Write Up The Coast – Step-In! Stories
Write Up The Coast – Step-In! Stories brings community voices to life — recorded live in the moment. At its heart is the mobile Step-In! booth, a small traveling space where people pause amid the noise of daily life to share a thought, a memory, or a feeling.
Beyond the booth, Step-In! also meets people where they are — on the street, at events, or in quiet one-on-one conversations — capturing the same spirit of openness and spontaneity wherever it happens.
Season 1: Write Up The Coast — curated conversations and reflections that explore the meaning of community through storytelling.
Season 2: Step-In! — spontaneous recordings from public spaces and personal exchanges that reveal real voices, real moments, and real connection.
Created and hosted by Mark Sanford Gross, Step-In! invites us all to pause, listen, and remember: every story matters.
Write Up The Coast – Step-In! Stories
A Tribute to Claudia Altman Siegel
This episode is a tribute to Claudia Altman Siegel, recorded live on the night of the gallery’s closing celebration at Altman Siegel in San Francisco on November 20th, 2025.
Amid the noise of the evening, a quiet space was carved out. Through the Step-In Story Booth, voices stepped in to speak — offering reflections, stories, and sentiments shaped by years of shared attention, conversation, and care. The voices are left unnamed, not to obscure identity, but to center listening.
The episode begins with Claudia alone, before the room filled, and ends with her again — laughing.
Produced by Mark Sanford Gross for Write Up the Coast.
This is not an ending but a listening
for more information on Write-Up-The-Coast visit writeupthecoast.com or email writeupthecoast@gmail.com
Now you're an institution.
SPEAKER_16:Yeah.
SPEAKER_26:In the Bay Area.
SPEAKER_16:Yeah. Well, not anymore.
SPEAKER_26:Well, no, you so personally are, obviously. Yeah.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, we did a good job. We made it work. We made it work.
SPEAKER_14:Yeah. For a long time. Think we're good? Yeah. I think we're good. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:The gallery opened in 2009. By then, the art world wasn't new to Claudia Altman-Siegel. But this space became something distinctly her own. A place where rigor met warmth and where art was allowed to speak without pretense. The gallery closed on November 27, 2025. Not suddenly, not without reflection, and not without the complicated mix of clarity and feeling that comes with closing a chapter that mattered deeply. There are many ways to talk about the challenges facing galleries today. This is not one of them. This is a tribute. People often describe Claudia as authentic, warm, smart, visionary, but what stays with you is how she paid attention. Claudia didn't look at a face and see a buyer. She met people the way she met art, looking closely, listening carefully for the beauty, the uniqueness, the thing only they could bring. Tonight, the Step In Story Booth invited people to step into a quiet space amid the noise of the closing celebration and speech. The voices you are about to hear are not identified. Claudia already knows them. I'm Mark Sanford Gross. Tonight, I am mostly listening, gathering these voices so they can stay with Claudia as one chapter closes and another opens. We begin with Claudia alone and we end again with Claudia laughing.
SPEAKER_15:Hi, this is Claudia Altman Siegel. I'm alone in the booth and I'm just recording on the day of our Altman Siegel Gallery's farewell party. I wanted to do this party because I know that the gallery has been a big part of the community in San Francisco. I feel like um it's important to have some kind of closure so people in San Francisco who love the gallery can come by and say goodbye and we can all be together as a community before the gallery's gone. I really like this idea. In theory, I think it's gonna be fine tonight, but obviously today I'm feeling pretty emotional about it. I think um uh I'm doing the right thing. And I think I took the gallery as far as I could take it. But you know, now that it's nearing the end, I feel really sad about it because it's a beautiful place. And you know, it was like a magical, beautiful place where we did really, really interesting and fulfilling things. And every day I'd come in with the staff and we would have so many projects we were working on, and they were all so exciting and interesting, and we would just come in, get to work, and we'd just be heads down working from ten to six every day non-stop without a break. But the projects we were working on were so great. I think everyone was really enthusiastic about it. It was like a electric team to be on, just like really dedicated and talented people, everyone taking their piece of the organization and making it happen. I think one thing that I've been really good at is identifying young talent and sort of directing people in a way that they can shine. And that's true about artists, but it's also true about my staff because everyone who has worked for me has been really like exceptional in what they do, and that we've had a really like peaceful and collaborative environment here. One that's been a pleasure to work in that I don't think will be easily recreated anywhere else. Also, the gallery is really beautiful, and you know, I built it from scratch with my architect friend Becky Katkin, and we designed the whole thing together. She let me really use my imagination to make exactly the kind of perfect space that I had always dreamed of, which I think I did. Just yesterday we were looking out at the beams, which we didn't paint or touch. They're just the original beams of the building, which are kind of green and spotted with rust and dirty, and there was a whole discussion about whether we should paint them, and we decided not to. And the same thing with the floor. This building used to be a parking garage, and so the concrete floor is broken and painted. When we built the space, it was a conscious choice to leave the floor in its kind of raw, messed up condition, and also leave the beams in their raw condition. We just power wash them, and so you really get a lot of the original character of the building coming through with these kind of like immaculate white spaces towering in the middle of them. And I think that whole idea behind the design, really simple architecture, and just like really highlighting the nature of the building was really effective, and the artwork could shine in this context. It was just a pleasure for me every day to wake up and come to this space and be able to do projects in it. Leaving it obviously feels really hard. I've been so head down in managing the business of the gallery. I understood what it meant to the community, but since I announced that it's closing, I've had so many people come to me and tell me how meaningful it's been to them, how much they appreciated it, how important it was to them that the gallery was here, how much they loved coming here and the shows that we did. And so it's really powerful to see the effects of the project on mirrored back to me in this way. I'm just still kind of taking that in.
