Dozens of fascinating art exhibits in San Francisco are refreshed and replaced every single month. We’re keeping tabs on the best new temporary displays, including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art exhibitions, fine art at the de Young and the Legion of Honor, and contemporary art exhibits at the Asian Art Museum.
Read on to start planning your next museum visit, and be sure to see our list of free museum days in SF to get the most bang for your buck.
Before we get started, just a heads up that the following SF museums are temporarily closed:
- Museum of the African Diaspora – MoAD is closed for renovations from March through September 2025. They will continue to host off-site events and programming in the meantime.
- Contemporary Jewish Museum – Due to financial challenges, the CJM closed indefinitely in December 2024 for at least one year.
Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm
Installation view of Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-64: Eyes of the Storm, de Young, San Francisco, 2025. Photo by Gary Sexton. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
In this recently-extended San Francisco exhibition, you can explore over 250 of Paul McCartney’s personal photographs at the height of Beatlemania, as well as video clips and archival pieces. McCartney took the photos himself on his Pentax camera and just unearthed them in 2020 to the delight of fans around the world. See captures of the band’s journey to stardom between December 1963 and February 1964.
🗓️ Dates: Mar. 1 – Oct. 5, 2025
📍 Location: de Young Museum – 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
🎟️ Tickets: Paul McCartney Photographs requires special timed tickets to the de Young Museum.
Ruth Asawa: Retrospective
Ruth Asawa: Retrospective (installation view, SFMOMA); artwork: © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier,Inc., courtesy David Zwirner; photo: Henrik Kam
Discover this major posthumous retrospective of SF resident Ruth Asawa, whose signature suspended wire sculptures you may recognize from a permanent installation at the de Young. Explore a broad presentation of her art, ranging from sculptures to prints, and learn about how Asawa’s work connected to her life in San Francisco.
This SF art exhibition is getting a lot of attention after Google.org pledged a $1.5M grant to SFMOMA. As the largest corporate grant for a single exhibition in the museum’s history, it will provide critical support for local community building in Downtown SF.
🗓️ Dates: Apr. 5 – Sept. 2, 2025
📍 Location: SFMOMA – 151 3rd St, San Francisco
🎟️ Tickets: Ruth Asawa: Retrospective is a surcharged exhibition at SFMOMA.
Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art
Installation view of Wayne Thiebaud: Art Comes from Art, at the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 2025. Photograph by Gary Sexton. Image courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
American artist Wayne Thiebaud was famous for openly appropriating old European and American paintings for his own work. This exhibition presents 60 of his paintings side-by-side with images of the originals, posing fascinating questions about the self-identified “thief” and his creative process.
🗓️ Dates: March 22 – August 17, 2025
📍 Location: Legion of Honor – 100 34th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94121
🎟️ Tickets: Wayne Thiebaud requires special exhibition tickets to the Legion of Honor.
Isaac Julien: I Dream a World
Installation of Isaac Julien, North Star (Lessons of the Hour), 2019. Photo courtesy of FAMSF
Experience ten major video installations by artist and filmmaker Isaac Julien in the artist’s first U.S. retrospective. Julien filmed many of these works across Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, and Asia, examining post-colonial conditions relating to race, class, gender, and sexuality. The de Young will also present Julien’s immersive installation Ten Thousand Waves in Wilsey Court, which is free for the public to access and doesn’t require museum admission.
🗓️ Dates: April 12 – July 13, 2025
📍 Location: de Young Museum – 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Dr, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco
🎟️ Tickets: Isaac Julien requires special admission tickets to the de Young Museum.
Ferlinghetti for San Francisco
Lawrence Ferlinghetti (1919-2021), Patrick Surgalski (b. 1953) (Printer) “Lovers at Sea,” 1992 Lithograph, 20 x 26 in. (50.8 x 66.04 cm) Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, Gift of the Lawrence Ferlinghetti Artworks Trust, 2022.22.18. Photograph by Jorge Bachmann, courtesy of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco © Lawrence Ferlinghetti / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
Lawrence Ferlinghetti is one of San Francisco’s prolific cultural figures, with a legacy that continues on through the City Lights bookstore. This exhibition takes visitors through Ferlinghetti’s work in printmaking, including etching, lithography, and letterpress. Explore his messages of activism and human resilience via figurative work across media.
🗓️ Dates: July 19, 2025 – March 22, 2026
📍 Location: Legion of Honor – 100 34th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94121
🎟️ Tickets: Ferlinghetti for San Francisco is included with general admission to the Legion of Honor
Adventures in AI
The Exploratorium presents a new exhibition this summer, comprising 20 or so interactive exhibits that will take you through the world of AI and machine learning. The all-ages experience includes an up-close look at a video game chip, a deep dive into how algorithms work, and creative human-machine artworks. Adventures in AI is presented by Anthropic, which is the research and development company behind the AI tool Claude.
🗓️ Dates: June 12 – Sept. 14, 2025
📍 Location: Exploratorium – Pier 15 Embarcadero at, Green St, San Francisco, CA 94111
🎟️ Tickets: Adventures in AI is included with general admission to the Exploratorium
Dino Days
Dino Days. Photo courtesy of the California Academy of Sciences
Thirteen oversized, animatronic dinosaurs have taken up residence in the Academy of Sciences’ East and West Gardens! Get up close to the imposing T. rex, the feathered Deinonychus, and the duck-billed Parasaurolophus, and see them move and roar. The Academy also has plenty of activities for kids and families to enjoy during Dino Days, from arts and crafts to a puppet theater.
