Night of Ideas, a free, global “nocturnal arts and culture marathon,” which brings together leading scholars, activists, and artists for a night of performances and activities, will take place on April 5 in SF’s Civic Center, with a family program earlier in the afternoon.

This year’s Night of Ideas theme, “(Un)Common Ground,” dives into what unites communities—exploring real connections in a digital world, dialogue in a divided society, and ways to protect our planet in the face of extreme weather.

The event will include a wide array of discussions, performances, and interactive activities (see a PDF of the lineup here) including dance-along ballet, drag story hour, and a puppet show during the family program, and a BART fashion show, zine-making and screenwriting workshops, lip-syncing with the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, and a slew of panels and performances later in the evening.

The family program will be at the Main Library from 4–6pm, with food trucks starting at 5pm at the newly illuminated Fulton Plaza. The main portion of the event will be from 7pm until 1am throughout Civic Center, including the Main Library, Fulton Plaza, and the Asian Art Museum.

The event is free, but registration is encouraged.

Night of Ideas is organized by Villa Albertine San Francisco, KQED, the Asian Art Museum, and the San Francisco Public Library, with artistic curation by Circuit Network.

If you need more evidence that the billionaires are not being taxed enough, SF cryptocurrency mogul Justin Sun just paid $6.2 million for an art piece that is merely a banana duct taped to a wall, and says he is going to eat the banana live on the internet.

Jokester Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan pulled a stunt back in 2019 when he just plain duct-taped a banana to a wall at Miami Art Basel and called it art. But as things so often do in the art world, the joke duped people with way too much money on their hands, caused a whole lot of discussion about the meaning of art and satire, and the duct-taped banana sold for $120,000 at Art Basel that year. The gallery’s owner was happy to comply with this counterintuitive stupidity, telling the publication Artsy that “It looks like a joke, but step back and look at it again, and it becomes so much more.”

It became so much more that Cattelan created two more versions of the work, called “Comedian.” One is in the Guggenheim Museum, the other sold at Sotheby’s in New York City Wednesday for — this is not a typo — $6.2 million. And now the Chronicle reports that the $6.2 million buyer was SF cryptocurrency mogul Justin Sun.  

“I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve bought the banana,” Sun posted to Twitter Wednesday, tagging SpaceX, presumably to be a good little lickspittle to Elon Musk. “This is not just an artwork; it represents a cultural phenomenon that bridges the worlds of art, memes, and the cryptocurrency community. I believe this piece will inspire more thought and discussion in the future and will become a part of history.”

He then added, “Additionally, in the coming days, I will personally eat the banana [banana emoji] as part of this unique artistic experience, honoring its place in both art history and popular culture.”

So it seems this is merely a $6.2 million investment in Justin Sun drawing attention to himself among the rich-kid memestock crowd. As the Chronicle notes, the conceptual work comes with a certificate of authenticity (plus a roll of duct tape), and a “14-page set of installation instructions” so the owner can duplicate the work with a new banana whenever they like, calling it a Cattelan original.

The Chronicle adds that “Despite the unconventional nature of the work, Sun believes it will only grow in cultural value over time, much like an NFT.” Except that NFTs were a complete flop investment for anyone stupid enough to put real money into them, and have often resulted in lawsuits for the celebrities who huckstered for them.

If you care, Sun will be eating the banana live on the internet in an “X Spaces” broadcast. Of course, this X Spaces is the same thing as Twitter Spaces, which seems to always crash during high-profile events.

Related: Not a Shocker: NFT-Backed Restaurant In Salesforce Park Is Not Happening [SFist]

Image: @justinsuntron via Twitter

Forget the Hermit and the Three of Cups. You can get your tarot cards read with far more contemporary symbols of joy and dread: The Social Network Tarots. This appears, for now, just to be a poster created by Italian artist and illustrator Jacopo Rosati, but there's nothing stopping you from creating a deck and seeking how your reading turns out.

Ominous cards, of course, include Fake News, Russian Hacker, and The Stalker. And happier ones include The Kittens (tagged You Get 1K Likes), and Tactical Like. Actually, those might be the only positive cards.

If you want a screen-printed poster, it looks like you'd need to email Rosati at jacoporosati@gmail.com or hit him up on Instagram. There is no buy button.

Questa ed altre serigrafie realizzate da @fallanivenezia saranno in vendita durante i @torinographicdays sabato 14 e domenica 15 presso il @printclubtorino

A post shared by Jacopo Rosati (@jacopo.rosati) on Oct 10, 2017 at 4:28am PDT

[h/t: Laughing Squid]

The Hall, which shuttered just a few weeks ago, is currently slated for demolition early next year, but in the meantime, its developer is hoping to make some money on the empty space by offering up its walls to both professional and wannabe graffiti artists.