SPEAKER_05:First time I came into Altman Siegel, I was so blown away. I'm a conservator for an art collection as well as an artist. Living with a family of artists, I wanted half the pieces in the place. I keep coming back over and over and over. Just staring, being enthused and inspired. Everything art should be. I'm glad that we've had it here this long. And I feel bad. I know the world is changing, but we've had it for a while. I feel a lot of gratitude. Ciao for now.
SPEAKER_10:I was the third employee for Claudia after being a very early freelancer in 2009, beginning of the gallery after I saw her first show. I worked for Claudia for so long. She read every email I sent out for about six months and taught me how to write emails, how business works, how the art world works. I learned so much from her. She let me put on a group show in 2013 as the gallery manager, and I only had four pieces in it, and we just argued for weeks that whether there should be more pieces or not, and I just said no. We kind of spent a lot of time just arguing about how much work should be in the show. It's hard to express how pivotal, informative getting the work for and with her was. It was huge. She was very easy to play tricks on. She did not understand sarcasm. She was very gullible in terms of certain tricks, like uh it's hard to put into words. I haven't been that emotional about it, and now I really feel the end of an era where Claudia brought the best gallery to an area that didn't have anything like it, and I'm very grateful. And now we don't have it anymore.
SPEAKER_18:I guess the thing I would share about Claudia and Altman Siegel Gallery is I came to the Bay Area to attend California College of the Arts. And remember distinctly visiting Claudia's space at 49 Geary and the programming and really the feeling of the vision of art that she was showing was always impactful in those early years. I was lucky enough after graduating to have an opportunity to work on a Trevor Paglin exhibition. He had shown a recent series of related to the NSA chords that were laid across the ocean. Truly inspiring exhibition and just the care and attention that I saw Claudia giving not only to the show but to the artists and her staff as well. I think she bought us lunch every day for the the four days of install. And from that time on, I feel like we've been in orbit around each other. I worked for Chris Perez Ratio 3 gallery, which I feel like was a sibling gallery. Claudia and Chris coming up in the San Francisco area around the same time and always looking to each other and supporting each other, and always found great inspiration and the dialogue that they would have and support that they would give each other. Different programs, but both with a different vision and I don't know, shared feeling of care for the artist first and their vision of what they wanted to show. Yeah, I feel very lucky to have had the opportunity to have joined the gallery even at a an end, but I always felt like I was a part of the family, this larger gallery family, knowing many people who had worked here and having dear friends who had worked here. Coming to many of the openings. It's funny looking through the old signature books and finding my name from years and years of attending, both here at the 25th Street and at 49 Gary. She'll be missed. Hope that the strong vision that she carried can be uh yeah, a star for other young and upcoming galleries to take note of and show their way moving forward. Thank you.
SPEAKER_12:Claudia, I hope you're hearing me. I love this little black booth. I remember when you came to San Francisco and opened your suite gallery at 49 Geary Street, and I felt a sea change in the city with your presence there. I'm just eternally grateful for all you've done for the city, for your artists, people like me in the community who work hard to bring quality art to other people, have great conversations, and learn new things every day, see new things every day. So thank you for all that you have brought. I look forward to staying in touch and seeing what comes next.
