the Safda

If it seems to you that the gallery scene in the Bay Area has picked up in the past 18 months or so, I think you're right. One reason for that, surely, is the launch of new and expanded efforts meant to take advantage of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's reopening. . . . But it's not just the sense of expanding gallery square footage. There is an increasing willingness among gallerists to make financial gambles on art that itself embraces risk. That's growth of the best kind. My job is to focus on ideas and images. But it stands to reason that if there's no market for challenging art, there will be fewer opportunities to engage with it outside museums and other nonprofits - which have their own limitations. That's why I have great respect for how the galleries here have newly committed to work more collaboratively, and to educate themselves and each other on best practices in the field.

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