art fever

Colter Jacobsen at Jack Hanley (SF)

2007-06-11T23:55:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 6/30/07.

Colter Jacobsen’s solo exhibit at Jack Hanley Gallery is so characteristic that, to his faithful followers, it may seem like dropping by his apartment. Certainly the show embodies many of Jacobsen's familiar traits. One of the most prominent is his fascination with finding, or creating, matched pairs of objects.

When Jacobsen displays found objects together in pairs, I gather that he means to represent an idealized psychological rapport between two people. (He is a long-time fan of Felix Gonzalez-Torres, especially that artist’s pair of synchronized wall clocks.) Often his pairings have a comic edge, as with the thrift store paintings included in the exhibit. In these, he seems to acknowledge an embarrassing Kitschy-koo dimension in the longing for a perfect match.

A more subtle process occurs in Jacobsen’s core practice, which is the duplication of photographs by means of drawings (usually in graphite). I tend to think that an urge to touch whatever is in the photo plays a role in his choice of method—but feel free to dismiss this as errant psychologizing.

In his earlier drawings, there was the “original” (actually often a copy) and his drawn copy. Eventually this vein of work became more complicated, and more intriguing, when Jacobsen started to draw copies of his copies— without looking at either the photo or his first drawing. In addition to the doubleness between the photo and its first drawing, Jacobsen added a doubleness between the first drawing and his drawing from memory. In doing so, he has extended his exploration of identity (and if you like, authorship) into almost metaphysical territory. Even without metaphysics, the dual drawings are fascinating to see for the remarkable exactness of the copies, and also for their subtle differences. One drawing (in color, shown below) appears to be a mirror-image memory drawing.

As a reader of poetry, Jacobsen has an interest in language, and words have appeared in some of his work for a long time. The most extended project in the current show is the series of twenty drawings with text—a collaboration with the poet Bill Berkson. In 1980, Berkson selected brief texts from a juvenile mystery novel and typed each text on a sheet of paper, in the lower half. He gave the collection a title page, “Bill,” and put the project away in a manila folder. Recently he came upon the folder and thought that images might be added above the texts. Mac McGinnes suggested Jacobsen as the artist for this, and the project went forward. The resulting images don't have obvious connections to the texts. For me, it was interesting to be reminded that the addition of text to an image creates a new gestalt regardless of the actual words or even the language in which they are written. A little forcefield seems to spring up between word and image.

There are many artworks in this show—too many, I think. And the staging of the show seems to heighten the elusiveness that is already abundant in Jacobsen's work. I found it impossible to parse and feel everything in one take, especially without help. I kept wishing the artist was walking me through it, dropping hints.

The beautiful drawing at the top is based on a photo by the artist's friend, Donal Mosher. The photo is in the show too. Other examples of the drawings are illustrated below. The two bottom images are sets of thrift store paintings.

Note (6/28/07): I have revised the paragraph dealing with the use of text in Jacobsen's work. Thanks to Mac McGinnes for nudging me to clarify the prominent place taken by the drawings-with-text in this exhibit and to acknowledge Jacobsen's collaborator in these works.

Drawings by Martín Ramírez—San Jose Museum of Art

2007-06-11T21:03:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibtion is scheduled to close on 9/9/07.

The second remarkable exhibit of drawings at the San Jose Museum of Art is devoted to the work of Martín Ramírez (1895-1963), a native of Mexico who spent nearly half of his life in state mental hospitals in California.

In 1925, Ramírez came to the United States to seek work, leaving his wife and children with his brother on a tiny rancho that Ramírez had purchased on credit. In the next few years, his life was changed drastically by events beyond his control. His homeland was caught up in the Cristero Rebellion (1926-29), which endangered his family. With the arrival of the Great Depression, his prospects in the United States dimmed. However, he decided not to return to Mexico.

Ramírez’s situation deteriorated, and in 1931 he was committed involuntarily to the Stockton State Hospital. There he was classified as an incurable schizophrenic. Given his distressed economic and family circumstances, the true nature of his mental condition remains uncertain. In 1948, he was moved to DeWitt State Hospital in Auburn, near Sacramento, where he lived the remainder of his life.

Drawing became Ramírez’s preoccupation during his incarceration. He used whatever materials were at hand. Many drawings in the exhibit were done with crayon, pencil, and colored pencil. Despite the crowded conditions in which he lived, Ramírez liked to work on a sizable scale, often using paper that he pieced together.

The drawings explore an obsessive set of motifs that re-appear in variations. The motifs include trains, cars, tunnels, church facades, Madonnas, and horseback riders (with pistols) from ranchero culture. The compositions are eccentrically assured and, to my eye, reflect the influence of Art Deco design. Much of the work conveys an almost animistic sense of energy. The Madonnas are quieter, but have a captivating aura of fantasy.

By about 1950, Ramírez’s work had drawn the interest of Tarmo Pasto, a psychologist with an art background who had moved to Sacramento. Pasto communicated his interest to members of the Sacramento art community, and Ramírez’s first solo exhibit occurred in that city during 1951. There was another solo show at the Mills College Art Museum (Oakland) in 1954.

When the first version of the current exhibit appeared at New York’s American Folk Art Museum earlier this year, there were astonished raves from critics at the New York Times and the New Yorker. Now the Bay Area has a chance to see what the fuss was about.

A beautiful (though expensive) catalog is available. It includes a biographical essay by Víctor M. Espinosa and Kristin E. Espinosa, which I have relied on for the above notes. On Thursday, June 21st, at 7:00 p.m., Espinosa will deliver a talk on Ramírez at the Mexican Heritage Plaza in San Jose. At the Plaza, Espinosa has organized a supporting exhibit (which I have not seen) about the life of Ramírez.

I am including a few images from the museum website and one (the first) from the NPR website.

Drawings by Il Lee—San Jose Museum of Art

2007-06-11T20:56:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 7/8/07.

The San Jose Museum of Art is presenting surveys of drawings by two immigrants to the United States whose lives couldn’t have been more different, but whose work shares an obsessive quality that is integral to their remarkable achievements. Art enthusiasts, even those who live far from San Jose, will be rewarded for making the trek to downtown San Jose.

In his Brooklyn studio, Korean artist Il Lee creates abstractions on paper (and more recently on canvas) by drawing with cheap, disposable ballpoint pens. A couple of years ago, Lee switched from black to blue pens (because the manufacturer discontinued his favorite black pen), but now uses either color. He has explored a range of sizes—small, large, and very large.

Lee was born in Seoul, Korea in 1952 and relocated to Manhattan in 1977. He received his MFA from Pratt Institute in New York and began the long, difficult process of finding himself as an artist. His use of ballpoint pens has developed gradually over a 25-year period. Interest in his work has flourished in the past decade.

The drawings are an idiosyncratic blend of Minimalism and gesture. The recording of gesture is energetic but does not seem especially expressionistic. Rather, the work emphasizes the formal qualities of gesture. The enormous amount of work required for these drawings is not immediately apparent, and then it hits you. There are large solid areas of color that have been made by endless overlapping movements of the pen. But the gift is not in the labor but in the amazingly vibrant results.

The exhibit was organized by SJMA senior curator JoAnne Northrup. There is an excellent catalog—at a very reasonable price.

I did not make prior arrangements with the museum to take photos, so I am unable to show individual images of my favorite drawings. But an installation shot (from the museum website) is shown above.

See the next posting for information about the second exhibition.

Jessica Snow at Rena Bransten (SF)

2007-06-09T02:41:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 7/7/07.

In previous encounters with Jessica Snow’s work, I saw that she had a good hand and very specific, often unexpected, ideas about color. Yet I thought her work tended to look over-busy, as if she believed that a mass of elements would convey a lot of energy. Despite the crowding, the work came across as reticent because of its reliance on pastel shades.

Snow’s new exhibition at Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco is a step up in every way. Using acrylic (and sometimes watercolor) on paper, she organizes a medley of abstract Pop shapes into lively adventures that often look like music in action. Compositions seem tighter, and colors are more varied in tone, often brighter and more saturated. In some works, the forms look as if they could dance right off the page. The energy can turn a bit frantic, and there is a good deal of visual tension, but a happy mood prevails. I would say that Snow is on a roll.

Images from the exhibit are shown above and below.

This is a detail of the work above.

Deborah Oropallo at the de Young Museum (SF)

2007-06-08T23:49:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 9/16/07.

Styles of portraiture from the 15th to 18th Century have been a reference point for many interesting (or at least striking) works by contemporary artists. A few names that quickly come to mind: Cindy Sherman, Janine Antoni, John Currin, Kehinde Wiley, and Karel Funk. Now mid-career San Francisco artist Deborah Oropallo has tapped this vein, and the project, called “Guise,” is her best to date.

Oropallo's first step was to cull images from internet sites that show female models in sexy costumes, including styles that play off the outfits of pirates, soldiers, etc. She then blended some of these images with 17th- and 18th-Century formal portraits in which men of power posed in elaborate costumes. The result is a series of large prints that invite the viewer to ruminate about the mutability of costume and pose as expressions of power and of sexuality.

