San Francisco Art Institute Becomes Free Experimental Studio Program

Two years ago, the once-lofty San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) filed for bankruptcy amid mounting debts, a failed merger with the University of San Francisco, and the decision to close its doors after matriculating the final class of 2022. The situation was so dire that the college’s administration even considered selling its crown jewel, Diego Rivera’s iconic mural “The Making of a Fresco, Showing the Building of a City” (1931), before ultimately suspending educational operations.

The campus’s future remained uncertain for about a year until philanthropist and business woman Laurene Powell Jobs acquired the space and the Rivera mural through her nonprofit for $30 million in early 2024, seeking to revitalize the school and maintain it as a beacon for San Francisco’s artist community. While SFAI — which boasted high-profile faculty and alumni including Mark Rothko, Man Ray, Catherine Opie, Stephanie Syjuco, Dorothea Lange, Annie Leibovitz, Kota Ezawa, and Nao Bustamante — was no more, something new was in the works.

Yesterday, June 5, Powell Jobs’s nonprofit BMA Institute announced the forthcoming creation of the California Academy of Studio Arts (CASA), which will take over the historic SFAI campus.

As its own nonprofit, CASA is designed to be a free, non-accredited yearlong experimental studio program devoted to up to 30 emerging artists per annual cohort. Additionally, CASA will engage with the city through exhibitions, workshops, and artist talks.

The new venture will also restore access to Rivera’s mural, which has been off-limits to the public since 2023.

“CASA builds on the legacy and the bold spirit of Black Mountain College, supporting artists through connection, experimentation, and care,” Powell Jobs said in a statement shared with Hyperallergic. “We are creating a dynamic experimental program that will be informed by the artists themselves.

CASA has launched a series of listening forums hosted by artist Abbye Churchill, who serves as the nonprofit’s director, and Serpentine Galleries’s Artistic Director Hans Ulrich Obrist, to inform the development of CASA’s programming in a way that best serves today’s contemporary artists.

Jensen Architects and Laplace are set to commence the campus’s renovations and restoration this coming fall alongside and Page & Turnbull, which was recruited for historic preservation. The new construction will carve out private studios, collaborative mixed-media workshop spaces, and communal dining and meeting areas with respect to SFAI’s initial design and atmosphere.

An opening date for CASA’s inauguration has not yet been announced.

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