The third annual Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week concluded, marking the largest and most expansive edition to date. Across five days, more than 100 artists and over 80 organizations presented more than 200 exhibitions and activations throughout the entire Bay Area region. MoAD anchored the week with three new exhibitions: Dewey Crumpler: Sonic Lineages, group show After the Island: Ornament and Ceramic Practice in the Jamaican Diaspora, and EAP presentation Calling All Cats! by Dorian Reid. Nexus was launched in 2024 by the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), recognizing the importance of providing a platform for Black artists to share their work, amplify their voices, cultivate community, and gain the recognition they deserve. The 2026 edition was generously supported by The Svane Family Foundation’s Culture Forward initiative, a grant from the Pisces Foundation, Yerba Buena Partnership, and wine sponsorship from Overshine. 

“This year, we celebrated the incredible talent throughout the Bay while also welcoming artists from Los Angeles through thought-provoking exhibitions and events. The energy and creative force we engaged from across the West Coast helped make this the largest Nexus week to date,” said Monetta White, Executive Director & CEO of MoAD. “Our mission isn’t confined to any one place. MoAD’s pulse reaches far beyond individual cities, and, through Nexus, we are helping solidify the SF/Bay Area as a stage for these global voices.”

This year, Nexus expanded beyond the Bay Area, forging a new connection with Southern California’s artistic communities. Art eXodus: From North to South, The Coast, presented by Los Angeles gallerist Jac Forbes at Four One Nine, brought together artists from LA and the Bay Area for a four-day exhibition with panels and live performances. Nexus also continued to spur new venues and programming locally. Streetlight Gallery in East Oakland is a community-driven gallery and creative business that centers emerging Black artists and artists of the diaspora. During Nexus, it opened A Call Home: Bay to LA, an exhibition that presents the two regions as connected creative ecosystems and explores how each one’s environment shapes artistic expression.

Additional Nexus programs in Oakland included Mildred Howard, a lifelong East Bay artist, in conversation with Adrian Burrell at the Oakland Museum of California. The museum presented Mildred Howard: Poetics of Memory, the first major museum exhibition of her work that spans five decades of collages, found-object sculptures, and immersive installations that explore memory, identity, and the African American experience. In San Francisco, Jenkins Johnson Gallery opened David C. Driskell: Wake Up Everybody with a reception and special talk led by art historian and curator Julie McGee. The exhibition highlighted six decades of paintings, works on paper, collage, and prints by the late artist, curator, and educator. Taking its title from the 1975 Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes song, it served as a call to action and a nod to Driskell’s legacy as a teacher to generations of African American artists.

MoAD also hosted its signature annual gathering, the Afropolitan Ball, at the San Francisco Ferry Building. This year’s Ball presented Bay Area legend Dewey Crumpler with the inaugural MoAD Vanguard Award, and brought together artists, patrons, collectors, philanthropists, and innovators for an evening of art and performances by Michael Wayne Turner III and The Ashley Jemison Quartet. Honoring Crumpler alongside a new generation of artists, the evening captured the spirit of Nexus, celebrating the lineages that connect Black artists across generations and regions. 

Nexus: SF/Bay Area Black Art Week will return for its fourth edition in fall 2027. 

Image credits (Clockwise from top right): Art eXodus: Radical Collaboration: The Black Art Ecosystem | Panel Discussion. Photo by Darryl Kelly; Black Feast @ Headlands Center for the Arts. Photo by Tinashe Chidarikire; Walkthrough by Lava Thomas at Jessica Silverman. Photo by Darryl Kelly; Dewey Crumpler and San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie at Sonic Lineages at MoAD. Photo by Darryl Kelly. All images courtesy of the Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD).