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Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts

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Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts

The Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts was established in 1998 in San Francisco at California College of the Arts. linktr.ee/wattisarts

It serves as a forum for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary art and curatorial practice. Through groundbreaking exhibitions, the Capp Street Project residency program, lectures, symposia, and publications, the Wattis Institute has become one of the leading art institutions in the United States and provides an active site for contemporary culture in the Bay Area. All events at the Wattis Institute - symposia, lectures, exhibition openings, etc. - are open to the public.

05/21/2026

📣 CALLING ALL CURRENTLY ENROLLED CCA STUDENTS ;)

The Wattis Institute is seeking a highly personable, punctual, and proactive candidate to join our student team as a part- time Gallery Attendant! ⭐️

✅ The Gallery Attendant’s central role is to oversee exhibitions during open hours (Wed-Sat, 12-6pm), operate the front desk, and welcome visitors. As this role is the public face of the gallery, we’re looking for someone who is comfortable with high levels of interaction, and willing to share crucial information on our exhibitions and programs as needed.

Attendants work ~3 shifts a week, and we are currently seeking 3 new team members. For more information on rates + to see the full job description, please visit the link in our bio! [THIS IS A PART TIME WORKSTUDY POSITION AVAILABLE ONLY TO CCA () STUDENTS.] 💻

❤️ We encourage all interested students to apply!

05/14/2026

🌻 NEXT MONTH AT THE WATTIS, ‘Caguiat Delacruz: The Tramp’ opens to the public!

Join us from 6-8pm on June 10 for our Opening Reception, where snacks and refreshments will be provided! RSVP is requested but not required, and can be done at the link in our bio, or at wattis.org/our-program. 🍾

📽️ Caguiat Delacruz (Justin Caguiat and Rafael Delacruz) collaborate on an exhibition that brings together newly commissioned film, installation, painting, and prints—centered around a film inspired by Charlie Chaplin’s silent film “The Tramp”.

The artists have created an encompassing environment, inviting visitors to experience the inner workings of the film and its aftermath: deconstructed production sets are repurposed as exhibition furniture, while drawings, paintings, ephemera and prints are presented alongside the film. 📸

We hope to see you there! 💚

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05/10/2026

👁️‍🗨️ NOW ON VIEW at the Venice Biennale’s Portugal Pavilion (.art.biennale) and the Wattis Institute: ‘RedSkyFalls’ () by Alexandre Estrela.

At the first floor entrance to the Wattis elevator, located in CCA ()’s Simpson Makers Building, is a ‘Réplica (larva)’: an element of Estrela’s multi-part installation which consists of an aluminum plate with an engraved image of a chimera on its surface, animated by a projected fluttering motion. 📽️

🌐 The Wattis is one of several art institutions in seismically active global sites participating in ‘RedSkyFalls’, which was created for the Portugal Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale (.art.biennale). The movements of the chimera correspond to seismic activity transmitted through a networked computer system.

Pictured above is the installation of RedSkyFalls at this year’s Portugal Pavilion. Remote installations besides the Wattis include MALI in Lima, Peru; MUAC/UNAM in Mexico City; REDCAT in Los Angeles; and Galeria Zé dos Bois in Lisbon, Portugal. 🌄

📆 ‘RedSkyFalls’ is on view through November 21, 2026.

See you soon! ;)

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[Alexandre Estrela, ‘Réplica’, 2025 (excerpt). Courtesy of the artist.

‘RedSkyFalls’ is curated by Ana Baliza and Ricardo Nicolau.]

05/07/2026

👁️‍🗨️ NOW ON VIEW: ‘RedSkyFalls’ () by Alexandre Estrela.

At the first floor entrance to the Wattis elevator, located in CCA ()’s Simpson Makers Building, is a ‘Réplica (larva)’: an element of Estrela’s multi-part installation which consists of an aluminum plate with an engraved image of a chimera on its surface, animated by a projected fluttering motion. 📽️

🌐 The Wattis is one of several art institutions in seismically active global sites participating in ‘RedSkyFalls’, which was created for the Portugal Pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale (.art.biennale).

The movements of the chimera that can be seen by those who visit the installation on CCA’s campus correspond to seismic activity being recorded and transmitted through a networked computer system, from the slightest tremors to full earthquakes. 💻

📆 ‘RedSkyFalls’ is on view through November 21, 2026.

See you soon! ;)

(.>”

[Alexandre Estrela, ‘Réplica’, 2025 (excerpt). Courtesy of the artist.

‘RedSkyFalls’ is curated by Ana Baliza and Ricardo Nicolau.]

05/02/2026

🪨 On this May Day / International Workers’ Day, the Wattis reflects on our most recent exhibition, ‘8 Hours of What You Will’, the last of three in a series on LABOR, which investigated the dissolution of free time as productivity and private life overlap in the age of surveillance and digitization.

To read more on ‘8 Hours of What You Will’ and the Wattis’s LABOR series as a whole, please check out ‘On Labour’, written by Nicholas Gamso () for Art Monthly (). 🗞️

💻 Catch the article at wattis.org/our-program listed under ‘PRESS’, or at the link in our bio.

[ Featured above:

Allan Sekula, “‘Assemblage made by coal dockworkers, Vancouver’ from ‘TITANIC’s wake’”, 1998/2000. Cibachrome print. Courtesy of Allan Sekula Studio. ]

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04/24/2026

➡️ NEXT UP AT THE WATTIS

Starting May 1st, the Wattis galleries will be joining the Novack Gallery () in hosting the CCA Fine Arts () 2026 MFA Thesis Exhibition, on view through May 16th.

The show will be on view Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6pm.

Please join us on May 15th from 5 - 8pm for a Closing Reception coinciding with CCA’s Collegewide Commencement. MFA student performances will be taking place at 6pm in the Upper Ground Plaza of the Simpson Maker’s Building.