Hoodline has the story, and they say that War Horse LLC and Tidewater Capital — the building's current owners — partnered with Cameron Moberg, a graffiti artist otherwise known as Camer1, to create a unique art event space in the Hall called The Canvas. The idea is that people can pay to bring a group of friends or co-workers in to paint on The Canvas' interior walls with spray paint, with the goal of hopefully increasing appreciation for graffiti art and culture — and making some money on that idea isn't so much of a bad thing, either, it seems.

Moberg told Hoodline that he grew up on 6th Street, and that his early interest in the art form grew into a full-blown passion. The bio on his website says he still lives in the city, and that he teaches art classes for all ages. He met Tidewater Capital founder Craig Young at the Hall, and they came up with the spray-paint reservation idea together. Young said, "The idea came together as part of our process to source concepts with our community partners." Moberg also said that he hopes to promote a greater appreciation for graffiti as an art form, and that by putting spray paint cans in everybody's hands, they'll understand the kind of work that goes into creating public art like that.

It would work like this: groups can make a reservation, with the price point changing depending on how many folks you'd like to invite. Hoodline says that team-building groups of 20 or more are $75 per person, and celebrations for 15 to 50 people are $30 per hour, per person. You'd also get a chance to take home your designs on t-shirts, tote bags, or other merch for an additional fee.

If this seems like the kind of thing you and your friends (or your company) would be into, The Canvas is currently taking reservations on their website.

Related: Replacement Banksy Rat Mural Pops Up At Red Vic, Was Not Done By Banksy

The onslaught of gentrification has been blitzkrieging the Valencia Street Corridor for the better part of 30 years now, yet one little patch has always maintained the neigborhood’s old-school, punk-rock, outlaw roots. Thanks to the Clarion Alley Mural Project, the 400-foot lane between Mission Street and Valencia Street near 17th Street has been a colorful, showcase gallery of the “Bomb Condos! Not Murals” street art ethic since 1992. As the project celebrates its 25th anniversary this Saturday with the Clarion Alley Mural Project 25th Anniversary & Block Party, SFist sought out the creators and organizers behind the mural project to find out how they got more than 500 artists to paint 700 different murals over the decades, and for that matter, whether the new murals are painted specifically for the annual October block party or whether they go up fresh all year long.

“New murals go up on the alley all year long,” current Clarion Alley Mural Project co-director Christopher Statton told SFist. “The way we curate is very specific to each space and the history of the space.”

The history of that space — as a mural gallery, at least — goes back to a time when the Mission District was still just beginning to see its Latino population displaced. The year was 1992, an anti-immigration dick named Pete Wilson was governor of California, the term “full-blown AIDS” was still a morbid part of our everyday vernacular, and Valencia Street’s featured storefronts were of raggedy collectives like Leather Tongue Video and Artists Television Access. The Women’s Building was not yet covered in murals, but Clarion Alley would be.

The First Clarion Alley Murals: 1992
If you were in San Francisco during the 1990s, you’ll get nostalgic goosebumps from Fiona O'Connor Devereux’s documentary above that shows Clarion Alley before and during the painting of the very first murals. The film is narrated by Rigo 23, one of the initial muralists whose street sign murals still grace our city today.

“It was the first years where Burning Man was happening, ACT UP had been going on for a long time,” Rigo 23 says. “San Francisco was always seeking a dramatic reinvention of being in urban space and in society. With the AIDS crisis, a lot of people were highly motivated to do that, knowing they only had a few years to live.”

Rigo 23 shared the 47 Clarion studio space (which had once been the main theater for groundbreaking performance troupe The Cockettes) with painter Aaron Noble, a self-described “co-editor of a critical art zine called Bloatstick, which had an editorial goal of 90% negative reviews.” Clarion was a decrepit specimen of despair and junk, a prostitution and drug sale stomping ground littered with trash, needles, and human waste.

“Clarion Alley happened to be very close to a place where one could buy heroin that was I think heavily cut with baby laxative,” Rigo says. “So we had a lot of health-related issues right in front of our house when we walked out every day.”

The alley had blighted Mission Street on one end, and the Valencia Street police station on the other. Neither felt welcoming, so the two painters tried to create a Balmy Alley-style collection of murals. While Balmy’s art was more focused on U.S. military intervention in Central America, Clarion would present art about what was happening right here in the Mission District. An initial gang of six painters found themselves joined by the street’s landlords, handymen, and auto mechanics, all hoping to give Clarion a new character that wasn’t cops or crack.

