The Fabric of Cultures: Fashion, Identity, Globalization, February 15-April 27, 2008; $5 admission; 51 Yerba Buena Lane @ Mission btw. 3rd – 4th; San Francisco, 94103, 415-227-4888, M-F 11-6 (CLOSED WEDNESDAYS), Sat-Sun 11-5; http://www.mocfa.org/
Not sure where Yerba Buena Lane is? Ask Jennifer McCabe, the new Executive Director, who’s had her eye on the Museum of Craft and Folk Art for a long time. Late last year, McCabe chose to make the professional leap from well-respected experimental non-profit New Langton Arts to jewel-box niche non-profit MOCFA, the only folk art museum in Northern California.
The new show on display is The Fabric of Cultures: Fashion, Identity, Globalization. McCabe was able to put her stamp on this long-planned show that is traveling from the Godwin-Ternback Museum at Queens College. For MOCFA’s intimate space, she reorganized the installation of over 30 garments and textiles from the original chronological order to one constrasting silhouettes and styles, all the better to show the links between cultures across time. Additionally, she’s also infused the exhibition with the work of contemporary textile designers to show where the medium is going. Garments from ancient cultures sit next to pieces by the house of Chanel, scrunch queen Mary McFadden, Pucci and the fashions of Carla Fernandez, a contemporary Mexico City based designer who uses sewing techniques from indigenous Mexican cultures.
In December 2005, the Museum of Craft and Folk Art moved from its 20-year home in Fort Mason to a petite storefront on Yerba Buena Lane. The Museum of Craft and Folk Art is tucked along the newly minted pedestrian alley (master-planned by the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency in the ‘80s), and is patiently waiting for blockbuster big sis, the new Contemporary Jewish Museum, to open directly across the way in Fall 2008.
When you go, be aware that the museum is small, about 1500 sq ft, but your $5 admission is well worth it. The MOCFA is a carefully curated jewel box, making the most of every inch of space. The price of your ticket also funds the museum’s education program for elementary school students, which is designed to integrate the arts with cultural studies and social sciences.
McCabe is going to shake things up while still honoring the museum’s existing tradition of strong scholarship. She’ll bring in more contemporary artists and build on her community ties by bringing in the work of local artists. Benevolent landlord Millenium Partners is allowing McCabe to take advantage of the (for now) empty storefronts along the lane and showcase the work of CCA (California College of the Arts) students and grads. (CCA used to have the word craft in its name-California College of Arts and Crafts- and its undergraduate programming still has a heavy emphasis on craft with majors including Ceramics, Fashion Design, Furniture, Glass, Jewelry/Metal Arts, and Textiles.)
The retail store, an important revenue-generator for the museum, will remerchandise its assortment to feature more work from Bay Area artisans. The new Buyer, Heather Griggs, hails from SF based specialty retailer Williams-Sonoma Inc. She’s in search of more local jewelry designers and craft artists like Olivia Competente, Corinne Okada, and one-namer “Maja.”
Curating is all in the family for this newlywed. McCabe's husband Julio Cesar Morales is an artist, curator, gallery director (Queen’s Nails Annex) and professor (San Francisco Art Institute). He will participate in a panel discussion about the current MOCFA show on Saturday March 15 at 2:00 pm titled Cross Reference: fashion, music and film. McCabe and Morales met when he was commissioned to produce a new work by New Langton Arts in 2005.
Beginning in 2004, McCabe spent three years with New Langton Arts, leapfrogging from Program Manager to Assistant Director. Shortly after arriving at N.L.A. she organized the first retrospective of the career of Tony Labat, a conceptual and performance artist and teacher at San Francisco Art Institute. She also regularly teaches classes in contemporary art history at Mills, SF State and City College.
History of the Museum
The Museum of Craft & Folk Art was founded in 1983 by Gertrud and Harold Parker (no relation to the former director of the San Francisco Fine Arts Museums, Harry S. Parker III). Gertrud is an accomplished fiber artist who began her training in the textile arts as a child in Vienna. A resident of the Bay Area since 1939, she studied and experimented further with textile arts through the 1970s. She was inspired to start the museum in 1981 after visiting the Contemporary Craft Museum in New York, whose permanent collection was dominated by Bay Area artists.
Back in SF, friends who learned of Gertrud Parker’s new mission introduced her to Margery Annenberg, a gold and silversmith who had started a gallery in 1966. The two women joined forces and a modest space was secured at 626 Balboa Street. Then, with infusions of cash first from The San Francisco Foundation then from the James Irvine Foundation, the museum was able to secure a proper gallery space at Fort Mason where it thrived for the next 20 years.
The Quilts of Gee’s Bend at the de Young Museum last year was a terrific show but contemporary quilts have been covered by a museum in this town before. In 1988 MCFA held their groundbreaking show, “Who’d a Thought It,” featuring the work of Bay Area African-American women. This was the first MOCFA show to be underwritten by the National Endowment for the Arts, and it traveled to the Smithsonian in Washington D.C., the American Craft Museum in New York and the Field Museum in Chicago.
1991 was another pivotal year for MOCFA. A consultant from the American Association of Museums recommended that the board de-accession the permanent collection in order to free up valuable resources (money and staff time) that were required to house catalog records and the collection in a climate controlled environment. The proceeds from the sale of the collection were reinvested in an endowment fund and the staff were then able to concentrate on education through exhibitions and publications.
Fast forward to today. MOCFA resides in a stunning flagship location on pedestrian-only Yerba Buena Lane and the Parkers are still active members of the board on a first name basis with the staff.
Making the Most of Your Visit to Yerba Buena Lane
If you're already downtown, the dead end of Grant Ave. at Market is directly across the street from Yerba Buena Lane. If you're driving, park at the Jessie Square Garage (enter from Stevenson which is off Third Street between Mission and Market). Upon exiting the garage, walk south to Mission and you’ll see Beard Papa, a Japanese chain of made-to-order cream puffs. You’ve arrived at the foot of the alley. While you’re eating your pastry, look directly east at St. Patrick’s Church, one of the few pre-war buildings that remains since the Redevelopment Agency began the nieghborhood’s facelift over 20 years ago.
After visiting the Museum’s exhibition space and gift shop, continue towards Market Street (it’s OK to take a moment in St. John Knits) and head to the 5th floor of the Four Seasons Hotel to see their permanent collection of the work of contemporary California artists.
Start at the concierge’s desk and ask fot the pamphlet, The Four Seasons Art Experience; A Walking Tour of the Hotel’s Art Collection Featuring Works of Bay Area Artists. They have a good combination of emerging and established artists like Jennifer Starkweather, Katherine Sherwood, Deboarh Orpallo and David Ireland. You can download the tour on your own ipod for free before you go or borrow one while you’re there: http://www.fourseasons.com/sanfrancisco/podcast/art/
Southern Exposure’s talented “audio lead” Tim Halbur interviewed the artsits for the podcast and produced the piece.
When the Jewish Museum opens its doors across the lane and when some of the high profile retailers fill the storefronts, Yerba Buena Lane should become the vibrant throughfare that it is meant to be. For now, even the postman is having trouble finding MOCFA.
Koen, Seth: Witty Whittled Punctuation
Through March 1, 2008, Seth Koen “Ellipsis,” 49 Geary Street, Fifth Floor, San Francisco 94108, 415-296-9661, info@gregorylindgallery.com, Tuesday through Saturday 10:30am - 5:30pm. http://gregorylindgallery.com/
Click here for images:
http://gregorylindgallery.com/exhibitions/2008/koen/#clickimage
Seth Koen’s work has evolved dramatically from the knitted amoebic soft sculpture he had been carefully crocheting for years. His new pieces are delicate long stretches of unvarnished maple that seem to defy gravity as they soar in the air. If you’re searching for a way to classify this style of sculpture, Koen suggests “friendly minimalism.”
The spirits of Sol LeWitt’s conceptual line drawings, Alexander Calder’s playful mobiles and Constantine Brancusi’s graceful abstract birds are present in the gallery with Koen’s work. “Cardinal Point” looks like a flying lasso. “Sway” is two wishbones. “Simple Gift” is an empty vase waiting for Valentine’s Day flowers.
The special effects secret is tiny pins that secure the pieces to the wall or custom designed shelf (also called “display furniture”). Fortunately the display furniture comes with your purchase of the sculpture, in case you were wondering how you could set one up in your own home.
These sculptures are essentially line drawings in three dimensions. Carving wood and crocheting yarn turn out to be similar processes for Koen, each very methodical and incremental. In fact, Koen’s interest in line goes all the way back to the undergraduate thesis show he exhibited at Hampshire College, “Sculpture or Drawing?”
Since his days in the intimate MFA program at Mills College in ’01-’02, he has been knitting his signature whimsical organic shapes (many with sperm-like tails) in bright jellybean colors. The soft work is all done using the single crochet stitch, the most basic and simple one available to real-life knitters. Koen’s work got him noticed at Mills, where he won two prestigious awards as a student: the Murphy Cadogan Fellowship, awarded to Bay Area MFA students nominated by their teachers in between their first and second years, and the equally prestigious Jay DeFeo Prize.
The Jay DeFeo Prize is awarded annually by Mills College to a graduating Master of Fine Arts student in the Art Department whose work demonstrates excellence and great promise. It is unique in that it bestows a substantial gift of money, exactly what a newly minted MFA needs, intended to help the emerging artist make the transition from school to the real world. The funds for this endowed Prize were stipulated in the will of the artist Jay DeFeo (American, 1929-1989), who was a professor of painting at Mills College from 1981 until her death. Koen considers himself fortunate to have been able to apply the money to a couple years’ rent on a comfortable studio space.
Another opportunity that helped bridge the gap from student to working artist was the invitation to work as an assistant in the studio of his Mills teacher and mentor, sculptor Ron Nagle. While Nagle’s media and methods are very different from Koen’s, the sensibility and attention to detail are common factors. (Legendary California ceramicist Nagle is represented by the Rena Bransten Gallery.)
Right after graduating from Mills, Koen was asked to participate in a group show at the nascent Gregory Lind Gallery. Lind says that he took notice of Koen because the artist already had developed “his own vocabulary… his own language.” Lind began to officially represent Koen as his dealer in 2003. This is Koen’s third solo show with the Gregory Lind Gallery.
Gregory Lind is known for showing art with clean, colorful graphics plus an intellectual zing, usually a tie to art history or science. He has a track record of discovering emerging artists and propelling them to national and international recognition. Sarah Bostwick, Marti Cormand and Sarah Walker are all young artists whose work has been purchased by major U.S. museums since signing on with Lind.
Click here for images:
http://gregorylindgallery.com/exhibitions/2008/koen/#clickimage
Seth Koen’s work has evolved dramatically from the knitted amoebic soft sculpture he had been carefully crocheting for years. His new pieces are delicate long stretches of unvarnished maple that seem to defy gravity as they soar in the air. If you’re searching for a way to classify this style of sculpture, Koen suggests “friendly minimalism.”
The spirits of Sol LeWitt’s conceptual line drawings, Alexander Calder’s playful mobiles and Constantine Brancusi’s graceful abstract birds are present in the gallery with Koen’s work. “Cardinal Point” looks like a flying lasso. “Sway” is two wishbones. “Simple Gift” is an empty vase waiting for Valentine’s Day flowers.
The special effects secret is tiny pins that secure the pieces to the wall or custom designed shelf (also called “display furniture”). Fortunately the display furniture comes with your purchase of the sculpture, in case you were wondering how you could set one up in your own home.
These sculptures are essentially line drawings in three dimensions. Carving wood and crocheting yarn turn out to be similar processes for Koen, each very methodical and incremental. In fact, Koen’s interest in line goes all the way back to the undergraduate thesis show he exhibited at Hampshire College, “Sculpture or Drawing?”
Since his days in the intimate MFA program at Mills College in ’01-’02, he has been knitting his signature whimsical organic shapes (many with sperm-like tails) in bright jellybean colors. The soft work is all done using the single crochet stitch, the most basic and simple one available to real-life knitters. Koen’s work got him noticed at Mills, where he won two prestigious awards as a student: the Murphy Cadogan Fellowship, awarded to Bay Area MFA students nominated by their teachers in between their first and second years, and the equally prestigious Jay DeFeo Prize.
The Jay DeFeo Prize is awarded annually by Mills College to a graduating Master of Fine Arts student in the Art Department whose work demonstrates excellence and great promise. It is unique in that it bestows a substantial gift of money, exactly what a newly minted MFA needs, intended to help the emerging artist make the transition from school to the real world. The funds for this endowed Prize were stipulated in the will of the artist Jay DeFeo (American, 1929-1989), who was a professor of painting at Mills College from 1981 until her death. Koen considers himself fortunate to have been able to apply the money to a couple years’ rent on a comfortable studio space.
Another opportunity that helped bridge the gap from student to working artist was the invitation to work as an assistant in the studio of his Mills teacher and mentor, sculptor Ron Nagle. While Nagle’s media and methods are very different from Koen’s, the sensibility and attention to detail are common factors. (Legendary California ceramicist Nagle is represented by the Rena Bransten Gallery.)
Right after graduating from Mills, Koen was asked to participate in a group show at the nascent Gregory Lind Gallery. Lind says that he took notice of Koen because the artist already had developed “his own vocabulary… his own language.” Lind began to officially represent Koen as his dealer in 2003. This is Koen’s third solo show with the Gregory Lind Gallery.
Gregory Lind is known for showing art with clean, colorful graphics plus an intellectual zing, usually a tie to art history or science. He has a track record of discovering emerging artists and propelling them to national and international recognition. Sarah Bostwick, Marti Cormand and Sarah Walker are all young artists whose work has been purchased by major U.S. museums since signing on with Lind.
Mencher, Kenney: Under 21 Not Allowed
Lovers and Liars: Kenney Mencher on display through March 1, 2008, Varnish Fine Art, 77 Natoma between 1st and 2nd St. and Mission and Howard, San Francisco, 94105, 415-222-6131, Tues-Fri 11am-11pm-ish [wine bar opens at 5pm] and Sat 1pm-5pm http://www.varnishfineart.com/
Click here for images:http://www.varnishfineart.com/artwork/show.php?s=57
Jonesing for some tele-noir? You are if you’re an NPR junkie. All last year we listened to Fresh Air’s Terry Gross and her frequent guest, TV critic David Bianculli, first grieve the loss of The Sopranos, then beat the drum slowly for The Wire. As the Hollywood writers’ strike approaches its twelfth week, the networks have run out of fresh episodes of television serials and are resorting to reruns and late-night experiments. Fortunately, you can get your fix this month at Varnish Fine Art where Kenney Mencher’s campy pulp fiction-inspired oil paintings are on display.
With titles like “After School Special” (sold) and “Hotel/Motel,” Mencher’s work features heaving bosoms, blindfolds and grand gestures painted in a loose realist style. (Imagine an unbuttoned Edward Hopper.) Much like Jeff Wall’s artistic process, he stages his paintings first with live models in costume, then works from photographs. Often the models get into the act by suggesting storylines and poses, turning the photo shoot into a piece of performance art.
Mencher is a guy who’s gotta paint. He graduated with a BA (CUNY) and an MFA (UC Davis) in Art History, then completed his trifecta of advanced art degrees with an MA in painting from the University of Cincinnati. He has been an Associate Professor of Art & Art History since 1999 with Ohlone, a Junior College in Fremont. Influences include Duane Hanson, 20’s and 30’s pulp fiction illustrations and N.C. Wyeth, the early 20th Century illustrator who also worked from composed scenes.
Mencher has a little bit of a reputation. He was dismissed from Hang Art in 2003 by then gallery director Michelle Townsend (now with Portola Valley’s SPUR Projects), who, in an oft-repeated quote, said the gallery employees felt his work was too “wry and perverted.”
The following year, his work was pulled off the walls of a consultant-curated federal office in Sacramento. It probably was a little too ribald for the California State Teachers' Retirement System building. (He’s in good company, though; some nudes by North Beach notable Lawrence Ferlinghetti, represented by George Krevsky, were recently pulled down from the halls of the B of A building with no explanation.)
