Is the model of a small to medium-sized urban arts institution no longer viable? In the Northern California art community, still haunted by the demise of the San Francisco Art Institute, the news announced on March 19th that the di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art in Napa would make dramatic changes to its program was one more source of distress. Though couched in positive language, the message was clear: this had been a difficult financial decision. The di Rosa leadership had to face head-on its need to adjust a decades-long mission or risk closure.
According to the di Rosa’s public tax documents, expenses were overwhelming income. The handsome property is nestled amidst the vineyards of the Napa and Sonoma valleys. Its three buildings include the former residence of Veronica and Rene di Rosa. Since opening to the public in 1997 the structures have served respectively as offices, as galleries housing selections from the collection, and as the space dedicated to temporary exhibitions. That temporary exhibition space will now be used exclusively for rental events; as of August its exhibition program will be relocated to San Francisco, taking up residency at the Minnesota Street arts multiplex in the space formerly occupied by the McAvoy Foundation. The permanent collection will remain on view in a format yet to be finalized, while the recently launched di Rosa Downtown will continue its program of rotating exhibitions of works from the collection. While the relocation of the exhibition program is great news for the San Francisco art audience, Napa folks who have long supported the organization may feel differently.
And the di Rosa is one of the lucky ones. Survival for such organizations is more uncertain than at any time in living memory. It used to be that consultants would advise their clients to follow a three-part strategy: build a wealthy Board of Directors, establish a cash reserve or endowment, and buy property or negotiate a long-term lease. Today the situation is much more complex, if not downright dire. We’ve reached the point where there are more not-for-profit arts organizations than there are rich board members, so non-profit status can feel like being enmeshed in an IRS-created Ponzi scheme. Corporations have cut back most of their arts support, and the National Endowment for the Arts is under the most serious threat in its history. Leaders need the rare (if not incompatible) skills of an MBA and an MFA. Attendance at cultural events and exhibitions is generally down, which raises the question whether the digital Zeitgeist — MAGA, screen culture, less arts education, diminishing attention spans — has distanced the public from whatever it is that makes the arts an integral part of human experience. The life of the mind? Aesthetic inquisitiveness?
The most disastrous event along this line was the closure of the 150-year-old San Francisco Art Institute in July 2022. The school had been at a knife’s edge for decades, dependent on shrinking enrollment numbers to balance its budget each new school year. With SFAI’s closure, the Bay Area arts education community lost arguably its biggest pillar, a source of historic pride and context. Also lost were teaching opportunities for artists, the annual introduction of new artists into the community, and the delivery of new ideas by visiting lecturers and accompanying exhibitions. [See Max Blue’s recent article on Private Funding and Public Art, which discusses the purchase of SFAI by Laurene Powell Jobs and her plan to renovate and reopen it as an unaccredited art school to be named the California Academy of Studio Arts.—Ed]
The California College of the Arts, with its impressive new Mission Bay campus, has not been immune to these trials. It took a last-second multimillion-dollar gift last year to assure its survival. Despite that save, the bad news keeps on coming. The Contemporary Jewish Museum has closed its doors for a long-term reevaluation of its financial options. And a potential Embarcadero-area arts scene has collapsed with the loss of both the Pier 24 photography museum and the extraordinary Autodesk artist residency program next door to the Exploratorium.
Some might argue that this is just normal change and evolution. In fact, there is an equally impressive list of new and exciting developments in addition to the reemergence of SquareCylinder. The Institute of Contemporary Art, San Francisco (ICASF) has a splashy new, if temporary, space downtown. New leadership at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art frequently hosts not-to-be-missed exhibitions. The long-moribund Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) has finally made a quality hire in its new Executive Director, Maricelle (Mari) Robles. Recently it was announced that an enormous new artist in residence and exhibition project will open in the coming years at Pier 29.
Recently-elected mayor Daniel Lurie has announced plans to unify the city’s arts infrastructure — the Arts Commission, Grants for the Arts, and the Film Commission — under one new leader. This has been discussed for decades, but the reluctance of administrators to relinquish their individual fiefdoms has always undercut such reform. One hopes that any benefit from this move will not be undermined by potential budget cuts made in the name of “efficiency,” a term we have learned to read as Republican code for quashing dissent.
The arts established themselves in San Francisco shortly after the Civil War — think of the great photographers Muybridge and Carleton Watkins — and it began a rich history that has stubbornly hung on despite such calamities as earthquakes, HUAC witch hunts, and real estate booms. When the new De Young building opened in 2005 I was asked by a journalist if this meant that San Francisco was now a “world class art city.” My reply was that buildings and institutions are important, but an arts scene manifests in the presence of a large number of artists supporting, inspiring and competing with each other. That artistic presence needs to be supported by a tiered network of galleries, museums, art schools, journalists, philanthropic sources, and government agencies. I’m keeping my eye out for signs that among these individuals and institutions the conditions in the area are stabilizing or even improving.
