Carol Anne McChrystal

Art Practical is the home of three important chroniclers of San Francisco Bay Area contemporary art and visual culture: Shotgun Review, Happenstand, and Talking Cure quarterly. The site represents the current shifting landscape of arts journalism by serving as a juncture for critical dialogue rather than a proprietor of it. In creating the coalition of three partner organizations, Art Practical does not condense information. Instead, it generates pathways of investigation.

Art Practical is emblematic of the collective and collaborative spirit of the wide-ranging Bay Area visual arts culture, which combines a long local history of incubating experimentation and innovation with international perspectives. Our contributors are some of the most renowned artists, performers, writers, educators, and curators working here. This vibrant, complex mix of cross-disciplinary practices demonstrates a model for visual arts criticism that is highly conscious of the audience it is serving, as well as the culture it is representing.