SPEAKER_27:This is actually very emotional. I lost my train of thought. Anyway, Claudia, if you're listening to this, thank you so much for everything that you've done for me, for the arts community here in San Francisco, and for so many people that you probably don't realize that you've impacted. This gallery will be very, very much missed by me, by Nyan and the McAvoys, and so many others.
SPEAKER_28:I've been friends with Claudia for a very long time. When she moved out to San Francisco, she was leaving New York and wanting to start something totally fresh and new out here. And I was always so impressed when she first started the gallery with how she just went for it. She had a beautiful stationery and she had a beautiful space. She had employees and she just dove in with both feet and she made this incredible thing happen. I had the honor of helping to design her first gallery space at 49 Geary. And then as the gallery was growing and this amazing space became available at Minnesota Street, I helped her design this gallery, which was a real pleasure. We have a little joke that she didn't want too much architecture. We tried to keep it really simple to show off the work. It's always been a treat for me to come to openings and talk to artists who had the chance to interact with the space. I feel so honored to get to be the backdrop for their work. I'm coming here tonight and I'm eating a cupcake while I speak to you. I decided when the space was opening, there was a big party and there was going to be print. I told Claudia I was gonna wear my nicest jeans and this very nice shirt. And she said, no, I'm giving you the name of a shopper at Nordstrom. So I went and I got a fancier outfit than I ever would have bought. I'm wearing the jacket tonight that I wore to the opening party, so to help me remember the beginning at the end. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04:Hi, Claudia. It's your double ganger. Uh I got introduced to your gallery later on in your existence as of a gallery, but I got um the wonderful Didier Williams work and the Lynn Hersham-Leeson work. And I just remember standing in your gallery and I could still feel Didier's work, even though they had left the walls, I could still feel his presence. And even though Lynn's shows was Lynn's show was up, uh, I just felt a really big connection between those two. Who knew? Lynn and Didier had some sort of connection in my mind. But anyway, as we say in German, toy toy toy, this is not goodbye. It's see you later, and we are going to reconnoiter in January. Have a great end to things here, and here's to new beginnings whenever you're ready.
SPEAKER_25:I've been the preparator at Altman Siegel Gallery for coming up on three years, trying to be a good steward as the gallery is winding down. I came here from New York City, uh, where I'd been working in the art world and really appreciated working with folks who were very professional, a bunch of folks who'd also worked in galleries in New York City. Appreciated the general level of professionalism here and the range of the artist's work and the sense that everyone was focused on really doing their best to present these artists' work to the public. One of the most fun aspects of the work for me has been when an exhibition comes together when we're doing layout, actually, just laying out one of the back spaces with Claudia this morning, saying I'm going to miss doing layout, which is a very dynamic process, very physical, but kind of a creative process of editing and presentation that can really change the narrative of how you see this artist's body of work. Moving the work physically around the space, it's often set on foam blocks on the floor, leaning against the wall, and gets moved with one or two people from place to place until everything starts to gel, that gets questioned, and then suddenly, when do you think it's been taking a little while, it all comes together. Claudia has claimed she has laser eyes, I think is the term. Not eagle eyes, but laser eyes, and can spot something that's very slightly not level. And I think that's probably true. It's always interesting seeing how different people approach the layout. Sometimes the artist is present, sometimes they have very specific ideas about how it will go. Sometimes people are open to suggestions, sometimes less so. But it's always a very dynamic and fun and creative process. That's my brief story.
SPEAKER_07:I bought my first piece when I moved to San Francisco 12 years ago from Claudia. It was a piece from Trevor Paglin, who I still admire, and I was very scared to spend that much money on something, and it was very exciting to hold it. And then that started a relationship where once you are a Papa art buyer, you get invited to events. And I had the chance to meet Trevor and was part of the Orbital Reflector program. And I will never forget these moments when a friendly older guy she set us next to who told us how he was a volunteer from NASA that helped with a satellite and so on. So it almost didn't matter that the satellite didn't make it to expand in space as it should have been. It's still, we all know it's up there, waiting for us, and also thinking of this gallery. So very sad, and we'll feel the hole in the city that, like someone that collected and brought together such great people in the gallery from all around the world, specifically some people I've also admire from Berlin, like Simon Denny. So thank you, Claudia, for all of that. And final story is we'll never forget how you ask Richard Moss to print a specific frame that we saw in the movie Had at SF Moma in a work that I gifted my wife as a gift tour for our kind of setup of our marriage. Put it like that. It was uh really meaningful. So thank you very much for everything you did and will do.