Perhaps Mencher, whose collectors include KQED’s quirky Josh Kornbluth, hasn’t found the right venue for his work. Hang prides itself on being highly accessible to rookie collectors who may not be ready for a guy whose thesis in grad school was "Vampires, the Audiences They Consume.” Varnish is more like it, with a track record of showing pop surrealism that veers closer to fine art than lowbrow art. Mencher’s next show after this is at Stanford Art Spaces beginning February 15.
The kitschy subject matter will be at home in this alternative space. Varnish Fine Art is different from other local art bars not because it extends its reach into fine art, or because it features artists who are decidedly mid-career. What distinguishes Varnish from most San Francisco art venues is that 30-40% of their exhibitions are dedicated to cast metal sculpture. (And they are also the only art bar that was an unwitting participant in the J.T. LeRoy hoax, the greatest literary scandal of the oughties.)
Business partners Jennifer Rogers and Kerri Stephens are both trained metal sculptors and became friends while working at Berkeley’s Artworks Foundry in the early nineties, which happened to be the same time that the work of famous sculptors like De Staebler, Voulkos, Asawa, Neri, and Oliviera was being cast there. They are still part of the close-knit cast metal sculpture community that centers around Artworks.
These days, Rogers dedicates herself 100% to being Varnish gallery director. Stephens still practices her art in her spare time and has her own furnace for casting in her Point Richmond backyard. You can see their formal training in the patinaed cast steel of the Varnish bar, stairs and loft balcony railing, all of which Stephens designed herself.
Rogers and Stephens opened their space in 2003 and plan to close in 2009. Not because they want to but because they have to. After lovingly restoring the old shell of a warehouse space, they got word that the city would exercise eminent domain and take possession of the property as part of the Transbay Terminal project. The neighborhood association’s “Friends of Second Street” wasn’t successful fighting City Hall.
Wherever the women end up relocating Varnish after they leave Natoma Street, they’ll continue to be a venue for San Francisco institution Litquake and happenings like “Green Drinks,” a monthly happy hour where people who work in the environmental field meet up for socializing and networking.
Click here for images:http://www.varnishfineart.com/artwork/show.php?s=57
Jonesing for some tele-noir? You are if you’re an NPR junkie. All last year we listened to Fresh Air’s Terry Gross and her frequent guest, TV critic David Bianculli, first grieve the loss of The Sopranos, then beat the drum slowly for The Wire. As the Hollywood writers’ strike approaches its twelfth week, the networks have run out of fresh episodes of television serials and are resorting to reruns and late-night experiments. Fortunately, you can get your fix this month at Varnish Fine Art where Kenney Mencher’s campy pulp fiction-inspired oil paintings are on display.
With titles like “After School Special” (sold) and “Hotel/Motel,” Mencher’s work features heaving bosoms, blindfolds and grand gestures painted in a loose realist style. (Imagine an unbuttoned Edward Hopper.) Much like Jeff Wall’s artistic process, he stages his paintings first with live models in costume, then works from photographs. Often the models get into the act by suggesting storylines and poses, turning the photo shoot into a piece of performance art.
Mencher is a guy who’s gotta paint. He graduated with a BA (CUNY) and an MFA (UC Davis) in Art History, then completed his trifecta of advanced art degrees with an MA in painting from the University of Cincinnati. He has been an Associate Professor of Art & Art History since 1999 with Ohlone, a Junior College in Fremont. Influences include Duane Hanson, 20’s and 30’s pulp fiction illustrations and N.C. Wyeth, the early 20th Century illustrator who also worked from composed scenes.
Mencher has a little bit of a reputation. He was dismissed from Hang Art in 2003 by then gallery director Michelle Townsend (now with Portola Valley’s SPUR Projects), who, in an oft-repeated quote, said the gallery employees felt his work was too “wry and perverted.”
The following year, his work was pulled off the walls of a consultant-curated federal office in Sacramento. It probably was a little too ribald for the California State Teachers' Retirement System building. (He’s in good company, though; some nudes by North Beach notable Lawrence Ferlinghetti, represented by George Krevsky, were recently pulled down from the halls of the B of A building with no explanation.)
Perhaps Mencher, whose collectors include KQED’s quirky Josh Kornbluth, hasn’t found the right venue for his work. Hang prides itself on being highly accessible to rookie collectors who may not be ready for a guy whose thesis in grad school was "Vampires, the Audiences They Consume.” Varnish is more like it, with a track record of showing pop surrealism that veers closer to fine art than lowbrow art. Mencher’s next show after this is at Stanford Art Spaces beginning February 15.
The kitschy subject matter will be at home in this alternative space. Varnish Fine Art is different from other local art bars not because it extends its reach into fine art, or because it features artists who are decidedly mid-career. What distinguishes Varnish from most San Francisco art venues is that 30-40% of their exhibitions are dedicated to cast metal sculpture. (And they are also the only art bar that was an unwitting participant in the J.T. LeRoy hoax, the greatest literary scandal of the oughties.)
Business partners Jennifer Rogers and Kerri Stephens are both trained metal sculptors and became friends while working at Berkeley’s Artworks Foundry in the early nineties, which happened to be the same time that the work of famous sculptors like De Staebler, Voulkos, Asawa, Neri, and Oliviera was being cast there. They are still part of the close-knit cast metal sculpture community that centers around Artworks.
These days, Rogers dedicates herself 100% to being Varnish gallery director. Stephens still practices her art in her spare time and has her own furnace for casting in her Point Richmond backyard. You can see their formal training in the patinaed cast steel of the Varnish bar, stairs and loft balcony railing, all of which Stephens designed herself.
Rogers and Stephens opened their space in 2003 and plan to close in 2009. Not because they want to but because they have to. After lovingly restoring the old shell of a warehouse space, they got word that the city would exercise eminent domain and take possession of the property as part of the Transbay Terminal project. The neighborhood association’s “Friends of Second Street” wasn’t successful fighting City Hall.
Wherever the women end up relocating Varnish after they leave Natoma Street, they’ll continue to be a venue for San Francisco institution Litquake and happenings like “Green Drinks,” a monthly happy hour where people who work in the environmental field meet up for socializing and networking.
Southern Exposure: Magical Portals in Four Site Specific Installations
Southern Exposure, through February 23, 2008; 417 14th Street (@ Valencia), San Francisco, CA 94103, t: (415) 863-2141, Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm http://www.soex.org/
The four site-specific installations that are on view right now at Southern Exposure employ the gallery’s bare four walls to deliver their message and rely on the viewer’s imagination for that secret ingredient to bring the work to life. It’s fitting that this exhibition puts the walls to work; this is the first show planned for the venerable non-profit’s new space since the 34 year old, envelope-pushing institution moved to 14th & Valencia from its old home in the Mission/Potrero flats. Busy nine-to-fivers will be happy to hear that the best time of day to see this show is at after work when it’s dusk, about 5:45 PM.
But before you go you’ll have to recalibrate. Looking at art like this requires a slower pace and more introspection. There’s no Oprah “ah-hah” moment. The story arc is much flatter, like an open-ended character study instead of a juicy piece of plot-laden fiction. Conceptual installation art like this is a distant cousin of the Mad Lib- you supply the punch line.
Chris Bell’s “Slow Pan Interior” is installed in the first room of the gallery. Close the door behind you because this is a video piece and the room has to be dark. Bell has dressed up this plain room with a rotating video piece. The projector pans around the room and plays back an image of the room itself, recognizable from the signature bead board. First there’s an image of a ladder as if its there in the room leaning up against the wall. Then when the projector hits the windows, you see an escapist panoramic view of the beach, as if the gallery’s address is the Great Highway instead of 14th Street.
Bell was an established artist in his home country of Australia before coming to the Bay Area for the MFA program at Stanford. He just completed a three month residency with the Headlands Center for the Arts. Industrial design and electro-mechanics, his first focus of study before becoming an artist, is the dominant theme in his work.
Jennifer Wofford’s Phillipino heritage influences much of her work, including this piece for SOEX, “Unseen Forces.” (One of her many expressions is as a member of the provocatively named, tongue-in-cheek, performance art group called Mail Order Brides.) But before you can walk into the jungle fantasy of her muraled space you are reminded of the unavoidable ritual of travel: dreaded metal detectors. Although they are made of particle board, they do have the intended effect of conjuring an airport and transporting us out of the Mission district. The mojo was so strong on the night of the exhibit’s opening Friday, January 11, that party guests were purposefully walking around the fake detectors. Wofford has her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and just received her master’s in 2007 from Cal. She teaches at CCA, USF and DVC.
It’s about 6:00 PM now and the gallery is closing, a perfect time to leave because Elaine Buckholz’s light installation piece is turning on. “Scenes for a Box Carnival” projects dappled kaleidoscope broken light onto the storefront. It’s a happy wintery scene and a friendly announcement to the neighbors that SOEX has moved in. Buckholz has worked as a lighting and visual designer in the Bay Area for 20 years and is a teacher in Stanford’s Art and Art History Department. She received her MFA from Stanford in 2006.
For the last piece, you’ll have to leave the gallery and hop on the Number 26 bus and travel to 1240 Valencia between 23rd and 24th. This is a conceptual piece and the co-collaborator is the entire population of the Mission District. Bruce Tomb bought the former police station about a decade ago and turned the property into his residence. Shortly after moving in, Tomb learned that the former police station was a target for taggers. Tomb decided to go with the flow. The (de) Appropriation Archive (http://www.deappropriationproject.net/) documents the layers upon layers of graffiti and posters that have been coated on week after week, year after year. On January 30th there will be a public meeting about the wall at SOEX where the neighbors are invited to speak their minds. Tomb is an architect by trade and has been teaching since 1989. He is an adjunct professor at CCA in the architecture and sculpture program.
Mark your calendar for the annual Monster Drawing Rally at SOEX on January 22, 2008. It’s a live drawing and fundraising event with over 100 artists participating. As the drawings are completed they are hung on the wall and can be purchased for $50 each.
The four site-specific installations that are on view right now at Southern Exposure employ the gallery’s bare four walls to deliver their message and rely on the viewer’s imagination for that secret ingredient to bring the work to life. It’s fitting that this exhibition puts the walls to work; this is the first show planned for the venerable non-profit’s new space since the 34 year old, envelope-pushing institution moved to 14th & Valencia from its old home in the Mission/Potrero flats. Busy nine-to-fivers will be happy to hear that the best time of day to see this show is at after work when it’s dusk, about 5:45 PM.
But before you go you’ll have to recalibrate. Looking at art like this requires a slower pace and more introspection. There’s no Oprah “ah-hah” moment. The story arc is much flatter, like an open-ended character study instead of a juicy piece of plot-laden fiction. Conceptual installation art like this is a distant cousin of the Mad Lib- you supply the punch line.
Chris Bell’s “Slow Pan Interior” is installed in the first room of the gallery. Close the door behind you because this is a video piece and the room has to be dark. Bell has dressed up this plain room with a rotating video piece. The projector pans around the room and plays back an image of the room itself, recognizable from the signature bead board. First there’s an image of a ladder as if its there in the room leaning up against the wall. Then when the projector hits the windows, you see an escapist panoramic view of the beach, as if the gallery’s address is the Great Highway instead of 14th Street.
Bell was an established artist in his home country of Australia before coming to the Bay Area for the MFA program at Stanford. He just completed a three month residency with the Headlands Center for the Arts. Industrial design and electro-mechanics, his first focus of study before becoming an artist, is the dominant theme in his work.
Jennifer Wofford’s Phillipino heritage influences much of her work, including this piece for SOEX, “Unseen Forces.” (One of her many expressions is as a member of the provocatively named, tongue-in-cheek, performance art group called Mail Order Brides.) But before you can walk into the jungle fantasy of her muraled space you are reminded of the unavoidable ritual of travel: dreaded metal detectors. Although they are made of particle board, they do have the intended effect of conjuring an airport and transporting us out of the Mission district. The mojo was so strong on the night of the exhibit’s opening Friday, January 11, that party guests were purposefully walking around the fake detectors. Wofford has her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute and just received her master’s in 2007 from Cal. She teaches at CCA, USF and DVC.
It’s about 6:00 PM now and the gallery is closing, a perfect time to leave because Elaine Buckholz’s light installation piece is turning on. “Scenes for a Box Carnival” projects dappled kaleidoscope broken light onto the storefront. It’s a happy wintery scene and a friendly announcement to the neighbors that SOEX has moved in. Buckholz has worked as a lighting and visual designer in the Bay Area for 20 years and is a teacher in Stanford’s Art and Art History Department. She received her MFA from Stanford in 2006.
For the last piece, you’ll have to leave the gallery and hop on the Number 26 bus and travel to 1240 Valencia between 23rd and 24th. This is a conceptual piece and the co-collaborator is the entire population of the Mission District. Bruce Tomb bought the former police station about a decade ago and turned the property into his residence. Shortly after moving in, Tomb learned that the former police station was a target for taggers. Tomb decided to go with the flow. The (de) Appropriation Archive (http://www.deappropriationproject.net/) documents the layers upon layers of graffiti and posters that have been coated on week after week, year after year. On January 30th there will be a public meeting about the wall at SOEX where the neighbors are invited to speak their minds. Tomb is an architect by trade and has been teaching since 1989. He is an adjunct professor at CCA in the architecture and sculpture program.
Mark your calendar for the annual Monster Drawing Rally at SOEX on January 22, 2008. It’s a live drawing and fundraising event with over 100 artists participating. As the drawings are completed they are hung on the wall and can be purchased for $50 each.
Park, Maria: Acrylic Science Fiction
“Crystal Leisure” by Maria Park; through January 31, 2008. Toomey Tourell Gallery, 49 Geary Street, San Francisco, 94108, Phone: 415-989-6444, Tuesday through Friday: 11:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., Saturday: 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.
http://www.toomey-tourell.com/
Alerting all closet Sci-Fi fans! Maria Park’s recent work on view at Toomey Tourell, “Crystal Leisure,” is inspired by the quintessential science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Here, Park has meticulously recreated closing scenes from the classic Stanley Kubrick film. Roger Ebert, who was present in the theater on the night of the 1968 premier, summed it up: “The closing sequences, with the astronaut inexplicably finding himself in a bedroom somewhere beyond Jupiter, were baffling.” Park’s paintings should allow an outlet for those who still want to talk about Kubrick’s intentionally opaque treatment of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel.
Park has been interested in science fiction- and this movie in particular- since she was a child. The overarching theme in the body of her work is the impact of science and digital technology on society. As the daughter of a physicist and sibling of computer scientists, expressing scientific concepts through her art seems like a natural course for this artist.
The first paintings in “Crystal Leisure” are faithful reproductions of that enigmatic bedroom somewhere near Jupiter. Park explains: “This current body of work arose out of a former series titled “Stasis” (2005), which was inspired by the final scenes of 2001… these scenes depict a man secluded in a strangely pristine interior where the only evidence of human culture and history resides in furnishings and art, perhaps most strikingly in the series of rococo-like paintings depicting people at play.”
In this series, Park appropriates images from the work of Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743), which is similar to the paintings in the 2001 bedroom. Lancret was a second-rate peer of Watteau, whose work, along with that of Bouchet and Fragonard, is synonymous with French Rococo. That style of painting can be described as frivolous, excessive and confectionary, with an element of PG-13 scandal thrown in for good measure.
The majority of the pieces in the show leaves the 2001 bedroom behind and riffs on three of Lancret’s paintings that feature the Rococo sport of banqueting. The figures that are alternatively preening or posing are, in Park’s words, “frozen forever in a state of mirth… revealing the weight of guilt and pain often hidden under displays of wealth and certitude”.
The Lancret characters are painted in reverse underneath a sheet of polycarbonate and the surface is covered with swirls of thickly applied paint. Transfers and letraset lines on mylar depict the mechanics and gears behind the figures, like a blue print.
Finally, thick opaque acrylic paint is applied to the outside of the clear plastic frame and coats it like shaving cream, billowing off the surface and swallowing up that last evidence of human culture from the bedroom walls in Kubrick’s film.
Park’s exhibition is noteworthy because this is a homecoming of sorts for her. Though Park is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Cornell University, she started her career as an artist here in San Francisco.
Park graduated with her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in ’95, showed her work in group shows for a few years, and then directed her efforts toward graduate work. She was awarded a scholarship to study painting at the MFA program in Painting at Washington University in St. Louis in 2000. In 2002 she came back to San Francisco to enroll in the SFAI MFA Painting program. After her first year of studies she was awarded the prestigious Murphy-Cadogan Fellowship, given to Bay Area MFA students who are nominated by their teachers.
