Our first temporary exhibit, installed in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood, looked at 20 years of Bear Brotherhood in the community organization, Bears of San Francisco (BOSF). This exhibit coincided with Bear Weekend 2.0, the yearly bear weekend which replaced BOSF"s International Bear Rendezvous (IBR) from 1995-2011.
The first exhibit in 2015 was installed at 2300 Market Street in San Francisco's Castro neighborhood. This exhibit explored the artistic creations of Fran Frisch, focusing on the works he created for the Bears of San Francisco and their yearly bear run, International Bear Rendezvous (IBR). It also contained other works by Frisch, including original pieces, prints, merchandise, and other bearaphernalia!
TEMPORARY BEAR EXHIBITS IN SAN FRANCISCO
Click to explore past exhibits created by Bear Ephemera & Archival Repository and community partners and to hear about upcoming installations in San Francisco.
"Beartoonist of San Francisco: Sketching an Emerging Subculture"
An Exhibition at the GLBT History Museum, January 29-May 23, 2017
"Beartoonist of San Francisco: Sketching an Emerging Subculture" features the work of cartoonist Fran Frisch as a starting point for exploring the history of the bear community, a subculture that developed in the 1980s to celebrate older, larger, hairier, ruggedly masculine gay men who had been largely excluded from standards of attractiveness in gay popular culture.
Covering the mid-1980s to the mid-2000s, the show focuses on San Francisco, one of the places where the bear community first emerged. “Beartoonist of San Francisco” includes original art by Frisch, along with photographs, objects and ephemera from the collection of curator Jeremy Prince and the archives of the GLBT Historical Society.
The exhibitions is on view at the GLBT History Museum from January 29 until May 23, 2017.