Water Closet Gallery
Founded in November 2025 by curator Kate Ortega, Water Closet Gallery is an extension of the DIY (“Do-it-yourself”) vision of Bric-a-Brac, an interdisciplinary punk venue located in San Francisco’s Visitacion Valley neighborhood. Water Closet Gallery aims to highlight and support experimental Bay Area-based art and artists through an annual roster of challenging, thought-provoking, and engaging exhibitions and programs. Past exhibitions have included Crapshoot!, a small-works invitational, and Human Carousel, a group show of Bay Area Punk Photography.
Upcoming Exhibition: Asparagus by Lark Chang-Yeh
San Francisco-based artist Lark Chang-Yeh collaborates with curator Kate Ortega and trans-owned and operated noise shack and gallery Bric-A-Brac on their first solo show, Asparagus. The show takes place in a fully functional bathroom and DIY gallery space called Water Closet. While much of trans discourse centers on gendered bathroom politics and the policing of who can pee where, Asparagus pays homage to underground networks of trans knowledge exchange, which has taught many trans masculine people how to stand to pee, grow their T-dick, pack, and experience pleasure. Asparagus doesn’t take itself too seriously; it is an experimental invention that pushes the button of white wall gallery spaces into spaces that are public, contested, and filthy.
Trans curator/artist team Kate Ortega and Lark Chang-Yeh are excited to celebrate the opening of Asparagus on Thursday, July 9th, from 6-8 pm at 178 Leland Ave, San Francisco. Light bites of grilled asparagus will be served. They invite guests to dress accordingly with lush, verdant stalks of asparagus in mind.
Curator
Kate Ortega (She/Her) is an independent curator, public art historian, and cultural practitioner. Her practice centers on the intersections of queer visual culture, theory, and community, legacies of avant-garde and counterculture movements of the 20th Century, and popular music/musicology, performance, and punk culture. Ortega is also a practicing visual artist and musician who folds performance art with queer dance punk music with the band Girl Into Destruction.
She has received two BAs in Art History and Anthropology from the University of Nevada, Reno, and an MA in Museum Studies from the University of San Francisco. Professionally, Ortega has worked on exhibitions and projects for the John and Geraldine Lilley Museum of Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture, KADIST, the SF Punk Archive, the San Francisco Public Library, and Strike-Slip Gallery. She has curated exhibitions for the University of Nevada, Reno, the Holland Project, the San Francisco Public Library, and Adobe Books. Ortega has forthcoming exhibitions with the Depot Gallery in Sparks, Nevada, and A.pé, Dead End Vintage, SWIM Gallery, and her own Water Closet Gallery here in San Francisco. She is a member of the Punk Scholars International Network, served as the guest print curator for the 2025 San Francisco Storyfest, and is a board member of Bay Area Emerging Museum Professionals (BAEMP).
Visit Us
gallery + experimental art space operating completely out of a bathroom.
@bricabracofsanfrancisco
178 Leland Ave, SF
Est. 2026