After 51 years of welcoming visitors in, SF Open Studios is gazing outwards

After having been named ArtSpan’s new executive director in March, helming the non-profit’s 51st SF Open Studios (September 19-October 19) now falls under Shamsher Virk’s purview. Accordingly, he is doing what everyone else does at the recurring event: listen, look, linger, and learn.

That approach is key to preparing for the one-month happening launched in 1975 by a group of Bay Area artists, who initially opened their workspaces for one weekend. The first SF Open Studios involved roughly 67 artists, and now in 2025, has grown to include more than 600.

In 1991, those creatives formed ArtSpan to provide structure and steward the complex, artist-led operation. In addition to its original lodestar, the organization now oversees year-round programs, networking opportunities, and artist grants and awards. During this year’s SF Open Studios, the goal is for legendary visionaries, mid-career artists, and new voices on the scene to introduce fresh ideas via the work on display. Each weekend highlights different regions in the city, inviting visitors to explore areas they might previously have overlooked.

With studio doors flung open and artists available for everything from one-on-one conversations to more formal presentations, SF Open Studios is mostly free, but also has ticketed events. ArtLaunch on September 19 presents Nihar Bhatt, Jason Polastri, experimental dance music, and more. October 8’s Art Tasting showcases the AMPLIFY Jurors’ Choice Awards. Artists will host special weekends and an SF Open Studios exhibition will also take place at SOMArts Cultural Center throughout the one-month period.

Given the prompt “art is a messy business” in an interview with 48hills, Virk says, “The first place my brain goes upon hearing the phrase is that thinking of studios as ‘messy places’ is a positive. Messy is experimentation, failure, painting outside the lines, taking risk that will land you somewhere novel. It also produces a refined vision and and an impact that is distinct and emerges from the mess.”

Virk’s thoughts also circle around the word “business.” He acknowledges that art isn’t always supported with resources sufficient for livelihoods. “Inside our Western capitalistic world and this city, that shows up as artists’ inability to afford space, to earn not a traditional salary, but enough money to survive, thrive, feel safe and secure. There is [in the art world] a coldhearted business model that tends to elevate superstar artists, and success for the very few who attain notoriety. There’s vast obscurity not reflective of talent or ability for the rest.”

ArtSpan’s role, he says is to address how commercialization skews access to making, viewing, and owning original art. By filling the gap, Virk believes SF Open Studios re-establishes the relationships between creative citizens and communities at the grassroots level.

“One reason I was motivated to take the position was that I’d seen ArtSpan respond genuinely to the call to right the wrongs that have excluded non-white, non-Western, art communities. Especially with the current backlash against equity arts programs, I see this as an example of thinking intersectionally. For the equity arts grants recipients this year, staff selected artists who could speak to their identity—gender, cultural, and ethnic backgrounds—and how their artwork draws on those identities in novel ways. One error in equity work is having a fixed approach. Part of our work is to promote their diversity and not flatten people under any one label.”

The 2025 Equity Grant awards are Ria Sharma, Ray Gonzalez, Lena Lee, and Edgar Gonzalez Aparicio. Even a cursory glimpse at their work underscores Virk’s point about diversity. An observer sees Sharma’s bold Cubist-meets-civil-engineer style; the theatrical dynamics of Gonzalez’s linoleum prints; the lush paintings of Lee bear traces of her Korean roots and her native land’s traditional painting and sculpture; and Aparicio’s poetry, photography, paintings, and garment designs are a cornucopia of innovation.

Another initiative of ArtSpan, the Creative Collateral Competition, chose Raymundo Valdez’s “The Tower and the Flag” for its marketing materials. The oil painting fulfilled the staff selection committee’s rubric, resonating with this year’s theme of “flex” and done by an artist whose work demonstrates flexibility, evolution, and growth. Practical considerations were further met: Does the artwork hold up to vertical and horizontal display? Can it be used for bus ads as well as hand-held print materials? Are there recognizable San Francisco landmarks? Is there a sense of the city’s hope, creativity, diversity, resiliency?

“I’m incredibly impressed and inspired by artists,” Virk says. “Even though San Francisco is a boom-and-bust city and is plagued by affordability, limited space, and inequities in economic access, there are some genuine exercises we all get involved in. There’s admiration of artistic skill, process, and creativity. I find that people in later stages of life are finding spaces to make art, younger people are managing to find access points to make and see art. After being in the art industry for 18 years, it’s an honor to step into (previous ED) Joen Madonna’s big shoes. In all humility, I’m taking it on with an open heart, mind, eyes and ears.”

That does not mean Virk lacks vision for ways in which SF Open Studios might grow. “On a concrete level, we’re in a moment with ups and downs in the real estate market. The changes in the downtown area mean there is greater space availability. I’d hope Open Studios reminds property owners and developers that the creative network of people is vibrant, whether that’s offering artists below-market rate studio space, activating storefronts and public spaces with local art, or developing more permanent, durable spaces for artists that bring more visibility. A pop-up is not enough.”

Virk’s broader vision for ArtSpan includes supporting media artists in exchange programs with international creatives. He would like to see an expansion of collectable kinds of art from science, technology, and other media art sectors. The executive director says that connecting to global processes means the Bay Area art community is looking not only into its own creative spaces, but outward to the world.

SF OPEN STUDIOS runs September 19-October 19. Various SF locations. More info here.