Jeffrey Gibson Unveils Public Art Commission with ICA San Francisco
Jeffrey Gibson, rendering of THIS BURNING WORLD (detail), 2026, vinyl facade on the Mission Street side of the former Bloomingdale’s building at the San Francisco Centre. Courtesy of Jeffrey Gibson Studio
Jeffrey Gibson Unveils Public Art Commission with ICA San Francisco
Thursday 22 January
The Institute of Contemporary Art San Francisco (ICA SF) has commissioned a major new public artwork by internationally renowned artist Jeffrey Gibson, currently being installed on the façade of the former Bloomingdaleʼs building at the San Francisco Centre during San Francisco Art Week 2026 (through 25 January 2026). Supported by anchor funding from the San Francisco Downtown Development Corporation(DDC), the
large-scale installation will be fully revealed ahead of Super Bowl LX festivities on 2 February 2026, and will bring contemporary art directly into Yerba Buena, in the heart of downtown San Francisco.
The project, THIS BURNING WORLD (2026), adapts stills from Gibsonʼs 2022 video installation of the same name, originally commissioned by ICA SF and presented at the institution from October 2022 through April 2023, into a sweeping vinyl mural that wraps the entire glass façade of the building along Mission Street between 4th and 5th Streets. Prominently situated and free to the public, the work engages the rhythms of the city, reaching residents, commuters and visitors alike.
‘Indigenous kinship philosophies provided the conceptual and philosophical framework for my 2022 presentation at ICA SF, from which this installation finds its foundation. These perspectives acknowledge the elements of our natural environments as our equal ancestors, living relatives, and as extensions of our own minds and bodies. When we damage or treat the land without regard for its own sustainable well being, we are in turn hurting and damaging ourselves and disregarding our own well being, safety and health.’
— Jeffrey Gibson
Jeffrey Gibson, rendering of THIS BURNING WORLD, 2026, vinyl facade on the Mission Street side of the former Bloomingdale’s building at the San Francisco Centre. Courtesy of Jeffrey Gibson Studio
Spanning an entire city block, the installation measures 433 ⅙ ft x 66 ½ ft and occupies a prominent downtown façade, reconnecting the existing building with one of San Franciscoʼs most active cultural zones anchored by Yerba Buena Gardens and major cultural institutions including SFMOMA, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Museum of the African Diaspora and the Moscone Center as well as major transit corridors.
Drawing on footage captured in upstate New York and during site visits to Californiaʼs Bay Area, Gibson reconfigures stills from the original 60-foot-wide video installation into a tapestry-like field guided by pattern and rhythm. The work registers the precarity of humanityʼs relationship to the natural world while insisting on artʼs capacity to produce spaces of collective attention, in which reflection, encounter and civic imagination can take form. The work speaks to the urgency of our collective relationship to the planet while asserting the power of art to foster connection, reflection, and shared civic experience.
The DDC provided anchor funding to support the commissioning and installation of Gibsonʼs new public artwork, using arts and culture to draw people into a prominent downtown space, and place the world-renowned artistʼs work at its center.
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