Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Shih Chieh Huang creates sculptural ecosystems using computer parts and common objects. Gathering inspiration from marine biology, Huang explores bioluminescence and its role in seduction and reproduction in the deep sea.

YOUers are invited to experience YBCA’s New Filipino Cinema film series with an afternoon of discussion, food, and film!

In this exhibition, eight artists actively negotiate their relationships with two or more different cultures and the influence of each on their individual lives.

Having recently reached its 40th year, we celebrate Sesame Street with this series of films and clips from the beloved TV show, which includes some of the most memorable moments as well as never-before-seen footage.

Katya Bonnenfant, who works under the artistic moniker the old boys' club, approaches various subjects — including ideas around desire and judgment — with humor, whimsy and lightness of mood, even if the subjects themselves reject this levity.

Yoshua Okón's video installations are built on improvisational narratives created by the artist and his collaborators, mostly non-actors willing to participate in a game of social chance that may easily spiral out of control.

The BTAA program obviously investigates the "Encounter" Big Idea, in which we explore artistic engagement with the social context. These commercials are indeed commercial, and are created to directly engage the public.

William E. Jones’ Tearoom consists entirely of footage created in 1962 by the Mansfield, Ohio police department documenting clandestine sexual encounters between men in a public restroom with minimal editorial intervention, and devoid of direct commentary.

For the last ten years, every March we’ve presented a selection of powerful films with distinctive human rights themes

Karen Finley—celebrated for exploding taboos around sex, gender, and celebrity while suffering (earning?) right-wing censure—performs excerpts from her newest book, The Reality Shows, and has a conversation YBCA Executive Director, Ken Foster.

Bayview–based choreographer Joanna Haigood explores present–day species of racism with The Monkey and the Devil, a continuously running performance installation uniting dance and theater during which audience members are free to navigate the Forum.

New 35mm Print! Anna Magnani is Mamma Roma, a prostitute trying to extricate herself from her sordid past for the sake of her son. A glimpse at Pasolini in the process of finding his style.

In this staggering work of art by Filipino master Brillante Mendoza, two elderly women bear the consequences of a crime involving their grandsons — one who is the victim, the other who is the suspect.

A compilation of recent videos from The 8th Floor, New York featuring established and emerging artists based in Cuba that explores a dynamic contemporary world through the lens of Cuban culture.

“Cruel Cinema” offers a brief but unflinching introduction to these small-budget films, which sizzle with artisanal energy.

We are thrilled to present this special one-week engagement of Gary Hustwit’s vibrant new film Urbanized. We also present screenings of the two other parts of his trilogy, Helvetica and Objectified. (2011, 90 min, digital)

R. Zamora Linmark reads from his latest novel Leche and poems from his two collections, Prime Time Apparitions and The Evolution of a Sigh. Preceding the reading is a screening of Jet Leyco’s harrowing short film Patlang.

YBCA and Youth Speaks' Living Word Project present the third edition of Left Coast Leaning, celebrating the unique pulse of the West Coast arts scene. This year’s diverse lineup: Alexandro Segade, Rafael Casal, Jason Samuels Smith, Anna Martine Whitehead Group and tEEth.

Louder Than a Bomb tells the story of four Chicago high school poetry teams as they prepare and compete in the world's largest youth slam. The film captures the tempestuous lives of these unforgettable kids, exploring the ways writing shapes their world, and vice versa.

As a contribution to the Ms. at 40 and the Future of Feminism Symposium, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts has designed a slide show featuring an array of images that appeared in the feminist magazine beginning in 1972.

Lawrence Lessig specializes in diagnosing deep systemic problems in public processes, and then demonstrating how they can be cured. His current focus is on the corruption in Congress caused by the private funding of elections through campaign contributions.

Gene Youngblood, the author of Expanded Cinema, has been teaching, writing, curating and lecturing on media democracy and alternative cinemas since 1970.

The Raw Feed presents work from three artists who explore the issues of globalization and dislocation, focusing on the ways in which we are given sustenance.

David Gatten has been producing a cycle of films that take inspiration from the library of William Byrd II, an American colonial writer, planter and government official whose collection introduced important works of European philosophical and political thought to North America.

Oakland-based artist, Favianna Rodriguez, will host an evening of culture jamming, visual art, and performances addressing the devastating consequences of our country's broken immigration system.

YBCA has curated an exhibition of works that have proven to be particularly effective in supporting the goals and aspirations of those seeking to effect societal change on behalf of the 99%.

Join YBCA:You for Dinner and a Movie: a double feature by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei, then curator and Chinese contemporary arts scholar Britta Erickson will contextualize Ai Weiwei's history of artwork and activism over dinner.

