MAG Galleries

SF Art Galleries - Openings & Events Event source calendar Event Link: see venue calendar above ^^ Sarah Khurshid Khan’s “Flowers Coming Out of Their Mouths” Khan rages into beauty, with the occasional gaali (swear), as if flowers floated out of her mouth. Opening September 04, 5-9pm September 04 - 27, 2026 Artist Talk September 11, 5-7pm 21 New Collaged Works: Khan is inspired by the vast Asian, Arab, and African Book Art traditions. “Flowers Coming Out of Their Mouths” is an on-going exploration of a 16th C Persian Cook/Book of Life from Central India. Khan plucked 18 characters from the Sultan’s zenana/harem, and animated them with historical names, clothing, weapons, and capacities across time and space. Following her two bodies of prints entitled “Undisciplined Pleasures, Vigilant Defiance 1.0 & 2.0,” Khan has expanded her practice to include collage and hand-designed marbled papers. She mines and incorporates visual languages from diverse Islamic manuscripts held in imperial archives like the British Library, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The New York Botanical Garden, and the New York Public Library. The new collages are laced with stylized flowers, trees, maps, amulets from Arab and Persian Materia Medica and books of wonder and creations. Likewise, her creations elevate original plant names inspired by African, Arab, Asian ocean world languages like acacia trees, barley, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, frankincense, myrrh, nutmeg, orange blossom, and rose. She layers each collage with dynamic femmes, geometric symbols, polyethnic names, ancient maps, and personal imagery. Select Porcelain Ware: To protect her pantheon, porcelain weapons of mass creation/destruction (WMC/WMD) adorn the gallery. During a formative Arts/Industry Residency at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center in Wisconsin, Khan began working with slip cast molds and porcelain, a material whose own history is deeply entangled with narratives of colonial trade, imperial desire, and cultural appropriation. From her vast collection of WMC/WMD, Khan presents three objects: rolling pins, lugers, and plates. They are decorated with imagery sourced from former imperial libraries and archives, acknowledging the colonial history collections. Plants are written in their pre-colonial polyethnic names, challenging the western taxonomy of botany that categorized and erased their origins alongside the cultures and knowledge systems from where they originated. Kohler Art Residency About Sarah K. Khan Sarah K. Khan (b. Mangla, Pakistan) is a multimedia artist and scholar based in New York City and Western Massachusetts. Her practice is informed by extensive global fieldwork and research. Khan has decades researching food and traditional ecological knowledge systems including nutrition, public health, integrative medicine, plant sciences, and agro-ecology. A two-time Fulbright Fellow, Khan holds a BA in Southwest Asian and North African history and Arabic (Smith College), two master’s degrees in public health and nutrition (Columbia University), and a Ph.D. in plant sciences (New York Botanical Garden–CUNY). www.sarahkkhan.com ///////////////////////////////////////////// Castro ArtWalk, September 4, 2026, 5:00 - 9:00pm Enjoy the ArtWalk on your own or join the increasingly popular guided tour of the Castro ArtWalk with a group of like-minded individuals led by Sophie. If you are interested in signing up, please click on the image below. location provided by event source: "3931 18th St, San Francisco, CA 94114, USA" ―――――――――― SF Stuff To Do