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As Tania Ketenjian tells the story, while New York artists priced out of Manhattan were moving to Brooklyn in the late 90s, a similar spike in San Francisco real estate values forced a number of artists and made it difficult for galleries to stay in business. Almost intuitively, she says, people started making galleries in their homes. Suddenly a domestic address would become a place for openings, a home for artists of different media, and the lines between home and art space blurred.

Chris Perez created his first gallery in his Williamsburg apartment while working as an assistant curator on the 2002 Whitney Biennial, organizing a "stealth biennial" with artists he knew and admired. When he returned to his native San Francisco, he continued the practice and opened the showcase Ratio 3 Gallery in one room of his apartment, where Irish painter Conor McGrady recently had a solo show. Chris Sollars transformed his entire house, from the basement, up into 667 Shotwell, a homestead gallery that artists completely transform every month into new installations that are attracting serious collectors and crowds.

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