Toomey Tourell Gallery discovered her work in 2003. “We found her at the SFAI Vernissage,” says Nancy Toomey. Vernissage is the name of the annual opening reception for the SFAI Master of Fine Arts Graduate exhibition. When asked what quality most distinguishes Park, Toomey pays her a high compliment: “her concepts are as strong as her execution.”
After graduating from SFAI, she left California and returned to Missouri to teach art at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and then in 2006 joined the teaching staff at Cornell. Park has exhibited her works nationally and internationally. “Strange Passages,” an installation at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas, in 2005, was her first solo museum show. This is her third show with Toomey Tourell.
http://www.toomey-tourell.com/
Alerting all closet Sci-Fi fans! Maria Park’s recent work on view at Toomey Tourell, “Crystal Leisure,” is inspired by the quintessential science fiction movie 2001: A Space Odyssey. Here, Park has meticulously recreated closing scenes from the classic Stanley Kubrick film. Roger Ebert, who was present in the theater on the night of the 1968 premier, summed it up: “The closing sequences, with the astronaut inexplicably finding himself in a bedroom somewhere beyond Jupiter, were baffling.” Park’s paintings should allow an outlet for those who still want to talk about Kubrick’s intentionally opaque treatment of Arthur C. Clarke’s novel.
Park has been interested in science fiction- and this movie in particular- since she was a child. The overarching theme in the body of her work is the impact of science and digital technology on society. As the daughter of a physicist and sibling of computer scientists, expressing scientific concepts through her art seems like a natural course for this artist.
The first paintings in “Crystal Leisure” are faithful reproductions of that enigmatic bedroom somewhere near Jupiter. Park explains: “This current body of work arose out of a former series titled “Stasis” (2005), which was inspired by the final scenes of 2001… these scenes depict a man secluded in a strangely pristine interior where the only evidence of human culture and history resides in furnishings and art, perhaps most strikingly in the series of rococo-like paintings depicting people at play.”
In this series, Park appropriates images from the work of Nicolas Lancret (1690-1743), which is similar to the paintings in the 2001 bedroom. Lancret was a second-rate peer of Watteau, whose work, along with that of Bouchet and Fragonard, is synonymous with French Rococo. That style of painting can be described as frivolous, excessive and confectionary, with an element of PG-13 scandal thrown in for good measure.
The majority of the pieces in the show leaves the 2001 bedroom behind and riffs on three of Lancret’s paintings that feature the Rococo sport of banqueting. The figures that are alternatively preening or posing are, in Park’s words, “frozen forever in a state of mirth… revealing the weight of guilt and pain often hidden under displays of wealth and certitude”.
The Lancret characters are painted in reverse underneath a sheet of polycarbonate and the surface is covered with swirls of thickly applied paint. Transfers and letraset lines on mylar depict the mechanics and gears behind the figures, like a blue print.
Finally, thick opaque acrylic paint is applied to the outside of the clear plastic frame and coats it like shaving cream, billowing off the surface and swallowing up that last evidence of human culture from the bedroom walls in Kubrick’s film.
Park’s exhibition is noteworthy because this is a homecoming of sorts for her. Though Park is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Art at Cornell University, she started her career as an artist here in San Francisco.
Park graduated with her BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in ’95, showed her work in group shows for a few years, and then directed her efforts toward graduate work. She was awarded a scholarship to study painting at the MFA program in Painting at Washington University in St. Louis in 2000. In 2002 she came back to San Francisco to enroll in the SFAI MFA Painting program. After her first year of studies she was awarded the prestigious Murphy-Cadogan Fellowship, given to Bay Area MFA students who are nominated by their teachers.
Toomey Tourell Gallery discovered her work in 2003. “We found her at the SFAI Vernissage,” says Nancy Toomey. Vernissage is the name of the annual opening reception for the SFAI Master of Fine Arts Graduate exhibition. When asked what quality most distinguishes Park, Toomey pays her a high compliment: “her concepts are as strong as her execution.”
After graduating from SFAI, she left California and returned to Missouri to teach art at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, and then in 2006 joined the teaching staff at Cornell. Park has exhibited her works nationally and internationally. “Strange Passages,” an installation at the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas, in 2005, was her first solo museum show. This is her third show with Toomey Tourell.
ArtSpan Selections: The Best of the Open Studios Artists
ArtSpan Selections 2007, December 6 - 29, 2007, 111 Minna Gallery, http://www.111minnagallery.com/2007/11/27/selections-2007-dec-6-29-2007/
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 6, 2007, Reception ($75), 5 - 7pm, General Reception, 7 - 8:30pm, 111 Minna Gallery, http://www.artspan.org/ www.eventbrite.com/event/83774572
David Avery, Johanna Baruch, Marie Bourget, Rebecca Chang, Mitchell Confer, Elaine Coombs, Katie Gilmartin, James Gleeson, Joshua Hagler, Ivy Jacobsen, Mark Jaremko, Mike Kimball, Jim Leff, Christopher Leib, Christina Mazza, Laurel Roth, Terry Sauvé, Kathryn St. Clair, Lena Tsakmaki, Christopher Wiedmann
Curious to know whose work was the best of this year’s Open Studios? Well here’s your chance to find out and purchase it as well. The unveiling of the juried ArtSpan “Selections” winners will go on display this Thursday at 111 Minna. If you choose to attend the $75 fundraiser event from 5-7pm this Thursday, December 6, you’ll get to hear the curators who chose the winners speak and you’ll be supporting a worthy grassroots organization at the same time (plus enjoy great apps and an open bar).
The not-for-profit ArtSpan isn’t a one trick pony. It's a critical resource for independent artists who don’t have gallery representation and may not have the connections that are a benefit of coming up through the local MFA (Master of Fine Arts) Greek system.
In addition to managing the massive logistics and marketing for the 800+ artists who participate in Open Studios every year, ArtSpan offers valuable professional development services to its members and sponsors Art for City Youth which introduces elementary school students to artists. All this for annual dues of $135.
Juried awards are a common and popular way for the art community to recognize Talent. A typical panel involves a few judges that fit the following archetypes: curator from local museum or non-profit, teacher from an MFA program, gallery director, rounded out by Bay Area artist who has already received critical acclaim. Being picked by a jury panel of this make-up is extremely prestigious and is a great resume builder for an emerging artist.
The Selections jury follows this model. Participating on this panel is Gabe Scott and Eleanor Harwood, their first collaboration with ArtSpan. Their participation is a testament to the efforts of the current Board of Directors which reached out to the two and invited them to participate. (Fellow juror Rene de Guzman has been a friend of ArtSpan for many years.) This board is also responsible for the jazzed up Open Studios program guide this year, which made the neighborhood-by-neighborhood event the easiest it’s ever been to navigate.
Eleanor Harwood of the eponymous Mission-Potrero gallery is a CCA trained artist herself. She made the “Backroom” at Adobe Books famous during her tenure curating that space. This funky cobwebby counter-culture bookstore on 16th Street in the Mission is the place that time forgot. Step gingerly over stacks of books and past the aging hippies engrossed in their manifestos; your reward is a postage stamp sized dynamic art space that generates a lot of talk among art world insiders.
The second judge is Gabe Scott, the director of 111 Minna Gallery where the show will be on display for the next month. 111 Minna is the original art gallery/bar in the city, fittingly located just steps away from SFMOMA’s back door. 111 Minna is known for showing “lowbrow” art and "street art" and for being a big booster of the art community in general, often lending its space to events like this.
Rounding out the panel is Rene de Guzman who needs no introduction to the Bay Area art community. De Guzman was one of the original staff members of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and is credited with being the force behind “Bay Area Now,” a must-see show that takes place every three years. After nearly fifteen years with YBCA the Oakland Museum managed to woo him away, an acquisition that bodes well for that venerable institution. De Guzman and a snazzy makeover of the galleries scheduled to start in early ’08 should serve to make that space back into a premier destination.
De Guzman did visit some open studios in October and say he saw some things he liked. “I saw some artists that were new to me and took down their names to follow up later.” De Guzman speaks very highly of ArtSpan and its importance to the San Francisco art community. “I’m very impressed with ArtSpan and their complete commitment to supporting the city’s artists. ArtSpan allows its artists to not only be known in the community at large but also to know each other and strengthen themselves through that dialogue. ArtSpan works with the level of artist who needs the most support: artists who are beginning their practice. We need that foundation to be strong in order for everyone to be successful.”
Harwood also thinks that artists who are dues-paying members of ArtSpan get a valuable service in return. “I think that any organization that manages to give artists exposure is valuable. ArtSpan Selections provides its artists with access to curators that they wouldn’t normally have.”
Eleanor goes on to explain how this jury experience was different from other panel reviews. “This selection process was different from others I have curated in that the review process was ‘blind.’ Usually a curator acting as a juror would review the CV and the artist statement and unavoidably take note if the artist had already received recognition or acclaim in some other format. The work completely spoke for itself using this method of selection.”
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 6, 2007, Reception ($75), 5 - 7pm, General Reception, 7 - 8:30pm, 111 Minna Gallery, http://www.artspan.org/ www.eventbrite.com/event/83774572
David Avery, Johanna Baruch, Marie Bourget, Rebecca Chang, Mitchell Confer, Elaine Coombs, Katie Gilmartin, James Gleeson, Joshua Hagler, Ivy Jacobsen, Mark Jaremko, Mike Kimball, Jim Leff, Christopher Leib, Christina Mazza, Laurel Roth, Terry Sauvé, Kathryn St. Clair, Lena Tsakmaki, Christopher Wiedmann
Curious to know whose work was the best of this year’s Open Studios? Well here’s your chance to find out and purchase it as well. The unveiling of the juried ArtSpan “Selections” winners will go on display this Thursday at 111 Minna. If you choose to attend the $75 fundraiser event from 5-7pm this Thursday, December 6, you’ll get to hear the curators who chose the winners speak and you’ll be supporting a worthy grassroots organization at the same time (plus enjoy great apps and an open bar).
The not-for-profit ArtSpan isn’t a one trick pony. It's a critical resource for independent artists who don’t have gallery representation and may not have the connections that are a benefit of coming up through the local MFA (Master of Fine Arts) Greek system.
In addition to managing the massive logistics and marketing for the 800+ artists who participate in Open Studios every year, ArtSpan offers valuable professional development services to its members and sponsors Art for City Youth which introduces elementary school students to artists. All this for annual dues of $135.
Juried awards are a common and popular way for the art community to recognize Talent. A typical panel involves a few judges that fit the following archetypes: curator from local museum or non-profit, teacher from an MFA program, gallery director, rounded out by Bay Area artist who has already received critical acclaim. Being picked by a jury panel of this make-up is extremely prestigious and is a great resume builder for an emerging artist.
The Selections jury follows this model. Participating on this panel is Gabe Scott and Eleanor Harwood, their first collaboration with ArtSpan. Their participation is a testament to the efforts of the current Board of Directors which reached out to the two and invited them to participate. (Fellow juror Rene de Guzman has been a friend of ArtSpan for many years.) This board is also responsible for the jazzed up Open Studios program guide this year, which made the neighborhood-by-neighborhood event the easiest it’s ever been to navigate.
Eleanor Harwood of the eponymous Mission-Potrero gallery is a CCA trained artist herself. She made the “Backroom” at Adobe Books famous during her tenure curating that space. This funky cobwebby counter-culture bookstore on 16th Street in the Mission is the place that time forgot. Step gingerly over stacks of books and past the aging hippies engrossed in their manifestos; your reward is a postage stamp sized dynamic art space that generates a lot of talk among art world insiders.
The second judge is Gabe Scott, the director of 111 Minna Gallery where the show will be on display for the next month. 111 Minna is the original art gallery/bar in the city, fittingly located just steps away from SFMOMA’s back door. 111 Minna is known for showing “lowbrow” art and "street art" and for being a big booster of the art community in general, often lending its space to events like this.
Rounding out the panel is Rene de Guzman who needs no introduction to the Bay Area art community. De Guzman was one of the original staff members of Yerba Buena Center for the Arts and is credited with being the force behind “Bay Area Now,” a must-see show that takes place every three years. After nearly fifteen years with YBCA the Oakland Museum managed to woo him away, an acquisition that bodes well for that venerable institution. De Guzman and a snazzy makeover of the galleries scheduled to start in early ’08 should serve to make that space back into a premier destination.
De Guzman did visit some open studios in October and say he saw some things he liked. “I saw some artists that were new to me and took down their names to follow up later.” De Guzman speaks very highly of ArtSpan and its importance to the San Francisco art community. “I’m very impressed with ArtSpan and their complete commitment to supporting the city’s artists. ArtSpan allows its artists to not only be known in the community at large but also to know each other and strengthen themselves through that dialogue. ArtSpan works with the level of artist who needs the most support: artists who are beginning their practice. We need that foundation to be strong in order for everyone to be successful.”
Harwood also thinks that artists who are dues-paying members of ArtSpan get a valuable service in return. “I think that any organization that manages to give artists exposure is valuable. ArtSpan Selections provides its artists with access to curators that they wouldn’t normally have.”
Eleanor goes on to explain how this jury experience was different from other panel reviews. “This selection process was different from others I have curated in that the review process was ‘blind.’ Usually a curator acting as a juror would review the CV and the artist statement and unavoidably take note if the artist had already received recognition or acclaim in some other format. The work completely spoke for itself using this method of selection.”
Electric Works: State of the Art Printmakers Offer Something for Everyone
Group Show featuring emerging artists: Civil Twilight, November 30 - January 5, 2008, 130 8th Street San Francisco, California 94103, Monday - Friday 10 AM - 6 PM, Saturday 10:30 AM - 5:30 PM, 415 626 5496, http://www.sfelectricworks.com/, noah@sfelectricworks.com
Electric Works is not just a print shop with special to-the-trade high-tech services; it’s a collaborative space with a community spirit.
Emerging collectors can start an art collection with the $40 Mini Print Program. Universally appealing is the gift shop is stocked for the holiday season with unique and affordable artistic collectibles. This is the perfect place to find gifts under $25 for all ages including every issue of Cabinet Magazine in print ($10), limited edition book art by David Byrne ($24) and David Mamet ($19.95), natural beeswax crayons ($11/$25/$45), charming old-fashioned tin toys ($10-$15), and incredibly hard-to-find Japanese Steampunk watches (already collectors' items, priced upon request).
For established collectors, not only is there the opportunity to purchase 2D and 3D print editions worthy of the Achenbach Collection, there is also a service that would make Stanley Marcus take notice. Looking for a holiday gift for the art collector who has everything? Electric Works will bring their high-tech equipment to your home and photograph your collection. You'll get a leather bound book with pictures of everything you own - perfect for when a guest comes over and an important piece is on loan (and doubles as a record for insurance purposes).
The Lang Family is such an important part of the San Francisco Bay Area art community that it seems like Electric Works has been in the city forever. But no, this family enterprise just relocated from its old incarnation (Trillium Press) in Brisbane to its new home on Eighth between Mission and Howard last Spring. The Langs were part of Trillium for over ten years and it was there that they established their reputation as master printmakers with an appetite for experimentation and envelope-pushing (other venerable printmakers bring projects they can’t execute to Trillium and EW). Dad Richard and son Noah searched for a long time for the right spot and then kismet brought them to the historic Buzzell Building which for decades housed a machine repair shop. It was such a good match that the Langs adopted the name of the former tenants, perfect for printmakers who specialize in state of the art printmaking.
First a quick primer on prints. A print is not the faded Monet Water Lillies poster you bought in college that has managed to follow you from apartment to apartment ever since. An original print is a work of art on paper which has been conceived by the artist to be realized as a print, rather than as a photographic reproduction of a work in another medium. Each impression should be approved and signed by the artist and the master image destroyed or cancelled. An original print is not a copy of anything else; it is a work of art in its own right.
Electric Works has quickly built a niche business in digital prints. To create these, artists use a computer to create or manipulate their works often use a large-scale ink jet printer to print them. These complex printers use a sophisticated print head to disperse the ink on the paper in a fine mist of minute droplets in order to deliver a continuous tone image.
