Since the late 1990s, Xara Thustra's art has been inseparable from resistance and community in San Francisco, providing many of the signature visual images of the anti-displacement and anti-war struggles of the era. His work first appeared as graffiti in the streets of the city during the height of the first dot-com boom and soon grew to include artistic collaboration with and in support of neighborhood organizations, like the Mission Anti-Displacement Coalition and the Coalition on Homelessness.
As his work evolved over time from agitprop street art into elaborate performance and filmmaking, Xara has collaborated with countless others on many now-legendary art events like the Anti-Capitalist Fashion Show, the 949 Market Squat, and the band Manhater, while contributing stunning murals to Clarion Alley Mural Project and the Mission Neighborhood Health Center (with Kyle Ranson). Xara appeared in the 2002 Bay Area Now show at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, but has since resisted overtures from the art world, and preferred to instead make work in spaces like Adobe Books, Needles and Pens, and, still, in the streets.
Friendship Between Artists is an Equation of Love and Survival is an epic photo documentation of the past 15 years of his work and collaborations in San Francisco. —Erick Lyle San Francisco Bay Guardian
Feed the people! SF STOPS WARS, STOP MEN, Hard-working, self-schooled, tireless artist/activist Xara Thursta [rules] 2-D, performance, drums, video. Manhaters, Love Warz, AND the annual Calendar. HEART 101. All for FREE! Unbelievable.
XYLOR JANE
Thustra's art fills me with a crazy, unhinged joy. It makes you want to do something joyful and spectacular and very illegal. I would like to think that my heart looks something like this, and yours too.
Michelle Tea
I have always been inspired by the creativity of Xara. It is always 100 percent care. One of my very favorite artists that I met in SF. Making things to make people think and with so much concern. This book about creative ritual and meditation toward making things better is a good gesture in the Left direction. A non text book but in the school of life.
Chris Johanson
Like an invisible giant, silently stalking our city, converting it's ever-more-boring facade into an impassioned, beautiful call to arms, revolution, and to love. Xara has created an incredible genre-and-gender busting body of work. This is the freak flag flying high.
BILL DANIEL