“We were literally between this sort of this illegal drug market, labor market, housing market, and this institution that was supposed to regulate those kinds of things in the urban space,” Rigo says. “We always felt like this alley was supposed to be between the problem and the solution. So we just started painting the hell out of it.”

More Murals Appear: 1993-1997
Only a few murals went up in the alley that first year, but more would come. Painter Julie Murray, whose early 90s escalator mural is seen above, writes in her own remembrance that “They then went about seeking permission to paint the various walls and garage doors from whomever they could. In most cases they were successful and where the owner wasn’t to be found they painted anyway.”

The transformation had only started, and Clarion Alley was still a dump. Murray also lived on Clarion. “On various bicycles of dubious provenance I’d belt up the alley holding my breath till reaching the door of the loft, exhaling only when safely indoors,” she wrote. “Such was the prevailing breeze that whatever was fermenting further up wafted down toward the entrance collecting there in toxic eddies that could toss even the most stout hearted out of the saddle. It was a leaden sweet and sour tang of human waste and MD20.”

But the project caught the attention of some of San Francisco’s premier muralists. Precita Eyes co-founder Susan Cervantes painted a work there for free, as did local legend “Chuy” Campusano (who painted his last mural on Clarion before his death in 1997). The resurgent alley would then find itself used as a regular location for late 90s cop drama Nash Bridges.

Image: doesdont via Flickr

The First Clarion Alley Block Party: 1998
The concept of an annual Clarion Alley Block Party in October was not established until 1998. “Back in 1998, the block party was on a Sunday and it went till 11 o’clock at night,” Statton told SFist. “Now it’s on a Saturday and we have to end by 8 p.m.”

Co-founder Aaron Noble recalls the first Clarion Alley Block Party as “free, unsponsored, anarchic, and for the most part peaceful and unpoliced. It demonstrated the reality of the life the mural project proposes, and has become an organizational focus, with many artists working to a late October deadline.“

Photo by y KayVee.INC/Flickr

The Tagging of the Murals: Pretty Much Every Year Since the Beginning
SFist readers know that deplorable teens tagging Clarion Alley murals is a long-running and unfortunate tradition. But it really is a “tradition” — and goes back to the early 90s, when a teenage street gang called the Vatos Mexicanos Locos argued that the murals were actually desecrating their fabulous tagging work on the alley.

“Their sensibility was shaped by video games, gang culture, and hip-hop,” Noble wrote. “They had a keen sense of style and never failed to tell me if I looked or sounded gay, which was often. They gave me fashion tips that I should, perhaps, have followed. They were ruthless in critique. A mural was either machin [respectable] or it was not, and if it was not, then what possible reason could there be not to bomb [tag] it? Also, red sections of any mural had to be bombed, as a matter of honor; and any mural on their own garage doors, regardless of quality or content, had to be bombed.”

The teens were eventually placated with their own mural space, which they used to produce a crude painting of Beavis and Butthead. But the tagging issue, obviously, persists to this day.

“We always end up facing tagging and people coming in and painting over work,” Statton told SFist. “There’s a core group of us who help to maintain the murals. Walking into the alley and seeing tags is always a tragic thing, but it’s a public space. And it’s amazing that we get to work in such a noted environment that draws so much attention. It just kind of comes with the territory.”

Notably, a 2012 mural of trans activists was quickly tagged in what appeared to be an explicitly transphobic gesture. Statton sees it all as the conversation the alley creates, and the evolution it fosters. “Not everybody likes every piece,” Statton said. “It’s meant to be a project where everybody can find something they like in it, and find something that they don’t like in it.”

Rigo 23 seconds the notion. “We wanted there to be something you wouldn’t like, because that’s just how diverse the neighborhood was,” he says in the documentary.

Evictions Blow Up the Alley: The 2000s
The above time-lapse video shows the painting of Megan Wilson’s “Home/Casa” in 2000, a mural literally painted on the street’s surface with the word “Home” on the Valencia Street end and “Casa” on the Mission Street end. Wilson took over as co-director of the Clarion Alley Mural Project in 2001, and not under the most pleasant circumstances.

Previous director Aaron Noble was forced to move to Los Angeles, as the original 47 Clarion space that served as his home and studio was demolished in 2002. Evictions and demolitions were rampant in the neighborhood, as sure-fire, can’t-miss dot-com internet businesses like Pets.com, Napster, and Excite@Home moved in a new generation of Valencia residents and marked the a new phase of the neighborhood’s slow but sure fancification.