We hope to see you soon!

(.>”

04/23/2026

We are thrilled to connect the dots — past and present — with several artists, curators, and collaborators taking part in the 61st Venice Biennale (.art.biennale) who have shared their work, ideas, and space with us here at the Wattis ⭐️

🌎 Alexandre Estrela’s ‘RedSkyFalls’ () is a multi-part installation for this year’s Portugal Pavilion, comprised of video projections that are reactive to earthquakes. The Wattis is one of several participating institutions in geographic locations known for seismic activity, each of which will display a Réplicas (larva) — consisting of an aluminum plate containing an image of a chimera engraved onto its surface. This work is on view at the Wattis May 9 - November 21, 2026.

⏳ Lotus Kang (), the inaugural artist for the Bvlgari Pavilion, will produce a major new installation, continuing her engagement with time as a multiplicitous and non-linear substance. At the start of next year, the Wattis will be home to a newly commissioned sculpture by Kang, on view in the plaza adjacent to the Wattis January 2027.

🪨 Kim Nguyen (), former Curator and Head of Programs at the Wattis, curated this year’s Canada Pavilion, which features new work from artist Abbas Akhavan (). Nguyen brilliantly curated an exhibition of Akhavan’s work for the Wattis in 2019, titled cast for a folly.

🪐 Yto Barrada () represents France at this year’s Venice Biennale with Comme Saturne, an immersive installation in which textiles become a language of memory and metamorphosis. Barrada is also behind the cover art for our upcoming publication, “What is highly likely but not impossible?”, the sixth installment in our research series reflecting on the work of Hiwa K.

We look forward to seeing the work of each of these incredible artists and curators at this year’s Venice Biennale! Keep an eye out for more updates on each of these works via our stories. 👀

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04/17/2026

⏰ Our traveling group exhibition, ‘Viaje a la luna’, closes THIS SUNDAY at the Centro Federico García Lorca.

Following its initial 2025 run at the Wattis, ‘Viaje a la luna’ travelled to Granada, with the addition of several new artworks and archival materials from the Centro Federico García Lorca. This show is curated by Diego Villalobos (). 📜

📆 April 19th, 2026 will be the last day to see this show and engage with the legacy of Lorca through works of his own and those who he has inspired.

Featured in the above slides are works from Álvaro Urbano (), Nina Canell, Rodrigo Hernández (), June Crespo (), Ajit Chauhan (), and Lorca himself. 🌙

❤️ Many thanks to the for hosting this show overseas, and to everyone who saw this show across its iterations!

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04/15/2026

⭐️ CONGRATULATIONS to

Collier Schorr ()
Kenneth Tam ()
Aspen Mays ()
Kota Ezawa

on their inclusion in the The Guggenheim Foundation ()’s 2025 Class of Fellows!

The Wattis is lucky to have shown and collaborated with these incredible artists — each of whom has offered a significant contribution to our research and exhibitions over the years.❤️

[Pictured in Slide 1 are photos by Schorr which were featured in the 2011 group exhibition, “More American Photographs”— with Slide 2 featuring Tam’s film “Driver Brother”, shown as part of “8 Hours of Work” and “8 Hours of What You Will”. In addition, Mays and Ezawa served as crucial Faculty Collaborators during the Anicka Yi and Lorraine O’Grady research seasons at the Wattis.]

🎉 Congrats to these artists — We feel immense pride in seeing this deserved moment of recognition!

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04/12/2026

⚠️ JUST ONE MORE WEEK to catch Adelita Husni-Bey (.of.platitudes)’s ‘Prosthesis—Agricolture’ and ‘Prosthesis—Meat’ (2017), as part of the exhibition ‘8 Hours of What You Will’!

Wheat-pasted on the corner of 5th + Bluxome and displayed in-gallery as distributable prints, the works speak to the relationship between technology, labor, and the body. Accompanying the illustrations, Husni-Bey has included a series of questions along the bottom of each physical print, encouraging visitors to consider the ways in which technology has changed the Bay Area and its labor ecosystem. 🛠️

👁️ Check out these prints on and off-site, along with works from 14 other artists, before ‘8 Hours of What You Will’ closes next Saturday (4/18).

[The Wattis is open to the public Wed-Sat, 12-6pm.]

See you next week! ❤️

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04/09/2026

📚 PRE-ORDERS NOW AVAILABLE for ‘What is highly unlikely but not impossible?’, our sixth installment in ‘A Series of Open Questions’.

Co-published by the Wattis and Sternberg Press (), our 6th reader is shaped by themes found in the work of Hiwa K: statehood, war, migration, belonging, home, the effects of neoliberalism and colonialism, language, and the myth of the individual artist. These concepts are conveyed throughout the text by way of experimental poetry, science fiction, photography, memoir, academic texts, and more.🔎

👥 ‘What is highly unlikely but not impossible?’ is edited by Jeanne Gerrity and Diego Villalobos.

For the full contributor list and the link to pre-order, visit wattis.org/shop/book, or the link in our bio. 💻

🧡 Keep an eye out for more info on this upcoming release!

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Cover image: Detail shot of Yto Barrada (), from the series ‘Untitled (painted educational boards found in Natural History Museum project, Azilal)’, 2013-2015. Chromogenic print, 27 9/16 x 27 9/16 inches. Courtesy of Yto Barrada.

Address

360 Kansas Street (Between 16th & 17th Streets)
San Francisco, CA
94103

Opening Hours

Wednesday	12pm - 6pm
Thursday	12pm - 6pm
Friday	12pm - 6pm
Saturday	12pm - 6pm

Telephone

+14153559670

Website

http://www.wattis.org/, http://www.cca.edu/

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