(There is a related treatment of male self-presentation in Stanley Kubrick’s long, absorbing, and visually stunning film, Barry Lyndon. The 18th-Century male aristocrats wear makeup to their evening parties but may be up early in the morning to fight a duel.)

Selections from Oropallo’s “Guise” series are on view through the summer at the de Young Museum in San Francisco. Further information about the prints is available from the publisher, Urban Digital Color, in San Francisco. These are high-quality pigment prints in one of two sizes—40" x 30" or 60" x 40".

Examples of the work are shown above and below (images from the Urban Digital Color website).

Arthur Dove — Final Comment?

2007-06-08T20:14:00.000-07:00

I have made a fourth update to my posting dated 3/5/07 about the proper orientation of a painting by Arthur Dove that is on view at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Casey Jex Smith at Swarm (Oakland)

2007-06-06T18:51:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 6/17/07.

Casey Jex Smith is a young Bay Area artist who treats his background as a Mormon as a primary source of imagery. He told me that there’s a lifetime of visual material in the thousand images that the Mormon church has officially approved for use in church matters. He's also fascinated by the sci-fi imagery he grew up with, although not much of this has entered his work yet.

Smith’s solo show at Swarm Gallery in Oakland includes drawings, an array of notebook sketches, a wall collage, a peephole sculpture, and an installation that includes sod. Smith has great drawing skills, and his finished drawings are the core of the show.

The show's largest work is “Faith and Faith,” a 2-part drawing 21 feet high, affixed to the wall. (The photo at the top shows a large detail.) This image reminds me of the cover of the Scientology book, Dianetics, although Smith's approach is much less literal.

At the other end of the scale is a 7.5" x 7.5" drawing entitled “Hidden Treasure” (image above).

A 15” x 11” drawing called “Moroni” (image above) shows the artist’s characteristic way of mixing media and creating motifs that float in space. (In the Mormon religion, Moroni was the angel who visited the founder of the church, Joseph Smith, Jr.). Another fine drawing of the same size is “Flaming Spear of the Gentile” (image below).

When the artist heard that his local church wanted to throw out a supply of images, he rescued them and turned portions of the trove into a wall collage. The collage is so full of costumes—and so male-centric—that it feels oppressive to me. The title is “Fervor.” (The photo below shows a portion of the installation.)

For the show's opening reception, the artist asked that Jello be served. And so it came to pass (photo below). Smith told me that Jello is so popular in Utah that it has been declared the state’s official snack food. (I checked—it’s true.)

Berkeley MFA Exhibit 2007

2007-06-06T16:40:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 6/10/07.

There are seven artists in UC Berkeley’s current MFA exhibition. From this varied group, I will highlight two. In a series of small works on paper, Jenifer Wofford depicts the world of Filipina nurses who (like her mother) left the Philippines to work abroad. These women provide intimate care in a world where they feel alien and invisible.

The images are rendered in a crisp, economical manner using acrylic and gouache. The style is informed by comics, though the panels are not laid out as a specific story. Rather, they invite the viewer to absorb an implied narrative. Examples of this work are shown above and below.

Joe McKay presents a series of urban landscape photos that have been expertly manipulated (via Photoshop) in a particular way. The original photos contained tall street lights. He has removed the light poles and left the tops, the luminaries, floating like UFOs.. Below are three examples of these delightful UFOs (images from the artist’s website).

In addition, McKay presents a looping video, upside down, of the underside of a freeway interchange in Oakland. (Photo below.) This little work is strangely compelling, and an excerpt can be viewed on the artist’s website.

The MFA exhibit is held in the Berkeley Art Museum, where there are a number of other exhibits of interest, starting on the ground floor.

Bay Area Currents 2007 (Oakland)

2007-06-05T22:23:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 6/29/07.

The non-profit Oakland Art Gallery (OAG) is presenting nine Bay Area artists in the 2007 edition of its “Bay Area Currents” survey. The juror this year was Aimee Chang, curator of contemporary art at the Orange County Museum of Art. There is always some good work in this small annual show, but I think it would be stronger if it reached deeper into the local art community. I can think of numerous artists whose work ought to show up here. Are many artists simply not applying? I don't know.

This year, the highlights of the show are sculpture. A key factor is probably Aimee Chang's experience as co-curator of a widely noted exhibit in 2005 at the UCLA Hammer Museum: “THING: New Sculpture from Los Angeles.” I felt the placement and lighting of the sculptures in the OAG space did not show them to full advantage, but that didn't kill the intrigue.

Two of David O. Johnson's neon sculptures are included. One is a cube of bricks, on a pallet, with a green glow emanating from inside (photo at top). This incorporates four tropes of Minimalism—bricks, a cube, plexiglas, and neon light. The result looks like a Minimalist cube turned ratioactive. Or maybe it represents the over-heated California real estate market! The other work is “Gated Community III,” a neon gate that is askew and might be the entryway to hell. (Photo below.)

Zachary Royer Scholz continues to explore discarded pieces of foam presented as minimalist objects. I would call this Funk Minimalism. One work, installed on the wall, appears to be a pair of split cushions, which have been tarted up slightly with paint and ink. There is also a mismatched pair of tall mystery objects sagging against the wall. (Photos below.)

Xuchi Naungayan is represented by a couple of floor-standing sculptures that did not sustain my interest but also by a wall sculpture, “Polyhedron Drip,” that I thought was terrific. It's made of wax, graphite, and wire. It creates marvelous shadows (see below).

There were several works by Terry Mason, who appears to be a polymath in the materials arena. One smallish work showed a cockfight in metal—or should I say in bling. (Image below from the OAG website.) A much larger work was a device that translates light energy into the ultra-slow movement of a horizontal bar that, for some reason, has a twig extension. I didn't understand the work, but was impressed by its odd configuration and excellent craft. It could serve as a clock. I'll be keeping an eye out for Mason's work.

Christian Maychack at Gregory Lind (SF)

2007-06-05T19:22:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 6/30/07.

Walking into a really good sculpture show creates the sort of rush that makes art addictive. For me, the new exhibit of work by Christian Maychack, at Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco, was just that kind of experience. You might not guess this from the gloomy title, “A General Record of Things Breaking Down.”

Maychack has a penchant for undermining architecture and other stiff designs in ways that suggest structural failure, burning, melting, crystal growth, and—strangest of all—a takeover by the organic world. His work is often creepy, but in a deadpan way. Sometimes there are hints of sexual organs. There is always a strong formal sense and, increasingly, a refinement in the use of materials.

The work could be seen as an assault on Minimalism by means of Surrealism. Victory is not the goal: neither the rigidities of Minimalism nor the pushy visual tricks of Surrealism manage to triumph.

The work at the top is a kind of Rorschach blot (in 3D), sparked by the many meanings that viewers have ascribed to Maychack’s work. Below are other images from this don’t-miss exhibit.

The shiny part is metallic.

A Sol Lewitt grid sinks into the earth.

Detail of installation.

Jill Sylvia at Eleanor Harwood (SF)

2007-06-05T19:08:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 6/15/07.

Accounting might seem a dull subject for artwork, but I can think of several artists who have made interesting uses of it. San Francisco artist Jill Sylvia has been making works based on ledger pages, and an excellent array of them is on view at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco. Sylvia demonstrates that there’s still juice in the minimalist grid.

Working by hand, with jaw-dropping precision, the artist removes the rectilinear areas of the ledger paper into which numbers would be (or have been) written. Below is a detail of one of the cut pieces (image from the gallery website). Sylvia displays the emptied grids in several ways, including as sculpture. She saves the bits of paper she cuts away and uses those to create mosaic-like collages that also have a grid format.

At the top and below are further examples of the work. The final image is a wall installation (image from the gallery website).

“Wunderkammer” at Garage Biennial (SF)

2007-06-05T18:54:00.000-07:00

San Francisco’s Garage Biennial began its new season on May 26th with a tight, enjoyable show that had to fight against a cold wet night that poured down on the open three-car garage and adjacent patio. The seven-artist exhibit, entitled “Wunderkammer,” was organized by Nadim Sabella and Larry Shao, in conjunction with a new Oakland venue, Johansson Projects. As usual, the Garage Biennial installation was a one-night affair, but the exhibit will be reprised at Johansson Projects, on a date to be announced.

Joshua Pieper offered macabre humor in an installation called “Articles Wanted,” which consisted of a newspaper ad (above) posted next to the articles mentioned in the ad (below).

Another delight was Jason Mortara’s video compilation, “A gentle collapsing of every surface,” in which devices were recursively used upon others of their own type. For example, as shown in the video still below, Mortara has just measured the width of the big measuring tape using the small tape.

A voyeur experience was offered by Ali Pembleton’s ongoing dating project. On her website and even on utility poles, she had posted photos of herself in different guises (athletic, sophisticated, etc.). Men were invited to contact her “to be considered for a date.” On the roof of the garage, above the main action, she sat with men who showed up for appointments (photo below).

VR Law Enforcement

2007-06-01T23:11:00.000-07:00

In the Washington Post dated 6/2/07, there is a fascinating article by Alan Sipress about law enforcement in virtual reality worlds. Personally I think VR worlds are going to be huge once the graphics and user interfaces improve (along with system performance, of course). Already, VR participants have experienced a range of two-way bleeds between the real world and VR. Sipress's article documents that real world law enforcement has been pulled into VR. Highly recommended.

