The name of the exhibition of more than 60 of Jim Melchert’s artworks at the di Rosa Center for the Arts San Francisco is Where The Boundaries Are (through January 3, 2026).

It’s a good title. The artist, mentor, teacher, and administrator, who died in 2023 at 92, moved between artforms fluidly, seemingly immune to any boundaries.

Melchert’s first major institutional retrospective covers, among other things, his work in clay, conceptual art, performance documentation, and broken tile. Curator Griff Williams, a close friend of Melchert’s, says sometimes people wanted to put him into one category or another, but he never fit.

“It was a little bit like people couldn’t see the forest for the trees with Jim. They knew him as being one thing, and then he goes and becomes the head of the NEA [

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