Artwise this fall, galleries are the name of the game when it comes to adventure and the unusual. The mini-survey that follows is a glimpse of what's to come.

Variety, not quantity, is the watchword for the fall season at Bay Area art museums, and thankfully, there's not a blockbuster in sight. Here are some pathways to cultural enrichment in the coming months.

For the last four years the California Academy of Sciences has been hosting an annual Natural World Photography Competition and displaying the winners and finalists in their "BigPicture" show, where each color photograph is more spectacular than the next.

Out There trucked out to the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park last week to catch up with two exhibits there.

People on deadline, crazy writer types and polyamorists all benefit from having structure in their lives, even on vacation.

William Blake at last has a gallery dedicated to him.

A retrospective has the ability to map the arc of an artist's career, its unifying and diverging themes, but it's unlikely that it's an artist's intention to have his or her life's work shown en masse.

"Japanese Photography from Postwar to Now," the second photography show to open at SFMOMA's Pritzker Center for Photography in the last two weeks, is a tsunami of images.

They've brought their glowingly queer presence to Burning Man, to nightclubs around the Bay Area, and to faerie gatherings in the countryside. The fluorescent flair of the Comfort & Joy community engages at the National AIDS Memorial Grove.

From 1930s clandestine Mattachine Society meetings to the June 12 Castro candlelight vigil honoring the victims of the Orlando massacre, the 125 images in the new photography exhibit at the Harvey Milk Photo Center are a stunning chronicle.

Since the re-opening of SFMOMA has already garnered so much press, we thought we'd read and review the new accompanying catalog, in which there is both scholarship and art-loving glee on display.

Pressies from around the world and down the block toured the new San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) last week, set to open to the public on May 14.

Eagle-eyed readers who have been following Besties coverage in Arts & Culture over the years will have noticed that many of the winners in various categories have been previous awardees as well.

"Stone's Throw" by art historian, critic and curator David Deitcher (Secretary Press) is an appreciation of the work of the gay late-20th-century artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres, who died 20 years ago of AIDS complications.