SPEAKER_06:Hi, Claudia. I came to pay tribute to such an amazing uh space and contribution that you have given to our lovely city of San Francisco. And my first memory is of you opening your Geary Street space. And I went there, and I'm not sure who was showing at the time, but I went on several occasions and recognized that this was a gallery that was really committed to substantive thinking, and that whoever is doing this must be someone who believes that thinking is a is a sensual pleasure. You know, I I come to the gallery to see the works here, my studio's right down the street, as you know, and I've just always admired your um your your tenor, your authentic um intentionality, and that I want you to know that your efforts have been uh extremely welcomed and I think have inspired many artists, and your own style that you have worked as a as a dealer um is just incredibly honored and valued. So I wish you all the best, much love.
SPEAKER_24:My first memory is actually meeting Claudia at Delfina Pizzeria, a lunch meeting when Claudia first got to San Francisco and talking about the scene and the excitement of having a gallery of that sort was really exciting to me. It obviously was exciting to Claudia, and here we are all these years later. It's pretty exciting. I was just reminded of all the artists I'd written about, seeing the artists at this event who I got to engage with over the years, and just feeling really blessed to have had those and to have had the shows that you provided. Thank you.
SPEAKER_21:Abra Cadabra. I'd like for you to think of a card. Any card. And then you're thinking of a red card. It's not a face card. The card that you're thinking of is the ace of hearts. Because Claudia. You are full of heart. Now, if you weren't thinking of the Ace of Hearts, I'm sorry. It really would have been a much better trick if you were thinking of the Ace of Hearts. My apologies if the magic isn't so good. But our heartfelt thanks for you being in the community for allowing us to come and learn from you and to see the incredible art that you have allowed us to see and the artists that we have learned about as a result of your gallery has added a depth and a composition to our life that we will never forget. While you are moving on to other chapters, the memories that we have of being with you and your team and talking about art and sharing laughs and seeing a little magic here and there is something that has enriched the fabric of our life. And Phyllis and I will always remember that. And we will never forget, there will never be an end to our friendship with you and our support for you and whatever arises on the road before you. So we send our love, we send our thanks, and we send a round of applause to you and your whole team for what you've accomplished and what you've brought to so many here in the Bay Area. Thank you. We love you.
SPEAKER_00:I'm here to commemorate the legacy of the Altman Siegel Gallery and to salute the intelligence and sophistication of the galleries program, which I think is exemplary of what I would like to see more of in the Bay Area. I mean that sincerely. I think that there was a forward-thinking quality to the galleries program that always impressed me. There was a sense of risk and a sense of advanced ambition that frequently was exhibited here, and I'm going to miss seeing exhibitions here. I hope whatever Claudia and your team can do in the next chapter of your professional life, I hope that it brings you great success and great reward. And again, I thank you for everything that you've done. Ciao.
SPEAKER_20:I'm in this space at the behest of my sister Annie Knoll to return to the gallery where Devin Leonario had his showing that we all came down for in San Francisco over a decade ago. He's no longer with us in this physical world, both his spirit, his art lives on all of us. I hope others have had the opportunity to experience everything beautiful that he's created. Thank you for allowing me this time and helping forgoing giving me a reason to come down.
SPEAKER_17:I came home last night and went into my bathroom and I saw the biggest spider that I've ever seen indoors on the wall behind me as I was looking in the mirror. And I didn't even really know that we had spiders that were that big um in Oakland where I live. And I normally don't kill spiders that I find in my house, and this was no exception. Um but it was a little um I was a little more nervous capturing it like I usually do just because of how huge it was. Um I usually get like a tall glass, and I put the glass over it, as it's on the wall or whatever, and slide something under it. In this case, it was uh a copy of Simon and Garfunkel's bookends, like the LP. So I got up there with the glass, and the sort of leg span of the spider was almost as wide as the whole like tall glass. So I carefully put it over the spider to make sure not to crush any of its legs or anything. Yeah, I got it trapped in there, and then I took it outside and just like tossed it out of the glass, and now it is free to roam and hopefully not come back to my apartment, else I'll have to throw it out again.
