Exhibitions

• The Museum of the African Diaspora's Love + Basketball: My Freedom Gotta Rim On It celebrates the intersection of art, sports, and the African Diaspora. On view from Feb. 5 to March 2, the exhibition marks Houston-based artist Ann Johnson's first solo museum show on the West Coast. The dynamic showcase coincides with the NBA All-Star Game at San Francisco's Chase Center on Feb. 16 and MoAD's Black History Month programming.
• Get in the Game: Sports, Art, Culture, on view at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) through Feb. 18, explores the powerful place of athletics in our communities. Along with six sports-related companion exhibitions, Get in the Game is SFMOMA's most expansive presentation dedicated to a subject, covering over 15,000 square feet and encompassing more than 200 artworks and design objects. The exhibit includes paintings, sculptures, photographs, video and interactive installations by some of today's most important artists and design breakthroughs in sports gear, gaming and apparel.
• The global debut of Amy Sherman's first mid-career survey at SFMOMA brings together nearly 50 paintings made from 2007 to the present. Amy Sherald: American Sublime is the largest and most comprehensive presentation of Sherald's work to date. On view through March 9, iconic portraits of Michelle Obama and Breonna Taylor are joined by early works never or rarely seen by the public and new ones created specifically for the exhibition.
• In RugLife, the Museum of Craft and Design explores the transformation of the rug as a working object turned work of art. The exhibit features 14 contemporary artists from around the world who use the rug as a medium to address cultural issues such as religion, technology, social justice, housing and the environment. RugLife is on view until April 20.
• The Exploratorium's Look Up: Eclipse, Moon, and Mars exhibition immerses visitors in the beauty of a total solar eclipse and displays monumental detailed replicas of the Moon and Mars and rovers on loan from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Running from Feb 15 to April 27, the cosmic exhibition is a rare opportunity to explore the tools and results of ongoing exploration of the solar system's most breathtaking phenomena.
• Beatlemania is back in the Bay with the de Young museum presenting Paul McCartney Photographs 1963–64: Eyes of the Stormfrom March 1 to July 6. The exhibition will showcase more than 250 personal photos by Paul McCartney, video clips, and archival materials that offer a behind-the-scenes look into the meteoric rise of the world's most celebrated band. Eyes of the Storm reveals the intensity of life on tour, capturing a period from December 1963 through February 1964 when The Beatles performed in concert halls across England and toured in the U.S.
• From March 22 to Aug. 17, visitors can explore artist Wayne Thiebaud's six-decade career, including rarely exhibited paintings and works from his personal collection at the Legion of Honor. Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art is the first retrospective highlighting Thiebaud's extensive reinterpretations of works by his artistic heroes. It also includes a series of rare works from the artist's personal art collection by artists past and present who informed Thiebaud's subjects and signature style. 
• Ruth Asawa: Retrospective, the first major retrospective of the San Franciscan artist's groundbreaking work, debuts at the SMOMA from April 5 to Sept. 2. The retrospective explores sculptures, drawings, prints, paintings, design objects and archival materials that showcase how Asawa's San Francisco home and garden became the center of her creative universe. Best known for her looped-wire sculptures, her works bridge the gap between art and craft, redefining sculpture in the 20th century.
• The landmark exhibition Qi Baishi: Inspiration In Ink celebrates the life and work of the renowned ink painter Qi Baishi (Chinese, 1864–1957). On view at The Asian Art Museum of San Francisco through April 7, the exhibition marks the 160th anniversary of the artist's birth and features 42 works on paper lent by the Beijing Fine Art Academy. This is the first time these works have been presented in the U.S. Sometimes referred to as China's Picasso, Qi's pieces have achieved record-breaking prices at auctions worldwide — as high as $141 million — underscoring his profound impact on the art market and his status as an international cultural icon. 
• The Institute of Contemporary Art, SF (ICA SF) will debut the largest presentation of Masako Miki's paintings, sculptures and installations from May to September. This will be the ICA SF's first fully site-responsive exhibition in its new location at The Cube in downtown SF. The exhibition will collapse Miki's two-dimensional and three-dimensional practices, bringing her paintings known as “Night Parades” to life in experiential form. Visitors will descend from the upper level of the new ICA SF space to the lower level, encountering throngs of Miki's signature felted character sculptures in a dramatically darkened, immersive environment.