The image above is a piece of a map of Second Life, a popular VR world. I made a screen shot of an edge of that world. I wonder if the Flat Earth Society has opened a chapter in Second Life.

Ellen Babcock at the San Francisco Dump

2007-05-26T01:51:00.000-07:00

ALERT: Saturday, May 26th, is the second and FINAL day of this show. The exhibit will be open from 1:00 to 5:00 pm. The music performance starts at 3:00 pm sharp.

The Artist in Residence program at the San Francisco Dump hit a peak this weekend with an exhibit of sculpture by artist Ellen Babcock and performances of a musical work by composer Nathaniel Stookey. In accord with the recycling premise of the program, Babcock and Stookey created their works using materials that ended up at the dump.

Stookey created a short three-movement composition for a battery of sound-makers including, pipes, the spokes of a bicycle, oil drums, a car bumper, metal trays, and many other objects. This intricate but zesty piece was well performed by the percussion section of the SF Symphony Youth Orchestra, joined by a musician who plays the saw. Even the children in the audience paid rapt attention.

The sculptures in Babcock’s exhibit are the happy result of explorations she began a couple of years ago. What started out as a fairly literal simulation of smallish rock specimens has now evolved into a far more complex game that has an assertive scale. I have not yet decoded the results in much depth, but will report my initial impressions. In addition to her rocks and crystals, Babcock has created simulations, I gather, of artworks from a traditional museum. Many of these objects look destroyed. They seem to have passed through a cataclysm that has given them a new type of expressiveness. Babcock has worked with mundane materials for a long time, but the materials used in this show are a step down. In this abject context, Styrofoam seems like a snooty material. Paradoxically, this plunge has released a surge of creativity. I found the work perversely exhilarating.

See above and below for images of several sculptures in the show.

The SF Dump is a short drive from the center of San Francisco. For directions, consult the SF Dump's Artist in Residence website.

Taraneh Hemami at Intersection (SF)

2007-05-24T23:33:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 6/30/07.

It was not long after the 9/11 attacks when artist Taraneh Hemami, a native of Iran, came across a U.S. government poster showing headshots of the “most wanted international terrorists.” Or rather, she came across a small, low-resolution image of this poster (see above). The faces were not identifiable although many of the figures appeared to be Middle Eastern. As the artist commented to me, “They could be anybody.”

Hemami has been exploring this material for awhile, and her current exhibition at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco uses it as the kernel for a superb installation. Through a variety of devices, she evokes the climate of ignorance, fear, and depersonalization that now influences how people in the West react to people of Middle Eastern descent. With a sardonic flourish, she calls the show “Most Wanted.”

The exhibit begins in the stairway that leads to the second-floor exhibition space. Visitors encounter a stair carpet imprinted with Middle Eastern names (in English) running down the center in a single column. It looks a bit like a memorial. You can avoid stepping on the names if you widen your gait a bit. Further up, though, you reach a carpet that has two columns of names. Here it’s hard to proceed without treading on the names. At the top, entering the gallery, you see a timeworn wall covered in Farsi script, repeating the names on the stairs. (Images below.)

The blurred headshots are put to several uses. In one, the entire government poster is transformed into a decorative bead curtain, like a cozy adornment in an Iranian home. (Images below.)

Some of the single headshots, reproduced as large copies, are mounted in a lightbox array that has two sides. The outward side is meant to suggest the bars of imprisonment. The inner portion, where floral carpet patterns are added to the images, is meant to recall the photos seen on Iranian gravesites. (Images below.)

On a wall in the rear stairwell, a video projection shows a series of headshots morphing into each other. What's disturbing is that the inability to read these images begins to feel like a defect of mind. (Image below.)

____________________

Hemami's imagery addresses a social and psychological condition, but it's interesting to note that there is also a medical condition, called prosopagnosia, which limits the recognition of faces. There is a brief but informative Wikipedia article on this rare condition.

Tauba Auerbach at Jack Hanley (SF)

2007-05-23T01:29:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 4/26/07.

In a solid show at Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco artist Tauba Auerbach continues to explore the basic tools of literacy: letters of the alphabet, numerals, and words. In several works, she also explores different ways of representing a surface that is 50% white and 50% black. Images from the show (from the gallery website) are shown above and below.

BFA Exhibit at SFAI

2007-05-23T00:32:00.000-07:00

I didn't take a systematic look at the 2007 BFA Exhibiton at San Francisco Art Institute, but several artists caught my attention as I walked through the show. See below.

Above, an array of folded paper sculptures by Mia Liu—origami meets Wall Street.

Above, a close-up of one of the shirts.

Above, one of the product tags attached to Liu's shirts.

Above, Sara Thibault's video installation, “New Heights,” installed at a height of 7 feet.
A hand kept slapping the wall in the video.

Above, the wall-slapping action of Thibault's video.

Above, Jack Decker in an extended wrestling match with a side chair.
This section of his “Actions” video is called “The Futility of Making Art.”

Keegan McHargue at Jack Hanley (SF)

2007-05-22T23:40:00.000-07:00

How many layers of paint have been slapped on the floor at Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco? Last month, that floor was painted bright yellow for San Francisco artist Keegan McHargue’s exhibit of recent work, entitled “The Yellow Spectrum.” The radiance of the floor created an atmospheric soup for the paintings, which were done in a range of colors that suggested ice creams, sherbets, and bleached carnival posters. The effect was exhilarating.

(There is a painting called “La gamme jaune” [The Yellow Spectrum] by the Czech artist Frantisek Kupka, who was having a Fauvist moment when he painted it in 1907, near Paris, one hundred years ago. I wonder if McHargue is a fan of Kupka.)

McHargue continues to create a dreamtime world in which stylized human figures and objects occupy reductive landscapes or architectural structures. Often there is a repetition, or mirroring, of motifs. Often the space has a theatrical setup, giving a ritualistic appearance to the “action.” There is also a certain gravitas and a sense of timelessness, even as the pictorial elements flirt with the absurd. The meaning of the work remains elusive.

The color palette in the recent show was a shift from previous work. It had a frivolous air, but careful observation revealed it to be highly specific and sophisticated.

McHargue developed his style without attending art school, so it’s interesting to consider what his influences might be. Surrealism is an obvious one, although his temperament side-steps the cheesiness—the wow effects—in that tradition. There are reminders of other visual traditions, but none seem to dominate. My own sense is that McHargue has been imprinted not so much by the styles of particular artists, but by the wealth of imagery afloat in our culture. He has a polymorphous-perverse ability to blend visual memes and deploy them in paintings that have strong formal qualities.

Several images from the show are included above and below. They are salvaged from a camera whose color balance was knocked askew by the flood of yellow light.

SFAI MFA Exhibition (SF)

2007-05-21T22:51:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is located at Herbst Pavilion, Fort Mason Center, in San Francisco. Viewing hours are 12:00-6:00 daily through 5/26/07.

By my count there are 83 graduates who are presenting their artwork in the 2007 MFA exhibition of the San Francisco Art Institute, not counting the film students. The show is thankfully better than last year's largely dismal showing. Still, there are a number of graduates who have been unable to come up with anything interesting to show. In a few cases, you wonder how the faculty decided the person was qualified for an MFA degree. This is a general problem within MFA programs, not just the program at SFAI.

The best approach to these shows is to enjoy the work that has a spark and forget the rest. Some of the work that caught my attention is show below. The images reflect the variety of work to be seen, but they don't cover every artist of interest, or give a full picture of any artist's presentation.

The sculpture at the upper left was contributed by the safety directorate at Fort Mason Center.

Above, Taylor Vogland Dreiling's sculptural installation, "holder."
A terrific piece.

Above, Taylor Vogland Dreiling's "container."

Above, two large charcoal drawings by HeeKyoung Bae.
Drawings of digital imagery have become a subgenre,
but this artist manages to make her own imprint.
The images look like details from a video by Takeshi Murata, “Untitled (Silver).”

Above, an oil-on-canvas painting in Old Master style by Dan Lydersen.
Strange and memorable.

Above, a detail of another painting by Dan Lydersen.

Above, the crucifixion of Jesus represented in balloons, by Christian [!] Oittinen.
It stopped me in my tracks. The artist, in clownface, looks on.

A wall drawing by Ryan Jones, made with chalk and string.
The photo shows the lovely chalk dust on the floor before some oaf stepped in it.

Above, another study in blue by Ryan Jones.

Above, a work by Matthew Cella entitled, “fiberspace #1 (floating sinking city).”
The media are pigment print and mixed media on carpet. The size is 48" x 84".

Above, a wall of licorice by Jamaica Fredericks.

Above, a large drawing entitled “12” (along with a detail of same), by Alfonso Aguirre.
The media are ink, colored pencils, and watercolor on paper.
Aguirre's work is quiet and takes a little time to register, but it rewards attention.

Above, one of Jeremiah Jenkins's weapons for the next revolution—
first in a video (melting) and then in a refrigerated case (frozen).

