 16-19—will bring attention to the many cultural contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders to the Bay Area.
“In San Francisco, the AAPI community is so important and prominent and strong and has so many different voices,” Freeman says. “Now, more than ever, focusing on immigrant voices and the voices that add such strength to our nation in general is personally important for me as well.”
The fair, the longest running in the Bay Area, will this year partner with the Asian Art Museum, as well as the Asian American Art Initiative at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. Two community organizations in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Edge on the Square and the Chinese Culture Center, will have a booth (as well as a design pop-up store), and so will independent curator Mara Gladstone—who will represent the Philippines at the Venice Biennale this year—with Manila artist Jon Cuyson.
Mara Gladstone and Jon Cuyson on Manila Bay, 2025(Ivan Sarenas)
Michelin-recognized Filipino-California restaurant Abacá in Fisherman’s Wharf will be doing the culinary programming.
Chad Hasegawa, who’s known for his colorful, abstract art, moved to San Francisco from Hawaii over a decade ago. The Art Fair, he says, is important to him and his fellow artists.
“I've been a working artist in San Francisco for over 15 years now, and I've always gotten excited for things to happen in San Francisco,” Hasegawa explains. “I think that drives our community to want to create more and create with all our hearts. That's what I love about the Art Fair, that it’s easily accessible for the masses to get involved in art.”
Hasegawa, who’s with Good Mother Gallery, will paint a mural on the shipping containers in front of the Festival Pavilion. Last year, a painting of his was one of the loudest in the fair, he says. This year, he wants to set the mood as people enter.
“It was fluorescent orange, and I noticed when people walked by the painting, it had them glow a little bit from the light bouncing off. It is an opportunity to showcase public art, not just canvas art, and really play on how powerful color can be. I want to subliminally give people a feeling as soon as they walk in that they’re walking through the power of art and what color can do.”
'Rolling in the Deep'(Courtesy of Pamela Walsh Gallery)
The fair will include more than 80 galleries, including beloved returning local ones like Catharine Clark Gallery, Jonathan Carver Moore, and Pamela Walsh Gallery. San Francisco’s COL Gallery will be at the fair for the first time, with geometric abstractions by Piikani (Blackfeet) artist Terran Last Gun. South Africa’s Melrose Gallery, which is opening a location in San Francisco’s Minnesota Street Projects in the spring, will also debut at this year’s fair, along with gallerists from Busan, Paris, New Orleans, and Calgary.
Talks and panels are also an essential part of the fair, says Freeman.
“It's a way to gather a lot of brilliant Bay Area voices in the room, and give audience access to them,” she says. “It fulfills this goal that we have with our cultural partners, as well as with our gallerists, to be like, ‘Okay, we're on site at Fort Mason for three-and-a-half days. All this content exists all year round. Come learn about it and then go experience it on your own throughout the year.”
Anand Sheth designed the theater stage for these programs. Sheth grew up in Southern California, but San Francisco was his father’s favorite city, and any time there was a three-day weekend, the family would drive up. About 20 years ago, Sheth chose California College of the Arts to study architecture and has been here ever since.
SF Art Fair 2025(Drew Bird; courtesy AMP)
Sheth wants his business to be inclusive and collaborative—not something architects are always known for. He’s working with furniture artist Chibuzor Darl-Uzu, who participated in a pop-up in the Mission Sheth did last year, to design the stage.
“He resonated with this discarded, mundane material getting elevated in this fashion because his work is primarily focusing on discarded building materials and furniture scraps,” Sheth says. “He's creating a more accessible, approachable aesthetic that reclaims unfamiliar materials and puts them together in unfamiliar ways. He and I are driving this furniture capsule collection, but as the designer and maker, he really gets to drive the bus on a lot of the decision making.”
Hoi Leung, curator of the Chinese Culture Center, says in their presentation with Edge on the Square, 大大膽 (Da Da Daam) celebrates taking risks and experimentation. The artists they are showing include Connie Zheng, who did a residency at CCC, and Yumei Hou, whose steel works of her paper cuts are on display at the Rose Pak subway station in Chinatown.
The CCC design store pop-up on Grant Avenue offers a different way to buy art for those who can’t spend thousands on work to hang on their wall. It also gives CCC a way to show more artists, Leung says, noting that 75 have work on display at the design store.
Still image from Jon Cuyson, 'Kerel (Sea of Love),' 2021, digital video in black and white finish with sound (Courtesy the artist © Everyday Productions)
Gladstone and Cuyson will show The Sun Beneath Painting Series at the fair, which Cuyson developed along with his presentation for Venice, Sea of Love/Dagat ng Pag-ibig, which honors Filipinos on the waterways. For his exhibition at the fair, Cuyson made impressions of straws, mussels, and other debris to suggest an undersea terrain.
“This project for the San Francisco Art Fair is a component of the body of work that Jon is showing in Venice,” Gladstone says. “He really wanted to underscore the idea of the horizon and the ocean and fluidity.”
Gladstone’s thrilled to have a booth at this year’s fair, and to be the first Filipino American to represent the Philippines on the international stage in Venice.
“We're excited about the opportunity to showcase Jon's work on this platform in San Francisco,” she says. “San Francisco has such an incredible culture of Philippine art and community.”
// The San Francisco Art Fair is open April 16th from 6pm to 9pm, April 17th and 18th from 11am to 7pm, and April 19th from 11am to 6pm; Fort Mason Festival Pavilion, 2 Marina Blvd. (Marina); find tickets and info at sanfranciscoartfair.com
'Discovering Beaduty in the Unknown' by Terran Last Gun(Courtesy of Col Gallery)