Performing Arts

• San Francisco Symphony will explore the musical worlds and themes of such classic video games as Civilization, The Last of Us, Castlevania, Fortnite, Baldur's Gate, and Halo on March 19, with composer and producer Eímear Noone conducting a new Video Games in Concert One of the world's premier composers of video game scores, Noone is responsible for some of the most enduring soundscapes on World of Warcraft and other bestselling video games. The concert coincides with the annual Game Developers Conference, which draws around 30,000 members of the global game development community to San Francisco.
• San Francisco Ballet (SF Ballet) will feature three blockbuster story ballets in its winter-spring season ( 24 to April 18). The company will perform Sir Kenneth MacMillan's lavish Manon and SF Ballet Artistic Director Tamara Rojo's own production of the 19th-century ballet Raymonda, which transports the plot to the Crimean War and preserves some of the most demanding and inventive classical choreography in the canon. Returning to the War Memorial Opera House stage this season are Liam Scarlett's Frankenstein, a hit when it premiered at SF Ballet in 2017; Broken Wings, which explores the life and art of Frida Kahlo; and Sir Frederick Ashton's Marguerite and Armand. Mixed repertory programs feature contemporary choreography with a “Cool Britannia” slate scheduled for February that includes the North American premiere of Akram Khan's powerful Dust, a boldly emotional evocation of World War I, along with Wayne McGregor's shapeshifting Chroma, set to music by rock band the White Stripes, and Christopher Wheeldon's Within the Golden Hour. A tribute to Dutch avant-garde choreographer Hans van Manen is scheduled for early April, comprising four works, including the San Francisco premiere of 5 Tango's.
• San Francisco Opera's 2025 Summer Season opens with Puccini's La Bohème (June 3 to 21) in John Caird's production. Mozart's early masterpiece Idomeneo (June 14 to 25) takes the stage in director Lindy Hume's new-to-San Francisco Opera production inspired by the turbulent seas off the Tasmanian coast. San Francisco Opera's new commission, The Monkey King by composer Huang Ruo and librettist David Henry Hwang will premier in November. The Monkey King is drawn from an episode in Journey to the West, the Ming dynasty novel widely considered one of China's four greatest literary classics. The opera will be performed in Chinese and English and builds on SF Opera's engagement with China's literary tradition, which began in 2016 with Dream of the Red Chamber.
• Esa-Pekka Salonen will conclude his final season as San Francisco's Symphony music director on June 14. Among the programs led by Salonen this season are Igor Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring ( 21–23), The Firebird (May 23 to 25) and an all-Beethoven program (May 29 to 30, June 1). From June 12 to 14, Salonen conducts the SF Symphony, Chorus, and vocal soloists—including mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke—in Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 2, a realization of the composer's views on universal themes of life, death, and resurrection.

On Stage:

• Back to the Future: The Musical (Feb 12 – March 9) at SF Broadway's Orpheum Theatre.
• Ain't too Proud – The Life and Times of The Temptations (Feb. 25-March 2) at the Golden Gate Theatre.
• Musical comedy Nobody Loves You (Feb 28 – March 30) at the American Conservatory Theater's (A.C.T.) Toni Rembe Theater
• August Wilson's Two Trains Running and Christina Anderson's modern verse translation of Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors (April 15–May 4) at A.C.T.'s Toni Rembe Theater.
• 25th Anniversary Tour of Mamma Mia! (April 30-May 11) at the Orpheum Theatre.
• C.T.'s world premiere of Co-Founders, a hip-hop musical (May 29–July 6) at the Strand Theater.
• The hit musical revival Parade (May 13–June 8) at the Curran Theater.
• A Beautiful Noise: The Neil Diamond Musical (June 3–22, 2025) at the Golden Gate Theatre.

SF Travel Cultural Explorer Maps

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