San Francisco, CA (October 28, 2025) — The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF) today announces a bold new chapter: a transition toward a fully nomadic, citywide model that reflects the organization’s founding mission to commission and produce boundary-pushing museum-scale contemporary art for a wide public audience. Following the conclusion of its current presentations by Masako Miki and David Antonio Cruz (both on view through December 7, 2025), ICA SF will depart its home at The Cube and begin activating sites across the Bay Area starting in early 2026, transforming vacant buildings, public spaces and significant architectural sites into platforms for experimentation, civic dialogue and cultural momentum. As it embarks on this next chapter, the organization will advance commissions and projects with artists Tara Donovan, Bay Area native Lily Kwong, Heidi Lau, and Dominique Fung.

From its inception in 2020 in Dogpatch and its move to downtown in 2024, ICA SF has been shaped by the start-up spirit of Silicon Valley, testing new models for contemporary art sustainability, access, and responsiveness. Now, ICA SF is leaning into an evolving model with a purpose of delivering ambitious, experimental art and programs to the broadest possible public, not confined to one address, but embedded throughout the city’s dynamic urban fabric.

Commissioning and exhibition production for the organization will take two primary forms: pairing bold artist projects with architecturally or historically resonant sites, and scouting unexpected spaces that inspire new, site-specific work. Nomadic by design and non-collecting by choice, ICA SF remains committed to rethinking curatorial and institutional norms, centering artists as civic partners, and producing free, museum-scale projects that speak to the most urgent cultural questions of our time.

“When ICA SF moved from Dogpatch to The Cube last October, something clicked. For three years, we’ve invited artists and audiences to think differently about how contemporary art can be experienced, and that journey has reshaped our own thinking. We always knew The Cube was a temporary home, a chance to bring our vision to a new part of the city and test new possibilities. That time confirmed an evolving vision: art doesn’t need a single permanent space to make a major impact. Now, with support from the Mayor’s Office, we’re fully embracing that model—becoming a truly citywide institution. In this next chapter, resources flow directly into people and projects, keeping ICA SF agile, artist-centered, and deeply responsive to the communities we serve. We’re deeply grateful to Vornado Realty Trust for being our first partner in this evolution, and we can’t wait to share the incredible artist projects ahead. This is just the beginning.”

— Alison Gass, Founding Director and Chief Curator, ICA SF

“Arts and culture are essential to San Francisco’s recovery, and the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco is a beloved destination for creativity, community, and culture. Its presence in the Cube has brought new energy to our downtown over the past year and helped to revitalize the heart of San Francisco. I’m thrilled that ICA SF’s plans for multiple activations and installations will continue to play a vital role in our downtown recovery.”

— Daniel Lurie, Mayor of San Francisco

Launching with San Francisco Art Week 2026 (January 17-25, 2026), ICA SF is partnering with SHVO at Transamerica Pyramid Center. As part of the Pyramid Arts initiative, ICA SF will transform both the Annex within the iconic Transamerica Pyramid and its adjacent Transamerica Redwood Park into dynamic cultural destinations. Indoors at the Annex, the program will launch with a presentation of large-scale Stratagem sculptures by Tara Donovan, including two works that have never before been shown publicly. Known for her transformative use of everyday materials, Donovan’s most recent sculptures are in exquisite formal dialogue with the Annex gallery at Transamerica Pyramid, and with the building itself. The Stratagem works, made of thousands of recycled CD’s, will constantly shift as the light and weather outside of the entirely glass Annex gallery changes over the course of days and months.

Outdoors in Transamerica Redwood Park, ICA SF, in collaboration with curatorial platform Art at a Time Like This, will present landscape artist Lily Kwong’s major new site-responsive project EARTHSEED DOME. This 3D-printed living soil installation merges ancestral building practices with emerging technology, serving as both a public artwork and seed dispersal hub to restore urban ecology. With printing starting during SF Art Week fully visible to the public, EARTHSEED DOME will continuously build itself and evolve onsite through July 2026, with fabrication led by Atelio and WASP 3D. Through public workshops and native seed distribution, visitors and commuters will be engaged as pollinators, transforming the park and surrounding downtown into a participatory ecological corridor that connects urban audiences with native ecology and fosters dialogue around sustainability and community care.

