Museum Exhibition Breakdown (431 artist entries)
November 2026
Most artists on the wiki have shown in a museum at least once. Of the 420 entries with an exhibition list, 317 (75%) include at least one museum exhibition or biennial; 103 (25%) do not. For most of the second group the non-collecting institutions are the top tier reached: 71 list a show at a kunsthalle-style space such as YBCA, ICA San José or Headlands, and only 32 list galleries, artist-run spaces, fairs and festivals alone.
For most artists a museum show is one or two entries rather than a pattern: the median among those with any is 2. A smaller group of 74 artists list five or more, and it is there that the clearest differences appear.
| Highest tier listed | Artists | Share of entries with a list |
|---|---|---|
| Museum exhibitions only | 232 | 55% |
| Museum exhibitions and biennials | 72 | 17% |
| Biennials only | 13 | 3% |
| Any museum or biennial | 317 | 75% |
| Non-collecting institutions (no museum) | 71 | 17% |
| Neither | 32 | 8% |
| No exhibition list on page | 11 | — |
| Museum and biennial shows listed | Artists |
|---|---|
| 1 | 93 |
| 2 | 69 |
| 3–4 | 81 |
| 5–9 | 62 |
| 10 or more | 12 |
Artists whose entries list eight or more museum exhibitions and biennials. Counts reflect what each entry lists; longer entries list more, so read this as a measure of documented museum activity, not a ranking of careers.
| Artist | Museum | Biennial | Total | Born |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Howard Fried | 21 | 5 | 26 | 1946 |
| Ala Ebtekar | 14 | 1 | 15 | 1978 |
| Al-An DeSouza | 12 | 2 | 14 | 1958 |
| Stephanie Syjuco | 12 | 2 | 14 | 1974 |
| Hal Fischer | 13 | — | 13 | 1950 |
| John Zurier | 9 | 4 | 13 | 1956 |
| Ken Goldberg | 6 | 5 | 11 | 1961 |
| TT Takemoto | 8 | 3 | 11 | — |
| Tom Marioni | 11 | — | 11 | 1937 |
| Deborah Oropallo | 9 | 1 | 10 | 1954 |
| Dewey Crumpler | 10 | — | 10 | 1949 |
| Julio Cesar Morales | 7 | 3 | 10 | 1966 |
| Paul Kos | 8 | 1 | 9 | 1942 |
| Vincent Fecteau | 7 | 2 | 9 | 1969 |
| David Maisel | 8 | — | 8 | 1961 |
| Guillermo Gómez-Peña | 6 | 2 | 8 | 1955 |
| Hendl Mirra | 6 | 2 | 8 | 1970 |
| Jennifer Locke | 5 | 3 | 8 | — |
| Kim Anno | 7 | 1 | 8 | — |
| Morehshin Allahyari | 6 | 2 | 8 | 1985 |
| Rodney Ewing | 8 | — | 8 | 1964 |
| Tabitha Soren | 8 | — | 8 | 1967 |
Museums appearing in the most entries (number of artists):
| Museum | Artists |
|---|---|
| SFMOMA | 70 |
| BAMPFA | 54 |
| Whitney Museum (incl. Whitney Biennial) | 36 |
| de Young | 29 |
| Contemporary Jewish Museum | 29 |
| Oakland Museum of California | 21 |
| Mills College Art Museum | 21 |
| di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art | 19 |
| Asian Art Museum | 18 |
| Orange County Museum of Art (mostly the California Biennial) | 16 |
| MoAD | 15 |
| San José Museum of Art | 12 |
| MoMA | 12 |
Non-collecting institutions appearing in the most entries:
| Institution | Artists |
|---|---|
| YBCA | 80 |
| ICA San José | 31 |
| Berkeley Art Center | 24 |
| Root Division | 21 |
| SOMArts | 20 |
| Headlands Center for the Arts | 19 |
| Southern Exposure | 15 |
| ICA San Francisco | 11 |
| The Lab | 10 |
| CCA Wattis Institute | 9 |
| Museum or biennial | No museum | |
|---|---|---|
| Artists | 317 | 103 |
| Median birth year (where stated) | 1971 | 1981 |
| Birth year stated on page | 67% | 51% |
| Median exhibitions listed | 10 | 7 |
| Also list a non-collecting institution | 73% | 69% |
| Tagged international | 56% | 37% |
| Tagged queer | 11% | 12% |
| Any Bay Area school tag | 56% | 53% |
| Tagged ucberkeley | 14% | 6% |
| Tagged cca | 18% | 21% |
| Tagged san francisco | 45% | 48% |
| Tagged oakland | 29% | 30% |
| Tagged painting | 39% | 39% |
| Tagged sculpture | 38% | 33% |
| Tagged installation | 44% | 34% |
| Tagged video | 25% | 17% |
| Tagged photography | 21% | 17% |
| Tagged drawing | 24% | 35% |
| Tagged textiles | 9% | 12% |
| Tagged ceramics | 7% | 10% |