Electric Works’ strength is its breadth of programming, the affable personality of the Lang family and their commitment to philanthropy. The Foyer Gallery features work from its Venture Philanthropy program which supports non-profit organizations through the commission of limited edition prints. Fundraising projects on display beginning Nov. 30 benefit Headlands Center for the Arts, the Magic Theater and 826 Valencia. Past partners include New Langton Arts and Friends of the Urban Forest.
All three Langs are artists themselves. Richard originally conceived of the versatile gallery while enrolled in the M.A. sculpture program at the University of Wisconsin. Wife Judith Selby Lang (who does the PR) creates multi-media art installations with an ardent Green message. She is often wearing eye-catching accessories that she fashions from found materials. She has taught art for thirty years in to higher-ed students in Bay Area schools as well as arts and crafts to those in convalescent hospitals with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
After receiving his masters in German Literature, Noah heard the siren call of the gallery and moved home to help with the high tech aspects of the print shop. When not taking the gallery’s offerings on the road to art fairs or searching out new items for the gift shop, Noah makes conceptual sculpture and volunteers his time as a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery Advisory Board.
Electric Works business partner Anthony Luzi is an artist as well, and is the CEO of Raven Motors. Luzi and Lang became friends through their mutual appreciation for the work of William Wiley. He is responsible for bringing in artists Ron Davis and Nathan Redwood. Visit the gallery and you’ll see a Raven, a bright green, single passenger, three-wheeled car which registers and parks as a motorcycle, gets seventy miles to the gallon, has an airbag and a design patented for your safety.
Since its grand opening in May, the Langs have featured a fifty-year retrospective of California artist Ronald Davis’ abstract geometrics, Paul Madonna’s dreamy drawings of the view along I5, the results of Amanda Hughen & Jennifer Starkweather’s collaboration for the SFAC “Art on Market Street” program, brainy doodler Tucker Nichols and Katherine Sherwood, professor of Art at UC Berkeley with an incredible personal story of rebirth that is an integral part of her work.
Love the work you see in an Electric Works show but can’t afford it? The $40 Mini Print Program was designed for you. Every headliner artist who shows in the gallery is invited to make an original work of art for this program. You can buy just one (unframed) or subscribe to the series. Each month you’ll receive the same number in the print series (such as 23/100). Email Noah directly if you’d like to sign up: noah@sfelectricworks.com.
Electric Works is not just a print shop with special to-the-trade high-tech services; it’s a collaborative space with a community spirit.
Emerging collectors can start an art collection with the $40 Mini Print Program. Universally appealing is the gift shop is stocked for the holiday season with unique and affordable artistic collectibles. This is the perfect place to find gifts under $25 for all ages including every issue of Cabinet Magazine in print ($10), limited edition book art by David Byrne ($24) and David Mamet ($19.95), natural beeswax crayons ($11/$25/$45), charming old-fashioned tin toys ($10-$15), and incredibly hard-to-find Japanese Steampunk watches (already collectors' items, priced upon request).
For established collectors, not only is there the opportunity to purchase 2D and 3D print editions worthy of the Achenbach Collection, there is also a service that would make Stanley Marcus take notice. Looking for a holiday gift for the art collector who has everything? Electric Works will bring their high-tech equipment to your home and photograph your collection. You'll get a leather bound book with pictures of everything you own - perfect for when a guest comes over and an important piece is on loan (and doubles as a record for insurance purposes).
The Lang Family is such an important part of the San Francisco Bay Area art community that it seems like Electric Works has been in the city forever. But no, this family enterprise just relocated from its old incarnation (Trillium Press) in Brisbane to its new home on Eighth between Mission and Howard last Spring. The Langs were part of Trillium for over ten years and it was there that they established their reputation as master printmakers with an appetite for experimentation and envelope-pushing (other venerable printmakers bring projects they can’t execute to Trillium and EW). Dad Richard and son Noah searched for a long time for the right spot and then kismet brought them to the historic Buzzell Building which for decades housed a machine repair shop. It was such a good match that the Langs adopted the name of the former tenants, perfect for printmakers who specialize in state of the art printmaking.
First a quick primer on prints. A print is not the faded Monet Water Lillies poster you bought in college that has managed to follow you from apartment to apartment ever since. An original print is a work of art on paper which has been conceived by the artist to be realized as a print, rather than as a photographic reproduction of a work in another medium. Each impression should be approved and signed by the artist and the master image destroyed or cancelled. An original print is not a copy of anything else; it is a work of art in its own right.
Electric Works has quickly built a niche business in digital prints. To create these, artists use a computer to create or manipulate their works often use a large-scale ink jet printer to print them. These complex printers use a sophisticated print head to disperse the ink on the paper in a fine mist of minute droplets in order to deliver a continuous tone image.
Electric Works’ strength is its breadth of programming, the affable personality of the Lang family and their commitment to philanthropy. The Foyer Gallery features work from its Venture Philanthropy program which supports non-profit organizations through the commission of limited edition prints. Fundraising projects on display beginning Nov. 30 benefit Headlands Center for the Arts, the Magic Theater and 826 Valencia. Past partners include New Langton Arts and Friends of the Urban Forest.
All three Langs are artists themselves. Richard originally conceived of the versatile gallery while enrolled in the M.A. sculpture program at the University of Wisconsin. Wife Judith Selby Lang (who does the PR) creates multi-media art installations with an ardent Green message. She is often wearing eye-catching accessories that she fashions from found materials. She has taught art for thirty years in to higher-ed students in Bay Area schools as well as arts and crafts to those in convalescent hospitals with Alzheimer’s and dementia.
After receiving his masters in German Literature, Noah heard the siren call of the gallery and moved home to help with the high tech aspects of the print shop. When not taking the gallery’s offerings on the road to art fairs or searching out new items for the gift shop, Noah makes conceptual sculpture and volunteers his time as a member of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery Advisory Board.
Electric Works business partner Anthony Luzi is an artist as well, and is the CEO of Raven Motors. Luzi and Lang became friends through their mutual appreciation for the work of William Wiley. He is responsible for bringing in artists Ron Davis and Nathan Redwood. Visit the gallery and you’ll see a Raven, a bright green, single passenger, three-wheeled car which registers and parks as a motorcycle, gets seventy miles to the gallon, has an airbag and a design patented for your safety.
Since its grand opening in May, the Langs have featured a fifty-year retrospective of California artist Ronald Davis’ abstract geometrics, Paul Madonna’s dreamy drawings of the view along I5, the results of Amanda Hughen & Jennifer Starkweather’s collaboration for the SFAC “Art on Market Street” program, brainy doodler Tucker Nichols and Katherine Sherwood, professor of Art at UC Berkeley with an incredible personal story of rebirth that is an integral part of her work.
Love the work you see in an Electric Works show but can’t afford it? The $40 Mini Print Program was designed for you. Every headliner artist who shows in the gallery is invited to make an original work of art for this program. You can buy just one (unframed) or subscribe to the series. Each month you’ll receive the same number in the print series (such as 23/100). Email Noah directly if you’d like to sign up: noah@sfelectricworks.com.
John Berggruen Gallery: Take Note of These Emerging Artists on Display
November 1- December 15, 2007, Displaced: Jonathan Callan, Frank Ebert,Armando Miguelez, Julio Ceaser Morales, Gabrielle Teschner, Hours 9:30am -5:30pm Monday through Friday, 10:30am - 5:00pm Saturday, 228 Grant Avenue, San Francisco, 94108, 415-781-4629
Click here to see images under Menu, Exhibitions, Current, Displaced: http://www.berggruen.com/
The list of artists shown over the past thirty plus years at John Berggruen Gallery includes a who's-who from the pantheon of California greats: Thiebaud, Diebenkorn, Oliveira and Bischoff to name a few.
But the show on view in the gallery's third floor through mid-December is noteworthy because it features emerging artists, something Berggruen hasn't done in ages. (For the purpose of this article, "emerging" is defined as very recently graduated from grad school and/or as yet "untested"by a commercial gallery with an international reputation.)
1997 was the last time Berggruen featured artists at such an early career stage, in a group show that included the work of Barry McGee. That was the year that McGee’s work was revealed to the art community as one of the winners of the SFMOMA SECA Award show. (The Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art was founded in 1960 by San Francisco Bay Area art community notables including Ruth Braunstein and Rene di Rosa and recognizes a handful of outstanding local emerging artists every other year who invariably go on to receive national recognition.) Since then McGee has ascended to the position of Godfather of the home grown Mission School movement.
Two of the artists on view in "Displaced" just received their MFA's from California College of the Arts last Spring. Frank Ebert's photorealist graphite on paper drawings ($1,500-$3,200) are the ultimate grown-up rock and roll poster. Gabrielle Teschner also bowed at CCA in May; her "Altered Maps" ($1,400-$2,200) are found vintage maps with stenciled cut-outs of tongue in cheek cartographer's jargon.
Although Julio Cesar Morales is also included in the "Displaced" show, "emerging" is not the right description for this accomplished artist. Morales is the founder of the provocative alternative gallery space called "Queen's Nails Annex" (which really is next door to a beauty shop in the outer Mission called Queen's Nails). He is a graduate of San Francisco Art Institute and now teaches there in the New Genres department. The Rockefeller Foundation and The Fleishhacker Foundation are among the many venerable institutions that have recognized his talent.
The Tijuana born artist's work is highly charged with border politics featuring the desperate attempts of illegal immigrants to smuggle themselves into the US. (It is not a surprise that his provocative work is featured in the permanent collection of the San Diego Museum of Art in a city on the front lines of this issue.) The soft watercolors look like science fiction cartoon cels but are horrifyingly real and depict actual cases documented by the border patrol. This is serious political art that makes its point effectively. ($5,000-$5,500)
New blood on the Berggruen staff has something to do with it. Mike Bianco just signed on full-time with the gallery after graduating from the Curatorial Practice Master's program at CCA, and this is the first show he has curated there. Bianco's not exactly brand new to Berggruen. He had been working part-time for the gallery while enrolled in CCA ever since Mr. Berggruen discovered him in 2005 in the American Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennial where he was an assistant in the Ed Ruscha exhibit.
Bianco leads a second life in Marfa, Texas, where he runs a space called "The Way Point" (www.thewaypoint.org) that he curates during Chinati season. The contemporary art world knows Marfa as a town that is synonymous with the Chinati Foundation, founded by Donald Judd in the early 1980's, to provide a home for large scale minimalist/conceptual sculpture. Forget Burning Man; during "Chinati Season" the tiny town (population 2,121) is a happening, overrun with artists and curators. (Julio Morales is also a Marfite.)
Next time Bianco is scheduled to curate something big for Berggruen is not until Fall ’08 so be sure to stop by while “Displaced” is still up on the walls.
Click here to see images under Menu, Exhibitions, Current, Displaced: http://www.berggruen.com/
The list of artists shown over the past thirty plus years at John Berggruen Gallery includes a who's-who from the pantheon of California greats: Thiebaud, Diebenkorn, Oliveira and Bischoff to name a few.
But the show on view in the gallery's third floor through mid-December is noteworthy because it features emerging artists, something Berggruen hasn't done in ages. (For the purpose of this article, "emerging" is defined as very recently graduated from grad school and/or as yet "untested"by a commercial gallery with an international reputation.)
1997 was the last time Berggruen featured artists at such an early career stage, in a group show that included the work of Barry McGee. That was the year that McGee’s work was revealed to the art community as one of the winners of the SFMOMA SECA Award show. (The Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art was founded in 1960 by San Francisco Bay Area art community notables including Ruth Braunstein and Rene di Rosa and recognizes a handful of outstanding local emerging artists every other year who invariably go on to receive national recognition.) Since then McGee has ascended to the position of Godfather of the home grown Mission School movement.
Two of the artists on view in "Displaced" just received their MFA's from California College of the Arts last Spring. Frank Ebert's photorealist graphite on paper drawings ($1,500-$3,200) are the ultimate grown-up rock and roll poster. Gabrielle Teschner also bowed at CCA in May; her "Altered Maps" ($1,400-$2,200) are found vintage maps with stenciled cut-outs of tongue in cheek cartographer's jargon.
Although Julio Cesar Morales is also included in the "Displaced" show, "emerging" is not the right description for this accomplished artist. Morales is the founder of the provocative alternative gallery space called "Queen's Nails Annex" (which really is next door to a beauty shop in the outer Mission called Queen's Nails). He is a graduate of San Francisco Art Institute and now teaches there in the New Genres department. The Rockefeller Foundation and The Fleishhacker Foundation are among the many venerable institutions that have recognized his talent.
The Tijuana born artist's work is highly charged with border politics featuring the desperate attempts of illegal immigrants to smuggle themselves into the US. (It is not a surprise that his provocative work is featured in the permanent collection of the San Diego Museum of Art in a city on the front lines of this issue.) The soft watercolors look like science fiction cartoon cels but are horrifyingly real and depict actual cases documented by the border patrol. This is serious political art that makes its point effectively. ($5,000-$5,500)
New blood on the Berggruen staff has something to do with it. Mike Bianco just signed on full-time with the gallery after graduating from the Curatorial Practice Master's program at CCA, and this is the first show he has curated there. Bianco's not exactly brand new to Berggruen. He had been working part-time for the gallery while enrolled in CCA ever since Mr. Berggruen discovered him in 2005 in the American Pavilion at the 51st Venice Biennial where he was an assistant in the Ed Ruscha exhibit.
Bianco leads a second life in Marfa, Texas, where he runs a space called "The Way Point" (www.thewaypoint.org) that he curates during Chinati season. The contemporary art world knows Marfa as a town that is synonymous with the Chinati Foundation, founded by Donald Judd in the early 1980's, to provide a home for large scale minimalist/conceptual sculpture. Forget Burning Man; during "Chinati Season" the tiny town (population 2,121) is a happening, overrun with artists and curators. (Julio Morales is also a Marfite.)
Next time Bianco is scheduled to curate something big for Berggruen is not until Fall ’08 so be sure to stop by while “Displaced” is still up on the walls.
Triple Base Gallery: White Glove Inspection
Triple Base Gallery, Thursday-Sunday 12-5pm, (please check for special evening hours), 3041 24th Street @ Treat (btw Folsom & Harrison) San Francisco, CA 94110, triplebase@gmail.com, phone: 415.643.3943, www.basebasebase.com
Do you ever dream about being able to do the one-stop-shopping thing and get an overview of the work of Bay Area emerging artists in one gallery visit?
Well, close your eyes and imagine an art gallery that’s open on a Sunday in a cool neighborhood next to a joint where you can get a great fish taco. Now imagine that the gallery owner likes you and lets you look through her inventory in a no-pressure environment and takes the time to educate you about each artist whose work you’re viewing. And there’s more: the majority of pieces for sale are in your price range. (No uncomfortable embarrassment while the gallery director and assistant unwrap canvas after canvas while you know all along you can’t afford anything they’re showing you.)
Now open your eyes- it’s not a dream. You’re at Triple Base in the Mission and you’re wearing white gloves and looking through the “flat files,” metal cabinets with shallow drawers which store works on paper numbering close to 300 and featuring the work of over 30 different young artists. Prices start at $75 and range up to $2000, with the majority around $500 (unframed). The only thing that’s different from your dream is that there are two gallery directors: Joyce Grimm and Dina Pugh.
You now know you’re not asleep but the fantasy goes on. Joyce and Dina have just invited you to their next dinner lecture held at a real live-work loft where the Dean of CCA, Larry Rinder, will give a talk about Triple Base’s featured artist of the month and the dinner is catered by underground chef Leif Hedendal who serves an I-can’t-believe-this-is-vegan organic gourmet three course dinner. And no, you don’t need to pinch yourself; you DO see Jack Hanley, Gary Sangster, Executive Director of Headlands Center for the Arts, Svea Lin Vezzone of Swarm and Terri Kwiatek, Co-President of SFMOMA’s SECA, all enjoying the party too.
Joyce and Dina became friends while enrolled in the Masters of Curatorial Practice graduate program at California College of the Arts. Larry Rinder was Dina’s thesis advisor and has since taken the pair under his wing. Rinder says, “They have thrown themselves totally into the cultural mix of our city. And they've done so in a way that combines idealism and pragmatism extremely effectively. When they took over Triple Base, the space already had an excellent reputation. They kept a lot of what Oliver had started alive, in terms of the warm and generous connection to local artists, and added some ideas of their own, like flat-files and the dinner talks. Triple Base is now one of the most vital and dynamic of any Bay Area arts organizations. Dina and Joyce have shown that you can make a really important contribution without a great deal of money. Their dedication, talent, and inclusive spirit naturally draw others around them. It's not surprising at all that so many people are cheering them on.”