🗓️ Dates: March 1 – September 1, 2025
📍 Location: California Academy of Sciences – 55 Music Concourse Dr, San Francisco, CA 94118
🎟️ Tickets: Dino Days is included with general admission to the California Academy of Sciences
Yuan Goang-Ming: Everyday War
Everyday War, 2024, by Yuan Goang-Ming (b. Taipei, 1965). Single-channel video; 10_33 min. © Yuan Goang-Ming. Courtesy of the artist. Via FAMSF.
Taiwanese artist Yuan Goang-Ming presents a captivating video exhibition transmitting a distinct sense of eeriness and unease centered on life in Taiwan. Experience the still, empty streets during Taiwan’s air raid drills, the aftermath of an explosion in the artist’s own home, and more unbelievable scenes backed by a complex and evocative soundscape.
🗓️ Dates: Apr. 3, 2025 – July 7, 2025
📍 Location: Asian Art Museum – 200 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102
🎟️ Tickets: Yuan Goang-Ming requires special admission tickets to the Asian Art Museum
Bouquets to Art 2025
Bouquets To Art 2024. Photograph by Randy Dodson. © Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.
For over four decades, SF’s de Young Museum has presented Bouquets to Art, a delightful showcase of colorful floral designs inspired by the museum’s own art. For just one week, you can see these exquisite floral showstoppers installed in the galleries next to the art that influenced them—and this time, they’re expanding the event to the Legion of Honor. Get special exhibition tickets to both museums and check out special events including a luxury raffle and trunk shows.
🗓️ Dates: Save the date – June 3-8, 2025
📍 Location: de Young Museum and Legion of Honor in San Francisco
🎟️ Tickets: Learn more about Bouquets to Art 2025 here
Yayoi Kusama: Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love
Yayoi Kusama, Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love. Image via SFMOMA
Yayoi Kusama’s famous immersive mirror rooms came to SFMOMA for a massively popular exhibition that just recently closed. Luckily, if you missed it, a few of Kusama’s artworks remain on display including the popular Dreaming of Earth’s Sphericity, I Would Offer My Love. The piece consists of a large cube containing a mirrored space that you’ll step into. The external light is filtered through colored holes, creating a dynamic, shifting environment among oversized transparent acrylic dots.
🗓️ Dates: June 22, 2024 – May 2025
📍 Location: SFMOMA – 151 3rd St, San Francisco
🎟️ Tickets: Yayoi Kusama is included with general admission tickets to SFMOMA
The Only Door I Can Open
YBCA presents an immersive multimedia exhibition that explores the truths and realities of incarcerated women. Experience a showcase of murals, paintings, audio narratives, and even a walk-in prison room installation, all created by currently or formerly incarcerated artists.
🗓️ Dates: Feb. 1 – June 22, 2025
📍 Location: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94103
🎟️ Tickets: The Only Door I Can Open is included with general admission to YBCA
Ragnar Kjartansson: The Visitors
Ragnar Kjartansson, The Visitors (installation view), 2012. Courtesy of SFMOMA
The Visitors features nine large video screens projecting Kjartansson and eight of his friends as they present an intimate musical composition. The result is an hour-long piece in a single take, presented from nine different musical perspectives that are both highly individualized and inextricably linked.
🗓️ Dates: Through Sept. 28, 2025
📍Location: SFMOMA – 151 3rd St, San Francisco
🎟️ Tickets: The Visitors is included with general admission to SFMOMA
Fortuna and the Immortality Garden (Machine)
Kara Walker: Fortuna and the Immortality Garden installation, courtesy of SFMOMA
SFMOMA commissioned artist Kara Walker, known for her work examining the exploitation of race and sexuality, to create this site-specific installation in the Roberts Family Gallery. See Walker’s automatons trapped in ritualistic cycles, enacting the memorialization of trauma in contemporary society. The mechanized sculptures are set in a landscape of black obsidian, which is thought to be healing.
🎟️ Tickets: Viewable to the public for free at SFMOMA
🗓️ Dates: July 1, 2024 – Spring 2026
📍 Location: SFMOMA, 151 3rd St, San Francisco
Upcoming exhibitions in San Francisco
We’re looking forward to many more major exhibitions in 2025. Here are some save-the-dates for now.
- Art of Manga at the de Young Museum (Sept. 27, 2025 – Jan. 25, 2026) – Experience the first major manga exhibition in the Americas with this presentation of 700+ drawings by influential manga artists.
- Manet & Morisot at the Legion of Honor (Oct. 11, 2025 – Mar. 1, 2026) – An examination of the artistic exchange between Édouard Manet and Berthe Morisot.
From enormous immersive works to intimate gallery showcases, these SF art exhibitions and museum installations are worth an afternoon out of the house. Whether you’re hosting guests or want to take yourself on a solo date, there’s always something new to see in San Francisco. Which one will you visit next?
Featured image: Ruth Asawa: Retrospective (installation view, SFMOMA); artwork: © 2025 Ruth Asawa Lanier, Inc., courtesy David Zwirner; backdrop photograph: © 2025 Rondal Partridge Archives; photo: Henrik Kam