Above, Jeremiah Jenkins's contribution to the tradition of flag art.

This one is made of kitchen matches.

Above, Ben Baumgartner honors his Southern roots by
presenting his selection of smokeless tobacco products.

Above, one of Edmund Wyss's oil-on-canvas paintings of instruments that
point and shoot (cameras and weapons). This one is 34" x 46".
(The orientation of this painting in the show
is different from the image on the artist's website.)

Above, several cropped stills from Brian Balderson's video installation,
“My Life as a Dog (Laika Vision Quest).” That's the artist in the dog suit.
Laughter guaranteed.

Above, one of Rocky McCorkle's large, digitally manipulated photo works.
They have very glossy surfaces and rich colors, like ads in lifestyle magazines,
but an atmosphere of loss and isolation pervades them.

In an intense performance piece called “Corner,” Nancy Popp made a huge racket by

tearing open the corner of her assigned space. The piece explored physical and
psychological confinement—the experience of being “backed into a corner.”
After breaking open the wall, Popp covered the inside corner with paper.
Later, the outside corner drew the interest of a boy in blue.

Added note: The above artists above are not the only participants whose work I noticed with interest. Joshua Eggleton's large graphite drawings were well done (but hard to photograph). Among the painters, Jisun-soye Bae and Aaron Delehanty looked promising. Ryan Hackett works in several media with interesting results. I enjoyed Carla Fraga's project of photographing books she wanted to get rid of, but nobody would take. Andrew Rottner's image bank project, in which visitors are invited to root through file drawers and select images, is fun. And there were two installations, by Deer Fang and Scott Kiernan, that showed energy, skill, and ambition—althought both projects struck me as unfocused, possibly because the artists had awkward spaces to work with.

Sahar Khoury at 2nd Floor (SF)

2007-05-17T14:38:00.000-07:00

Note: Regular viewing hours are Sunday, 12-5. Appointments may be made at other times. The final Sunday for this exhibit is 5/20/07.

Margaret Tedesco has initiated a project space in her Mission District apartment, calling it 2nd Floor. The first artist to be presented there is Sahar Khoury, whose show consists of papier-mâché sculptures, paintings, and works on paper. Although overcrowded, the show makes it clear that this artist has a gift for creating sculptural forms. The informal materials and rough edges create a degree of uncertainty that makes your mind work to grasp the form. As a result, the most successful works really stay in the memory. The photos below provide a sampling of the objects exhibited. The shot above is borrowed from the 2nd Floor website.

Taravat Talepasand at Heather Marx (SF)

2007-05-17T00:18:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 6/2/07.

When I saw Taravat Talepasand’s MFA show at San Francisco Art Institute in the Spring of 2006, I thought “Amy Cutler” and wondered if I was seeing a distinctive artistic voice. Even so, Talepasand was one of the few artists from that show that people talked about afterward, and she was noticed by Heather Marx, who is presenting the artist’s commercial solo debut. The results are compelling, especially the paintings.

Talepasand’s background includes training in the art of Persian miniature painting, but her work has grown in scale. In her latest paintings she uses egg tempera on panel (combined with gold leaf in some cases). In a brief conversation, she provided such a good summary of her method that I’m tempted to try egg tempera myself, using pigment from her favorite source, Sinopia in San Francisco. Talepasand says she uses one egg a day, meaning of course the egg yolk (not a spec of white, and no egg sack).

Talepasand is a confident American-born child of Iranian parents. Her recent work is a critique of the cultural politics of contemporary Iranian society, especially the role of women. As a counterpoise to the current situation in Iran, she has become interested in Persia's Qajar period (approximately 1794-1925), an era in which she believes there was a beneficial interplay between Islamic and Western elements of culture.

In several of her paintings, Talepasand references the Iranian flag used prior to the 1979 Islamic revolution. The old flag featured both the figure of a lion (representing the male) and the sun (representing the female). In a couple of works, she has painted herself into the lion pose. (One of these is shown at the top.)

Another intriguing work is a dual portrait called “Amorous Couple,” in which two women are intertwined in a manner that conveys tension and bickering. Talepasand says these two figures represent Islamic society and the West.

Another work, small in scale but vivid, was described by the artist as a duplicate of a tattoo that she has. The word “jihadi” is shown dripping oil onto a mystical (and perhaps sexual) golden triangle in the middle of which is set a giant emerald, symbol of steadfastness. In this image, jihad appears to be a transitory response to the economics of oil rather than a value for the ages.

____________________

Talepasand devises symbolical and absurdist representations rather than polemics. But her concern for the status of women in Iran is grounded in unfortunate facts. In 2004, for example, a 16-year-old girl named Atefeh Rajabi, a quasi-orphan who lived in northern Iran, was hanged from a crane for having sex with unmarried men. The religious judge who condemned her showed up at the hanging to place the noose around her neck. The case was reported in the press and in a summary by Amnesty International. (A BBC photo of the executed girl is shown below.)

Lee Mullican at John Bergguen (SF)

2007-05-16T19:59:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 6/2/07.

Lee Mullican (1919-1998) was a West Coast abstract painter who spent most of his career in Los Angeles. From his Oklahoma beginnings, he evolved into a cultured and well-traveled artist and art teacher. For several years at the beginning of his career, he lived in San Francisco.

Mullican developed a way of painting, and of incorporating a variety of cultural interests into painting, that stood outside the leading styles of his era. One distinctive feature was his use of the edge of a palette knife to create raised lines of paint. This often lent a tapestry-like aspect to the work.

Mullican exhibited steadily over a long career but his reputation was a quiet one. In an effort to raise his profile, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art presented a retrospective of Mullican’s work in 2005-06.

A group of paintings from the early part of Mullican’s career is currently on view at John Berggruen Gallery in San Francisco. Images of several works, including two images from the gallery website, are shown at the top and below. However, photographs don't capture the texture of these works, so Bay Area art people (especially painters) will want to take a close look in person.

For me, Mullican's work seems a bit tame, somewhat reined-in even at its most ecstatic. And perhaps there's too much of a decorative impulse in certain works, although others have interesting mark making. The paintings are remarkably well crafted—the oil paint looks fresh. I’d be happy to spend some time sitting next to many of these paintings, glass of wine in hand, relaxing and talking amid their refined buzz.

Ara Peterson at Ratio 3 (SF)

2007-05-16T17:02:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 6/10/07. The gallery has limited hours.

For people who see a lot of new art, one common experience is that an artist’s work sparks a degree of interest but ultimately fails to click. The after-effect is disappointment mixed with an awareness that, at any time, the artist might have a breakthrough that reverses how you feel.

For me, Ara Peterson remains in this category. His new show at Ratio 3 in San Francisco is interesting to see, but somehow fails to launch. I think it's because the work lacks a compelling idea despite the geeky elements that went into its making. There seems to be an emphasis on flashy appearances, a kind of psychedelic dandyism in art.

Nonetheless, the show is interesting up to a point. The quality of construction seems better than in Peterson’s last show at Ratio 3, although I found the forms in the previous show more interesting. The new work consists of low-relief sculptural forms that hang on the wall like paintings. To make these, Peterson has transformed sound waves into patterned fields made from laser-cut slats of wood that have been painted.

Examples of the work are shown below, accompanied by images that show details (one detail is at the top).

In addition, a visit to the artist’s website provides a fun blast of color—like a Gene Davis painting, turned sideways, viewed on mescaline.

CCA BFA Exhibit (SF)

2007-05-13T15:51:00.000-07:00

Note: The BFA exhibit was brief, and the works shown below are no longer on view.

BFA grads are also showing work at California College of the Arts this week, and three of them caught my attention. See photos and notes below.

Above, a three-shot sequence showing a video image
moving down a drawing. This work by Michael Guidetti was
unpretentious, even somewhat rough-hewn, but it was captivating.

Above, a steel sculpture by Ryan E. Abrams.

Above, selected stills from a 16mm-to-video compilation by Rebecca Rose Lifschutz entitled “Solitudes.” Some segments included subtitled text, some didn't. The text was not spoken. The setup of the films was not explained, but the participants appeared to be thinking about personal topics suggested by the filmmaker.

CCA MFA Exhibit (SF)

2007-05-13T15:31:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 5/19/07.

The 2007 MFA exhibition at California College for the Arts (CCA) has just opened in San Francisco for a short run. The display areas, located on the ground floor of CCA's main building in San Francisco, are dispiriting for showing art. The studios are too cramped, and the wide central corridor, known as the nave, is so big that art feels lost in it. In addition, there are pervasive problems of bad lighting and visual clutter. Even so, this year's exhibit is well worth a visit. Congratulations are in order for the artists and for the organizer of the show, critic and curator Glen Helfand.

The following photos capture some of the work that interested me. I have added brief notes.

Photo at top: One of four targets shot by the artist, Anne Devine.
These were part of an installation featuring images of endangered tigers.
Is there a little boom in art that includes bullet holes? (Seems so.)

