Two years ago, it once served intense San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) Bankruptcy in the midst of increasing debts, one failed merger with the University of San Francisco, and the decision to close its doors after distinguishing the Last class of 2022. The situation was so terrible that the college’s administration even considered selling his crown jewel, the iconic mural of Diego Rivera “making a fresco, with the building of a city” (1931), before he ultimately suspended educational activities.
The future of the campus remained uncertain for about a year until the philanthropist and businesswoman Laurene Powell Jobs acquired the space and the Rivera Mural through her non -profit for $ 30 million in early 2024 in search of the school and retain it as a beacon for San Francisco’s artists’ community. While Sfai who had a controversial faculty and alumni, including Mark Rothko, Man Ray, Catherine Opie, Stephanie Syjuco, Dorothea Lange, Annie Leibovitz, Kota Esawa and Nao Bustamante-Was was no longer something new in the work.
Yesterday, June 5, the Non -Profit BMA Institute of Powell Jobs announced the coming creation of the California Academy of Studio Arts (CASA), which will take over the historic SFAI campus.
As its own non-profit, Casa is designed as a free, non-accredited year of experimental studio program dedicated to a maximum of 30 emerging artists per annual cohort. Moreover, Casa will come into contact with the city through exhibitions, workshops and artists’ conversations.
The new company will also restore access to the mural of Rivera, which has been forbidden to the public since 2023.
“Casa builds on the inheritance and the daring spirit of the Black Mountain College and supports artists through connection, experiments and care,” said Powell Jobs in a statement shared with Hyperallergic. “We create a dynamic experimental program that will be informed by the artists themselves.
Casa has launched a series of listening forums by artist Abbye Churchill, who acts as director of the Non -Profit and the artistic director of Serpentine Galleries, Hans Ulrich Obrist, to inform the development of the programming of Casa in a way that serves the best thing that serves.
Jensen Architects and Laplace will start in the coming fall of the campus and recover alongside Page & Turnbull, which was recruited for historical conservation. The new construction will cut out private studios, partnership connection of mixed media workshop spaces and communal eating and meeting areas with regard to the first design and atmosphere of SFAI.
An opening date for the inauguration of CASA has not yet been announced.