The gallery was founded in 2003 by two artists Oliver Halsman Rosenberg and Clint Tanaguchi who used the storefront as their studio and as a community project space. The founders moved on to make their art in New York and Tokyo, respectively, and entrusted Triple Base to the women before they left. (The original name, Triple Base, was a reference to a vision of being one of many “bases” with similar vision connected internationally.)
Having a curatorial background comes in handy when you’re working with young artists who don’t yet have a mature body of work. The two agree that Joyce is slightly more hands-on in the creative process and Dina is more hands-off but both women enjoy their role as mentor, drawing out strong potential that they see in the work.
Modeled after the Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, the “flat files” pay the rent and allow the co-directors to use the rest of the space for sheer artistic expression including experimental performance and installation art. Artwork in the files is rotated out every six months and every month or so a new artist is added to the mix.
Time management is an art form here as well. Both women have been holding down full-time jobs while simultaneously running Triple Base Gallery. It is truly a labor of love.
Joyce is Gallery Assistant at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery (your tax dollars at work). Meg Shiffler, Gallery Director, is supportive of their mission as well: “Joyce and Dina have [contributed to the San Francisco art community] by developing a space that is not a nonprofit alternative space and not a commercial gallery. It is important in this age of dwindling arts funding to come up with new models that address long-term stability. This is an agile space that can easily transform itself to suit the needs of each exhibition/artist. Triple Base offers patrons of the arts an opportunity to see works by young artists at the beginning of their careers - long industrious careers if Joyce and Dina have anything to say about it!"
Until this week, Dina was the Director of the Jack Hanley Gallery. (Hanley has galleries in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, and represents a number of critically acclaimed young San Francisco artists including Tauba Auerbach, Leslie Shows, Simon Evans, Chris Johanson, and Shaun O’Dell.) But after a valuable year working with Jack Hanley, Dina has resigned from the position, making the weighty decision to dedicate herself 100% to running Triple Base. While they are lucky to have three talented interns, the business partners decided it was important to have one of the two principals in the space at all times. Dina will use this gift of additional time to further Triple Base’s work with artists, manage the logistics of participating in national and international art fairs and raise funding.
Do you ever dream about being able to do the one-stop-shopping thing and get an overview of the work of Bay Area emerging artists in one gallery visit?
Well, close your eyes and imagine an art gallery that’s open on a Sunday in a cool neighborhood next to a joint where you can get a great fish taco. Now imagine that the gallery owner likes you and lets you look through her inventory in a no-pressure environment and takes the time to educate you about each artist whose work you’re viewing. And there’s more: the majority of pieces for sale are in your price range. (No uncomfortable embarrassment while the gallery director and assistant unwrap canvas after canvas while you know all along you can’t afford anything they’re showing you.)
Now open your eyes- it’s not a dream. You’re at Triple Base in the Mission and you’re wearing white gloves and looking through the “flat files,” metal cabinets with shallow drawers which store works on paper numbering close to 300 and featuring the work of over 30 different young artists. Prices start at $75 and range up to $2000, with the majority around $500 (unframed). The only thing that’s different from your dream is that there are two gallery directors: Joyce Grimm and Dina Pugh.
You now know you’re not asleep but the fantasy goes on. Joyce and Dina have just invited you to their next dinner lecture held at a real live-work loft where the Dean of CCA, Larry Rinder, will give a talk about Triple Base’s featured artist of the month and the dinner is catered by underground chef Leif Hedendal who serves an I-can’t-believe-this-is-vegan organic gourmet three course dinner. And no, you don’t need to pinch yourself; you DO see Jack Hanley, Gary Sangster, Executive Director of Headlands Center for the Arts, Svea Lin Vezzone of Swarm and Terri Kwiatek, Co-President of SFMOMA’s SECA, all enjoying the party too.
Joyce and Dina became friends while enrolled in the Masters of Curatorial Practice graduate program at California College of the Arts. Larry Rinder was Dina’s thesis advisor and has since taken the pair under his wing. Rinder says, “They have thrown themselves totally into the cultural mix of our city. And they've done so in a way that combines idealism and pragmatism extremely effectively. When they took over Triple Base, the space already had an excellent reputation. They kept a lot of what Oliver had started alive, in terms of the warm and generous connection to local artists, and added some ideas of their own, like flat-files and the dinner talks. Triple Base is now one of the most vital and dynamic of any Bay Area arts organizations. Dina and Joyce have shown that you can make a really important contribution without a great deal of money. Their dedication, talent, and inclusive spirit naturally draw others around them. It's not surprising at all that so many people are cheering them on.”
The gallery was founded in 2003 by two artists Oliver Halsman Rosenberg and Clint Tanaguchi who used the storefront as their studio and as a community project space. The founders moved on to make their art in New York and Tokyo, respectively, and entrusted Triple Base to the women before they left. (The original name, Triple Base, was a reference to a vision of being one of many “bases” with similar vision connected internationally.)
Having a curatorial background comes in handy when you’re working with young artists who don’t yet have a mature body of work. The two agree that Joyce is slightly more hands-on in the creative process and Dina is more hands-off but both women enjoy their role as mentor, drawing out strong potential that they see in the work.
Modeled after the Pierogi Gallery in Brooklyn, the “flat files” pay the rent and allow the co-directors to use the rest of the space for sheer artistic expression including experimental performance and installation art. Artwork in the files is rotated out every six months and every month or so a new artist is added to the mix.
Time management is an art form here as well. Both women have been holding down full-time jobs while simultaneously running Triple Base Gallery. It is truly a labor of love.
Joyce is Gallery Assistant at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery (your tax dollars at work). Meg Shiffler, Gallery Director, is supportive of their mission as well: “Joyce and Dina have [contributed to the San Francisco art community] by developing a space that is not a nonprofit alternative space and not a commercial gallery. It is important in this age of dwindling arts funding to come up with new models that address long-term stability. This is an agile space that can easily transform itself to suit the needs of each exhibition/artist. Triple Base offers patrons of the arts an opportunity to see works by young artists at the beginning of their careers - long industrious careers if Joyce and Dina have anything to say about it!"
Until this week, Dina was the Director of the Jack Hanley Gallery. (Hanley has galleries in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York, and represents a number of critically acclaimed young San Francisco artists including Tauba Auerbach, Leslie Shows, Simon Evans, Chris Johanson, and Shaun O’Dell.) But after a valuable year working with Jack Hanley, Dina has resigned from the position, making the weighty decision to dedicate herself 100% to running Triple Base. While they are lucky to have three talented interns, the business partners decided it was important to have one of the two principals in the space at all times. Dina will use this gift of additional time to further Triple Base’s work with artists, manage the logistics of participating in national and international art fairs and raise funding.
Wall, Jeff: A Movie in Every Photograph
Saturday, October 27, 2007 - Sunday, January 27, 2008
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street (between Mission and Howard Streets), San Francisco, 94103, Telephone: 415.357.4000, Mon &Tues 11:00 a.m. - 5:45 p.m.,
Wed CLOSED, Thurs 11:00 a.m. - 8:45 p.m., Fri – Sun 11:00 a.m. - 5:45 p.m.
Click here for images: http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=266
SFMOMA’s Fall/Holiday offering is an embarrassment of riches: Joseph Cornell’s intimate dioramas, Olafur Eliasson’s new age appropriation of the entire 5th floor, Douglas Gordon’s outrageous video art, and newcomer Lucy McKenzie’s hand drawn interiors reminiscent of a 50’s movie set are all worth visiting. It will be interesting to see how the influence of these exhibitions shows up in the work of San Francisco Bay Area artists over the next few years.
But if you can only make time to visit one museum show before the end of the year, the Jeff Wall retrospective at SFMOMA is the one to see. This is highly entertaining photography that will appeal to art aficionados and novices alike.
Wall has only produced 130 or so finished light box transparencies since he devised this format in 1977, and here you can see a full 30% of this work. 40 of his signature staged oversize photographs are on view, beginning with his first foray into this format and concluding with the thrilling denouement of new masterpiece “In Front of a Nightclub,” a promised gift to SFMOMA.
The limited production stems from the fact that he strives for originality in every work; he does not like to repeat himself. The result is a dazzlingly varied array of subject matter but all with the characteristic Wall look: expansive, epic, rich in detail and a satisfying beginning, middle and open-end, just like a great short story.
Wall (born 1946 in Vancouver, B.C.) is a member of an elite club of superstar living photographers (including Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth) who are pushing the medium forward at a rapid pace. Wall takes photography to the next level by mounting the transparencies in a light box (larger than the movie screens at Opera Plaza in some cases). In fact these works are so wide that if you look closely you can see the seam linking the 50” film. Wall first started using this method of presentation when it was new to the world of commercial advertising and it has since become his signature.
Wall’s greatness stems from the fact that his work is a Napoleon pastry of academic layers and yet is egalitarian at heart. Knowledge of cinematography, great film direction, literature, and art history all provide extra satisfaction to the trained viewer but are not necessary to enjoy his work.
Those that did sit through an art history survey will appreciate that Wall spent a decade of his life teaching that class to undergrads and his work is heavily influenced by the monumental scale and dynamic axes of greats like Carravagio and Delacroix, as well as the intimate social-boundary pushing depictions of the bourgeois by Manet and Renoir.
Knowing his process makes the pictures even more interesting. He carefully plans the scene he will stage and photograph, exactly if he were directing a movie, including holding dress rehearsals. In fact he did collaborate on making films for many years but nothing ever quite came to fruition. Wall has also curated a fall film series at SFMOMA that features a “who’s who” roster of important ‘60’s and ‘70’s directors. Click here for the screening schedule:
http://www.sfmoma.org/calendar/calendar_event.asp?eventid=1124&etype=2&func=repeat
This exhibit is unique in that it is co-curated by the Director of SFMOMA himself, Neal Benezra. It is a rare occurrence that someone of Mr. Benezra’s station takes time from his demanding day job of running the museum to do any curating project, let alone a blockbuster traveling show like this.
Don’t miss: “Destroyed Room” (parents, rest easy, you’ve never had it this bad), “Milk,” “Insomnia,” “Tattoos and Shadows,” and “After Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, The Prologue.” If you ever daydreamed during AP Lit about what 1.369 light bulbs hanging from the bedroom ceiling might look like, Wall has improved upon your vision.
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third Street (between Mission and Howard Streets), San Francisco, 94103, Telephone: 415.357.4000, Mon &Tues 11:00 a.m. - 5:45 p.m.,
Wed CLOSED, Thurs 11:00 a.m. - 8:45 p.m., Fri – Sun 11:00 a.m. - 5:45 p.m.
Click here for images: http://www.sfmoma.org/exhibitions/exhib_detail.asp?id=266
SFMOMA’s Fall/Holiday offering is an embarrassment of riches: Joseph Cornell’s intimate dioramas, Olafur Eliasson’s new age appropriation of the entire 5th floor, Douglas Gordon’s outrageous video art, and newcomer Lucy McKenzie’s hand drawn interiors reminiscent of a 50’s movie set are all worth visiting. It will be interesting to see how the influence of these exhibitions shows up in the work of San Francisco Bay Area artists over the next few years.
But if you can only make time to visit one museum show before the end of the year, the Jeff Wall retrospective at SFMOMA is the one to see. This is highly entertaining photography that will appeal to art aficionados and novices alike.
Wall has only produced 130 or so finished light box transparencies since he devised this format in 1977, and here you can see a full 30% of this work. 40 of his signature staged oversize photographs are on view, beginning with his first foray into this format and concluding with the thrilling denouement of new masterpiece “In Front of a Nightclub,” a promised gift to SFMOMA.
The limited production stems from the fact that he strives for originality in every work; he does not like to repeat himself. The result is a dazzlingly varied array of subject matter but all with the characteristic Wall look: expansive, epic, rich in detail and a satisfying beginning, middle and open-end, just like a great short story.
Wall (born 1946 in Vancouver, B.C.) is a member of an elite club of superstar living photographers (including Andreas Gursky and Thomas Struth) who are pushing the medium forward at a rapid pace. Wall takes photography to the next level by mounting the transparencies in a light box (larger than the movie screens at Opera Plaza in some cases). In fact these works are so wide that if you look closely you can see the seam linking the 50” film. Wall first started using this method of presentation when it was new to the world of commercial advertising and it has since become his signature.
Wall’s greatness stems from the fact that his work is a Napoleon pastry of academic layers and yet is egalitarian at heart. Knowledge of cinematography, great film direction, literature, and art history all provide extra satisfaction to the trained viewer but are not necessary to enjoy his work.
Those that did sit through an art history survey will appreciate that Wall spent a decade of his life teaching that class to undergrads and his work is heavily influenced by the monumental scale and dynamic axes of greats like Carravagio and Delacroix, as well as the intimate social-boundary pushing depictions of the bourgeois by Manet and Renoir.
Knowing his process makes the pictures even more interesting. He carefully plans the scene he will stage and photograph, exactly if he were directing a movie, including holding dress rehearsals. In fact he did collaborate on making films for many years but nothing ever quite came to fruition. Wall has also curated a fall film series at SFMOMA that features a “who’s who” roster of important ‘60’s and ‘70’s directors. Click here for the screening schedule:
http://www.sfmoma.org/calendar/calendar_event.asp?eventid=1124&etype=2&func=repeat
This exhibit is unique in that it is co-curated by the Director of SFMOMA himself, Neal Benezra. It is a rare occurrence that someone of Mr. Benezra’s station takes time from his demanding day job of running the museum to do any curating project, let alone a blockbuster traveling show like this.
Don’t miss: “Destroyed Room” (parents, rest easy, you’ve never had it this bad), “Milk,” “Insomnia,” “Tattoos and Shadows,” and “After Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, The Prologue.” If you ever daydreamed during AP Lit about what 1.369 light bulbs hanging from the bedroom ceiling might look like, Wall has improved upon your vision.
Steven Wolf Fine Arts: Journalist’s Sensibility Pervades Artistic Choices
October 4-29: Derek Boshier, Magazine / Colleen Asper, The Trial;
http://www.stevenwolffinearts.com/
Steven Wolf Fine Arts, 49 Geary St., Suite 411, San Francisco, CA 94108, 415-263-3677 info@stevenwolffinearts.com
Steven Wolf has a well respected reputation in the San Francisco art community as someone who features intellectually rigorous work and takes risks with his programming choices. Steven Wolf’s aesthetic is informed by his undergraduate degree in philosophy, growing up surrounded by his parents’ collection of Americana, and his first career as a newspaper reporter covering politics, crime, business and theater in New York and Los Angeles.
He is also universally liked and considered to be friendly and approachable, especially to young artists and gallery directors. He makes a point to keep track of what’s happening in the smaller and newer galleries. Svea Lin Vezzone of nascent Swarm Gallery + Studios in Oakland agrees: “I really like visiting his gallery because it's a guarantee I'll see something I've never seen before. The work he shows is experimental and often humorous. We have the type of relationship that I can call him with a question or idea and he is generous with his perspective and knowledge.”
Wolf chooses the work he shows using the filter of a futuristic/historical perspective. If he thinks that the work will still resonate with an audience thirty years from now, then it’s a candidate for a gallery show. Quirky, droll and thought provoking are all adjectives that Wolf uses to describe his choices. “If it really looks like art, it makes me uncomfortable.”
The current show is no exception. The work of New York based Colleen Asper features blank courtroom scenes that are chilling in their anonymity and lack of narrative detail. The three untitled triptychs of witness, judge, and prosecuting attorney each flanked by two flags are viewed by you, the impotent defendant. Characters bear a resemblance to players in famous televised trials. The installation in fact mimics a courtroom set up and is well worth the trip to the gallery to see in person. ($3800-$4200 per triptych.)
Established British artist Derek Boshier’s cartoony and vibrantly colored magazine covers parody celebrity and sports star worship, the new religion of modern science, and fake geo-political boundaries that were arbitrarily imposed by jingoistic Western nations. The $18,000+ pricepoints for the enormous 80"x60" works reflect the great size and Boshier’s station. The smaller pieces are highly collectible at $2000 each.