San Francisco Art Week x ICA SF Lounge at Transamerica Pyramid Center:

ICA SF, in partnership with San Francisco Art Week, will host a nine-day public lounge and cultural hub (January 17–25, 2026) at the Transamerica Pyramid Center. Serving as a central gathering space during the citywide celebration of art and design, the lounge will welcome artists, collectors, and the public, fostering connection across the Bay Area’s creative community.

Lily Kwong’s EARTHSEED DOME and SF Art Week’s debut at San Francisco Art Week x ICA SF Lounge at Transamerica Pyramid have independently been awarded grant funding from The Svane Family Foundation’s Culture Forward initiative.

Lily Kwong, Artist:

“As a Bay Area native, my creative consciousness and ecological attunement was completely shaped by this place. I often say I was raised by Redwoods, as these mighty trees felt as much like ancestors as any human being growing up as a small child in Mill Valley. By high school I was at school in the city, being radically inspired by the kinetic quirky, creative culture of SF in the early aughts. I’ve spent over 15 years building installations all over the world, always with the inspiration of the Redwoods in my heart and to be invited by such a revolutionary arts organization to build a site-responsive, ecologically meaningful piece in this iconic grove amongst the trees and community that have given me my creative life, purpose and mission in the world is an honor of a lifetime.”

Tara Donovan, Artist:

“My most recent sculpture series titled Stratagems are deeply connected to skyscraper architecture, both in their immediate verticality and their surface appearance. When ICA SF invited me to be part of their evolution across the city, I could not imagine a more perfect site to bring these works than the soaring Transamerica Pyramid. I am always fixated on the ways that sculptures transform space and experience, and in this context, an intention of these sculptures to engage the understanding of urban architecture can be fully realized. The power of ICA’s new model is in the ability to situate objects like this in new contexts that can transform our understanding of space and art. I am so thrilled to be a part of this intervention into the city.”

Michael Shvo, Chairman and CEO of SHVO:

“Transamerica Pyramid Center is more than a cultural destination—it’s a place where people connect through art, performance, and culinary experiences that push the boundaries of what’s possible. This partnership with the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco aligns perfectly with our Pyramid Arts program and our mission to present world-class art experiences that redefine how public spaces are experienced.”

Kelsey Issel, Culture Forward Director, The Svane Family Foundation:

“ICA SF’s nomadic model channels the unconventional spirit that has long driven San Francisco. Culture Forward shares that drive—supporting artists and culture workers as they experiment with new ways to bring audiences downtown. We’re proud to support ICA’s activation of the Transamerica Pyramid and Redwood Grove alongside SF Art Week and Lily Kwong’s EARTHSEED DOME, demonstrating how creative partnerships and a responsive vision can spark new energy across the city’s cultural ecosystem.”

Emily Counihan, San Francisco Art Week:

“San Francisco Art Week is about rediscovering the city through art, and the SFAW x ICA SF Lounge embodies that spirit. Partnering with the Svane Family Foundation and Transamerica Pyramid Center, we’re transforming an iconic downtown space into a hub for creativity and community—an early expression of ICA SF’s nomadic future, where art and public life intertwine across the city.”

In late spring 2026, ICA SF is planning to present a major joint exhibition by artists Dominique Fung and Heidi Lau, guest curated by Kathy Huang. Featuring newly commissioned sculptural and immersive works, the project will explore diasporic memory, mythology, and material culture through each artist’s distinct but complementary practice. ICA SF is excited to be entering into negotiations with the Port of San Francisco for the activation of Pier 24 for this exhibition, a program which will exemplify ICA SF’s commitment to artist-led, museum-scale presentations staged in architecturally resonant spaces across the city. Pending approval from the Port Commission, ICA SF will activate the Pier through both ICA SF exhibitions as well as events and programming in partnership with local and national organizations. We look forward to sharing more about our work as the partnership evolves.

Michael Martin, Acting Executive Director, Port of San Francisco:

“The Port is excited to be in negotiations with the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco for the activation of Pier 24, one of the Port’s hidden gems that offers the opportunity for innovative new contemporary art exhibitions and other programming in a unique waterfront setting. We welcome the opportunity to expand on the Port’s growing public art collection to further enliven and energize the city’s amazing waterfront.”

In 2027, ICA SF will come home to Dogpatch to launch a landmark public art initiative at Prequel Park, within the Dogpatch Power Station. The project transforms the 300-foot smokestack — the skyline marker of San Francisco’s southern waterfront — into a vertical gallery for purpose-built works of art. It will anchor a new waterfront park that turns this 2.75-acre stretch of shoreline into a living intersection of art, architecture, and landscape.