SPEAKER_11:First met Claudia when she came out to this fair city of San Francisco. I was with Apsara, and we were in the I want to say somewhere in the mission, maybe over pizza, possibly, or cafe, and you were just starting to think about a gallery and who your artists might be. And I remember that in that occasion, you just had so much like sparkle in your eye. There was something about the rawness and the potential of embarking on this endeavor, a kind of inner joy that came out. I could be wrong, but I think you were just coming out of New York at the time. Your whole vibe was seemed like it held so much uh promise and just utter interest and joy. And I thought this is definitely someone who has good things coming to them. Since then, you have done so many tremendous exhibitions. I said this to you earlier, but I really think of this as a kind of celebration, even though it might be bittersweet. It really just marks such a long string of successes. I know that Trevor has been in tremendous hands with you. You have set an absolute standard, very high one at that, a really high bar for what an artist might hope for in working with a gallerist. You were trustworthy, you were a friend, you were a strong advocate. I always admired that about you. In sharing our friendship with Trevor, I always felt like he was really well taken care of. You were looking out for him. Claudia, congratulations on a magnificent string of successes and such a great journey. I wish you all the best in whatever comes next, because I know it's gonna be awesome.
SPEAKER_22:I I love I love, I love, I love, I I love I love love and I love art. Oh, I love and love and love art. I love and love art and I appreciate others who love and love art as well.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, others who appreciate art. I love them. Yeah, they're they're great. I love them.
SPEAKER_22:I love them and I love art, and I love appreciators of art, and I love those who take a great uh energy to support lovers and artists and lovers of art.
SPEAKER_09:And uh I appreciate those who house art and showcase art and love artists and are just amazing, amazing innovators and in space and time and the continuum that we all are on to create more love in this world.
SPEAKER_32:It's wonderful to work with Claudia and whatever shape or form her future brings to all of us, I think that she will be a great enhancement to the culture that she's part of.
SPEAKER_31:I am here congratulating you on all that you have done, all that you have done for the region, for the city, and for all of these incredible artists that you've supported, found out about some of them eccentric and weird and breaking new ground and also bringing major, major blue chip artists to us as well. You and I have had so much overlap in the kinds of artists that we care about, especially those that work across mediums. I feel like we've also had so many connections across what it means to sustain the Bay Area art world, all of that what you've done for Dogpatch, bushwhanging a path for so many others, and bringing more people to the city. It is a perilous moment now for so many. And at the same time, at this moment, all that we need to offer you is not only congratulations, but intense gratitude for all that you've done, for your vision, for your sense of what the possibilities are, and we hope still are. There won't be any possibilities for any of us. There wouldn't be any possibilities for any of us without people like you. And your vision and impact will move on, linger on. And I look forward to thinking with you about what the next stage of a Bay Area art life for you and all of us might be. Thinks.
SPEAKER_30:Hi, um, oh gosh, I really don't know what to say. It's been such a long run, and what a treat to get to be your sister and get to see all that you have accomplished, and I'm so, so proud of you. And like what an incredible person you are that you had this idea and you created this thing, and you are successful, and just gathered such incredible people around you, and you made this giant contribution, and everyone who works for you just loves you so much. It's just like I don't even know if I've ever met somebody who has such loyalty from their employees, they all just adore you. You're just such an inspiration, and um literally anything you go do from here is gonna be a total success, and it's really, really, really cool that you have kind of built a little empire, and now it's time to go do something else, and that's totally fine, and um I feel so lucky to be your sister, and I love you, and I am so grateful that I got to be such a um not necessarily big part, but a side part to this whole venture. Um and onwards.
SPEAKER_19:We went from Italy and Dallas, weird hotel in Dallas with the Ten Commandments outside of it, to a fancy restaurant in Italy, New York a bunch, dinner with her parents in Italy. That's it.
SPEAKER_23:Claudia, Becky, Dalen, and staff and everyone, I just want to say I'm gonna miss you guys tremendously. You're wonderful members of the organization. But going all the way back to when we were neighbors on Geary Street when we were both starting out, got good memories of us um finding our way in the art world. It's gonna be a huge loss, a huge hole in the Bay Area art scene when you guys step away. So we'll miss you, but thank you so much for being part of the whole scene and being part of members of our great organization. Hope we see you down the road of peace.
SPEAKER_03:Hi, Claudia. It's your husband standing here in this dark booth reminiscing about Altman Siegel. I hope you're very proud. It's been a wild ride, and now it's time for a new road. You built a really touching, influential, amazing cultural institution in San Francisco. I think it's going to be remembered for a very, very long time. And hopefully, you're going on to do something that'll be pleasurable for you in a new way. I think we'll all miss this place. Congratulations and congratulations.
