Art Gift
Venture capitalist David Hornik and philanthropist Pamela Hornik donated $1 million to the new Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco last month. The gift places the couple in the top tier of founding donors to the institution, along with Minnesota Street Project Foundation founders Andy Rappaport and Deborah Rappaport, and Instagram co-founder Mike Krieger and Kaitlyn Krieger. The non-collecting museum was launched in Dogpatch last year. “The money is being used for all the things it takes to start a museum,” said Alison Gass, ICA San Francisco director. “When you’re starting an institution, you don’t always know where all the costs will be, especially with construction and ambitious opening exhibition schedules. David and Pamela have been incredible founding members who have already committed to underwriting curator Christine Koppes’ position for three years; now this unrestricted gift is coming when we need it the most.”
Mental Health in the Hood
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) health practitioners are seeing patients at the Nancy Friend Pritzker Psychiatry Building, located at 675 18th Street. The five-story,150,000-square-foot structure, close by UCSF’s Mission Bay campus, features a light-filled atrium and interior transparency. “We wanted to design a building that defied outdated psychiatric institutional models that separated mental from physical health and perpetuated a culture of shame,” said Matthew W. State, MD, PhD, chair and Oberndorf Family Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at UCSF. “We created a place with welcoming entrances and engaging gathering spaces that will draw in patients and families. It will give them access to light and nature, integrate physical and mental health services, and allow them to focus on healing in a low-stress environment.” The facility is one the nation’s few that combines outpatient mental health care with programs in psychiatry and psychology training. It includes a center for pediatric, adolescent and family health care, and will host collaborative research across psychiatry, psychology, neurology, neurosurgery, radiology, pediatrics, anesthesiology and obstetrics/gynecology.
Art Stays
A mural that depicts enslaved Black people and Native Americans will remain on display after a four to three vote by the San Francisco Board of Education to rescind a previous effort to remove it from view. The school board’s 2019 choice to eliminate the 1,600-square-foot painting, “Life of Washington,” had faced an uphill battle in the courts. In the 1930s, Russian immigrant and Potrero Hill resident, Victor Arnautoff, began painting frescoes inside George Washington High School for the Works Progress Administration, part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Depression-era New Deal relief program. He painted the high school’s entryway with a mural that depicted the first president alongside Indigenous people and enslaved African Americans. By the time it was completed in 1934, Arnautoff had become a celebrated figures in San Francisco’s cultural scene, building upon his experience as an assistant to the legendary Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.
Sharing is Caring
After almost nine years in Laurel Village, Artesano relocated to Third and 20th streets, a move prompted by pandemic-induced rising costs and lower sales revenues. The restaurant splits space with organic health food cafe The Plant, with a common storefront, dining room, kitchen, and even some employees. “Sharing fixed and utility costs, and staff and space can help both us and The Plant not only survive but even thrive in a challenging economic situation and in an expensive market like San Francisco,” said Artesano’s Owner Doug Mathieux. “We see this as a potentially exciting new trend in the local restaurant industry whereby restaurants can look to each other and join forces to get creative and adapt together. We also know San Franciscans are intelligent and open-minded to understand this new hybrid concept and test it out for themselves.” Artesano continues to feature house-made empanadas, crispy plantain chips, lomo saltado, among other tasty items.
Federation
The Board of Directors of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund unanimously appointed Mission Bay resident Joy Sisisky as chief executive officer. Sisisky had served as the Federation’s Interim CEO and Chief Philanthropy Officer, stewarding over a billion dollars in Jewish community philanthropic capital. “This leadership transition at the Federation is an exciting opportunity for strategic transformation, and Joy is absolutely the right CEO to lead the organization forward,” said Arthur Slepian, Board Chair. “As our new CEO, we are confident that Joy will build on the strengths of the Federation; guiding the organization pursuant to its values and cultivating a broad, secure and inclusive Jewish community that provides compelling engagement and philanthropic opportunities across the Bay Area. Working with the board, staff, community leaders, donors and other federation partners and funders, we are excited for Joy to lead the organization forward into its next chapter, one of bold and pioneering change.”
Readers may have noticed that the paper they hold in their hands looks different. That’s because it is. For almost 15 years the View was printed at the San Francisco Examiner’s facility in Bayview. For the last year or so print quality degraded, to the point in which advertisers demanded refunds for poorly executed insertions. The View’s complaints were met first with indifference, then hostility, followed by being fired as a client. The paper is now printed by Folger Graphics, in the East Bay. Can’t buy local even if you want to…
Give up the Ghost
If you’re in the mood for a solid B movie – okay, maybe D+, but that’s a passing grade – complete with an overexplained, preposterous, backstory, “dramatic” acting that’s unintentionally funny, and fight scenes which, if real, would leave the ever-bounce-back combatants comatose, dead, or akin to roadkill on Highway 101, Green Ghost and the Masters of the Stone is for you. The tale is “written” – or more aptly hammered together with old wood and screws left behind by Raiders of the Lost Ark, Dwyane Johnson narrating a sound and light show at a Mayan ruin, and The Karate Kid – by Charlie Clark, who cast himself as a car salesman who moonlights as “Green Ghost,” a masked Lucha libre wrestler. There’s lots of kicking and punching, laser eyes and fingers that explode things, set amidst an epic struggle for the fate of humankind, or maybe just to get more than Clark’s friends and family to watch this thing. Really, though, if you want an enjoyable utterly complete waste of time, Green Ghost is here for you.
