This story begins with beer. Or rather, it always began with beer if you were hanging around Tom Marioni’s studio in San Francisco any time after the 1970s. The man once declared, with deadpan conviction, that "drinking beer with friends is the highest form of art." And you know what? We're inclined to believe him.

Drinking Beer with Friends, 1970, Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA)

Tom Marioni is a conceptual artist and a quietly towering figure in West Coast art history — a sort of artistic monk crossed with a social sculptor, operating on his own wavelength while inadvertently building one of the most enduring scenes in contemporary conceptual practice. Founder of the Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA SF) in 1970, Marioni turned his weekly studio gatherings into living artworks: beer (and martinis), conversation, and performance as medium. It wasn’t about spectacle. It was about showing up. If you know, you know — an inner circle kind of thing.

That’s what makes the latest exhibition at GCS Agency so surprisingly significant. Society of Independent Artists: Works on Paper feels almost too chill to carry the kind of historical gravitas it does, and yet, here we are. This is an homage to a 55-year lineage of anti-institutional creativity that ultimately managed to smash right into the institutions anyway.

Installation of Beer with Friends at The Hammer Museum, 2013

The show is anchored by Marioni as the leader, but he's far from the only heavy-hitter in the room. A third of the 36+ participating artists have works in the permanent collections of institutions like MoMA, SFMOMA, the Getty, and the Smithsonian. Yeah, this is a low-key salon-style group show. Kind of nutty. And yes, you’ll be standing in front of works by people who have and continue to define what contemporary American art even is.

Tom Marioni in his studio. Photo by Sonja Och for The Chronicle

Let’s name drop a bit, because why not? (It’s fun) There’s Susan Middleton, whose haunting portraits of endangered species live in the Smithsonian and have graced the pages of National Geographic. It’s giving raw childhood wonder and amazement. There’s Robert Bechtle, one of the acclaimed godfathers of Photorealism, with paintings that depict calm suburban scenes as mythical, powerful moments. Bechtle’s works are now held by 18 global museums, including The Whitney, The Met, MoMA, SFMOMA, The Guggenheim, and The National Gallery, among others. Eleanor Coppola (yes, that Coppola) has her own body of collage and visual work that supplements a life of storytelling already cemented in American film history. Also, Roman Coppola (Eleanor’s son) has works included making this a family affair.

Paul Kos (b. 1942) Alkali Flats, 1974 Black and white photograph, unique 14½ x 21½ in.

Enter big boss Paul Kos, whose video and installation work (uhhh Sound of Ice Melting… !!) practically wrote the West Coast conceptualist playbook.. His poetic handling of silence, time, and sensory space does not scream for attention, but it’s hard to forget once you experience it. Then there’s John Held Jr., mail art’s archivist-in-chief, who turned his obsessive commitment to ephemera into one of the most important documentations of a movement that refused to be pinned down.

The rest of the artist lineup is no filler either. No fluff here, folks. Organized by Alberto Cuadros, a longtime attendee of Marioni’s Wednesday gatherings (and now a card-carrying SIA member himself), the show is a testament to the intergenerational reach of this community. It’s a very special exchange of experience. Artists range from Bay Area educators to international exhibitors, from seasoned sculptors to photographers, painters, and the rare type of person who still sends actual mail with art inside.

Alberto Cuadros, SIA member and organizer of this exhibition

And what ties it all together? Paper. Humble, analog, unassuming paper. Works include drawing, collage, print, and conceptual notation. Some are crisp and beautiful; others are strange and coded; a few look like they could disintegrate if you breathe too hard. But they all feel alive—they all feel like part of something bigger than any one moment or trend.

In a time when everything is optimized, digitized, and built for metrics, Works on Paper feels like a beautiful glitch in the system. It’s art for the sake of making, thinking, riffing, and remembering. There’s no algorithmic urgency here, no branded content loop. Just a bunch of relentless artists, who could justifiably be resting on their laurels, deciding to show up for something loose, collaborative, and real.

So sure, show up for the Marioni of it all. But stay for the Pacificos, the funky drawings, the quiet power of a legacy that doesn’t need to shout to make its point. This is San Francisco art history in its least filtered form.

Opening June 18, 5–8pm @ 201 Jackson St., San Francisco

RSVP here. Be there.

Just don’t forget the password: social sculpture.