SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art announced the opening of Far Out: Northern California Art from the di Rosa Collection, the inaugural exhibition at the museum’s new location, di Rosa San Francisco (1150 25th Street). The exhibition brings together historical and contemporary works, highlighting the radical and progressive ethos of Northern California artists and introducing wider audiences to di Rosa’s seminal collection. Far Out is co-curated by Kate Eilertsen and Twyla Ruby and is on view August 2- October 3, 2025.

The exhibition features artists working from the 1960s through today, including Sandow Birk, Joan Brown, Enrique Chagoya, Bruce Conner, Jay DeFeo, Mildred Howard, Packard Jennings, Lynn Hershman Leeson, and Peter Saul, among others, to explore the myriad ways that artists working on the periphery of the mainstream art world have long been progressive forces for material experimentation, creative dissent against authority, and innovation apart from art historical traditions. Divided into thematic sections, the exhibition reveals the way Northern California artists have always used their position of working on the margins of the art world to push and challenge art historical assumptions.

“Northern California artists have always operated on their own terms, and have long been considered anarchic, anticapitalist, and anti-hierarchical,” said Twyla Ruby, Associate Curator at di Rosa. “Rather than limiting these artists, geographic separation has been a creative boon, encouraging them to push their art forms further, and to ask what’s possible - of their materials, their practice, and themselves. Our collection celebrates that creative spirit, and this exhibition sheds a light on the way contemporary artists in the greater Bay Area are continuing to carry that spirit forward.”

“Founder Rene di Rosa was drawn to artists working outside of the mainstream and was compelled by alternative modes of art making and use of materials,” said Kate Eilertsen, Executive Director and Chief Curator at di Rosa. “With Far Out we are pushing forward into our next chapter, bridging Rene’s vision with the interplay of contemporary artists, allowing this important conversation between artists to continue evolving.”

The exhibition offers three thematic approaches to the work on view: Material Worlds; Tricksters, Scavengers, and Scamps; and Piracy and Protest. Northern California art is often defined by a uniquely earthly sensuality rooted in materiality, and the section Material Worlds brings together postwar figurative painters and sculptors such as David Ireland, Jay DeFeo, and Carlos Villa, among others, to explore the way they revel in materiality as a form of expression. Through these works, visitors will encounter creative use of unconventional materials and unexpected applications of traditional materials.

With Tricksters, Scavengers, Scamps, the artist assumes the mantle of a prankster, playfully evading art world conventions and hierarchies. Some, like William T. Wiley and Roy De Forest, don alternative identities to subvert and distort the pressures of the art market. Others, like Bruce Conner and Michele Pred, draw scavenged materials drawn from landfills, dumpsters, and other unexpected sources to resist and critique commercial and political systems.

In the final section, Piracy and Protest, appropriated corporate mottos, logos, and icons are employed to critique American corporate order. Enrique Chagoya’s “When Paradise Arrived” draws on familiar imagery of the Walt Disney Company to investigate his experience living on both sides of the US/Mexico border, while Ester Hernandez’s “Sun Mad” references the Sun Maid raisin box to bring attention to the oppression of LatinX populations. Other works by Wally Hedrick and Kara Maria, among others, draw on commercial and corporate references to offer commentary on socio-political injustice.

The artists included in Far Out are: William Allan, Terry Allen, David Best, Sandow Birk, Elmer Bischoff, Joan Brown, Enrique Chagoya, Bruce Conner, Sammy Cucher, Jay DeFeo, Roy De Forest, Packard Jennings, Stephen De Staebler, Bella Feldman, Mike Henderson, Ester Hernandez, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Mildred Howard, Robert Hudson, Randy Hussong, David Ireland, Kara Maria, Manuel Neri, Nathan Oliveira, Michele Pred, Deborah Remington, Rigo 92, Peter Saul, Gerd Stern, Carlos Villa, Peter Voulkos, and William T. Wiley.