SPEAKER_01:So, when we were starting the Minnesota Street Project and we had the opportunity to take a building that could have really, really big galleries in it, uh, compared to what we were doing down the street for you know, helping galleries to downsize it to something that they could afford and that would work for them at the time. We thought, who do we know? Who is who is it here in the city, whose whose program we respect, and who is a person we respect? And Claudia was at the top of the list. Exactly. So much that we want to say, hey, do you want to work with us to create an opportunity for the kind of space that really doesn't exist here in San Francisco for a gallery the likes of which really doesn't exist here in San Francisco?
SPEAKER_08:And that's exactly what Claudia has done here, and we're it's been wonderful to watch her program and and her um grow into this space over the past 10 years.
SPEAKER_01:The reason we thought about Claudia is really twofold. One, when we discovered Claudia's program, we were absolutely blown away. So the work that we collect and the work that we respect is work that really kind of makes you think and sometimes makes you think about things that are uncomfortable. And there are a lot of gallerists who are afraid of the work like that because there are a lot of collectors who are afraid of work like that. And and you know, for us, it's like if it doesn't make you think and it doesn't make you a little bit uncomfortable, and you don't grow as a result of your interaction with the work, why bother? And so Claudia's program to us was incredibly, incredibly appealing. But as we got to know Claudia as a person, we also realized that this is the kind of person who, you know, we we we like and respect and and and would love to have be a part of this crazy thing we're doing.
SPEAKER_08:I remember when we walked into Claudia's space at 49 Gary years ago, was the first time I saw Trevor Paglin's work. Blew me away. And that's what Claudia has brought to the San Francisco art world is folks like Trevor, who not every gallerist would want to take the chance that Claudia has and and and support Trevor's career the way she has.
SPEAKER_01:And other artists. So anyway, we you know, we we have been honored to have been able to provide a place for Claudia. We've been honored to have been able to get to know her as a friend, and and we just have enormous respect for what she has built and enormous respect for the way she conducts her life and the decisions that she's made, even though we're gonna miss her around.
SPEAKER_08:We're really gonna miss her a lot. Yeah.
SPEAKER_29:Hi. I have worked with Claudia a little over 13 years now. I've been thinking a lot about my time at the gallery and the memories that will stay with me moving forward. There's so much that I'm so proud of about what we did together as a gallery and all the amazing shows that we put on. But I think it's more like the little things that stick with me. I've been thinking about sort of the early days of the gallery and and how Claudia had such an amazing vision and such an ambitious program. And she always knew where she wanted the artists to be in the world and knew how to make it happen, even if we didn't always have all the financial resources to do it the way that we really wanted to. I I always think of being in Lista, the Lista art fair, staying in an apartment with a bathtub in the kitchen and sharing breakfast in the morning, getting ready to go install an art fair, and just having these like little moments together, talking about what we were excited about, about the art and how to best tell the story. And you know, those are the moments that will really stick with me. There were like really high highs as well of doing really ambitious projects. I think of Trevor Paglin's performance with the Kronos quartet and this darkened building with his ability to to kind of visualize the way artificial intelligence algorithm would watch a musical performance. And, you know, these kind of mind-blowing sort of things that I I can't believe I had the privilege of being a part of. But I think it's off the little moments like the people that that Claudia brought together around the art and around the ideas, and the kind of late-night conversations and the way that she created space for people to talk about ideas that were challenging but also exciting. It always felt like she helped bring like such amazing artists and and ideas to to San Francisco, and I just really enjoyed being a part of that. I think that's that's probably what I'll miss the most. Thanks, Claudia.
SPEAKER_26:That one time in Amsterdam with all the hookers and uh cocaine.
SPEAKER_16:No, but we must have had some kind of thing like that. You know what was sort of like that was when we had that party for you in Miami.
SPEAKER_26:That was kind of like that.
SPEAKER_16:Remember, we took the boat across and it was like super glamorous, and then we got to the house where the party was, and it was all like white and chrome, and it looked so glamorous, but then they didn't have any food and we were all starving, and there were like all of these people really dressed up, and then the guy who who was throwing the party got up and said all of these like really weird sexist things. But I genuinely though, I felt psyched about that.
SPEAKER_26:Yeah, that was just weird. I mean, yeah, that was a weird one. That was a weird one.
