A publication to accompany the 2025 exhibition Kota Ezawa: Here and There — Now and Then, presented by Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture in collaboration with the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Taking a deep dive into San Francisco’s collective memory, the exhibition transformed recent Bay Area history into immersive art. Featuring two major video works and a captivating installation with photographic evidence of a legendary but lost art environment, the show highlighted Ezawa’s ability to blend historical events with contemporary art practices.
The fully illustrated catalogue features contributions from Dodie Bellamy, Rudolf Frieling, and Julian Brave NoiseCat, with an introduction by Frank Smigiel and an essay by Fraenkel Gallery Director Christian Whitworth. Highlighted works include Ezawa’s Grand Princess (2024), in which the artist reframes the COVID-wracked ship’s progress to the Port of Oakland; Alcatraz Is an Idea (2024), a collaboration with Brave NoiseCat highlighting scenes from the 2019 Indigenous Peoples’ Day Alcatraz Canoe Journey; Merzbau 1, 2, 3, a remaking of three photographs documenting German artist Kurt Schwitters’s home studio installation known as the Merzbau (1923-37); and others.