Click here to see pictures of this show: http://www.stevenwolffinearts.com/dynamic/exhibit.asp
The painting featured on the splash page on the gallery website is a fitting icon for Steven Wolf Fine Arts. The irreverent piece by 60’s pop artist John Clem Clarke (“Stuart-George Washington”) is a paint-by-numbers copy of a 1806 piece by then portraitist-to-the-stars Gilbert Stuart, featuring our first president and his trusty steed’s large rear end. http://www.stevenwolffinearts.com/gallery.asp
Wolf and his wife relocated to San Francisco from New York in the early nineties. While covering his new Bay Area reporter's beat he came in frequent contact with the rich legacy of 1930’s and 40’s Works Project Administration (WPA) left-wing propaganda artwork which blankets our public buildings.
He also found himself in strange corners of the city and took the time to explore the underground network of thrift stores and flea markets. After discovering a Nathan Oliveira collage in a second-hand shop for $10, he actively enlisted the junkmen to keep on the lookout and put aside found artwork for him. Butterfield & Butterfield’s estate sale auctions were a wealth of forgotten treasures. After reading Carolyn Jones' seminal text, Bay Area Figurative Art, and learning about the California School of Fine Arts’ (now San Francisco Art Institute) influential post-war GI Bill scholarship students, he was hooked on collecting Bay Area art.
When he opened his first art gallery a few doors down from Zuni Café on Market Street in 1995, he shared space and customers with a business that sold second hand architectural furniture from the same 30’s and 40’s period that interested him. A few years later Wolf’s second gallery space at Jones and Sutter focused on “eccentric, under appreciated California artists.”
In 2003 he “got bored with the traditional notion of commercial galleries” and decided he “didn’t want to revive dead artists anymore.” He moved downtown to prestigious 49 Geary and modified his programming to feature emerging artists of the Bay Area and beyond, one of just a few of that ilk in the building at the time (including Stephen Wirtz and since relocated Catharine Clark).
Noteworthy artists represented by SWFA include Molly Springfield (MFA U.C. Berkeley) who creates conceptual work and drawings that comment on the place of books in our lives, Kaz Oshiro who recreates nostalgic suburban icons with verisimilitude such as dorm refrigerators, electric guitar amplifiers, and shopping mall trash cans and Hamburger Eyes, a San Francisco envelope pushing photo studio collective that offers darkroom classes and nurtures young talent.
Wolf is always on the lookout for new talent. He finds his artists through referrals from other artists and at the international art fairs, collaborating with galleries in other cities in order to give an artist national exposure. In fact he is just back from the Pulse London art fair this week so be sure to ask him about it when you stop by.
http://www.stevenwolffinearts.com/
Steven Wolf Fine Arts, 49 Geary St., Suite 411, San Francisco, CA 94108, 415-263-3677 info@stevenwolffinearts.com
Steven Wolf has a well respected reputation in the San Francisco art community as someone who features intellectually rigorous work and takes risks with his programming choices. Steven Wolf’s aesthetic is informed by his undergraduate degree in philosophy, growing up surrounded by his parents’ collection of Americana, and his first career as a newspaper reporter covering politics, crime, business and theater in New York and Los Angeles.
He is also universally liked and considered to be friendly and approachable, especially to young artists and gallery directors. He makes a point to keep track of what’s happening in the smaller and newer galleries. Svea Lin Vezzone of nascent Swarm Gallery + Studios in Oakland agrees: “I really like visiting his gallery because it's a guarantee I'll see something I've never seen before. The work he shows is experimental and often humorous. We have the type of relationship that I can call him with a question or idea and he is generous with his perspective and knowledge.”
Wolf chooses the work he shows using the filter of a futuristic/historical perspective. If he thinks that the work will still resonate with an audience thirty years from now, then it’s a candidate for a gallery show. Quirky, droll and thought provoking are all adjectives that Wolf uses to describe his choices. “If it really looks like art, it makes me uncomfortable.”
The current show is no exception. The work of New York based Colleen Asper features blank courtroom scenes that are chilling in their anonymity and lack of narrative detail. The three untitled triptychs of witness, judge, and prosecuting attorney each flanked by two flags are viewed by you, the impotent defendant. Characters bear a resemblance to players in famous televised trials. The installation in fact mimics a courtroom set up and is well worth the trip to the gallery to see in person. ($3800-$4200 per triptych.)
Established British artist Derek Boshier’s cartoony and vibrantly colored magazine covers parody celebrity and sports star worship, the new religion of modern science, and fake geo-political boundaries that were arbitrarily imposed by jingoistic Western nations. The $18,000+ pricepoints for the enormous 80"x60" works reflect the great size and Boshier’s station. The smaller pieces are highly collectible at $2000 each.
Click here to see pictures of this show: http://www.stevenwolffinearts.com/dynamic/exhibit.asp
The painting featured on the splash page on the gallery website is a fitting icon for Steven Wolf Fine Arts. The irreverent piece by 60’s pop artist John Clem Clarke (“Stuart-George Washington”) is a paint-by-numbers copy of a 1806 piece by then portraitist-to-the-stars Gilbert Stuart, featuring our first president and his trusty steed’s large rear end. http://www.stevenwolffinearts.com/gallery.asp
Wolf and his wife relocated to San Francisco from New York in the early nineties. While covering his new Bay Area reporter's beat he came in frequent contact with the rich legacy of 1930’s and 40’s Works Project Administration (WPA) left-wing propaganda artwork which blankets our public buildings.
He also found himself in strange corners of the city and took the time to explore the underground network of thrift stores and flea markets. After discovering a Nathan Oliveira collage in a second-hand shop for $10, he actively enlisted the junkmen to keep on the lookout and put aside found artwork for him. Butterfield & Butterfield’s estate sale auctions were a wealth of forgotten treasures. After reading Carolyn Jones' seminal text, Bay Area Figurative Art, and learning about the California School of Fine Arts’ (now San Francisco Art Institute) influential post-war GI Bill scholarship students, he was hooked on collecting Bay Area art.
When he opened his first art gallery a few doors down from Zuni Café on Market Street in 1995, he shared space and customers with a business that sold second hand architectural furniture from the same 30’s and 40’s period that interested him. A few years later Wolf’s second gallery space at Jones and Sutter focused on “eccentric, under appreciated California artists.”
In 2003 he “got bored with the traditional notion of commercial galleries” and decided he “didn’t want to revive dead artists anymore.” He moved downtown to prestigious 49 Geary and modified his programming to feature emerging artists of the Bay Area and beyond, one of just a few of that ilk in the building at the time (including Stephen Wirtz and since relocated Catharine Clark).
Noteworthy artists represented by SWFA include Molly Springfield (MFA U.C. Berkeley) who creates conceptual work and drawings that comment on the place of books in our lives, Kaz Oshiro who recreates nostalgic suburban icons with verisimilitude such as dorm refrigerators, electric guitar amplifiers, and shopping mall trash cans and Hamburger Eyes, a San Francisco envelope pushing photo studio collective that offers darkroom classes and nurtures young talent.
Wolf is always on the lookout for new talent. He finds his artists through referrals from other artists and at the international art fairs, collaborating with galleries in other cities in order to give an artist national exposure. In fact he is just back from the Pulse London art fair this week so be sure to ask him about it when you stop by.
ArtSpan Open Studios: An Easy How-To
32nd Annual ArtSpan San Francisco Open Studios http://www.artspan.org/
Weekend 1: October 6 Private Preview Gala, October 7 Exhibition Opening
All Weekend 2-5 events: 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Weekend 2: October 13-14 Western SF
Weekend 3: October 20-21 Central SF
Weekend 4: October 27-28 Eastern SF
Weekend 5: November 3-4 Hunters Point Shipyard
Yes, “Open Studios” is daunting. Exhausting. Even those of us with limitless stamina for seeing art feel weak the day-of and choose to stay in and swiffer the apartment instead. But this is the ultimate backstage pass. It’s an amazing opportunity- not only to buy art that makes your heart flutter at the very reasonable prices, but to also make friends with the artist himself. And there's a one-in-a-zillion chance that this same painting could pay for your kid’s college education some day.
No, you’re not imagining it; there is a distinct similarity to the undignified modern courtship ritual called speed-dating. For the unscorched, here's a quick synopsis: arrive at a downtown bar that is indistinguishably waxing or waning in popularity, sign in with the host. Speak to 20 members of the opposite sex for 5 minutes each (ladies stay seated as the men switch seats) and record important characteristics in dim light with a pen that is running out of ink. When you get home that night and log on to fill in the online ballot, hope that the clues you wrote to yourself are enough to jog your memory and that your can’t-take-it-back Y or N vote for each of the people you met that night is what you really want, and that the object of your affection feels the same way. However, unlike speed-dating, the Open Studios artist always wants you. With little effort on your part, you are guaranteed to find yourself in her bedroom because it doubles as her studio.
In past years, Open Studios caused brain fog and temporary amnesia after a day of driving, parking, looking for quarters, climbing to mold-scented attics and basements, begging forgiveness from meter maids, and then getting back in the car to go to the next studio.
But this year things will be different. There are ways to make the eight weekend days easier to navigate.
1. Narrow it down. Visit the Open Studios Exhibition at SomArts Gallery, 934 Brannan Street at 8th, Wednesday-Friday, Noon-4pm, Saturday & Sunday, 10am-5pm through October 28. Almost every artist participating in Open Studios has donated a work to this exhibition. Artists’ featured works are a good representation of their overall oeuvre so you can quickly see what appeals to you. Most of the paintings and sculptures on view (priced from $100-$3000) sold at the opening night party on Saturday, October 7, so don’t get frustrated if you see something you would have liked to buy. Just make a mental note to attend the kick-off party next year.
2. Get the guide. If you can’t make it to SomArts, go to this website http://www.artspan.org/guide.php to learn where you can pick up a copy near you. It’s a beautiful glossy magazine style book with an example of each artist’s work and clear mapping and scheduling information.
3. Do a little homework. Don’t just peruse the guide. Spend some time looking at the websites of the artists you have decided you like. Plot out who you will see each weekend.
4. Hire a car service. PlanetTran eco-friendly hybrid car service http://www.planettran.com/ costs $60 per hour. Avoiding parking drama makes the investment a bargain. (Invite two friends and divide by three.)
5. Bring your checkbook. These guys do not take credit cards. Open Studios’ artists run the gamut from gallery-represented types to newly minted, just-quit-my-job-to-paint-full-time artists who have barely managed to scrape together the $175 fee to participate in the program.
6. Do not haggle. These prices are already low. IF you are buying more than one piece from a single artist then it is acceptable to ask if the artist would consider giving you a discount on your second purchase.
7. Don’t dawdle. If you walk in the door and don’t care for what you see, two minutes and a pleasant “thank you” is enough.
8. Sign the guest book. Get on the mailing list and follow his career!
Weekend 1: October 6 Private Preview Gala, October 7 Exhibition Opening
All Weekend 2-5 events: 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM
Weekend 2: October 13-14 Western SF
Weekend 3: October 20-21 Central SF
Weekend 4: October 27-28 Eastern SF
Weekend 5: November 3-4 Hunters Point Shipyard
Yes, “Open Studios” is daunting. Exhausting. Even those of us with limitless stamina for seeing art feel weak the day-of and choose to stay in and swiffer the apartment instead. But this is the ultimate backstage pass. It’s an amazing opportunity- not only to buy art that makes your heart flutter at the very reasonable prices, but to also make friends with the artist himself. And there's a one-in-a-zillion chance that this same painting could pay for your kid’s college education some day.
No, you’re not imagining it; there is a distinct similarity to the undignified modern courtship ritual called speed-dating. For the unscorched, here's a quick synopsis: arrive at a downtown bar that is indistinguishably waxing or waning in popularity, sign in with the host. Speak to 20 members of the opposite sex for 5 minutes each (ladies stay seated as the men switch seats) and record important characteristics in dim light with a pen that is running out of ink. When you get home that night and log on to fill in the online ballot, hope that the clues you wrote to yourself are enough to jog your memory and that your can’t-take-it-back Y or N vote for each of the people you met that night is what you really want, and that the object of your affection feels the same way. However, unlike speed-dating, the Open Studios artist always wants you. With little effort on your part, you are guaranteed to find yourself in her bedroom because it doubles as her studio.
In past years, Open Studios caused brain fog and temporary amnesia after a day of driving, parking, looking for quarters, climbing to mold-scented attics and basements, begging forgiveness from meter maids, and then getting back in the car to go to the next studio.
But this year things will be different. There are ways to make the eight weekend days easier to navigate.
1. Narrow it down. Visit the Open Studios Exhibition at SomArts Gallery, 934 Brannan Street at 8th, Wednesday-Friday, Noon-4pm, Saturday & Sunday, 10am-5pm through October 28. Almost every artist participating in Open Studios has donated a work to this exhibition. Artists’ featured works are a good representation of their overall oeuvre so you can quickly see what appeals to you. Most of the paintings and sculptures on view (priced from $100-$3000) sold at the opening night party on Saturday, October 7, so don’t get frustrated if you see something you would have liked to buy. Just make a mental note to attend the kick-off party next year.
2. Get the guide. If you can’t make it to SomArts, go to this website http://www.artspan.org/guide.php to learn where you can pick up a copy near you. It’s a beautiful glossy magazine style book with an example of each artist’s work and clear mapping and scheduling information.
3. Do a little homework. Don’t just peruse the guide. Spend some time looking at the websites of the artists you have decided you like. Plot out who you will see each weekend.
4. Hire a car service. PlanetTran eco-friendly hybrid car service http://www.planettran.com/ costs $60 per hour. Avoiding parking drama makes the investment a bargain. (Invite two friends and divide by three.)
5. Bring your checkbook. These guys do not take credit cards. Open Studios’ artists run the gamut from gallery-represented types to newly minted, just-quit-my-job-to-paint-full-time artists who have barely managed to scrape together the $175 fee to participate in the program.
6. Do not haggle. These prices are already low. IF you are buying more than one piece from a single artist then it is acceptable to ask if the artist would consider giving you a discount on your second purchase.
7. Don’t dawdle. If you walk in the door and don’t care for what you see, two minutes and a pleasant “thank you” is enough.
8. Sign the guest book. Get on the mailing list and follow his career!
Murphy & Cadogan Fellowship: “Skull & Bones” of the Bay Area Art Schools? (pssst… bring your checkbook)
September 15 - October 26, 2007, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, 401 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco, CA 94102, P: 415.554.6080, F: 415.252.2595, http://www.sfacgallery.org/
http://www.sfacgallery.org/exhibitions_detail.fsp?id=338907
Better than the students who are tapped by their peers for membership in the Yale secret society Skull & Bones and then go on to be "bold faced names," these second-year grad students have been recognized for their great potential by their teachers. This year’s twenty-four 2007 winners of the San Francisco Foundation’s Murphy & Cadogan Fellowship in the Fine Arts are students from the best MFA programs in the Bay Area: Academy of Art University, California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University and Stanford University.
Be sure to bring your checkbook. Prices are double-take reasonable (many pieces below $1000) and this work will appreciate as these artists hone their skills and acquire gallery representation.
This also may be the only chance to buy pieces from these series; the work is so new that students are not even sure if they will include it in their MFA grad shows next Spring, the rite of passion every art student goes through as they complete their two year program.
Don’t be startled if the person behind the counter says “hello” when you walk in the door of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, and then a minute later “would you like to see a pricelist?” Because this space is a non-profit funded with your tax dollars, there is a distinctive friendly feeling. Not only is the staff charged with the responsibility of ensuring that you feel welcomed in the gallery, they invite your questions and have the time to give detailed answers. If you are interested you can even ask for a guided tour of the show.
Dana Hemenway, recently promoted to Gallery Manager, has participated in producing the show for years, and shared her insights on this year's show. According to Dana there are two overlapping themes. The first is a theme of copying or representation, though in an indirect way. The second theme is the information age. The side effect of the combination is that the show is extremely accessible to someone who may be new to seeing contemporary art. However in this case accessible also means thought-provoking and entertaining.
Here are descriptions of just a few of the pieces that evoked lively conversation between artists, collectors, Arts Commission board members and art journalists at the special collector’s reception last Friday night.