Near the front of the nave, on the left as you walk in, are a pair of video monitors documenting a curatorial project. The right-hand monitor shows clips from films made for world fairs, loaned by San Francisco's Prelinger Archives. I watched a series of odes to kitchen appliances that were almost like sci-fi. Svelt women in rich suburbs seemed to be going mad one after another (image above). Don't miss!

Above, two of Celia Manley's small works “drawn as Holden Caulfield”
(The Catcher in the Rye, 1951).

Above, an installation by Lindsey White, in a room that
also includes brief absurdist videos and other work.

Above, two small paintings by Harry Muniz that look photo-real
at a distance but smudgy close up (size 9" x 12").

Above, mirror with a starburst (lighted from behind), by Christine Wong Yap.

Above, one of a number of “Curious Objects” by Carrie Minikel.
This one is "For Olfactory Focus."

Above, a gameboard construction by Nyeema Morgan (tabletop size).

Above, a video still from a three-channel video (on three flat screens) in which bizarre
activities are carried out in reverse motion. The artist is Reggie Stump.

Above, two very small paintings on panel by Jack Miller.

Above, one example of Jennifer O'Keeffe's photographic work.

Above, two sculptures by Christopher Loomis,
one towering and the other small, installed side by side.

Above, video stills from an unnerving video installation by Iris Charabi-Berggren,

called "The world as it is." I need to watch more of this, but I gather that a key theme
is the false faces that people learn to show the world.

Above, two stills from Ryan Alexiev's unhinged video about the cereal wars.
In the top photo, W. K. Kellogg himself appears in a bubble to rouse
the hero to action—one of several motifs adapted from The Wizard of Oz.
The villain, Franken Berry, is depicted in the bottom photo.

Above, David Gurman's apparatus for (1) tracking seismic events and
bomb-related ground motion at Yucca Flat in Nevada and (2) transforming
any significant ground motion into the tolling of a large church bell.

Lacey Jane Roberts's knitted fence, once of several interesting projects
using knitted material that Roberts has done since arriving at CCA.

More pink! Marsha Jean Shaw invokes the 1950s in an installation
entitled “Pink Bits.” The chairs have clear plastic covers.

David O. Johnson at Little Tree (SF)

2007-05-11T17:20:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 5/27/07.

The medium of choice for San Francisco artist David O. Johnson is neon lighting. He has acquired the technical, manual, and safety skills required to construct neon projects himself. In the past he has embedded neon in walls and in concrete cubes. In his new show at the compact Little Tree Gallery, he lets the neon stand alone (with help from power transformers, naturally).

The most elaborate work in the show is a representation of an old-fashioned upholstered chair (photo at top), which is stabilized by a number of thin cords attached to the ceiling. There is actually a bit of a tradition in neon furniture. Steven Wolf Fine Arts in San Francisco has available two such works from the mid-1970s, by Joe Rees. And young Chilean artist Iván Navarro, based in New York, has been doing neon versions of Modernist classics.

At the opening for Johnson’s show, a visitor squatted over the chair sculpture as if preparing to sit down. This caused a flurry of comment on the cluelessness of some gallery visitors. The concern is legitimate. According to the Anaba blog, one of Navarro’s neon chairs was destroyed when a visitor sat on it during the “Artificial Light” exhibit curated by John Ravenal in 2006.

Johnson’s two-faced sign that reads “OPEN” and “CLOSED” seems to capture our social—and political— uncertainty about who and what is truly open. It would work well in a hall of mirrors. (Photo below.)

The third neon piece in the show spells out “LOITER”—the title of the show. It’s a welcome intervention in a Walk/Don’t Walk world. (Photo below.)

Film Alert: Shohei Imamura

2007-05-11T02:24:00.000-07:00

As Japan recovered from World War II, its film industry entered a golden age, which extended from about 1948 through the end of the 1960s. The outpouring of memorable films, many of them deeply critical of Japanese society, became one of the extraordinary eras in the history of cinema. Sadly, much of this achievement is not well known in the United States. Only people who have access to a leading film archive are likely to see many of these films (and they are best seen in a theater).

For several decades, Pacific Film Archive has been stalwart in programming classic Japanese films. Beginning May 25th, the archive will present an extensive series of films (a total of 18) by one of the great Japanese filmmakers, Shohei Imamura. Prior to that date, a handful of these films will also be shown at the Castro Theater in San Francisco.

Imamura’s 1963 film, The Insect Woman, ranks in my mind as one of the great films of world cinema. The title has the ring of science fiction, but viewers will see it has a different meaning. The film depicts a woman’s blind struggle to survive during wartime and in postwar Japan. Sachiko Hidari gives the performance of a lifetime. The film will be shown at the Castro on Thursday, May 17th, at 8:00 pm.

Another gem is The Pornographers (1966), a perverse and comic study of a middle-aged man who sets out to make porno films (and that's not all). He lives with a widow who believes the soul of her dead husband inhabits a carp in a fish tank beside her bed. This film will be shown at the Castro on Saturday, May 12th, at 8:00 pm.

The other films in the Castro series are also notable, and the full series at PFA is a feast.

The photo at the top is from The Pornographers (image from the Castro website).

Oliver Farley at TART (SF)

2007-05-09T19:51:00.000-07:00

In April, the small San Francisco project space, TART, presented an unusual series of performances by artist Oliver Farley—he made ink drawings by skipping rope. Farley was once a Junior Olympics jump-roper in Montana, in tandem with his identical twin brother who now, following a sex change, is his twin sister.

The extraordinary story of the twins and their family has been captured in a documentary, “Red Without Blue,” which will be shown on May 16th at 7:30 pm at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco.

At the TART event, the audience watched with interest as Farley set up for the performance, which took place inside a protective enclosure that he had constructed within the space. The performance itself was brief but intense. Photos above and below show the enclosure and a couple of the drawings.

Jeff Eisenberg at Ping Pong Gallery (SF)

2007-05-09T18:55:00.000-07:00

In April, the tiny artist-run Ping Pong Gallery presented a show of new work by San Francisco artist Jeff Eisenberg. His game is reverse simulation: he makes drawings that look computer-made, but they are entirely hand-drawn. Each work consists of multiple layers of translucent mylar, on which he draws using varied combinations of colored pencil, graphite, watercolor, and gouache. It is a labor-intensive process.

The drawings reference CAD drawings of structures, computer-generated scientific visualizations, modern architecture, science fiction, and other visual motifs in science and engineering. A particularly interesting feature is the sense that each drawing captures an unfolding process influenced by many variables, where the outcome is uncertain and may not be benign.

The drawings operate as Rorschachs for a certain swath of visual culture: as you study them, a lot of referents come to mind. The most recent drawings use a bolder palette, to excellent effect.

Examples of the drawings shown at Ping Pong are shown above and below (they are all medium sized; for example, the one at the bottom is 30" x 42").

Boadwee and Rock at QNA (SF)

2007-05-09T17:27:00.000-07:00

Note: A clarification is added at the end of the posting.

Note: This exhibit has been extended to 5/25/07.

At least since Courbet, every art era has had its bad boys, and Keith Boadwee wants people to know he’s still one of them. A dozen years ago, he famously made paintings by squirting egg tempera out of his ass (while documenting the process in photos and videos). Perhaps that was his attack on the poo-etry of Abstract Expressionism. (Sorry, couldn’t resist.) Boadwee now teaches at the San Francisco Art Institute, but he hasn't gone soft.

Boadwee’s latest works are on view in a crowded installation at Queen’s Nails Annex (QNA). He delivers the gay goods: buttholes and erect dicks. One large painting trumpets the anal focus (detail image at the top).

In one of the large photos, Boadwee sports an erection while sitting in a chair, wearing a Supertramp T-shirt. He could be posing for a gay dating website. He's that guy who wears eyeglasses with his boner (image above).

In another large photo, Boadwee replaces his face with his spread-open ass (image above). As psychology, the image is loaded any way you read it. I should note a well-known precedent using a woman's body: Magritte’s 1934 painting “The Rape” (image below).

Boadwee’s imagery is sexual but in a way that seems confrontational—“don’t tread on me.” Even if you laugh (as people generally do), you notice the aggression.

Viewers with a wide knowledge of performance art and gay culture may not find any revelations in Boadwee’s presentation at QNA, but the work can be appreciated for its sharp visuals, abrasive humor, and the individual personality that Boadwee projects. He is good at pulling together an image whose tone is more complex that it may first appear.

Sharing the QNA show and its body themes is artist Patrick Rock. In his installation in the second room, he takes a jokey approach that does not go far from square one. One exception was a video in which the camera focused closely on (I think) the nozzle of a whoopee cushion as air was expelled from it. (Photo above.) The minimalist abstraction of the image was comically undone by the sound. (He could have called it "The Last Breath of Minimalism.")

Added note: Unfortunately, I did not see the final room of this show, which contained drawings and collages by Rock. (The gallery needed to close before I made it that far.) Judging from installation shots published in another blog, some of this work looks interesting.

Tara Tucker at Rena Bransten (SF)

2007-05-09T01:05:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 5/19/07.

Strange creatures are Tara Tucker's artistic bailiwick. For a number of years, she has given realistic form to imaginary creatures in sculpture, paintings, and drawings. In her current solo show at Rena Bransten Gallery, Tucker is showing several sculptures and a generous assortment of superb graphite drawings.

