Getting your
Trinity Audioplayer ready...The Transamerica Pyramid is arguably the San Francisco skyline’s most iconic building. But lately, the pointed-headed structure has also become a birthing pool for modern art, thanks to an in-house gallery and a forested patio that’s perfect for showing off sculpture.
There are two exhibits running until July 31 – co-produced by the Transamerica Pyramid Center and the Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco — that make the building more than just something for a selfie background. At the Transamerica Redwood Park, Lily Kwong’s “Earthseed Dome” is an evolving installation that touches on ecology and future architecture. It’s a dome built by A.I. and robot-controlled machines whose biomaterial is impregnated with living seeds, which sprout and bloom as the weather allows. Visitors are further encouraged to become “human pollinators” by taking some of the artist’s flower-seed packets, and beautifying their own neighborhoods.
Then in the Annex gallery, there is Tara Donovan “Stratagems” which at first glance are immense stacks of compact discs. But the artist has put considerable effort arranging these CDs into geometrically dizzying totem poles. Perspective and light is warped through their green plastic, creating a mesmerizing effect that might also have 80s kids fretting about CD sleeves.
Details: Gallery open 10 a.m.-5 p.m. daily at the Transamerica Pyramid , 535 Washington St., San Francisco; free, transamericapyramid.com/pyramid-arts