In the pouring rain on Saturday night, nearly 1,000 people trickled into the long-empty corner space at 17th and Valencia streets for a new exhibition, “HOME,” that features works that examine housing, identity and urban development.
It was the first time in four years the corner had seen a crowd that size.
“It was incredible, on a rainy night, just having that corner glowing, full of people flowing in and out of it,” said Renée DeCarlo, owner of the Drawing Room, the art gallery and studio that curated the exhibition and opened up on Jan. 13 at the former spot of Harrington Galleries, where the lights have been off since 2020.
“People came out and they dealt with parking, they drove around and around the block, and they figured it out,” DeCarlo said.
The exhibition marks the return of the Drawing Room to the Mission, too: In 2022, the Drawing Room moved away from its location on 23rd Street to the Richmond District, due to deteriorating conditions on the block.
DeCarlo went on to host a temporary art space on Valencia Street between 18th and 19th streets — that space had sat empty for two years at that point, and it’s now a LiveFit gym. That series lasted for 15 months, until April 2023.
DeCarlo reached a short-term lease with the landlord until the end of March, but would like to stay for three years, she said. To make it work, however, the gallery will have to rely on receiving donations from people who want to be “walking home at night, seeing the building is illuminated, and [feeling] safer.”
“I really believe in the power of this kind of space impacting a much bigger thing,” DeCarlo said. “The most amazing thing is the impact it will have on the businesses around us.”
The free exhibition “HOME,” which runs from until Feb. 11, features more than 135 artists’ works around the theme of home, curated into smaller topics, such as the architecture of homes, the disparities of having or not having a home, and the ephemeral beings that make home home. All of the pieces are for sale.
Fittingly, the space reminds DeCarlo of an actual home, too, as it still shows traces of being a car garage, with visible parking-spot designations on the concrete. But, after being empty for four years, DeCarlo said, making it an art space requires lots of work: Scraping the graffiti off, prepping the walls for hanging art, and replacing the broken windows beneath the plywood.
“We try to curate chaos in a beautiful way,” DeCarlo said.
“HOME” is the first of two exhibitions during the Drawing Room’s short-term lease on Valencia Street. The next, “Women Rising 2024,” will be shown at both the Mission and Richmond locations.
The Drawing Room will also kick off an artist talk series this Thursday from 5 to 7 p.m., which DeCarlo created because “so many artists have never shown before, never sold before, never had an opportunity to talk about their work before.”
DeCarlo’s goal, she said, is to create an in-between art space, not a high-end gallery but also not a museum, but a place that “fosters the ground-floor grassroots level art movement that’s happening, especially in San Francisco.”
“The only way to document [these movements] is to expose it and show it,” DeCarlo said.
The HOME exhibition is located at 599 Valencia St. It’s free and open to the public from Thursday to Sunday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Lower the rent and they will come.
Keep it low, and they will stay.
I am so glad this is happening! I loved this space when it was over near 20th, and cannot wait to get the time to visit this new location. And great news to have that huge space in use, keep it going!
Make people feel safe and they will come.
No mention of it being a used furniture store for many many years.
I’m confused by the repeated statement that this space has been vacant since 2020. I viewed and bought furniture from Harrington’s, in this location, as recently as 2022, and their website gives no indication that they’ve closed or moved from 599 Valencia.