San Francisco has a delightful new reason to visit the Museum of the African Diaspora. Calling All Cats!, by Berkeley-born artist Dorian Reid, is on view at MoAD through December 6, 2026, in the Floor 2 CommonSpirit Health Gallery — and its star is the black cat.
For centuries, black cats have been followed by superstition and suspicion. In Reid’s hands, the cat carries dignity, wit, tenderness and agency instead. It appears as artist, neighbor, witness, troublemaker and friend across ceramics, paintings, prints, textiles, furniture and protest signs, all glowing with humor, memory and care.
At the heart of the show is the “Black Cat Revolution,” a movement and club Reid founded in 2024 to dismantle prejudices and raise funds for cats and community members. “I’m creating my own Black History with cats,” Reid explains. “The club is for all who love cats, freedom, justice, liberation, and stand against superstition.”
Reid, the daughter of historian Betty Reid Soskin, draws on her family’s connection to the Black Panthers and her own work for civil rights and animal welfare. The result is joyful, intimate and gloriously its own — an Emerging Artist exhibition that fills the gallery with musicians, activists, neighbors and cats of every color. Come for the cats, MoAD says. Stay for the world they have built around them.
MoAD, at 685 Mission Street, is open Tuesday through Sunday, with late hours on Thursday. Admission is free on the second Saturday of each month.
Photo: Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD)