Success and Resistance: 2010 - Today
Clarion Alley has since been popularized as a backdrop on shows like Sense8 and the terrible thing above called Girlboss. But the mural project’s leadership has been careful to control what work appears onscreen and to ensure that the artists are compensated. And they’ve maintained the alley’s original political spirit of resistance.

Notably, these days you will see Jose Guerrea Awe’s anti-police violence mural “Rise in Power” — placed very noticeably across from a police station. The Anti-Eviction Mapping Project’s “Narrative of Displacement” also sits in a prime corner spot that had previously been used for murals announcing the schedule of the bands playing at the Block Party.

The project still goes to great lengths to include disenfranchised communities’ artists, like a new mural by the Arab Resource & Organizing Center and Art Forces. “We had been working with them for the past two years in hopes of having them find the time to paint something,” Statton said. “It was really important to give them the space in the alley to have a voice.”

The Clarion Alley Mural Project has remained an island of resistance in a sea of gentrification for an entire 25 years. It’s presence may have something to do with with any trace of counterculture remaining on Valencia Street, and any continuing feeling of community in the area.

“No one could say this is mine, but a lot of people could say this is ours,” Rigo 23 says.

The Clarion Alley Mural Project 25th Anniversary & Block Party is Saturday, October 21, from 12:30 - 8 p.m. Admission is free.

Related: More Than 20 Years Of Clarion Alley Murals Now Available In Online Archive

As the 40th anniversary of Harvey Milk's election to the Board of Supervisors approaches next month, local nonprofit Illuminate — the folks behind the Bay Lights on the Bay Bridge and the Summer of Love projections at the Conservatory of Flowers — is commemorating the historic event with two installations at the former Bank of America building (now SoulCycle) facing Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro. First, a temporary set of rainbow beacons called "Harvey's Halo" shooting directly up to the sky from the roof of the building will be unveiled on the evening of November 8, marking 40 years since Milk's November 8, 1977 election as the first openly gay elected official in the country. Second, a set of words in white neon that will be permanently featured on the facade of the building, just below the cornice where the Bank of America sign once was (see below), is being installed and they will read "Hope will never be silent" — a famous quote from Milk.

The 15 rainbow beacons, shown above, will only remain on for seven nights beginning November 8, but Illuminate's executive director, Ben Davis, tells the Chronicle that the neon words will remain indefinitely as a "permanent greeting" to everyone arriving in the Castro.

"The art is designed to honor the life and legacy of Harvey Milk through light’s power of attraction," Davis said in a statement.

A crowdfunding campaign to fund the two pieces has so far raised about half of its $60,000 goal.

These works arrive just as a design is being chosen for a complete redo of Harvey Milk Plaza, which currently just consists of the sunken entryway to the Castro Muni station. In two of the finalist designs, the Muni entrance is moved up Market Street in order to create a larger street-level plaza.

See more about Illuminate's installations and Milk's legacy in the brief video below.

Related: Check Out The Harvey Milk Plaza Redesign Competition Finalists

People voted for an animal theme for phase 2 of #knittingthecommons so the first 3 trees got a family of giraffes. These cuties have quickly become one our favorite yarn bombs!

A post shared by Lorna & Jill Watt (@knitsforlife) on Sep 8, 2017 at 5:56pm PDT

Professional yarn-bombers Jill and Lorna Watt, a sister act who've been at this for years, just unveiled their latest animal-themed creations, a trio of giraffes adorning three trees in SF's Civic Center Plaza.

"These cuties have quickly become one our favorite yarn bombs!" writes the duo on Instagram.

I'm unclear whether any city workers have removed the giraffes yet (they were installed five days ago), but below are a couple more photos for posterity.

Next up: some knit versions of the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill.

[h/t: Laughing Squid]

People voted for an animal theme for phase 2 of #knittingthecommons so the first 3 trees got a family of giraffes. These cuties have quickly become one our favorite yarn bombs!

A post shared by Lorna & Jill Watt (@knitsforlife) on Sep 8, 2017 at 5:50pm PDT

People voted for an animal theme for phase 2 of #knittingthecommons so the first 3 trees got a family of giraffes. These cuties have quickly become one our favorite yarn bombs!

A post shared by Lorna & Jill Watt (@knitsforlife) on Sep 8, 2017 at 5:55pm PDT

One of the highlights, art-wise, of this year's Burning Man was the three-story, LED-filled, climbable man-made tree called the Tree of Ténéré, which provided shade during the dust-filled days and glowing, colorful light at night. It was the first playa installation for co-creators Zachary Smith and Patrick Deegan, who collaborated with artists Alex Green, Mark Slee, and Shlomo Zippel to build a stunning piece of technological wonder.

