Join the Docent Council of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco for a Voices of Contemporary Artists lecture featuring artist Miguel Arzabe.

Come savor the spectacular woven innovations of Miguel Arzabe, a contemporary Bay Area weaver, painter, and video artist with a new spin on age-old Bolivian textiles. Arzabe’s bold innovative process spans several mediums and explores painting through destruction and reconstruction. It begins with sourcing outdated paper ephemera from art shows and referencing modernist paintings and discarded audio recordings. He paints an abstract image on a traditional canvas and cuts it down into numerous acrylic strips on the canvas. The strips and his collected fragments are woven to create sophisticated tapestry-like surfaces inspired by the vibrant fiber arts of his Andean heritage. Handmade textiles used for everyday objects like coca bags, tablecloths, skirts, or simply wall art, have long been the most impressive part of Bolivian craft, employing the pallay method of a wooden frame, sticks or animal bones as tools and massive amounts of woolen strings.

Arzabe is among the young local visionaries featured in the Svane Family Foundation collection at FAMSF and his work will be on view in About Place: Bay Area Artists from the Svane Gift. These works, drawn from the 2022 Svane Family Foundation gift of 42 works by more than 30 local artists, delve into themes of belonging, ecological stewardship, and social justice.

Ticket info

Event is free. No reservations required.

Contact info

cinaba@famsf.org
415.750.3638

Lecture presented in memory of Mary Beth Hagey.