SAN FRANCISCO, CA.- Yerba Buena Center for the Arts announced its Spring 2026 exhibition season, a bold slate of exhibitions connected by ideas of identity, resilience, and liberation. Featuring solo exhibitions by internationally acclaimed artists Diedrick Brackens and P. Staff, and the group exhibition Conjuring Power: Roots & Futures of Queer & Trans Movements, the season reaffirms YBCA’s role as a leading Bay Area institution where art, activism, and creative expression converge.

“At a time when creative freedom is increasingly under attack, YBCA is committed to presenting work that embodies courage, conviction, and humanity,” said Mari Robles, CEO of YBCA. “This season of exhibitions at YBCA uplifts bold voices that demand we pay attention to a multiplicity of liberating truths. Whether directly confrontational or tenderly defiant, these artists speak with beauty and power."

The Prince of Homburg by P. Staff
Curated by Jeanne Gerrity; Opening in January 2026

On view for the first time in the United States, The Prince of Homburg reflects on freedom, repression, and queer and trans identity through prints, sculpture, and a dreamlike video installation. Loosely inspired by Heinrich von Kleist’s 1810 play, P. Staff explores exhaustion as a response to structural oppression.

Diedrick Brackens
Curated by Eungie Joo; Opening in March 2026

For his first solo exhibition in the Bay Area, Diedrick Brackens presents recent and new works that consider tenderness, migration, and connections with the natural world. Brackens’ jarring and psychedelic color combinations expose a changing aesthetic and signal a contemplative turn in the artist’s textile works.

Conjuring Power: Roots & Futures of Queer & Trans Movements
Curated by Tina Valentín Aguirre and Caro De Robertis; Opening in March 2026

A blend of art, archive, and imagination, this multimedia exhibition explores the resilient beauty, cultural richness, and fierce resistance of Bay Area queer and trans communities. The exhibition features works by Ester Hernández, Serge Gay Jr., Tanya Wischerath, Crystal Mason, and emerging artists from the Queer Ancestors Project. It also includes archival materials from the GLBT Historical Society and audio from Caro De Robertis’s I See My Light Shining oral history project. Through the prism of these visionary sources, Conjuring Power provides a fresh look at queer legacies and possible futures.

“These exhibitions highlight the power of artists to transform material and narrative into striking visual worlds,” said Dorothy Dávila, Chief of Curatorial Initiatives at YBCA. “Whether through P. Staff’s immersive installation, Diedrick Brackens’ evolving textile practice, or the layered works in Conjuring Power, each presentation expands how we see and understand contemporary art today.”

Extending the season’s spirit of reflection and transformation, YBCA will also present End Point | Open Time, an immersive, multi-sensory performance installation by Liss Fain Dance. Presented in YBCA’s Forum, the installation’s architecture and sound score hold the audience and dancers inside an altered space. The dance moves through the structure and shifting light, revealing moments of solitude, exuberance and the humanity we recognize in each other. Shaped by Fain’s travels to the Arctic and by the stark clarity of Louise Glück’s writing, the work deepens the season’s focus on freedom, connection, and the imagination that gives meaning to both.