Museum & Art Gallery Events

Since 1975, La Peña Cultural Center has been a central site for Latinx, Caribbean, and Indigenous diasporic communities of the Bay Area to preserve and celebrate cultural traditions, present new interdisciplinary creative works, and to nurture grassroots social justice movements with artists, activists, and allies. 

Our founding as a “peña”—or place offering music, food, and political support to cultures of resistance in South America in the 1960s-70s—has guided our program of challenging dominant narratives and centering marginalized positions for nearly fifty years, and we proudly stand as the last such “peña” still in existence today.

We are The Betti Ono Foundation. A bold manifestation of liberation and power. A new hybrid entity of nonprofit foundation and social enterprise. We are Black women and survivor-led. 

Our mission is to build power through culture. We amplify the voices and lives of artists, and celebrate the culture of everyday people. Our vision and creative practice embodies the bold, curious, and unapologetic spirit of our namesakes Betty Mabry Davis and Yoko Ono. 

We value art making as a form and function of activism, self-determination, community transformation, and cultural resilience. We are dedicated to amplifying the work and lives of Black, Brown, Immigrant, Indigenous, and LGBTQ+ artists and communities.

Together, the de Young in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park make up the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, the largest public arts institution in the city and one of the largest art museums in the United States. 

Both sit on the land of the Ramaytush Ohlone, the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. 

Opened in 1895, the de Young is home to American art from the 17th century through today, textile arts and costumes, African art, Oceanic art, arts of the Americas, and international contemporary art. 

Opened in 1924, the Legion of Honor showcases European painting, sculpture, and decorative arts, ancient art, graphic arts, and contemporary art.

Jenkins Johnson Gallery, founded in San Francisco in 1996, is a member of the ADAA and represents international contemporary artists working across disciplines.  

They are a 100% Blackowned gallery that is expanding the art canon to include overlooked and under-represented artists of the African Diaspora. 

Led by an experienced Black American gallerist, Karen Jenkins-Johnson, the gallery has developed a diverse curatorial and collector audience. 

The Asian Art Museum, the world’s leading museum dedicated to connecting global audiences with Asian and Asian American art and culture. 

Experience the rich diversity of the 48 countries of the Asian continent and the worldwide Asian diaspora through our collection of more than 20,000 artworks.

From major archaeological discoveries to innovative work by contemporary artists, the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco celebrates the important contributions of Asian and Asian American artists to art’s history — and to its future.  

Founded on March 31, 2020, the American Indian Cultural District (AICD) is the first established Cultural District of its size in the U.S. dedicated to recognizing, honoring, and celebrating the American Indian legacy, culture, people, and contributions. 

AICD serves the greater American Indian community by preserving and celebrating our unique cultures, strengthening our voices, and increasing our visibility so we can obtain equitable resources, funding, and opportunities for American Indian people.

Opened to the public in 1993, YBCA was founded as the cultural anchor of San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Gardens neighborhood. Our work spans the realms of contemporary art, performance, film, civic engagement, and public life. Centering artists as essential to social and cultural movement, YBCA is reimagining the role an arts institution can play in the community it serves.

To be a catalyst of creative exploration, expression and innovation that empowers artists, inspires community and drives lasting social change.

To be a gathering space for creative expression that fosters meaningful connection for all.

The Autry Museum of the American West brings together the stories of all peoples of the American West, connecting the past with the present to inspire our shared future.  

Located in beautiful Griffith Park, the Autry features unique galleries filled with paintings, sculptures, film memorabilia, photographs, historic firearms and so much more, all related to the American West. The Autry’s more than 600,000 pieces of art and cultural objects include one of the largest and most significant collections of Native American materials in the United States. 

The Autry presents a wide range of events and public programs including lectures, films, theater performances, festivals and family activities. Autry is a place for the local community to gather and enjoy things like the American Indian Arts Festival, Sizzling Summer Nights, Family Play Space and Native Voices

 is the only Actors’ Equity theatre company in the nation devoted to developing and producing new works for the stage by Native American, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian and First Nations playwrights. Over the past 30 years, Native Voices has become the cornerstone of American Theater in cultivating opportunities for Native playwrights.  

Autry Museum is an educational institution that conducts research, provides academic scholarships and is involved in educational outreach. The Autry provides school tours and curriculum to local educational institutions, including Title I schools in Los Angeles. 

Established in 2015, Band of Vices launched as an artistic collaborative focused on emerging and mid-career artists with an emphasis on inclusion. 

Today Band of Vices is an internationally recognized platform for art and culture.  BoV opened its doors with a mission.