The inspiration comes from a real tree, which was knocked down about 50 years, that stood alone in the middle of the Sahara Desert and was thought to be the most isolated tree in the world.

Now, some branches from the tree will be getting lit up on the patio at The Midway this weekend as part of a benefit event to help the team cover their final costs from Burning Man. It's a party being hosted by the Burning Man camp Mystopia, featuring DJs Mark O'Brien (Polyglamorous), Ethical Drugs (Electroluxx), Traaven (Glamcocks), Captn Jay (Airpusher Collective), Jessica Stanell (ICARUS), and Mystopia residents including Bradley P & DJ Brian. It's called Forest Creatures (and Mystopia party fans should know that implies a costume), and the fun goes from 4 p.m. to midnight (or later). Tickets are $15 in advance, or $20 at the door.

Rumor has it, partygoers will get to control the LEDs on the branches they bring — but, sadly, the whole tree is a bit big for this patio.

"When I set out to build Tree of Ténéré... I never could have imagined the incredible team and hundreds of volunteers and donors that would play a part in making it a reality," says Smith on the project website. "I'm humbled by the talent and generosity of this community, and grateful for your support."

Below, some more shots of the tree from Burning Man.

Don't forget about the benefit happening at audio SF tomorrow night! Good tunes, good people,good times guaranteed. Link in bio 👆🏽🌈🎉👌🏽

A post shared by Ténéré | Burning Man 2017 (@treeoftenere2017) on Aug 9, 2017 at 10:37am PDT

We'll never look at a tree the same way again. || ✨🌳✨|| 📸: @onenativeyouth #treeoftenere #jawdropping

A post shared by Pile Palace (@pile_palace) on Sep 12, 2017 at 12:27pm PDT

The spectacular @treeoftenere2017, featuring 25,000 LED leaves. . . #burningman #burningman2017 #blackrockcity #bm2017 #brc2017 #radicalritual #InDustWeTrust #treeoftenere

A post shared by David Kong (@davidsunkong) on Sep 13, 2017 at 2:44pm PDT

Ok, the last one about #burningman :) Ténéré tree @treeoftenere2017 was a pure magic this year! 🌿"It's made of hundreds of thousands of tiny LED lights that are hidden inside 25,000 magical leaves. The leaves are connected to an enormous climbable tree. When the sun sets, the leaves begin to glow. Lying beneath the tree, you find yourself looking up at the largest interactive "light canvas" in the world, enveloped in colors, shapes and patterns that move to music through the surreal canopy above you." #treeoftenere #burnergirl #burningman2017 #blackrockcity #welcomehome #desert #magic #love #playa #sunrise

A post shared by Iryna Nevozhai (@irauvarova) on Sep 13, 2017 at 11:39am PDT

A #ballet show at #sunset with a full #orchestra under the magnificent #treeoftenere at #burningman #burningman2017 #brc #blackrockcity

A post shared by Dani (@silverlikethecolour) on Sep 13, 2017 at 5:16am PDT

We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. 🍃As the ocean "waves" the universe "people's". Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of a total universe. 🌳🌎 #burningman #treeoftenere #bm2017 #blackrockcity

A post shared by Taryn Pickett (@tarynpickett) on Sep 13, 2017 at 5:03am PDT

The Tree of Tenere in all its LED glory 😃 #burningman #treeoftenere #blackrockcity #burningman2017

A post shared by Rene Smith (@renejsmith) on Sep 12, 2017 at 6:09pm PDT

The Tree of Ténéré By Zachary Smith and the Symmetry Labs crew. @TreeofTenere2017 They brought the Tree of Ténéré back to life at Burning Man 2017. "We were inspired by a tree that once grew in the middle of the Sahara desert, in a region called Ténéré. It was the most isolated tree on Earth: not a single other tree could be seen for 250 miles. And yet, the tree became an important ceremonial gathering place for traders and travelers as they crossed the desert. It brought people together for community, ritual and rest. It was mysteriously destroyed almost 50 years ago. At night, hidden LEDs within each leaf come to life. The leaves begin to glow. Together, these 25,000 LED leaves form a massive, dome-shaped "canvas of light." Look up and see stunning colors, shapes and patterns move through the treetop in synchrony with soothing music." - - - - #TheTreeofTenere #TreeofTenere #playaart #BlackRockCity #lonelytree #ledlightshow #BurningMan2017 #burningman #installationart #ttitd #artlovers

A post shared by John David Tupper (@johntupper) on Sep 12, 2017 at 4:43pm PDT

@treeoftenere2017, this was stunning. #burningman #blackrockcity #blackrockdesert #treeoftenere2017 #treeoftenere #deepplaya