The drawings have the hand-wrought precision of antique zoological illustrations, but they refer to an imagined future. Tucker's theme is the potential merger of species under the evolutionary pressure of environmental change. In some cases, she imagines the genetic merger of animals and plants. Examples of the work are shown above and below (two images are from the gallery website).

(The drawing at the top is approximately 35" x 44".)

Approx. 27" x 32"

Approx. 11" x 13"

Approx. 32" x 27"

Elliott + Hennessy at Ampersand (SF)

2007-05-08T17:27:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 5/11/07. The gallery has limited hours.

At Ampersand International Arts, San Francisco artist Steven Elliott continues to delve into images of adventure, danger, and masculinity from the point of view of a child and Boy Scout who grew up to be gay. Above is a large detail of one of his paintings, with a pearl-encrusted dream (image provided by the gallery). Below is a sculpture referencing the sea, a frequent motif in the artist's work.

Also on exhibit at Ampersand are Angela Hennessy's transformations of black velvet. Shown below is a wall of drawings made from unraveled velvet pressed between sheets of glass. Many of them suggest underwater creatures, especially jellyfish. Others look like CAT scans.

Hwang and Dym at Mission 17 (SF)

2007-05-08T16:42:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit has been extended through 5/13/07. The gallery will be open extra hours on the final weekend.

The non-profit Mission 17 is presenting “Blabbable Doodads,” an exhibit of two artists, Eunjung Hwang and Miriam Dym. Both artists create fragmented, invented worlds—Hwang with video animations and prints, and Dym with an installation (detail above). The curators of this show, Taro Hattori and Mayumi Hamanaka, have cleverly provided a sculptural setting for the videos, projecting them next to styrofoam brickwork. Otherwise the projections might have seemed flat in a space that includes Dym's 3D collage of disparate forms.

Hwang has been making terrific animations, and I recommend that visitors allow time to watch them at some length. Her form might be described as the non-narrative story: images come and go, transforming constantly in highly imaginative ways, while surfing a line of dark humor. The animations enter your mind at a non-verbal level that can make your adult apparatus feel like the armor it is. Below are three images from the work on view.

Paul Urich at Eleanor Harwood (SF)

2007-05-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 5/11/07.

San Francisco artist Paul Urich has quietly developed a reputation for drawings and collage paintings that meditate on the transmission of personal character within his family and on more general themes of generation, transformation, and death. Typically (but not always) his work presents a small, finely detailed image in an expanse of white space. In the family images, the figures are so softly rendered as to suggest a ghostly presence.

An exhibit of Urich's recent work is on view at the Eleanor Harwood Gallery in San Francisco. It's a compelling show, and local aficionados should not miss it.

The image above is a detail of “How He Was and Is” (mixed media). Additional images are shown below (the middle pair are from the gallery website).

“Mary Helen and Helen” (detail; gouache on paper)

“Somewhere Between Here and There
While Remembering Everyone You Met Along the Way”
(collage)

(detail of above)

“The End Is the Beginning” (collage)

Pete Nelson at Blankspace (Oakland)

2007-05-07T14:39:00.000-07:00

Pete Nelson's installation at Blankspace last month was the sort of project that's unlikely to appear in a commercial gallery. But it was a perfect match for the artist-run Blankspace, where a principal goal is to give artists the freedom to experiment.

The installation was entitled, "There Ain't No Party Like a Holy Ghost Party." Drawing on his Kentucky background and the religious fervor of family members, he created a space in which faith and addiction co-existed. There were several elements in the setup. On one small platform, a pair of large speakers were placed one on top of the other, face to face. From these, the sound of evangelical preachers was triggered as you moved into the gallery. (One of the voices was that of Marjoe Gortner, the subject of a noted 1972 documentary.)

In one corner of the gallery, near the ceiling, there was a video screen showing a circular pattern in which your image appeared and disappeared as you walked around the space. Two wooden benches were lined up in front of this video screen.

In the back, on another little platform, was a bathtub turned on its side, with a keg inside it and a distillery bottle under the platform. A copper pipe ran from this moonshine storage area to a water fountain. If you drank from this baptismal fountain, your mouth was filled with liquor distilled by the artist himself. A small video camera was installed at the back of the fountain—the source of the projected images.

Several views of this installation are provided below.

Daniel Reneau's Lobby Art (SF)

2007-05-07T14:13:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, in March, I visited a corporate tower in San Francisco's Financial District to see Daniel Reneau's show in one of the lobbies. To some extent, his sculptures managed to disrupt the mausoleum atmosphere of the place, but it was a bit like a birthday party in a Hall of Remembrance. The work had been installed for awhile, so the regulars were coming and going without paying attention to any of it. I took a few (not very good) photos—see above and below.

Nadol Pak at Lisa Dent (SF)

2007-05-07T00:43:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 5/11/07.

Nadol Pak, a young artist in the Bay Area, creates landscape-like drawings in ink on paper using an intensive process of spontaneous mark-making. In each work, a dense accumulation of marks, many of them ideographic, evolves into an image that represents a real (historical) or fantasy space. The marks borrow from the world of comics and have a similar vitality but on a miniaturized scale. In some cases the images present a flattened (or multiplied) perspective in the manner of classical Chinese paintings and Japanese gardens.

Pak's work has an affinity with several other artists who specialize in small, highly detailed drawings, but he has found his own identity in this arena. His most recent drawings, on view at Lisa Dent Gallery, show that he has continued to develop his signature style.

Pak's drawings do not photograph well. In fact, photos tend to misrepresent them. They really need to be seen in person. The image above, a large detail from one of Pak's latest drawings, is offered as a lure.

Open House at the Headlands

2007-05-06T23:12:00.000-07:00

On 4/22/07, I drove across the Golden Gate Bridge to visit the Headlands Center for the Arts, which was having an open house. In the building that once was a bowling alley (in the site's military days), Kirk Stoller held forth with his most recent sculptures and installations. Stoller likes to turn flooring materials into wall constructions. I enjoyed seeing the works shown above and below.

In a huge studio in another building, New York artist (and porn performer) Zak Smith had drawings large and small tacked to the walls. Below is one of his portraits and one of his grid-like works derived from the format of comics.

In another huge studio, North Carolina artist Stacey Kirby was handing out forms (on clipboards) on which visitors were asked to make comments about her array of personal possessions. She had brought 17 (or was it 19) boxes of stuff for her residency, and she was wondering why. The contents of these boxes were neatly arrayed on the floor, creating an inventory of the interface between self and things. Photos below.

Personal possessions are manipulated another way by Alex Clausen, who has persuaded various people to let him take over a room in their living space and tie up the room's furniture into a huge bundle, which he then photographs. The photos are then painted (with acrylic or digital color) to cover the possessions but leave the ropes visible. In his small studio at HCA, I saw maquettes of sculptures that he wants to make from this practice. Actually, the idea for these sculptures pre-dated the photographic work. What he wants to do is to show the ropes in 3D, without the objects that they originally held. The maquettes (see below) look promising.

Sid Garrison at Limn Gallery (SF)

2007-05-06T18:20:00.000-07:00

Colored pencil on paper is the chosen medium of San Francisco artist Sid Garrison (a friend of mine). His labor-intensive application of color pushes drawing in the direction of painting. He likes to cover the entire surface—even the white areas in his drawings are actually white pencil. The drawings are abstract, but they reference objects in the real world, and they are usually made while the artist listens to music or even to non-musical sound patterns.

The drawings are titled with their dates of completion. A square format predominates (23" x 23" and 28" x 28" are currently typical) , but there is an occasional foray into the rectangle. The range of styles and moods achieved in the drawings is testimony to Garrison's command of a restrictive medium. Examples of his work from recent years are shown on his website.

Garrison currently has an exhibit of drawings, on view through May 27th, at the Limn Gallery in San Francisco. Limn Gallery is located in the rear building at 290 Townsend St., near 4th St. Gallery hours are Tuesday to Saturday, 11:00 to 5:30. The gallery phone is (415) 977-1300. Visitors to Limn Gallery who are interested in Garrison's work should ask to view a portfolio of additional work, which contains some superb drawings.

Another exhibit of Garrison's drawings has just opened in Houston at the Devin Borden Hiram Butler Gallery.

Some images of the work shown at Limn are provided above and below (images from the artist's website).

Arthur Dove — One More Time

2007-05-04T18:11:00.000-07:00

For readers who have expressed interest in a question I raised about an Arthur Dove painting at the de Young Museum (SF): I have made a third update to that post. See below under the original date, 3/5/07.

Nicholas Knight at Steven Wolf (SF)

2007-05-04T16:49:00.000-07:00

On the walls of the smaller space at Steven Wolf Fine Arts, New York artist Nicholas Knight has installed two of his sentence diagrams. When you enter the space, you may think there are three of these works, but the two on opposite walls are part of the same piece. (On the fourth wall, there is a photographic and framing work that derives, cryptically, from the John Lehman diagram on the opposite wall.)

