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A beloved story from San Francisco Art Institute history comes from 1949, when Marcel Duchamp visited the institution (then called the California School of Fine Arts) as part of the seminal Western Roundtable on Modern Art. As told by SFAI archivist Jeff Gunderson, Duchamp was walking through the studios with then-Director Douglas G. MacAgy and approached an artist at work. “What are you doing?” he asked. “I don’t know,” the student replied. Said Duchamp: “Keep up the good work!”

Experimentation and risk-taking have long been hallmarks of SFAI artists, and have helped make the Institute one of the principal forces in contemporary culture for well over a century. This high risk tolerance—as key strategy for artists as for investors—and its diverse, provocative results are spectacularly showcased in Principal, an exhibition and this accompanying catalogue featuring more than 80 graduating MFA artists and MA scholars.

For Principal, the Institute returns to the Old Mint. The economic history and monumental architecture of this National Historic Landmark in the heart of the city have proved inspirational to SFAI artists. Last year, one artist spent the span of the exhibition filling a brick vault with an installation of “gold” bars 3D-printed on site and stamped with his personal insignia. This year’s artists are equally adept at navigating—or critiquing—many facets of contemporary artistic production; the quest for originality and innovation; the interplay between the digital and the analogue; the relationship between artist and audience; and the central but often uncomfortable role of the market in the (so-called) Art World.

The impact of money on artistic culture has been very much on the minds of San Franciscans of late. In a city awash in tech dollars yet struggling to house it citizens, living an artistic life can be difficult. SFAI is committed to helping its artists launch professional careers, and this capstone exhibition regularly results in gallery representation, new collectors, or invitations to show nationwide. But equally as important, the Institute is proud to support cultural producers whose ambitions are values defy narrow definitions of utility, or market-driven measures of worth. SFAI educates artists for a full range of possible or improbable practices. It is precisely at challenging times that the world needs beauty and creativity and open discourse: that it demands unconventional problem solving based on curiosity, collaboration, and profound respect for humanity.

Through their time at the Institute, the artists and the scholars featured in these pages and at the Old Mint have made a principal investment in their education. Now, this experience—the training, the relationships, the ways of thinking and making, the endless inquiry—will surely enrich their lives, and the world in which we all live, for years to come.

So to our new graduates: Congratulations on your accomplishment. And, in the adventures ahead, may you never fear the unknown.