Neon Home

Exhibition Run: June 12 - August 12, 2018

Neon Home is a group art exhibition of neon-centric work in the Tenderloin Museum’s gallery. The show features photographs of historic neon signs in the Tenderloin and around the Bay by photographers Mark Carrodus, Merideth Grierson, Randall Ann Homan, and Al Barna. Additionally, the show unveils a new neon sign-sculpture called “Home/Hotel,” a collaboration between SF Neon and the Oakland based tube bender and neon artist Shawna Peterson. 

From the flashing signs of tourist traps to the forgotten signs whose ghostly white tubes remain unlit, neon signs represent a bridge from past to the future. The technology of a neon sign has changed little since the first neon signs appeared in the early 1900s. Far from dispensable advertising, a neon can last for decades and is more energy efficient than one might think, but more importantly, a neon’s appeal extends far beyond its luminous utility. Our featured artists investigate the power of neon’s unique visual aesthetic.