YBCA is excited to present an evening of performance and panel discussion that touches upon the sacred and profane nature of marriage in the face of the coming November elections. Through comedy, we examine the paradox that is the public discussion on marriage.

Intended as both provocation and affirmation of the current global movement, Turbulence is a hybrid of contemporary dance, improvised happening and political theater engaging questions of debt, value and exchange.

From dusk to dawn, El Velador accompanies Martin, the guardian angel who, night after night, watches over the extravagant mausoleums of some of Mexico's most notorious drug lords.

Marx Reloaded is a new documentary that examines the relevance of German socialist and philosopher Karl Marx's ideas for understanding the global economic crisis. Philosophers, artists and political activists return to Marx's ideas in attempt make sense of the crisis.

Kronos Quartet concludes its multi-year partnership with YBCA with Kronos: Listen Local, highlighting the vibrant creative voices of its hometown composers.

in conjunction with YBCA's newest exhibit Without Reality There Is No Utopia, "A Night of Utopian Gestures" will bring together artists, musicians, and audiences as they explore human agency and question the expected dynamics of public space.

Erin Shirreff explores the physical and technical aspects of image production with her video Lake, which reworks a picture of Lake Okanagan in British Columbia from a 1980s tourist brochure using an intricate process involving digital software and analog photography.

YBCA Artist-in-Residence Chris Vargas aims to bring forward the history and art of trans and gender non-conformed people by using exhibits by current artists as well as honoring hiroes and transcestors who have come before.

Through live performance, a multimedia instalion, film, video, and an exhibition of objects, How Can You Stay in the House All Day and Not Go Anywhere? explores human connection, loss, and the elusive but ever-compelling possibility of grace.

RMB City is a realm, within the virtual world of Second Life, created by the Chinese artist Cao Fei.

In conjunction with Sankai Juku's performances here Nov 11–14, we pay tribute to Ohno's life and work with six film programs. This series includes documentaries about Ohno, films he acted in, performance documentation, and more.

The International Buddhist Film Festival is the world's leading presenter of Buddhist–themed and Buddhist–inspired cinema. They present and promote films of all kinds: features, documentaries, animation, experimental work, children's films and television programs.

Volume 14: Middle East explores a region so culturally conflicted that the very term "Middle East" is disputed as a holdover from colonialism.

Join YBCA's commitment to providing a forum for the most compelling contemporary thought continues with another collaboration with the Long Now Foundation.

Sometimes analogies are the best descriptive device. If Big Idea Night is a Camaro, then Smart Night Out is an Aston Martin. At our debut SNO, we’ll explore the concept of quiet as it relates to contemporary art and performance.

Castaneda/reiman investigates the treatment of the outdoors within interior domestic spaces; challenges artistic notions of display, especially as they relate to painting and sculpture; and plays with ideas of simulacra and simulation.

YBCA is pleased to welcome the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company back to our stage with their latest work, Light Moves, a multi-media collaboration with media artist and painter Naomie Kremer, composer Paul Dresher and poet Michael Palmer.

Gina Osterloh's new film project, Anonymous Front, is a visual essay on physical blindness and identity, created in collaboration with a vocational massage therapy school for the blind in the Philippines.

The work of David Shrigley effortlessly infuses a comedic sensibility into a serious fine art practice.

Examining the complex and magical relationship between still and moving images, this five-part series presents films structured around the still photograph and how it can address the perception of time, memory, and the nature of cinema.

Legendary dancers and choreographers Merce Cunningham, Paul Taylor, Suzanne Farrell, Mark Morris, Judith Jamison and Bill Irwin appear alongside new innovators to reveal the passion, discipline, and daring of the world of dance.

Swedish-born artist Nathalie Djurberg’s unsettling menagerie of more than eighty freestanding bird sculptures is presented along with five animated films with music and sound effects by her partner and collaborator Hans Berg.

YBCA presents A Mad Tea Party: Five Videos by Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, a selection of important works where complex and twisted narratives are performed by molding clay figures in constructed environments.

BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND! Join YBCA and 2,000 of our closest friends to watch the 2012 election returns.

A lively celebration of Afro-Cuban folklore and creative jazz improvisation.

Islam Unknown is a two-part collection of eight conversations with unconventional Muslim intellectuals. A much-needed corrective to popular Western perceptions of Muslims, it is hoped that the film will help contribute to a new understanding of the diversity of Islam.

Using the mediums of sculpture, projection, movement, and sound, each of this installation's artists explores the intimate complexities — including desire, perspective, and queerness — of individual and group identity.

To celebrate the tenth anniversary season of the International Buddhist Film Festival, we present four new films from or about Japan.

If a YBCA performance is dinner, then Smart Night Out is the appetizer and the dessert. Smart Night Out is part workshop, part happy hour date, and part backstage sneak peek. This month features Shen Wei Dance Arts.