The diagrams, made of vinyl lettering and lines applied to the walls, have a bold, analytical graphic quality that belies the mysteries they ultimately evoke. The first mystery is of course to parse the quotations from Henry James, Jacques Derrida, and John Lehman that he has diagrammed. French and English are combined in the two-panel work, which further complicates the reading. Interestingly, the end point becomes not a successful reading of the text but a lingering awareness of the odd quality of language, at once structured, simplistic, subtle, and evasive. Presented this way, language appears as a sieve through which reality drains away. Yet not all is lost.

Below are images (derived from those provided by the artist) of the two-panel work. Perhaps seeing these diagrams has put me in a schoolroom mood, but I have noticed two things. One is that Knight has changed the verb tense of the quote from Henry James. The original line, from the novel The Portrait of a Lady, reads “To read between the lines was easier than to follow the text.” The other item is that the original Derrida text, from his early book Of Grammatology, used the compound word “hors-texte,” so I am not sure that diagramming “hors” as a modifier is correct in this instance. Class dismissed!

Sidewalk Sign Mystery Code

2007-05-03T15:58:00.000-07:00

Recently I saw this on the street in San Francisco:

Oakland Art Gallery Fundraiser

2007-05-03T14:36:00.000-07:00

Laura Paulini (SOLD on the first day)

The Oakland Art Gallery (OAG) is a key non-profit space for artists in Oakland and beyond. It operates on a budget so small that the leading citizens of Oakland ought to be blushing. They ought to be helping—with grants and donations. Meanwhile, artists are supporting the cause by donating work for OAG's current fundraiser, an art sale entitled "Ripples." Artist who have previously shown at the gallery were invited to donate work and to ask other artists to do likewise—hence the ripple effect. There are dozens of works in the show, and they are on view daily until the closing reception, which takes place on Saturday, May 5th, from 5:00 to 8:00. This show is not an auction: work may be purchased throughout the exhibit. Prices range from $50 to $6,000.

(For San Franciscans, access to the OAG is fairly easy despite the recent freeway collapse. The BART station at 12th St. in Oakland is near the gallery. If you're driving, use the right lane after crossing the Bay Bridge and take the Grand Ave. exit. Grand Ave. leads to downtown Oakland. The return drive is also via Grand Ave.)

Here are samples of work in the "Ripples" show:

Veronica De Jesus

Mel Davis

John Zurier

Jen Merrill

Caleb Duarte

Lisa Ricci

Jason Byers

John Casey

Tyrell Collins (oil on aluminum)

David Ryan (ink on wood)

Arrested — Handcuffed — Shackled

2007-03-30T22:53:00.000-07:00

Half a dozen years ago—though it seems like decades—the phrase “anything is possible in America” referred to opportunities. Under the regime of George W. Bush, the phrase has taken a different turn. Consider the case of Nyok Mei Wong (pictured above), as described by her in a document I have seen, and in messages from her allies.

Mei Wong is a first-year MFA student in the New Genres department at the San Francisco Art Institute. Her specialty is performance and time-based art. Until recently she lived in Chicago, and an interview in Chicago City Arts Review captured her there. She is a citizen of Malaysia.

On February 15th, she visited the San Francisco office of the USCIS (formerly INS) to check the status of her long-standing application for a permanent resident visa. As a result of that visit, she was arrested, handcuffed, shackled, and sent to the remote Yuba County Jail, where she remained in immigration detention for five days until bail money could be gathered and paid.

During that fateful visit, the USCIS claimed that her application for permanent status had been denied back in 2003. She had never received any notice to this effect, and she says that the USCIS computer system contained no record of the denial.

Mei Wong has been in the U.S. since entering on a student visa in 2002. In the 2003 Diversity Lottery carried out by the USCIS, she was declared eligible for a Diversity Visa, which enables the applicant to work and live permanently in the U.S. She immediately filed the appropriate form (I-485, Adjustment of Status) to complete the visa process. She was issued an Employment Authorization Document (EAD) as a result. Her EAD has been renewed annually. Meanwhile, at each visit to the USCIS, including one last fall, she was told that her permanent visa was still pending.

Now, apparently because of bureaucratic errors at the USCIS, she faces a court hearing in San Francisco on April 5th. There may be additional court appearances. Deportation is a possibility, but exoneration and permanent resident status are also possible.

Friends and supporters have organized a fund-raising campaign to cover legal costs, with a goal of raising $10,000. There is an art auction tomorrow night (Saturday) at The Garage, an experimental art venue in an upscale part of town. Also, donations to the cause can be made by check or through Paypal. Further information is available on the website for The Garage. I am acquainted with several people involved in this effort, and I can vouch for their integrity.

A Brice Marden Left on Sidewalk

2007-03-29T22:49:00.000-07:00

Heading to an art exhibit this week, I saw some string on the sidewalk. (I used Photoshop to nudge the edges a little.)

Bayeté Ross Smith at Bluespace (SF)

2007-03-29T16:14:00.000-07:00

Note: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 4/13/07.

Bluespace, a small privately owned storefront that operates as a community project space, currently is presenting work by young San Francisco artist Bayeté Ross Smith. This project, called “Passing,” is one of a series in which the artist explores perceptions of identity by shifting the visual signifiers of racial type, ethnicity, class, and nationality.

The method used here is simulated passports—digitally manipulated versions of actual passports. Identity photos of a fair-skinned young woman and a dark-skinned young man are incorporated into passports from several countries. Invented names and suitable personal data are also incorporated. The results are intriguing, not only for the unique passport design used by each country, but for the game the artist has chosen to play. The simulations are meticulous and deserve to be seen in person. An example of one of the passports is shown above (image from the artist’s website).

Other work by this artist may be explored on his website. A larger exhibit of his work will open at San Francisco City Hall in mid-April, under the auspices of the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery.

For the exhibit at Bluespace, the hours are noon to 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. The gallery may be open on other days as well. Even on the scheduled days, it is best to call before making a visit.

Two Shows at the Asian (SF)

2007-03-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

The permanent exhibition spaces at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco strike me as lackluster, but the museum’s special exhibitions, in the first floor galleries, are often compelling. Currently there are two exhibits that I can recommend highly (and the museum also has a decent café).

Craft has become a contested idea in the art world, but it is at the center of “Masters of Bamboo: Japanese Baskets and Sculpture from the Cotsen Collection,” on view through May 6th. There are many remarkable objects in this selection from the huge collection donated to the museum by Lloyd E. Cotsen. The exhibit is organized around the master-disciple lineages that are characteristic in this demanding, enclosed tradition. Most of the work is from the past half-century. The aesthetic qualities are notable, but what is most riveting is the astounding craft on display. The making of these objects shows a degree of unhurried commitment that marks a space-time leap from the capitalist universe.

After the austerities of bamboo, the exhibition of miniature paintings and other artifacts from India seems almost licentious. That show is called “Princes, Palaces, and Passion,” and it lives up to its name. I am a huge fan of Indian miniature paintings, and it is always a thrill to see a good selection in person, as most of the reproductions in books seem to take the life out of them.

The Asian's selection, organized over an eight-year period by UC Berkeley professor Johanna Williams, focuses on the Mewar Kingdom in the part of India now known as Rajasthan. Across a four-century span, the earliest works seem tentative, and the late works seem Mannerist. In between there is about a century and a half of sparkling achievements (late 17th Century through early 19th Century).

The formal devices of these paintings give them a contemporary feel, and the colors still seem fresh. The stylized rendering of trees and shrubs is a feature I particularly enjoy. A few paintings show princes holding implements of hunting or war (as in the image above). But often there is an atmosphere of upper-class relaxation and eroticism that calls to mind 18th Century European painters like Boucher and Fragonard. In the Indian work, however, the idealization of court life does not seem so rooted in time; it can even look like episodes from a sci-fi adventure. The exhibit will be on view through April 29th.

There are catalogues for both exhibits, but unfortunately the quality of the reproductions is disappointing. Additional bamboo work and Indian paintings are on view in the permanent galleries upstairs.

Photography is not permitted in either exhibit, so the images here have been culled from the internet, as follows (top to bottom):
Kawashima Shigeo, “Model for Funabashi Shore Park Exhibition,” 1999. Photo by Kaz Tsuruta.
Yamaguchi Ryuoun, “Wave Wave,” 1999. Photo courtesy of the Lloyd Cotsen Japanese Bamboo Basket Collection.
Shono Shounsai, “Shimmering of Heated Air” (flower basket), approx. 1969. Photo by Kaz Tsuruta.
Surajmalji, “Son of Rao Narayanadasa,” approx. 1820. Photographed for the Berkeley Art Museum by Benjamin Blackwell. Image from Indian Writing Station website.

Dove Post Updated Again

2007-03-23T23:20:00.000-07:00

For readers who have expressed interest in a question I raised about an Arthur Dove painting at the de Young Museum (SF): I have made a second update to that post. See below under the original date, 3/5/07.

Hello Nauman

2007-03-09T02:39:00.000-08:00

Very soon I will post some comments on the Bruce Nauman exhibition in Berkeley. In the meantime, here's a T-shirt that I whipped up while thinking about Nauman.