There was a time when it was bad to be black; a time when brown was illegal; a time when being gay or queer was immoral; a time when those less abled were abominable. There were times when being different was a vice. We reject those labels. 

For those historically undervalued, overlooked or cast aside we say now is your time, now is our time. We are creating a Band of Vices. We reject colonialism, we reject tribalism, we reject exclusivity, we embrace uniqueness, diversity, and inclusion. We embrace love.

The Cheech Marin Center for Chicano Art & Culture has been open since June 17, 2022 and resides in a renovated mid-century building that originally opened as the City of Riverside, California’s public library in 1964. Dedicated to showcasing Chicana/o/x art, honoring and exploring its continued social, cultural, and political impact, it’s the first cultural center of its kind.

The Cheech is home to the unparalleled Cheech Marin Collection of Chicano art. It is a space for continued exhibition, scholarship, and dialogue of Chicano art’s deep roots in the Chicano Movement of the 1960s and 1970s to its contemporary and evolving response to current social conditions and global artistic movements. 

The 61,420-square-foot center houses hundreds of paintings, drawings, photographs, and sculptures by artists including Patssi Valdez, Sandy Rodriguez, Carlos Almaraz, Frank Romero, and Gilbert “Magú” Luján. 

DOMINIQUE is a storefront and virtual gallery and arts incubator founded by Dominique Clayton, an African-American arts manager and writer. 

The Pop-up Storefront location in the West Adams neighborhood in Los Angeles has exhibited solo exhibitions by emerging artists from Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Toronto as well as group shows featuring a wide range of artists with diverse artistic practices. 

The gallery also serves as an incubator for emerging artists to develop and exhibit work, network and collaborate with artists, and learn fundamentals for career advancement. The gallery is committed to diversity and representation, intentionally holding space for emerging artists of color and women. 

Please email inquiries:  info@dominiquegallery.com and follow on IG @dominique.gallery

Located in Downtown Los Angeles, LA Cocina is a unique space that expands the role of LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes in sharing stories about Mexican, Mexican-American, and Latina/Latino history, art and culture. LA Cocina is a museum, the first one of its kind focused on Mexican cuisine; a teaching kitchen dedicated to exploring the rich culinary traditions and treasures of Mexican and Mexican American cooking; and a store where Angelenos and visitors will find rare and high value culinary-related ingredients, cookbooks, decorative items, and utensils used in preparing the complex cuisine.

LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes is a community hub where people gather to celebrate Latinx culture through transformative exhibitions, music, dance, culinary arts, and multigenerational artmaking and storytelling experiences.  

An anchor cultural institution in Los Angeles County, LA Plaza centers the Latino experience and provides a space to uplift, share, and preserve the stories of Mexicans, Mexican Americans, and Latinx people in Southern California. 

The Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) is located in downtown Long Beach, California. Housed in a contemporary structure designed by Mexican architect Manuel Rosen, the museum is home to four galleries, a contemporary “project space” and an outdoor sculpture garden.

Founded in 1996 by Dr. Robert Gumbiner,[2] MOLAA is the only museum in the United States dedicated to modern and contemporary Latin American art. Through ground-breaking exhibitions, educational programs and cultural events, MOLAA expands the knowledge and appreciation of modern and contemporary Latin American art and culture and promotes a cross-cultural dialogue.

The Museum began as the dream of a few hopeful women, and was passed down to Jane K. Penn, a Wanikik Cahuilla, who, with the help of others, translated this dream into a reality.

More than four decades ago, Mrs. Penn began to hear the dreams and suggestions of her aunt, the late Margaret Pablo, who wanted to leave the rich cultural heritage of her people in Mrs. Penn’s keeping, and who wanted to bring enrichment to the lives of Indians and non-Indians alike. Mrs. Pablo was the grandniece of Ygindio Gabriel, a chief of the Wanikik Cahuilla.

The Malki Museum is the home of an ethnobotanical garden which contains only botanical species used in the daily life of the Cahuilla. It was built and nurtured by dozens of volunteers in response to numerous requests for information about how the Cahuilla Indians utilized plants for food, medicine, clothing, housing, tools, and arts. This unique garden acts as a living illustration to the book Temalpakh: Cahuilla Indian Knowledge and Usage of Plants, by Katherine Siva Saubel and Lowell Bean. Katherine's mother, who was a Cahuilla medicine woman, taught her the traditional plants and their uses, which Katherine later wrote down with the help of anthropolgist Dr. Lowell Bean. The information from this book is used in the self-tour guide for the garden. The term Temalpakh is a Cahuilla word meaning "from the earth".