Matthew Jones' (Stanford) undulating sculpture “The Shape of Something Always Moving” is mesmerizing. The small cherry wood joints were hand carved by the artist and delicately wired together like a multi-celled organism or a Tactile Dome on Miracle Grow. The piece sits on a motorized base that moves up and down and pushes the sculpture around on the pedestal like an amoeba.
If you are one of those people who wonders what the draw is to those video games that allow you to create an avatar (or recreation) of yourself in the virtual world, Marque Cornblatt’s piece is a must-see. The artist created this 40 minute video piece, “Self-Portrait, Corleone Enforcer” using the Godfather video game. Marque’s avatar wanders the streets of 1940’s Manhattan in a menacing trance, ignoring innocent bystanders and threatening gangsters alike, confusing the game which is designed for interaction and violence. (Probably not a coincidence that Marque attends San Francisco State University, alma mater of Godfather Director Francis Ford Coppola.)
“My Memory of George W Bush as Described to and Drawn by Various Police Officers Certified in Drawing For Law” by another SF State student, Lizabeth Rossof, gets a chuckle at first because residents of the Left Coast already think of “Dubya” as a crook. But there is a second layer here relating to the reliability of witnesses, the subjective art of drawing from a third party description, and innocent people going to jail based on well-intentioned yet inaccurate recovered memories. The nine portraits look nothing alike other than their buck teeth and expressionistic wide forehead. One portrait even turned out African American.
And finally, plan your visit for a Saturday and call ahead to ensure that Sara Thacher of the Vacation Surrogate Travel Agency is open for business. Ms. Thacker has carefully typecast herself as an anachronistic travel agent down to the gelled spiky hair and mismatched khaki separates. Sara is the only M&C Fellow who is not enrolled in a traditional practice of art program. Sara is a student in the California College of the Arts Field of Social Practice, which trains its students to intervene within existing social systems to inspire debate or catalyze social exchange. The Surrogate Travel Agency pairs people who want to travel to San Francisco but cannot with San Franciscans who take the dream vacation on their behalf. The art here is the act of creating a connection between people who would otherwise never meet and forcing an inured San Franciscan to see his hometown in a new light. Buy film.
http://www.sfacgallery.org/exhibitions_detail.fsp?id=338907
Better than the students who are tapped by their peers for membership in the Yale secret society Skull & Bones and then go on to be "bold faced names," these second-year grad students have been recognized for their great potential by their teachers. This year’s twenty-four 2007 winners of the San Francisco Foundation’s Murphy & Cadogan Fellowship in the Fine Arts are students from the best MFA programs in the Bay Area: Academy of Art University, California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University and Stanford University.
Be sure to bring your checkbook. Prices are double-take reasonable (many pieces below $1000) and this work will appreciate as these artists hone their skills and acquire gallery representation.
This also may be the only chance to buy pieces from these series; the work is so new that students are not even sure if they will include it in their MFA grad shows next Spring, the rite of passion every art student goes through as they complete their two year program.
Don’t be startled if the person behind the counter says “hello” when you walk in the door of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery, and then a minute later “would you like to see a pricelist?” Because this space is a non-profit funded with your tax dollars, there is a distinctive friendly feeling. Not only is the staff charged with the responsibility of ensuring that you feel welcomed in the gallery, they invite your questions and have the time to give detailed answers. If you are interested you can even ask for a guided tour of the show.
Dana Hemenway, recently promoted to Gallery Manager, has participated in producing the show for years, and shared her insights on this year's show. According to Dana there are two overlapping themes. The first is a theme of copying or representation, though in an indirect way. The second theme is the information age. The side effect of the combination is that the show is extremely accessible to someone who may be new to seeing contemporary art. However in this case accessible also means thought-provoking and entertaining.
Here are descriptions of just a few of the pieces that evoked lively conversation between artists, collectors, Arts Commission board members and art journalists at the special collector’s reception last Friday night.
Matthew Jones' (Stanford) undulating sculpture “The Shape of Something Always Moving” is mesmerizing. The small cherry wood joints were hand carved by the artist and delicately wired together like a multi-celled organism or a Tactile Dome on Miracle Grow. The piece sits on a motorized base that moves up and down and pushes the sculpture around on the pedestal like an amoeba.
If you are one of those people who wonders what the draw is to those video games that allow you to create an avatar (or recreation) of yourself in the virtual world, Marque Cornblatt’s piece is a must-see. The artist created this 40 minute video piece, “Self-Portrait, Corleone Enforcer” using the Godfather video game. Marque’s avatar wanders the streets of 1940’s Manhattan in a menacing trance, ignoring innocent bystanders and threatening gangsters alike, confusing the game which is designed for interaction and violence. (Probably not a coincidence that Marque attends San Francisco State University, alma mater of Godfather Director Francis Ford Coppola.)
“My Memory of George W Bush as Described to and Drawn by Various Police Officers Certified in Drawing For Law” by another SF State student, Lizabeth Rossof, gets a chuckle at first because residents of the Left Coast already think of “Dubya” as a crook. But there is a second layer here relating to the reliability of witnesses, the subjective art of drawing from a third party description, and innocent people going to jail based on well-intentioned yet inaccurate recovered memories. The nine portraits look nothing alike other than their buck teeth and expressionistic wide forehead. One portrait even turned out African American.
And finally, plan your visit for a Saturday and call ahead to ensure that Sara Thacher of the Vacation Surrogate Travel Agency is open for business. Ms. Thacker has carefully typecast herself as an anachronistic travel agent down to the gelled spiky hair and mismatched khaki separates. Sara is the only M&C Fellow who is not enrolled in a traditional practice of art program. Sara is a student in the California College of the Arts Field of Social Practice, which trains its students to intervene within existing social systems to inspire debate or catalyze social exchange. The Surrogate Travel Agency pairs people who want to travel to San Francisco but cannot with San Franciscans who take the dream vacation on their behalf. The art here is the act of creating a connection between people who would otherwise never meet and forcing an inured San Franciscan to see his hometown in a new light. Buy film.
galleryThree: 66-6th Street, the Number of the Beast.
Kevin E. Taylor at "galleryThree" a new art space owned and operated by The Shooting
Gallery, opening reception Friday - September 7th, 2007, 7pm - 10pm, showing through October 4, 2007, 66 6th St. San Francisco CA 94109, 415.724.2140
By appointment only for a few months so please call to make an appointment before coming by.
http://www.shootinggallerysf.com/gallerythreekevintaylor.html
This block of Sixth Street is not for the faint of heart. It’s a dense block of small businesses that cater to the SRO (Single Room Occupancy) Hotel residents. Barber shops, pawn shops, bodegas, and one-dollar-sign ethnic eateries are the majority. But Justin Giarla’s third art gallery, galleryThree, is the latest culture pioneer in this neighborhood.
The envelope-pushing Luggage Store Gallery came first (1007 Market at 6th) then Cal Modern (1035 Market). And now the fashionistas are getting into the mix. Reported in the Chronicle last month, Yetunde Schuhmann, first president of the San Francisco Innovative Design Council, is waging a campaign to make this block of Sixth a fashion design incubator both because of the low rents and because this neighborhood could use an infusion of culture and youth. Now galleryThree opens its doors for the first time this Friday at 66 - 6th St.
Justin’s other two locations, Shooting Gallery and White Walls (co-owned by Andres Guerrero) on Larkin between O’Farrell and Geary, are in an equally gritty neighborhood, ameliorated only by child-friendly Sergeant John Macaulay Mini Park on the corner (named after the San Francisco police officer who was killed in the adjacent Myrtle alley while on duty in 1992).
The Tenderloin is not a deterrent to Justin’s customers, drawn by Justin's distinctive eye. The influences on Justin’s taste in art run the gamut from skateboard culture, punk and rockabilly, tattoos, erotica, anime and Outsider Art. Justin’s business card sums it up: “Kick ass art for kick ass people.”
Justin’s path to the business of art is atypical, to say the least. When asked to fill in the blanks of his resume before he opened his first space in 2003, he proves his authentic appreciation of urban art. “I managed night clubs here in SF for years like 1015 Folsom, Sound Factory & Townsend. I grew up in Marin & SF, barely graduated high school, didn't go to college.”
Justin is opening a third location because he thinks there still aren’t enough venues for the kinds of artists that he loves. He feels it is his responsibility to provide another showcase for this talent that isn’t represented by mainstream galleries. The difference between this new space and the other two is that space will specialize in the “big break.” He’ll use this space as a showcase to feature artists who have never before had a gallery show.
Why choose another tough block? “I chose 6th St. because it’s ready for a big change. I like moving into gritty or edgy neighborhoods so that I may not only see the changes for myself but so I can help make the change happen. Bring something beautiful to a part of SF that needs it. Give people a reason to be proud of their street.” He means it. Justin also serves on the Hospitality House Art Auction committee where he gives back to the Tenderloin community that houses his galleries.
Taylor, Kevin E.: galleryThree Inaugural Show Not for the Faint of Heart
Kevin E Taylor at "galleryThree" a new art space owned and operated by The Shooting Gallery, opening reception Friday, September 7th, 2007, 7pm - 10pm, showing through October 4, 2007, 66 6th St. San Francisco CA 94109, 415.724.2140, By appointment only for a few months so please call to make an appointment before coming by.
http://www.shootinggallerysf.com/gallerythreekevintaylor.html
As 666 (the street address of Justin Giarla’s brand new galleryThree) is the symbolic “Number of the Beast,” it is fitting that Kevin Earl Taylor’s work is featured in the inaugural show. In Kevin’s work there is a recurring theme of nightmarish anthropomorphic animals. These futuristic creatures are Kevin’s premonition of how the species will evolve, when the lines between man and beast have blurred irrevocably. The macabre portraits beg for backstory but Kevin won’t supply it. These are the creatures from the dreams you can’t quite remember.
Oil on wood, oil on masonite and works on paper are all intricately rendered with virtuosic, if wince-inducing, draftsmanship.
There is also a theme of forlorn figures sometimes violently dismembered but bandaged lovingly. The artist finds traditional figure drawing boring and hates to draw clothes. Like 6th Street, this work is for people with strong character.
Justin Giarla, owner of galleryThree, describes Kevin’s work as “extremely dark but fresh and really quite free and expressive. I think he’s just around the corner from doing some amazing things.”
Kevin’s story is noteworthy because he arrived in San Francisco just a little over one year ago and has made amazing in-roads. He debuted in the project space at Swarm, then on to Gallery AD in San Jose, A Bitchin’ Space in Sacto, bowed at the Shooting Gallery in a one night show, participated in Noisepop, recently Madrone Lounge, plus he’s found time to curate gallery shows in Sacramento and Atlanta. In all, ten different exhibitions of his work since arriving in the Bay Area in April ‘06.
He attributes his tenacious track record to his experience in hometown Charleston, S.C. When he graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a B.F.A. Illustration in 1994, there weren’t any galleries who would even consider showing the art of skateboarding and punk rock culture. Over the years he learned to market himself and not to take no for an answer. In the beginning when he was really hungry he resorted to posting his art on plywood boards in public spaces, anything to show his work. Over the years he became more comfortable with promoting himself and became “a big fish in a small pond.”
About the time of his 33rd birthday he decided it was time for a change of scenery and chose San Francisco, the home of Thrasher Magazine, where he knew there was a larger audience for his kind of work. He also looked forward to a larger community of artists making art in a similar style. A few years earlier he'd tried San Diego because his good friend, Shepard Fairey, was living there (he’s now in LA). A noted artist/graphic designer/illustrator, Shephard is most known for the “Obey Giant” Malcolm Gladwellesque phenomenon.
San Diego wasn’t the right fit but San Francisco is.
http://www.shootinggallerysf.com/gallerythreekevintaylor.html
As 666 (the street address of Justin Giarla’s brand new galleryThree) is the symbolic “Number of the Beast,” it is fitting that Kevin Earl Taylor’s work is featured in the inaugural show. In Kevin’s work there is a recurring theme of nightmarish anthropomorphic animals. These futuristic creatures are Kevin’s premonition of how the species will evolve, when the lines between man and beast have blurred irrevocably. The macabre portraits beg for backstory but Kevin won’t supply it. These are the creatures from the dreams you can’t quite remember.
Oil on wood, oil on masonite and works on paper are all intricately rendered with virtuosic, if wince-inducing, draftsmanship.
There is also a theme of forlorn figures sometimes violently dismembered but bandaged lovingly. The artist finds traditional figure drawing boring and hates to draw clothes. Like 6th Street, this work is for people with strong character.
Justin Giarla, owner of galleryThree, describes Kevin’s work as “extremely dark but fresh and really quite free and expressive. I think he’s just around the corner from doing some amazing things.”
Kevin’s story is noteworthy because he arrived in San Francisco just a little over one year ago and has made amazing in-roads. He debuted in the project space at Swarm, then on to Gallery AD in San Jose, A Bitchin’ Space in Sacto, bowed at the Shooting Gallery in a one night show, participated in Noisepop, recently Madrone Lounge, plus he’s found time to curate gallery shows in Sacramento and Atlanta. In all, ten different exhibitions of his work since arriving in the Bay Area in April ‘06.
He attributes his tenacious track record to his experience in hometown Charleston, S.C. When he graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design with a B.F.A. Illustration in 1994, there weren’t any galleries who would even consider showing the art of skateboarding and punk rock culture. Over the years he learned to market himself and not to take no for an answer. In the beginning when he was really hungry he resorted to posting his art on plywood boards in public spaces, anything to show his work. Over the years he became more comfortable with promoting himself and became “a big fish in a small pond.”
About the time of his 33rd birthday he decided it was time for a change of scenery and chose San Francisco, the home of Thrasher Magazine, where he knew there was a larger audience for his kind of work. He also looked forward to a larger community of artists making art in a similar style. A few years earlier he'd tried San Diego because his good friend, Shepard Fairey, was living there (he’s now in LA). A noted artist/graphic designer/illustrator, Shephard is most known for the “Obey Giant” Malcolm Gladwellesque phenomenon.
San Diego wasn’t the right fit but San Francisco is.
Cardon, Shell: Synesthesia on Canvas
Shell Cardon: Hear with your Eyes – Visual Rock ‘n Roll
September 6 - October 13, 2007
Reception Thursday, September 6, 5:00 to 7:00pm
MM Galleries, 101 Townsend Street @ 2nd, Suite 207, San Francisco, CA 94107, phone: 415.543.1550, Tuesday - Friday: 11am - 5pm, Saturday, 12pm- 4pm and always by appt.
http://www.mmgalleries.com/artists/cardon.html
No, synesthesia is not a fancy art term. It’s an involuntary condition that describes the phenomenon of attributing colors and personalities to numbers, days of the week or sounds.
Shell Cardon has not been diagnosed with this creative condition but the description of her artistic process and subject matter suggests that she is happily afflicted.
Shell’s paintings capture the simultaneous feeling of joy and mortality that you get in your gut when you think back to those seminal character-building “first” moments in your life: the first time you stood at the top of a diving board and gulped as your friends egged you on (High Dive), discovered the onomatopoeia of a comic strip’s “THWACK!” (Flash Gordon), tasted the explosion of watermelon candy in your mouth (Jolly Rancher) or heard your first earshock of the Stones (Gimme Shelter).
Her paintings beg to be touched. The layers of acrylic paint beckon like an orphaned inflatable toy in the swimming pool- same high gloss, same bold friendly vivid color, same plasticky pillowy surface.
You’ll immediately recognize the strong impact of 60’s pop art and op art in her work. Ellsworth Kelly and Andy Warhol are influences. Imagine Roy Lichtenstein’s signature benday dots viewed under a microscope.
Shell has taken a circuitous route to becoming a full time artist. Born into a family of “doctors, lawyers and Indian Chiefs” in a conservative Washington D.C. suburb, she attended law school after UCLA undergrad because that was what she was supposed to do. After graduating from Loyola Marymount she dutifully entered the practice of law.
But she exercised her creative side nights and weekends moonlighting for a decorative arts painter who she helped do elaborate murals in home interiors. This experience introduced her to what would later become her medium of choice, commercial latex paint.