A post shared by Keri Lee Nelson (@kerileeasaurus) on Sep 11, 2017 at 10:50pm PDT

My favorite chillout place at @burningman this year : The wonderful @treeoftenere2017. You made my burn really special! Thanks A lot to The team who made this art installation. #treeoftenere 🙏😇 @burningman #blackrockcity #blackrockcity2017 #blackrockdesert #burningphotographs #burner #burningsoul #burningenergy #industwetrust #laplaya #dust #radicalritual2017 #fuckyerburn #burningbikes #burninglove #burner #burningmanart #burningmanusa #blackrockcity

A post shared by Don Mescal (@donmescal) on Sep 11, 2017 at 8:32pm PDT

Art installation: "Tree of Ténéré" ... Burning Man 2017 .. Photo: Hervé PHOTOGRAFF #burningman #burningman2017 #bm17 #treeoftenere #hervephotograff #nevada #brc

A post shared by Hervé PHOTOGRAFF (@hervephotograff92) on Sep 12, 2017 at 5:41am PDT

The Tree of Ténéré (@treeoftenere2017) was by far my absolute favorite art piece on the Playa this year! No video or photo truly captures how enchanting it was, or how life-like for having over 25,000 LED leaves! Each leaf was mapped and then brought to life by artists who synced the leaves to everything from an orchestra to Tycho at sunrise! It was truly magical! #treeoftenere . I don’t know where it’s traveling to next, but if you get the chance to see it, definitely do! https://www.treeoftenere.com . . . . . . . . #burningman #burningman2017 #theplaya #brc #burningmanart #bm17 #bm2017 #interactiveart #blackrockcity #burningmanfestival #lightart

A post shared by Helen Todd (@helenstravels) on Sep 11, 2017 at 5:22pm PDT

Related: Photos: Sights And Scenes From Burning Man 2017

It's Labor Day, and for the Bay Area that means it's the traditional day of photos and videos beginning to stream in from Burning Man as Burners suddenly get access to robust wi-fi.

It's true that for a couple of years we've had plenty of early glimpses from the playa thanks to some limited cell signal and wi-fi, and Instagram.

But now that videographers like Mark Day are off playa, we're getting a better look at the art from Burning Man 2017. As he says of the video above, "[It was] Made with the Hyperlapse app (and thus 'not a real hyperlapse' but fun none the less....)"

Related: Photos: Sights And Scenes From Burning Man 2017

44 years ago this month, photographer Jeff Cohen decided to invite random passersby into his Union Street studio in San Francisco, and he took their portraits, promising to mail them each a copy. He recently hung the collection of 22 pictures in his Chicago studio, each depicting an individual or group and showing an eclectic array of San Franciscans and tourists who happened to be on Union Street that day, August 25, 1973. These included a family with a stroller, a 16-year-old girl in a hippie peasant dress (both seen below), multiple couples and and people of all ages. It's a fun cross-section of life and a microcosm of that moment in time, and now Cohen is hoping to be able to find anyone in the portraits who's still alive, and to hear their stories.

As he said in a Facebook post shown below, the 16-year-old girl is Nancy Kearney, and he recently was able to talk to her on the phone from her home in the Sierra foothills. Now 60, she lives "on an acre of land surrounded by trees with cats and dogs and even a few chickens. She's raised two daughters, works from home as a rep for a health products company and considers herself to be a bit of an '"earth mother.'"

As Cohen told the Chicago Tribune recently, the couple with the baby in the stroller split up not long after the photo was taken, and the child, now 46 and living near Columbus, Ohio, told him this was likely the last photo that was ever taken of the three of them as a family.

Otherwise Cohen says he's had limited success tracking down his portrait subjects, though he would love to find more of them and even, maybe, get to take present-day portraits of them to hang side-by-side.

See more of the portraits here on his Facebook (scroll down), and a selection of them appear below.

Now hanging, as of Wednesday, in SFMOMA's Third Street atrium — a.k.a. the museum's former main entrance — is a monumental abstract painting by artist and MacArthur "genius" grant recipient Julie Mehretu that spans two canvases, and was commissioned specifically to fill two large walls flanking the central stairway that previously featured works by Sol Lewitt and others.

Like the new Howard Street atrium entrance, this atrium is free to enter to the public.

The time-lapse video above, shot for the SF Chronicle, shows the hanging of the second canvas on the right-hand wall, just after Mehretu's work arrived. Each canvas measures 27 feet by 32 feet, and they will be on public view in their current form before being properly stretched and framed in place for their official unveiling on September 2.

