When the art community bid adieu to the Wattis Institute's decade-long home on Kansas Street earlier this year, I was heartbroken. It had been a good run of shows at the California College of the Arts' exhibition space and research institute, as quiet and reflective as a selection of gelatin silver prints by Herve Guibert and as boisterous and experimental as a three-part deep-dive into the relationship between music and visual art. The Wattis Institute Hires Ballroom Marfa's Daisy Nam as Director
I loved the Wattis for bringing ambitious programming to a location a bit off the beaten path. It was a hidden gem in the no-man's land between the Mission and the Dogpatch.
Now, the Wattis has reopened, smack in the middle of CCA's newly unified campus in San Francisco's Design District. (The school closed its storied Oakland campus in 2022.) Though the campus opening coincides with the recent announcement of a $20 million deficit, the new buildings are an impressive network of studios and classrooms, with the Wattis overlooking rooftop gardens and an amphitheater.
The Wattis is also under new leadership, with longtime director Anthony Huberman passing the torch to Daisy Nam, who comes to San Francisco by way of Ballroom Marfa and Harvard's Carpenter Center...
Max Blue
