Tuesday, July 4, 2017

New Absolutely-Must-Visit Poster Print Shop And Gallery In San Francisco

If you’re going to San Francisco - or if you’re lucky enough to live there - the Haight Street Art Center (HSAC), a first-of-its-kind poster print shop and gallery that supports a collective of poster artists, is a must visit.

Dennis Larkins' incredible "Eyeconic" flies high above a wall of rock posters.
With 7,000 square feet of gallery exhibition space, HSAC is one of the largest galleries devoted to poster art in the United States. In addition to the print shop, the Center features community engagement facilities, including a classroom for teaching poster art techniques, a special events space, and a large gallery. Permanent and temporary exhibitions will be free of charge to the public, and the Center and its artists will sell silkscreen and offset prints.

Founded on a cooperative operational model, the HSAC features a state-of-the-art print shop to be managed by and for artists. The Center’s business model offers artists low overhead costs to improve the economics for creating and selling poster art. 

Exercising public art’s proven power to attract, inspire and connect, HSAC will serve not only the Lower Haight, but the city at large with educational programming for the San Francisco community: from students to seniors, apprentices to master artists, and the local residents to visitors.

The Art of Consciousness 

Mariusz Knorowski, Chief Curator at Poster Museum at Wilanów, Warsaw, Poland.
The inaugural exhibition, “The Art of Consciousness,” features more than 90 seminal works from 1965 to 1967. On display will be never-before-seen Family Dog original art from the “Big Five” of San Francisco rock poster art – Rick Griffin, Alton Kelley, Victor Moscoso, Stanley Mouse, and Wes Wilson – whose vision inspired thousands of young people in San Francisco and provided the visual vocabulary for the vibrant community that formed in the Haight-Ashbury.

“It covers the evolution of poster art before the Summer of Love, from the Seed and Are We Next in 1965 through the psychedelic Avalon and Fillmore posters of the spring of 1967,” said Moonalice guitarist and poster philanthropist, Roger McNamee. “Check it out!”

The Art of Consciousness” runs through September. Entrance is free. Regular hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Sunday. 215 Haight St., San Francisco: https://haightstreetart.org

About Haight Street Art Center

The Haight Street Art Center (HSAC) is a 501(c)3 non-profit San Francisco arts collective established to promote poster art production and education. The Center’s community outreach relates to poster art history and cultural impact along with a deep commitment to extending San Francisco’s proud heritage of publicly accessible artwork—artwork created to celebrate, advocate, and connect people.

Left to Right: Roger McNamee, Jeremy Fish and Peter McQuaid at the Grand Opening of the HSAC.