As the Chronicle reports, the process of hanging the canvases was not a simple one:

Each canvas weighs about 300 pounds, and while still rolled up was lifted into place by a chain hoist hand-cranked from two floors above. Once there, it was stapled at the top and ever so slowly unrolled by six crew members on three scissor lifts that drop in synchronized time.

Later, once acclimated, it will be stretched and stapled, then fitted with a wooden frame that comes in eight pieces and weighs more than the canvas. Mehretu will then fly out to oversee the lighting.

Diversity likely played a role in the selection as well, following some criticism the museum received after the art community last year learned of some stipulations that came with the long-term loan of the Fisher Collection, which is heavily dominated by white male painters of the 20th Century.

"I can’t think of a larger painting made by a woman for a public space in the history of art," Benezra said proudly to the Chronicle.

The work is called "Howl eon (I,II)," and it's taken Mehretu nearly a year to complete it. She began by having several landscape paintings, including Albert Bierstadt’s Lake Tahoe (1868), inkjet-printed onto the canvas, and then overlaid with images of modern race riots and protests blurred through Photoshop. Benezra describes her process saying, "She works the surface; she erases and adds."

Speaking to the New York Times about the piece earlier this month, Mehretu said, "Eighty percent of the marks I put down I wipe or sand away."

She said she was inspired first by the soaring nature of the space, which made her think of majestic 19th century landscape pieces, and then by the state of the country shortly after the November election. "I was attracted to these landscape paintings that were trying to describe a really intense moment historically, of what this country was becoming, on all these different levels... But at the same time this was a landscape of horror."

The resulting abstract work is very different in mood, shape, and color from the Goldman Sachs commission, which you can see her working on in the Art 21 video below. She calls it "my most American painting."

"From a distance you have one experience [of the painting], and you have a different experience up close, but they don't battle each other," Mehretu says of that 2009 work, titled Mural.

Previously: Regarding The Potentially Dicey Stipulations In SFMOMA's Agreements Surrounding The Fisher Collection

Art dealer and real estate developer Serge Sorokko, or as he should be known, model, writer and Russian goddess Tatiana Sorokko's husband, hopes to sell a prospective house in Tiburon for a whopping $35 million.

The Wall Street Journal tells us of the listing at 3820 Paradise Drive, Lot #5 which currently is just a plot of land with eastward views of the San Francisco Bay along with plans for an 8,000-square-foot home designed by noted SF architect Stanley Saitowitz, whom the WSJ reports as "an emeritus professor of architecture at the University of California, Berkeley whose designs include the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston." (He also designed this.)

Saitowitz, considered by Tatiana's husband to be one of the great artists of his time, designed the ultra-modern, almost museum-esque home to include six bedrooms, 5-and-a-half baths, a screening room, wine cellar, gym, infinity pool and guesthouse all atop 7.4 waterfront acres.

According to the property's listing, plans have been submitted for design review with the County of Marin.

"I had this dream of having a development in Tiburon and using some of the architects that I consider artists," said Tatiana's husband, who purchased the 19-acre property for $5 million in 1999. The luxuriously-named Lot #5 is one of five homes Sorokko plans to develop.

If the deal sells, the $35M estate will be completed in 2019. Alternately, a buyer could snatch up the property and just the plans for a reasonable $12.75 million, and deal with the construction on their own, or something like that.

Former Belvedere Mayor Bill Smith and realtor Scott Woods are handling the listing.

The Sorokkos won't be moving into the Tiburon home. As Tatiana blissfully explained to Harper's Bazaar in 2014, "I can live anywhere in the world as long as I'm with my husband. It could be rural Alaska for all I care. I will make it chic no matter where I go."

Related: Miss Bigelow's Social City By The Numbers

A street artist known for sensational, sometimes racist, and politically incorrect poster campaigns ridiculing everything from Black Lives Matter to Lena Dunham is blaming Mark Zuckerberg for being "thin-skinned" after his Facebook fan page was taken down by the social media giant. Sabo, who fronts an outfit dubbed Unsavory Agents, recently posted a series of a posters around California cities with the message "F*ck Zuck 2020," referring to Zuckerberg's rumored eying of a presidential bid. As the Hollywood Reporter explains, the account went down on Saturday, and while the "F*ck Zuck" campaign happened in the last week, Sabo's most recent work had to do with Google's firing of engineer James Damore — he posted ads, some on bus benches, around the Venice, California offices of Google and YouTube, ridiculing CEO Sundar Pichai's decision to fire Damore.

The Unsavory Agents Facebook page was unpublished, the company said, due to "hate speech," but Sabo denies that he ever promotes hate — and his Twitter account shows him condemning Nazis and their association with the alt-right, to which he apparently identifies.

