The closed SFAI campus will be converted into an artist’s residence center
The former San Francisco Academy of Arts (SFAI) campus will now host a privately funded nonprofit arts center, the California Studios Academy of Arts (CASA). The residence program there will attract 30 emerging artists each year.
Supported by philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs, the center will attract artists to further develop their studio practices and evaluate them one year later through an unaccredited program. Powell Jobs bought the Chester Street campus for $30 million last year.
Like a recognized art school, residency will provide participating artists with access to private studios and shared workspaces as well as professional mentors. The center will not charge tuition fees.
SFAI, one of the oldest art schools in the United States, suspended educational activities in 2022 and later filed for bankruptcy after a deal with neighboring institution, the University of San Francisco (USF), which will see its debt and plan to transfer through a merger.
The school suffered financial troubles in the years leading up to the pandemic. In 2020, the school announced that it would cease admission and degree awarding programs due to reduced enrollment and increased debt.
The Bay Area art community was amazed last March when high-power art collector Powell Jobs said she would restore the closing campus of SFAI.
A spokesman for the new center said the model is based on the foundations of other influential art schools such as Montenegro College. That experimental North Carolina school closed in 1957, keeping its campus smaller, but played a great role in contributing to the arts, Ruth Asawa, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, and many others passing by it.
CASA’s courses will include a series of workshops led by Abbye Churchill, the director of the Center and curator Hans Ulrich Obrist.
The physical site is now undergoing renovation. From 1931, the Diego Rivera mural, protected by the state, will eventually be opened to the public.