Designed by Heatherwick Studio and delivered by Fifth Space (formerly Associate Capital), Prequel Park builds on years of community collaboration and imagination — reopening the site as a platform for the city’s next generation of creativity, innovation, and civic life.

Enrique Landa, Managing Partner, Fifth Space:

“We’ve long looked for ways to collaborate with ICA SF, one of the most innovative, relentlessly creative, and gutsy organizations in the city. They’re phenomenalists through and through. Their new nomadic model is a perfect fit for turning over the Stack and presenting it as a place for art—only ICA SF could take a 300-foot chimney and transform it into a beacon of civic energy and wonder. We simply can’t wait to re-open Dogpatch’s waterfront with ICA SF in 2027. ICA SF is what San Francisco needs right now: a wellspring of shared imagination fueling the city’s reinvention.”

Specific details around each activation, including timelines, and public programming, will be announced in due course.

Media Contacts:

Shaquille Heath, Sutton Communications: shaquille@suttoncomms.com

Nate Galvan, BergDavis Public Affairs: ngalvan@bergdavis.com

Please click here to download the press kit.

Nomadic by design and non-collecting by choice, the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF) is an arts organization dedicated to commissioning and producing boundary-pushing museum-scale contemporary art for a wide public audience. Committed to evolving alongside our city, we strive to meet the changing needs of our communities through ambitious, site-responsive projects that reimagine the relationship between art, architecture, and civic life.

We believe in the power of art to revitalize San Francisco’s cultural landscape. We offer artists from around the world opportunities to push boundaries and experiment with new ideas. By embracing an intentionally nomadic model that leverages strategic partnerships and community engagement, ICA SF operates with a nimbleness that allows us to respond dynamically to the city’s evolving needs and generates cultural momentum, proving that temporary interventions can catalyze positive lasting change in neighborhoods and communities. Admission is always free.

icasf.org

The Pyramid Arts program at Transamerica Pyramid Center presents a mix of world-class exhibitions and local partnerships that celebrate innovation and creativity across the arts and sciences. The first installations, both curated by Lord Norman Foster, included The Vertical City, a selection of his architectural achievements focused on skyscrapers, and Les Lalanne at Transamerica Redwood Park, an outdoor exhibition honoring the work of iconic French artists Claude and François-Xavier Lalanne. Exhibitions currently on display include Pyramid Dreams, a collection of artwork inspired by the Transamerica Pyramid by San Francisco schoolchildren in Two Transamerica, and the Time Capsule Exhibition, presenting contents found in a time capsule buried under the pyramid more than 50 years ago. The cylindrical steel capsule was found completely intact, containing a collection of mementos collected during the Transamerica Pyramid’s original development in the 1970s, as well as items that mark the site’s historical significance. Past as Prologue: The Last Decade of Furniture Design by Ray and Charles Eames (1968–1978) is on view in the Annex and in Transamerica Redwood Park, Max Ernst at Transamerica Pyramid Center presents twelve bronze sculptures by the influential 20th-century artist Max Ernst. All exhibitions are open daily from 10 AM to 5 PM and free to the public. Since reopening last September the exhibitions in the Annex have welcomed more than 130,000 visitors.

transamericapyramid.com/pyramid-arts

Established in 2019 by Zendesk Founder Mikkel Svane, The Svane Family Foundation is a tax-exempt private foundation and operates to further promote, sustain, and grow the cultural community of the San Francisco Bay Area region and beyond.

More information on current programs and grant initiatives can be found on Instagram at @svanefoundation or at svaneff.org

Power Station is an extension of the Dogpatch neighborhood that will create thousands of new homes, honor San Francisco’s industrial past, reconnect the community with a dazzling stretch of waterfront, and feature UCSF’s groundbreaking new proton-laser therapy center. Power Station opened its first new structure in October, a 105-unit permanently affordable residential building targeting San Francisco’s “missing middle,” just five years after the project’s unanimous approval as a 4.4 million-sq.-ft., mixed-use, majority-residential neighborhood on a 29-acre, former industrial site, featuring office, life science and retail space, nearly 7 acres of parks and open space, and a hotel. The plan calls for more than 2,600 homes. Construction begins in 2026 on Prequel Park, a new waterfront space that reconnects the City with a stretch of Bay that’s been cut off from the public for more than 166 years.

dogpatchpowerstation.com