THR also reports that Sabo previously created posters mocking the Black Lives Matter movement using images from the Planet of the Apes franchise and the phrase "BLM: Kill Whitey."

Not acknowledging previous incidents with his work and postings that have raised Facebook's ire, Sabo tells THR about his Facebook page, "It took a week, but it finally came down. Zuckerberg isn't only a thief, he's thin-skinned."

The incident comes after a week of loud calls from conservatives and the alt-right about censorship by tech companies in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. Airbnb took a stand last week deleting accounts that were associated with the planned events in Charlottesville, ahead of the violent weekend. Earlier, BuzzFeed did a story about Paypal taking similar stands and freezing the accounts of alt-right figures using their service for fundraising. Today we're learning that GoDaddy is shutting down web hosting for the neo-Nazi site Daily Stormer after they posted an article referring to Charlottesville victim Heather Heyer as "A Fat, Childless, 32-Year-Old Slut." As Salon reports, a post soon appeared on Daily Stormer that remains live claiming that activist hackers Anonymous are now in control of the site, which is scheduled to lose its web hosting by 8 p.m. Monday.

All these companies cite violations of their terms of service in taking these actions, but those on the alt-right and various factions on Twitter are blaming leftist leaning corporations and calling for "free speech" alternatives to their services.

Related: Alt-Right Calls For 'Free Speech Alternative To PayPal' After Company Begins Freezing Accounts

Maybe you, too, have thought about what a shame it is that with all the tools technology has brought us, we remain connected mostly just to the familiar — our own friends and family. An art installation project now several years in the making seeks to change that, offering "portals" of communication to other places around the globe with no purpose other than to learn about each other's lives, or share a moment.

The San Francisco Portal created by the group Shared Studios originally made a brief appearance in Hayes Valley in the fall of 2015, as you can see in the Instagram post below. At the time, KALW wrote about the project, begun in 2014 by artist Amar Bakshi, placing gold shipping containers in cities across the world, connected by Skype.

The SF Portal is now returning for a stay at Crissy Field beginning today, where it will remain through September 24, as NBC Bay Area reports.

Inside, visitors will get to spend 20 minutes talking to strangers with the help of UN interpreters, beginning today with a direct line to the portal in Mexico City. Over the next two months, you'll also be able to talk to people in cities in Afghanistan, Honduras, Iraq, Jordan, Germany, and Rwanda.

there's a shipping container in Hayes Valley where you can live stream conversations with people across the world on a 12 foot screen, so it looks like they're standing right in front of you. last night @allisonstern @andrewlockhart & I talked to people like us in Tehran about what books they like, what they're working on, and their favorite part of their day. really cool experience - recommend you check it out #sfportal

A post shared by charlie kubal (@ckubal) on Sep 28, 2015 at 8:50am PDT

The idea is to have "purposeless" interactions, as Bakshi told KALW. "In the context of art, people can come in and do it without feeling like they have to ask the right question or what they say will be tweeted." One example KALW saw in the Hayes Valley installation was two trombonists from the San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra playing a duet for a couple of Syrian teenagers in a refugee camp in Jordan.

Bakshi also hopes that the interactions can be inspirational. "There's a lot of excitement in a lot of our Portal connections to connect to San Francisco,” he said. “It's imagined as a place of incredible entrepreneurship, world changing ideas, incredible financial resources, and really smart people here. Our portal locations as people know are similarly talented, they are not as well financially resourced, but have incredible amounts to contribute."

The current Crissy Field edition was a collaborative project by the National Park Service and Golden Gate National Parks Conservatory with Shared Studios, and the container just arrived and got outfitted with its solar power last week.

Visits are free, but you're asked to pre-book an appointment, and there are currently plenty available. Tomorrow (Thursday), you'll be talking to Nairobi. On Saturday, Kigali, Rwanda in the morning, and San Pedro Sula in Honduras in the afternoon.

You might find out you have a lot to talk about.

Related: Rad New Interactive Art Installation At Urban Putt

Well this is amusing. Eater points us to a new gallery show of local street artist fnnch (remember him?), called 9 Cans of La Croix. And yes, that's what it is: large paintings of cans of the very in-vogue flavored seltzer. The artist calls the collection “soup cans for Millennials," referring to Andy Warhol’s 1962 Campbell's soup can paintings that came to epitomize the Pop Art movement.

The show opens tomorrow (Friday, July 14), but it's a ticket event in a "secret" mission space that is already sold out. Sadly for all of us without tickets, we will be missing the La Croix cocktails that are going to be served.

And maybe if these paintings are a hit, fnnch will start pumping them out like Warhol did and there'll be another show.