SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — San Francisco has long been known as a destination for arts and culture, but in recent years the city has lost out to cities like Los Angeles. This decline can be attributed to several factors, including the high cost of living.
Take Reniel del Rosario, for example, one of the Bay Area’s up-and-coming artists who is gaining international fame. We visited his studio in Vallejo, California.
“What you see here are things I packaged for a solo exhibition at the Rebecca Hossack Gallery in London,” said del Rosario, a ceramic artist.
Vallejo, about 30 miles from San Francisco, is not exactly a vibrant arts center, but del Rosario can afford to live there.
“Of course I would like to live closer to everything. Then I would be closer to my friends. I would be closer to everything that happens, from the openings to the closings,” he said.
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“San Francisco was one of the absolute creative centers of the world,” said renowned Bay Area artist Dewey Crumpler.
It was the place to be and be seen and where artists found inspiration from other big names.
Some neighborhoods claimed to be the art center of San Francisco. People bought and sold art.
But rent prices forced many artists, such as Crumpler, to move to Oakland and Berkeley in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
At the turn of the century, the dot-com era destroyed many affordable artists’ apartments.
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Today, there are only a few designated artist housing buildings in San Francisco, two in the Mission District and the Goodman 2 Arts Complex in Potrero Hill, where 258 artists recently applied for a single unit.
“That’s true. You can’t work as an artist in San Francisco if there isn’t rent control,” says Krissy Keefer, artistic director of the Dance Mission Theater.
Nol Simonse is a dancer struggling to stay in the city. We asked him what he would tell his younger self.
“Don’t drop out of college, haha. That’s what I would tell my younger self,” Simonse said.
The San Francisco art scene also says that many in the technology industry have little interest in art or collecting.
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“They weren’t taught that sensitivity, so they don’t have the same desire to buy and bring art into the world with the same passion as they do with robotics and AI tools,” Crumpler said.
“That reduced the local community’s demand for the San Francisco art market and is one of the reasons it has shrunk,” says Karen Jenkins-Johnson, who has owned a gallery for 30 years. She says the downturn began in 2000 and never really picked up again.
In the art world, Los Angeles has replaced San Francisco as the New York of the West.
Let’s not kid ourselves: the images of homeless people and drug users on the streets that we still see today also help to drive away potential collectors.
And although the local government provides grants to artists, part of this money comes from hotel taxes. This amount fluctuates every year, depending on the number of tourists.
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Jenkins-Johnson told us that people aren’t coming to San Francisco as often as they used to.
“Of course not. They won’t come if they know that a certain street doesn’t smell good. That’s why they prefer to go to Los Angeles. LA has problems too, but I guess it’s bigger. San Francisco is small, but we were known for our quirkiness because we could walk,” she said.
But there are still supporters willing to raise money to save galleries like the Minnesota Street Project, which provides affordable spaces. Without this project, some smaller galleries would have had to close.
The Fine Arts Museums received a donation of $1 million to purchase 42 works of art by local artists, supporting not only the artist but also the galleries that sold the artwork.
“Museums need to be the anchor that sets the tone by having good exhibitions. Visitors come not only to see the exhibitions, but also to go to the galleries,” Jenkins-Johnson stressed.
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Yet San Francisco continues to lose artists and galleries. Del Rosario has been granted a residency at the American Museum of Ceramic Arts in Southern California.
“It’s a one-year fellowship that provides me with accommodation for a year, a monthly stipend and unlimited materials from their local clay manufacturer. So it’s an opportunity I can’t really turn down,” he said.
And another local artist says goodbye to San Francisco for now.
“We can’t go on like this forever. No city is worth living in, especially not for me, if it doesn’t have creative power within it,” said Crumpler.
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