After years of this rote, she came to her senses and quit the law. She chose to enroll in San Francisco’s Academy of Art in order to study fashion. There she perfected her figure-drawing skills and fully intended to become a fashion designer after graduation. (Gladys Perint Palmer, Executive Director of the Academy’s School of Fashion is a strong influence.) Although she didn’t end up in the business of fashion, this part of her artistic nature is thriving. Shell was short listed as one of the city’s three best dressed women by San Francisco Magazine in the September ’07 Fall Arts + Fashion issue.
She is a regular at independent G&R Paint on Sutter Street where she spends hours with the guys mixing the exact right shade and sheen of custom color. She doesn’t use brushes but instead pours the paint directly on the canvas. It is hard to imagine this diminutive figure leaning over a 4’x5’ canvas with a heavy paint can in her hands, perspiring in the heat of her L.A. studio and carefully allowing just a few tablespoons to stream out. Her pieces take ages to dry because the pools of color can be up to seven layers deep.
However her time consuming process, plus the capricious So-Cal humidity, do not slow her down her output. There is a wait list for commissions and her work is already featured in the art collections of many of San Francisco’s bright young things including Kimberly and Nicolo Bini, Alex Turner, Renee Singh, Alex Chases, Christina and Jad Dunning, Joel Goodrich, Charlot and Greg Malin and Jennifer Madjarov and Matt McCormick.
Shell’s new alliance with MM Galleries was chosen for many thoughtful reasons: its affiliation with (now departed) founder Michael Martin’s MMG Foundation which funds art programs in the public schools, her friendly rapport with the new co-directors Kit Schulte and Marina Cain and the gallery’s partnership with other San Francisco home-grown artists including Henry Jackson and Rex Ray.
Fortunately the Symphony has shifted its opening from its traditional Wednesday after Labor Day to later in the month. Now you’ll have plenty of energy to do both the opening of the Opera on Friday and the reception for Shell the night before, Thursday September 6th from 5:00-7:00 pm.
September 6 - October 13, 2007
Reception Thursday, September 6, 5:00 to 7:00pm
MM Galleries, 101 Townsend Street @ 2nd, Suite 207, San Francisco, CA 94107, phone: 415.543.1550, Tuesday - Friday: 11am - 5pm, Saturday, 12pm- 4pm and always by appt.
http://www.mmgalleries.com/artists/cardon.html
No, synesthesia is not a fancy art term. It’s an involuntary condition that describes the phenomenon of attributing colors and personalities to numbers, days of the week or sounds.
Shell Cardon has not been diagnosed with this creative condition but the description of her artistic process and subject matter suggests that she is happily afflicted.
Shell’s paintings capture the simultaneous feeling of joy and mortality that you get in your gut when you think back to those seminal character-building “first” moments in your life: the first time you stood at the top of a diving board and gulped as your friends egged you on (High Dive), discovered the onomatopoeia of a comic strip’s “THWACK!” (Flash Gordon), tasted the explosion of watermelon candy in your mouth (Jolly Rancher) or heard your first earshock of the Stones (Gimme Shelter).
Her paintings beg to be touched. The layers of acrylic paint beckon like an orphaned inflatable toy in the swimming pool- same high gloss, same bold friendly vivid color, same plasticky pillowy surface.
You’ll immediately recognize the strong impact of 60’s pop art and op art in her work. Ellsworth Kelly and Andy Warhol are influences. Imagine Roy Lichtenstein’s signature benday dots viewed under a microscope.
Shell has taken a circuitous route to becoming a full time artist. Born into a family of “doctors, lawyers and Indian Chiefs” in a conservative Washington D.C. suburb, she attended law school after UCLA undergrad because that was what she was supposed to do. After graduating from Loyola Marymount she dutifully entered the practice of law.
But she exercised her creative side nights and weekends moonlighting for a decorative arts painter who she helped do elaborate murals in home interiors. This experience introduced her to what would later become her medium of choice, commercial latex paint.
After years of this rote, she came to her senses and quit the law. She chose to enroll in San Francisco’s Academy of Art in order to study fashion. There she perfected her figure-drawing skills and fully intended to become a fashion designer after graduation. (Gladys Perint Palmer, Executive Director of the Academy’s School of Fashion is a strong influence.) Although she didn’t end up in the business of fashion, this part of her artistic nature is thriving. Shell was short listed as one of the city’s three best dressed women by San Francisco Magazine in the September ’07 Fall Arts + Fashion issue.
She is a regular at independent G&R Paint on Sutter Street where she spends hours with the guys mixing the exact right shade and sheen of custom color. She doesn’t use brushes but instead pours the paint directly on the canvas. It is hard to imagine this diminutive figure leaning over a 4’x5’ canvas with a heavy paint can in her hands, perspiring in the heat of her L.A. studio and carefully allowing just a few tablespoons to stream out. Her pieces take ages to dry because the pools of color can be up to seven layers deep.
However her time consuming process, plus the capricious So-Cal humidity, do not slow her down her output. There is a wait list for commissions and her work is already featured in the art collections of many of San Francisco’s bright young things including Kimberly and Nicolo Bini, Alex Turner, Renee Singh, Alex Chases, Christina and Jad Dunning, Joel Goodrich, Charlot and Greg Malin and Jennifer Madjarov and Matt McCormick.
Shell’s new alliance with MM Galleries was chosen for many thoughtful reasons: its affiliation with (now departed) founder Michael Martin’s MMG Foundation which funds art programs in the public schools, her friendly rapport with the new co-directors Kit Schulte and Marina Cain and the gallery’s partnership with other San Francisco home-grown artists including Henry Jackson and Rex Ray.
Fortunately the Symphony has shifted its opening from its traditional Wednesday after Labor Day to later in the month. Now you’ll have plenty of energy to do both the opening of the Opera on Friday and the reception for Shell the night before, Thursday September 6th from 5:00-7:00 pm.
Gallery 1988: 80’s Time Warp Replicates in Lower Polk Gulch
Gallery 1988, 1173 Sutter St. at Polk, San Francisco, 94109, Hours Tues-Sat 12-7pm, phone 415.409.1376
http://www.nineteeneightyeight.com/
Welcome Gallery 1988, San Francisco’s newest arrival on the scene. The grand opening in April was just as much a SF debut for G1988 as it was a homecoming for Co-Director Katie Cromwell, who grew up in Marin County and is an alum of The Branson School.
This is the second location for Gallery 1988. Since opening its Melrose flagship in 2004, G1988 has established its reputation as a purveyor of kitschy 80’s themes that evoke childhood nostalgia including plush animals, skateboarding, early video games, TV cartoons, and Disney. The name hearkens back to a good year for Los Angeles: the Dodgers and the Lakers were champions, Yo MTV Raps was born, and the gallery owners were about to hit puberty.
At the opening party of the current show, Skate Life: Skateboard Inspired Sculptures and Paintings by J. Shea and Freddi C, Katie’s mom and sis were serving beer from the cooler-keg and her dad was hanging back just behind them looking over the scene (her supportive family comes to all of the openings). The guests were a mix of skateboard industry types, graf guys and friends. The collaborative show (up through August 21) features J. Shea’s sculptures of miniature boarders made of Model Magic doing tricks off Freddi C’s camo street-scene painted plywood boards. The figures are loaded with personality and movement and the landscapes are strongly influenced by J. Shea’s background in textile design. ($60-$2,500)http://g1988preview.blogspot.com/2007/08/skate-life-preview.html
Katie started out as an art major at the University of Southern California, inspired by the talent of her mother, Jean Cromwell, an artist and graphic designer. (She is not related to legendary Trojan track coach Dean Cromwell.) But after taking the mandatory survey art history course required for the practice of art curriculum, she was hooked. When making the decision to switch her studies, her parents asked her to curate a professional career for herself at the same time, and a business plan was born.
After graduation she learned the basics working as a gallery assistant for a short time at Louis Stern Fine Art in West Hollywood. She started her gallery in 2004 with her college sweetheart, Jensen Karp. Jensen did not have an art background, but being a cult rapper and a collector of 80's pop culture memorabilia, he did have his finger on the pulse of youth culture. Living together and starting a small business together took its toll on the relationship. They’ve since broken up and successfully transitioned to be amicable business partners.
When they secured their space off the beaten path in an old Saks Fifth Avenue store on Melrose at La Brea, they weren’t sure of what their focus would be. They knew there was a need for affordable original art and that there was a young customer base who didn’t bat an eye at spending big bucks for fancy designer handbags, so why not introduce this crowd to art? Serendipitously, Acme Game Store moved in next door only one month later and was targeting a similar clientele. A beautiful friendship developed.
Katie and Jensen started out by showing artists who they knew from running around LA, then showed those artists’ friends. In fact, mining those "favorite links" lists that artists post on their websites is the primary way they find new artists. G1988 still has relationships with all four artists featured in their first show: Plastic God (Doug Murphy). ESM (Kerri Sakurai), Nikki Van Pelt and Topher.
Then, a freelance journalist doing a story on next door neighbor Acme happened to stop by the gallery and the idea for what would become their big break was hatched. Writer Jon Gibson, Katie and Jensen worked together to curate “I AM 8 BIT,” art inspired by classic videogames of the ‘80s. (Think portraits of Donkey Kong’s Mario and head shots of Ms. Pac Man.) Limited edition prints are still available: http://www.nineteeneightyeight.com/8bit.html
The opening was timed to coincide with E3 Expo, the annual video game convention, and Jon excercised his media contacts to publicize the show. At the same time, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was showing video game art in a show called "Into the Pixel."
Over 1,500 people showed up for the opening night reception. Not only were most of the paintings sold, Gibson secured a book deal with Chronicle Books. Acme Games closed after about a year, but G1988’s good fortune with neighbors continued when Golden Apple Comics took over the space.
After making the decision to move back to SF and open a second location, Katie looked for affordable gallery space for months. Natoma and Valencia streets were considered, but Sutter at Polk won out because of StrangeCo, with whom G1988 now shares space. Artists and galleries (including G1988 and Fifty24SF Gallery) collaborate with StrangeCo. to make limited edition, vinyl toys. http://www.strangeco.com/index_home.php
The Belvedere native’s commitment to the neighborhood is not lip service, she is also a TenderNob resident. She lives a just few blocks away near Bell Market and walks to work with her companion, Finnigan, a miniature Doberman.
Future G1988 shows will feature San Francisco artists Nathan Stapley, Scott Campbell, and Rueben Rood. Jensen and Katie intend to cross-pollinate artists between the two locations.
G1988 is not the first art gallery in the neighborhood. Pioneers Justin Giarla of Shooting Gallery and his partner Andres Guerrero of White Walls (835 and 839 Larkin at O’Farrell) have been friendly and welcoming to the newbie. There’s also funky Space Gallery, the art bar on Polk at Sutter.
But …ahem…, we’re not calling it "Lower Polk Gulch" any more. This notorious section of Polk has been rechristened “Polk Village.” If you need proof, just take a look at the awning of O’Reilly’s Holy Grail (formerly the historic Mayes Oyster House). This rebirth was midwifed by the Polk Corridor Business Association and real estate developers Vanguard, transforming old SRO hotels into condos for seniors (note the proximity to St. Francis Hospital) and yuppies alike.
Stark Guide looks forward to watching Gallery 1988 and Polk Village grow up together.
http://www.nineteeneightyeight.com/
Welcome Gallery 1988, San Francisco’s newest arrival on the scene. The grand opening in April was just as much a SF debut for G1988 as it was a homecoming for Co-Director Katie Cromwell, who grew up in Marin County and is an alum of The Branson School.
This is the second location for Gallery 1988. Since opening its Melrose flagship in 2004, G1988 has established its reputation as a purveyor of kitschy 80’s themes that evoke childhood nostalgia including plush animals, skateboarding, early video games, TV cartoons, and Disney. The name hearkens back to a good year for Los Angeles: the Dodgers and the Lakers were champions, Yo MTV Raps was born, and the gallery owners were about to hit puberty.
At the opening party of the current show, Skate Life: Skateboard Inspired Sculptures and Paintings by J. Shea and Freddi C, Katie’s mom and sis were serving beer from the cooler-keg and her dad was hanging back just behind them looking over the scene (her supportive family comes to all of the openings). The guests were a mix of skateboard industry types, graf guys and friends. The collaborative show (up through August 21) features J. Shea’s sculptures of miniature boarders made of Model Magic doing tricks off Freddi C’s camo street-scene painted plywood boards. The figures are loaded with personality and movement and the landscapes are strongly influenced by J. Shea’s background in textile design. ($60-$2,500)http://g1988preview.blogspot.com/2007/08/skate-life-preview.html
Katie started out as an art major at the University of Southern California, inspired by the talent of her mother, Jean Cromwell, an artist and graphic designer. (She is not related to legendary Trojan track coach Dean Cromwell.) But after taking the mandatory survey art history course required for the practice of art curriculum, she was hooked. When making the decision to switch her studies, her parents asked her to curate a professional career for herself at the same time, and a business plan was born.
After graduation she learned the basics working as a gallery assistant for a short time at Louis Stern Fine Art in West Hollywood. She started her gallery in 2004 with her college sweetheart, Jensen Karp. Jensen did not have an art background, but being a cult rapper and a collector of 80's pop culture memorabilia, he did have his finger on the pulse of youth culture. Living together and starting a small business together took its toll on the relationship. They’ve since broken up and successfully transitioned to be amicable business partners.
When they secured their space off the beaten path in an old Saks Fifth Avenue store on Melrose at La Brea, they weren’t sure of what their focus would be. They knew there was a need for affordable original art and that there was a young customer base who didn’t bat an eye at spending big bucks for fancy designer handbags, so why not introduce this crowd to art? Serendipitously, Acme Game Store moved in next door only one month later and was targeting a similar clientele. A beautiful friendship developed.
Katie and Jensen started out by showing artists who they knew from running around LA, then showed those artists’ friends. In fact, mining those "favorite links" lists that artists post on their websites is the primary way they find new artists. G1988 still has relationships with all four artists featured in their first show: Plastic God (Doug Murphy). ESM (Kerri Sakurai), Nikki Van Pelt and Topher.
Then, a freelance journalist doing a story on next door neighbor Acme happened to stop by the gallery and the idea for what would become their big break was hatched. Writer Jon Gibson, Katie and Jensen worked together to curate “I AM 8 BIT,” art inspired by classic videogames of the ‘80s. (Think portraits of Donkey Kong’s Mario and head shots of Ms. Pac Man.) Limited edition prints are still available: http://www.nineteeneightyeight.com/8bit.html
The opening was timed to coincide with E3 Expo, the annual video game convention, and Jon excercised his media contacts to publicize the show. At the same time, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art was showing video game art in a show called "Into the Pixel."
Over 1,500 people showed up for the opening night reception. Not only were most of the paintings sold, Gibson secured a book deal with Chronicle Books. Acme Games closed after about a year, but G1988’s good fortune with neighbors continued when Golden Apple Comics took over the space.
After making the decision to move back to SF and open a second location, Katie looked for affordable gallery space for months. Natoma and Valencia streets were considered, but Sutter at Polk won out because of StrangeCo, with whom G1988 now shares space. Artists and galleries (including G1988 and Fifty24SF Gallery) collaborate with StrangeCo. to make limited edition, vinyl toys. http://www.strangeco.com/index_home.php
The Belvedere native’s commitment to the neighborhood is not lip service, she is also a TenderNob resident. She lives a just few blocks away near Bell Market and walks to work with her companion, Finnigan, a miniature Doberman.
Future G1988 shows will feature San Francisco artists Nathan Stapley, Scott Campbell, and Rueben Rood. Jensen and Katie intend to cross-pollinate artists between the two locations.
G1988 is not the first art gallery in the neighborhood. Pioneers Justin Giarla of Shooting Gallery and his partner Andres Guerrero of White Walls (835 and 839 Larkin at O’Farrell) have been friendly and welcoming to the newbie. There’s also funky Space Gallery, the art bar on Polk at Sutter.
But …ahem…, we’re not calling it "Lower Polk Gulch" any more. This notorious section of Polk has been rechristened “Polk Village.” If you need proof, just take a look at the awning of O’Reilly’s Holy Grail (formerly the historic Mayes Oyster House). This rebirth was midwifed by the Polk Corridor Business Association and real estate developers Vanguard, transforming old SRO hotels into condos for seniors (note the proximity to St. Francis Hospital) and yuppies alike.
Stark Guide looks forward to watching Gallery 1988 and Polk Village grow up together.
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