SPEAKER_16:I feel like I remember being there and being like, this is this is a really glamorous party, and like we did this.
SPEAKER_26:But it's also like in like lieu of like what we're talking about today, it's also like so indicative of like the one of the big problems is like there's like all these billionaires there, they're throwing a party ostensibly to like appreciate art, and none of them buy anything. They didn't buy anything, and we ship like spent spent so much money like shipping everything out there, setting it all up, like installing this whole thing, and turns this party, and like it's like it was just a vanity project for some guy complete that we're like the decorations at exactly it was pretty fun though, but I remember like melting down because I was so starving at one point. No, totally, yes, that was that was one of them, you know. I think there's a bunch of other ones. I guess we should tell a story about starting the gallery, right?
SPEAKER_16:Yeah.
SPEAKER_26:So I I knew who you were from New York because I've been working there, and then you showed up here, and everybody was like, Claudia's gonna start a gallery, which I think you had not acceded to.
SPEAKER_19:Right.
SPEAKER_26:And I was about to have a show at SF MOMA, like a little one of the little upstart shows called Sika. And um I wanted to work with you, and like you were like sort of on the fence about starting the gallery, and I was like, I want to have representation when we do this show, start a gallery.
SPEAKER_16:Yeah, and I had just moved to San Francisco, and I had just quit working at a big gallery in New York, and then um I was pretty burnt and enjoying like doing nothing, and then but I knew your work because I had seen your show at Bellwether in New York, and I thought it was really amazing. So I was already a fan, and then we met like almost immediately when I got here, and then I was trying to figure out what to do next, and then you called me and you were like, you were like, I was offered a show, but I'd rather show with you, so tell me right now whether you're gonna start the gallery. And then I was like, okay, start the gallery.
SPEAKER_26:And then you hired David Berizen.
SPEAKER_16:Yeah, and then I I met um David Berizen just graduated from CCA and we had an interview. Um I think we we met at a cafe, and he said, I don't do drugs and I read art for him. Cover to cover every month. So I said, you're hired. And then you were our first artist. And then we did the whole Asa Momasika show out of my living room.
SPEAKER_26:So you're like pretending to be really well. You're like, David, make a make a letterhead in Photoshop real quick. We did this out in like five minutes.
SPEAKER_16:Yeah. We did all the Asa Moma loan forms on fake letterhead that we had just made up. But it worked. It worked. And then the Sika opening happened, and I was like such a baller there, and nobody even knew who I was.
SPEAKER_26:That was like really funny because then the first thing you did was like a group show of like all these like super intense, like hip very hip New York artists, and everybody here was like, huh, huh? That's weird.
SPEAKER_16:Were they? Because I don't know what anyone was like. Well, no, because you had like Wade Guy and something like that. I did do a baller show. Yeah, it was like Christopher Wall, Josh Smith, Wade Guy and But I don't know what the reaction of the people here were because I didn't know anyone, and it takes so long to like get embedded in the community here.
SPEAKER_26:Yeah, yeah. No, but it was it was this uh you know, it's a very but now you're an institution in the Bay Area.
SPEAKER_16:Yeah, well, not anymore.
SPEAKER_26:Well, no, you so personally are, obviously.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, yeah, we did a good job. We we made it work.
SPEAKER_14:We made it work for a long time. Think we're good? Yeah, I think we're good.
SPEAKER_02:With deep gratitude to the gallery team at Altman Siegel, Becky Koblik, Aiken Crosby, Quintessa Mafanga, Joe Menwell, Keith Graham, and Dalen Farnum for every day you held this space, for the hands on the walls, the care behind the scenes, and the quiet shepherding of artists and their work again and again. Thank you to everyone who stepped into the booth to offer their voice, their story, their sentiment, their presence. To the artists who work tirelessly to bring their work into the world. To the believers, the ones who show up, stay curious, give their attention freely, and to the collectors who line their walls, their offices, and their space with the works of the artist. And to Claudia Altman Siegel for the way you looked closely, listened carefully, and made room for what mattered. This isn't the end of a story. It's a continuation. This episode was recorded live at Altman Siegel on the night of the gallery's closing celebration at 1150 25th Street in San Francisco on Thursday, November 27, 2025. Thank you to Craig Cooser for his music for this podcast. This podcast was produced by me, Mark Sanford Gross, for Ride Up the Coast. That's right with a W. For more information, visit RideUpTheChast dot com. Thank you, everybody.