A rising art world star from Oakland will be the next artist featured at the Minnesota Street Project Foundation’snewest exhibition space.

“Venus Blues,” a multimedia presentation by East Bay artist Adrian L. Burrell, is set to open Oct. 7 at the 1201 Minnesota St. venue that most recently hosted theSan Francisco Art Book Fair. The newly built media room in the space was first utilized for Irish artist Richard Mosse’s multiscreen video work“Broken Spectre”in May.

Burrell, a third-generation Oakland native, works in media including photography, film, site-specific installation and sculpture to examine themes of race, class, history and generational exchange. His forthcoming show will explore concepts of matriarchy as well as the stories of Burrell’s female ancestors.

“金星蓝调”,由保罗·l·Wattis一块tion, is to be the first art presentation to utilize the entire interior of the former Minnesota Street popcorn factory.

“What you will see is (the result of) being able to think about the space, think about the work and how I can create a unique conversation between the artifacts and narratives that I want to portray,” Burrell told The Chronicle of the work. “I’ve been doing a lot of research that has taken me from Oakland to Louisiana, Senegal, Nigeria to try to pick up my familial narrative and to understand how it relates to and is in conversation with American history.”

Burrell has been working on the project for the past six months and said he was given carte blanche to use the space as he saw fit by the leadership at the Minnesota Street Project Foundation. To that end, the exhibition is expected to display large-scale sculptures, life-size photography and film projections, as well as host live performances and community programs.

One of the primary works will be a site-specific installation inspired by Burrell’s 2016 photograph of La Maison des Esclaves (the House of Slaves) in Dakar, Senegal, and its “Door of No Return,” which began many Africans’ harrowing journeys into enslavement.

Sugarcane, a crop heavily associated with the slavery economy, will also be a recurring motif in the installation, as will portraits of Burrell’s “Venuses” and letters from members of his family. The show will also feature the latest iteration of Burrell’s ongoing film project, “The Saints Step in Kongo Time,” in the screening gallery.

The exhibition will be curated by Tiffany E. Barber, assistant professor of African American Art at UCLA and curator-in-residence at the Delaware Contemporary.

“ ‘Venus Blues’ asks visitors to reflect on individual and collective practices of mourning and rememory,” Barber said in a statement. “In tracing the artist’s roots from Jim Crow Louisiana to modern-day Oakland to Senegal and back again, the exhibition animates rituals of healing as well as visions for a future that is perpetually unsettled and in motion.”

After a year that’s involved significant travel, Burrell said that he is “grateful to be able to make this kind of work in the Bay Area and not have to be in L.A. or New York to have an opportunity like this.

“我认为这很好that the Minnesota Street Project (Foundation) is supporting local artists,” he continued. “It’s just been a great experience.”

The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art acquired Burrell’s photography series “It’s After the End of the World, Don’t You Know That?” for its permanent collection in 2021. The following year, he had his first solo museum show, “Adrian Burrell: Sugarcane and Lightning pt 3,” at the Institute of Contemporary Art San Jose.

This year, Burrell completed an artist residency atKehinde Wiley’s prestigious Black Rock Senegal and is currently in residence at the Black Freedom Fellowship in Salvador, Brazil. Burrell is also developing his first feature film, “Cousins,” which was the recipient of the 2022 SFFilm Rainin Grant.

Reach Tony Bravo: tbravo@sfchronicle.com