| Tagged books and prints | 11% | 16% |
What the groups share. Location and identity tags barely differ: about 45% of the museum group and 48% of the rest are tagged San Francisco, and the queer tag appears at nearly the same rate (11% and 12%). Bay Area schooling is just as common in both groups (about half of each carries a CCA, SFAI, Mills, UC Berkeley, Stanford or SF State tag), and painting is the most common medium tag in both (39% each). Non-collecting spaces are not an alternative to museums but part of the same path: 73% of museum-shown artists also list one, YBCA most often.
Where they differ. Age: the museum group’s median birth year is about a decade earlier, and 52 of the 56 living artists over 70 with an exhibition list have a museum or biennial show (see Artists Over 70). Documentation: museum-shown artists’ entries are longer (a median of 10 exhibitions against 7) and more often state a birth year. Reach: 56% of the museum group is tagged international, against 37% of the rest, rising to 72% among those with five or more museum shows. Medium: video is more common among museum-shown artists (25% vs 17%), and among the five-or-more group it reaches 34%. Drawing (35% vs 24%), textiles, ceramics and books and prints are more common among artists without one. School: UC Berkeley graduates show up more often in the museum group (14% vs 6%); CCA’s share is even overall but falls to 8% in the five-or-more group, which may reflect the younger age of many CCA-tagged artists.
Biennials are counted alongside museums here but behave differently. 85 artists list one; only 13 of them have no museum show as well. By the measures available here, biennial participants are the most established subgroup on the wiki: their median birth year is 1966, 69% are tagged international, and they list a median of 3 museum shows besides. They are also more often tagged video (31%), digital art and research, and less often painting, photography or public art, than museum-only artists.
US museum biennials account for many entries: the Whitney Biennial (29 artists) and the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art (16). International biennials, including Venice (13), documenta (10), Havana, Gwangju, Istanbul, Sydney and São Paulo, account for most of the rest. Biennial artists are also more spread across the region: Oakland, the most common location tag after San Francisco for the wiki overall, is tagged on 15% of biennial artists against 34% of museum-only artists, while Berkeley and Marin rise.
Method: counts come from the Exhibitions (or Shows & exhibitions) section of each entry; no outside sources were used. Each venue named in a dated entry counts as one exhibition, so a line naming two venues counts twice. Undated lines that only list collections, and awards, fellowships, residencies, acquisitions, talks and benefits, are not counted. Museums are venues with “museum” (or Museo, Musée, etc.) in the name plus museums known by other names (SFMOMA, BAMPFA, de Young, Legion of Honor, Whitney, LACMA, Tate, Hammer, Getty, Walker, Cantor, di Rosa, the Smithsonian, and others). This includes non-collecting and specialist museums such as the Contemporary Jewish Museum, MoAD, the New Museum and science museums. Biennials include biennials, triennials, documenta and Manifesta, wherever held. Non-collecting institutions are kunsthalle-style and nonprofit spaces such as YBCA, the Wattis, ICAs, Headlands, Southern Exposure, Root Division, art centers and university galleries; commercial galleries (including the Minnesota Street Project buildings), art fairs and festivals are not counted in any tier. Classification was done by venue name, so some miscounting is likely in both directions. Exhibition lists are selective, so a missing museum show means one is not listed, not that none took place. 11 entries have no exhibition list and are left out of the percentages.