Eungie Joo, a renowned curator who was fired from SFMOMA in December for allegedly violating the museum’s misconduct policy, is back with a new exhibition highlighting the Mission School, one of the city’s most important art movements. It is a statement-making comeback, not just because of the stature of the artists involved but because of the venue: the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, directly across the street from Joo’s former workplace.
“Bay Area Then” will celebrate 21 Mission School darlings, such as Barry McGee and Alicia McCarthy. The show will feature large wall installations, photographs, and a labyrinthine passage culminating in an outdoor stage, all guest-curated by Joo.
Joo’s departure from SFMOMA was a bombshell for the Bay Area art world. The institution rarely fires anyone, and Joo, who had led the contemporary art department since 2017, had been a high-profile hire from the start. Prior to SFMOMA, she served as director and curator of various programs at the New Museum in New York and REDCAT in Los Angeles.
The details of the firing are not known. At the time, SFMOMA declined to comment “on the specifics of personnel matters.”
Joo’s departure came shortly after she brought to the museum a major exhibition showcasing Kara Walker’s animatronic sculptures.
Joo did not respond to a request for comment.
Many in the industry wondered if Joo would leave San Francisco after being kicked out of the city’s premier modern art museum. With the YBCA show, Joo seems to be sending the clear message that she is not going anywhere.
It makes sense for her to curate a show focused on the Mission School, a ’90s movement that grew out of the San Francisco Art Institute. The style merged graffiti and skate aesthetics and found materials. Mission School artists put on low-cost exhibitions in garages, defying the wealth of the Bay Area’s dot-com boom. Joo has worked with many of the leading Mission School artists since the early days.
In 1998, as an intern at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, Joo curated an exhibition of McGee’s work. In 2001, she took over the curation of “Widely Unknown,” a New York exhibition on the not-yet-named Mission School movement initiated by member Margaret Kilgallen, who died of breast cancer while the show was being developed. New York Times art critic Roberta Smith wrote at the time that the show “was a way to bring New York up to speed on the many offshoots of graffiti art merged with installation art that sprang up in San Francisco during the 1990s.”
The movement has garnered a cult following ever since, resurging even in the last year. Painter and sculptor Ruby Neri has had a run of successful museum and gallery exhibitions in the last six months, and McGee’s September show at Berggruen gallery in Jackson Square was brimming with young Bay Area skaters hoping to get an autograph from the artist.
“This region is home to artists who push culture, and I can’t wait to gather such legendary San Francisco artists in our galleries, especially since many launched their careers at YBCA,” said Mari Robles, CEO of YBCA.
It’s been a tumultuous time for YBCA too. In February 2024, a group of artists who were part of the institution’s triennial staged a protest at a public event, altering their work and demanding that YBCA show public support for Palestinians in Gaza. Less than a month later, YBCA’s interim CEO, Sara Fenske Bahat, resigned, citing the artists’ call for the removal of Zionist board members.
Many wondered if Joo’s public support of Palestine led to her dismissal at SFMOMA, but the museum denied these claims in an email to The Standard in December. “We can affirm that Eungie Joo’s separation from the museum is unrelated to any personal perspectives or actions related to the conflicts in the Middle East,” the email read.
On Tuesday, YBCA celebrated Joo’s return to SF’s curatorial scene. “We’re proud that Bay Area Then is organized by the esteemed Eungie Joo, a visionary international curator and thinker based in San Francisco,” CEO Robles said in an email on Tuesday, lauding Joo’s experience with the Mission School and her recent medal for “rich curatorial practice” at the Art Basel Awards. “Her curatorial leadership brings nuance and clarity to this timely project, which highlights the powerful ways artists build community and shape their city for the better.”