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Arts & CultureArts & Culture

The Best Bay Area Theater We Saw in 2025
A collage of three album covers. On the left is an illustration of Michael Sneed dunking a basketball. In the center is a vintage-looking photo of Jane Handcock in a studio. On the right is a blurred shot of Spiritual Cramp in front of San Francisco City Hall.
The 20 Best Bay Area Albums of 2025
person in blond wig and trash bag holds mic, makes funny face
The Best Art I Saw and Didn’t Write About in 2025
Overhead view of six elegant Japanese dishes served in a partitioned wooded box.
The Best Dishes I Ate in 2025
Woman in a grocery store loading fresh produce intp her shopping cart.
San Francisco’s Only Free Grocery Store Is Featured in a New PBS Special
A fall-season dinner table viewed from above with six people sharing dishes. A pumpkin sits at the center of the table.
Friendsgiving 101: A History of the Made-Up Holiday and How to Celebrate it
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A Collective Future, Whispered From Inside California Prisons
two people turn to face each other on museum bench in front of Impressionist paintings
The After-Turkey: Your Guide to Family-Friendly Art Viewing All Over the Bay
A man on an outdoors stage in a white shirt has his hands lifted in the air as he stands in a circle of kids with one of the children singing into a microphone.
The Adachi Project’s New Film Series, Made ‘For, By and With the People’
A black and white image of a 1940s-era woman standing near trucks and cars.
The Indian American Essayist Who Championed Social Justice and Feminism
Black and white photo of a 1930s-era white woman with dark, neat hair.
The Jewish ‘Red Angel’ Who Withstood Incarceration for Workers’ Rights
An older Arabic woman stands on a lawn looking windswept but joyful.
The Palestinian Therapist, Teacher and Music Lover Who Built Cultural Bridges
Unsigned and Hella Broke: The East Bay’s Dirt-Hustling 1990s Hip-Hop Subculture
A Black man in a yellow printed tank top and headband sits looking off to the left
Spice 1 Talks Growing Up in Hayward, Running From Cops and Breakin’ at the Mall
Remembering Anticon and Hip-Hop’s Reckoning With Weirdness
KQED’s Arts & Culture desk brings daily, in-depth cultural commentary and coverage.
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Frank Gehry, Whose Designs Defied Gravity and Convention, Dies at 96

Gehry transformed modern architecture with exuberant buildings such as the Walt Disney Concert Hall and the Guggenheim Museum.

2025 Was the Year of the Great Crash Out

Celebrities, politicians and everyday people lost it this year.

These Four Concerts Gave Me Life in 2025

A Destiny’s Child reunion, LaRussell at SFMOMA and other shows reminded me that music heals.
gray warehouse with large address painted in white

A Third Gallery to Close at Minnesota Street Project

Anglim/Trimble will close at the end of December, following Rena Bransten and Altman Siegel.
A woman with glasses stands next to a building while posing for a photo, holding an upright bass.

Berkeley’s Jazzschool Appoints Lisa Mezzacappa as Executive Director

‘The place is just so alive,’ the bassist and composer says of the community music institution.

A Collective Future, Whispered From Inside California Prisons

Pat Mesiti-Miller’s soundscape ‘1000 Whispers From Our Future’ is in residency at Audium.
seated young woman looks furtively to right

The Best Movie Moments of 2025

Eight scintillating scenes from (some of) the year’s most compelling cinematic journeys.
Funding for KQED Arts & Culture is provided by:

The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Akonadi Foundation, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Yogen and Peggy Dalal, Diane B. Wilsey, the William and Gretchen Kimball Fund, Campaign 21 and the members of KQED.