Two Small Sculptures (SF)

2007-03-09T02:10:00.000-08:00

Here are two little sculptures that I enjoyed seeing in February, one shiny and rough:

Mitzi Pederson at Ratio 3
(reflective paper, acrylic, aluminum tape; 12.75 inches high)

Ulrike Palmbach at Stephen Wirtz Gallery
(wood, dyed muslin, cotton batting, thread, cord; 8 inches high)

Photoshop to the Rescue

2007-03-09T00:11:00.000-08:00

Recently I came across an impromptu sidewalk memorial in San Francisco's Japantown (photo above). The handmade Christian cross didn't bother me, but the tacky disorder around it certainly did. There were barcodes on the two unwrapped bouquets, a cigarette pack, and a stubbed-out cigarette. OK, maybe I'm getting fussy in my old age.

Fortunately, a disturbing image like this can be sent packing. It can even be turned into contemporary art with one-step Photoshop transformations. See below. Zhazam!

Outside the de Young Museum (more)

2007-03-08T23:53:00.000-08:00

Here are two more photos from outside the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

“AUTO. SPKR.”:

Nightfall with surveillance camera:

Enjoying the de Young Museum (SF)

2007-03-06T01:32:00.000-08:00

Joseph McElheny (detail, see below)

In earlier posts, I complained about various aspects of the new de Young Museum in San Francisco. But a visit to the de Young offers many rewards. Below is a sample of the artworks that I enjoyed last month at the museum.

Background: Cornelia Parker, “Anti-Mass” (2005)

Charred remains of black Southern Baptist church destroyed by arson.

Foreground: Josiah McElheny, “Model for Total Reflective Abstraction” (glass, 2003)

Doris Salcedo, “Untitled” (concrete, wood, steel, 1998)

Bruce Nauman, “Double Poke in the Eye II” (neon, 1985)

Jess [Collins], “If All the World Were Paper and All the Water Sink” (oil, 1962)

The above painting is auto-biographical. In the mid-1940s, as a draftee in the Army Corps of Engineers, Jess worked as a nuclear chemist for the Manhattan Project. In distress at the Post-War threat of nuclear war, he turned away from science in 1948. The painting includes a nuclear mushroom cloud, children playing under nuclear fallout, a parrot (mindless imitator) devouring an owl (wisdom), and a man looking backward on it all with a deck of cards in his hands.

Mel Ramos, “Superman” (oil, 1961-62)

Bruce Conner, “Snore” (mixed media, 1960)

Part of the above sculpture has unraveled. This can be seen by comparing it to the photograph for Conner's most recent retrospective, in the book 2000 BC: The Bruce Conner Story Part II (1999).

Frank Lobdell, “31 December 1948” (oil, 1948)

Mark Rothko, “Untitled” (oil, 1949)

Richard Diebenkorn, “Ocean Park 116” (oil, 1979)

Edward Hopper, “Portrait of Orleans” (oil, 1950)

Wright Morris, “Houses on Incline, Virginia City, NV” (photograph, 1941)

Anonymous 19th Century kindergarten collage

Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen, “Corridor Pin, Blue” (1999)

Zhan Wang, “Artificial Rock” (stainless steel, 2005)

The above shows one face of a very irregular sculpture, different on each side. There are craggy holes running through it, transverse to the above view. The second photo shows the bottom. The third photo shows the intense sky reflections at the top, on the side facing away from the museum, which looms in the background.

...

Ed Ruscha,“Safe and Effective Medication” (lithograph, 2001)

The above was part of a Ruscha prints exhibit that has ended. (Image from Adam Biesk Fine Art website.)

Gerhard Richter’s “Strontium” at the de Young (SF)

2007-03-06T01:14:00.000-08:00

For the opening of the new de Young Museum, leading German artist Gerhard Richter was commissioned to create a monumental photo-mural for the main interior court. This work, entitled “Strontium,” is a grid of digitally manipulated C-prints, laminated between aluminum and plexiglass. It cost a fortune.

According to David Strubbe in the Berkeley Science Review (Spring 2006), the image is the crystal lattice of the material strontium titanate as seen by high-resolution transmission electron microscopy. Strubbe says that the blurring of the image was contributed by Richter.

The top photo, from the Contemporary Art Institute website, shows the whole work. Below are images showing the scale of the work and a detail of the pattern.

Repeated viewings have not altered my original impression, that the work misfires. Despite the intense optical buzz, the overall effect lies somewhere between tedium and low-level irritation (like static). I keep thinking that the panels would really sizzle if they were arranged on the four walls of a small gallery. Also, I think that the main court, with its surprisingly bland geometry, could use a blast of color.

An Everyday Ghost

2007-03-05T23:11:00.000-08:00

Here's a photo I snapped on 2/8/07 while eating a sandwich in a Berkeley cafe:

de Young Installation Question Answered

2007-03-05T23:03:00.000-08:00

Note: See the four updates at the end of this posting. (I have also modified the title of this posting.)

The de Young Museum in San Francisco has on display a painting by Arthur Dove (oil on panel) which has the title “Sea Gull Motive (Sea Thunder or The Wave).” The museum dates the painting to 1928. Here is my photo from a visit last month:

Having doubts about how the work was hung, I went to the library today to consult Ann Lee Morgan’s scholarly study, Arthur Dove: Life and Work, with a Catalogue Raisoneé (1984). That reference work shows the painting oriented as follows, and gives its date as “c. 1926.”

I will contact the museum to find out if the curators have a justification for hanging the painting vertically.

Update: On 3/12/07, I received the following response from Timothy Anglin Burgard, Curator-in-Charge of the American Art Department, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco:

The painting is signed by Arthur Dove on the verso of the panel in the vertical orientation. In addition, the painting was correctly reproduced in its vertical orientation in all the early sources, including "Modern American Painters" (1930) and, more importantly, in "America and Alfred Stieglitz: A Collective Portrait" (1934). The horizontal orientation has no historical basis prior to 1973, when the painting reappeared.

Update #2: Timothy Burgard's explanation (above) reflects standard museum practice, but even after receiving his message, I still wondered about the painting. I was able to contact Ann Lee Morgan, who said that Dove almost never signed his paintings on the back. Her catalogue raisoneé lists the above painting as unsigned. I am not in a position to make any judgment about the signature noted by Burgard.

What continued to spark my interest was that, viewed in a vertical orientation, "Sea Gull Motive" seems anomalous in Dove's body of work. Typically, when he painted a landscape—and here I am excluding his nature-oriented abstractions—he provided an indication of a horizon line. The works tend to be grounded in that way, even when he is showing nature in a turbulent or ecstatic mode. In this context, a horizontal orientation for "Sea Gull Motive" seemed more characteristic. Of course, the case is complicated by the fact that this painting has a diagonal composition.

In any case, on 3/23/07, I went to an academic library and found evidence that persuaded me that the vertical orientation—the one shown at the de Young—is correct. One of the books mentioned by curator Burgard, which shows the painting vertically, is Modern American Painters (1930), written by the art dealer Samuel M. Kootz. I found that Dove references Kootz's book in a letter to his dealer Alfred Stieglitz, the noted photographer. Stieglitz had asked Dove to write something in response to the section of Kootz's book that deals with Georgia O'Keeffe. It is clear from Dove's letter that he has read Kootz's book: he refers to specific statements by Kootz that can be found in the book. It is also clear that he approved of the book. He declared, “It would take quite a man to do a better book.” Surely he had seen the reproduction of his painting in the book, and he voices no complaint. To me this is conclusive.

Dove's letter, circumstantially dated 4 December 1930, can be found in the selected correspondence between Stieglitz and Dove, a work by (again) Ann Lee Morgan, entitled Dear Stieglitz, Dear Dove (1988, page 201).

Update #3: I received a delayed reply from Barbara Haskell, author of the catalogue for the retrospective of Dove's work that she organized under the sponsorhip of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1974. In an email response, she says, “When I did the show, the owner of the painting (and, as I remember, Dove’s son), said that Dove showed it both ways. I prefer it horizontally—I think it relates far more to Dove’s other work and to his typical motifs.” So perhaps either orientation is historically correct.

Update #4: A month ago, I received a message from Ann Lee Morgan stating that Dove was a right-handed painter. I returned to the de Young to see if the brushstrokes in this painting could provide a clue about its proper orientation. During my examination, there was a moment when I envisioned a wacky headline: “Man Injures Neck While Studying Arthur Dove Painting.” This is a very brushy painting with more than one layer of strokes, which go in a variety of directions. Overall, though, it appeared to me that the work had been painted mostly while it was vertical. There are some strokes that curve in a way that would be awkward indeed if the painting had been horizontal. And there were strokes that appeared to move from top to bottom along the veritical axis, which are implausible as right-to-left strokes in a horizontal canvas. I doubt, however, that the painting was kept vertical for its entire execution. The white edges against the dark areas appear to be painted at right angles to the edges, pulling away from the edges. These would have been easier to do if the painting were placed horizontally (or even flipped vertically). It's possible that Dove noticed, when he turned the painting around, that it worked in more than one orientation. See the comment above.

Henry Wessel at SFMOMA

2007-03-02T00:24:00.000-08:00

_______San Francisco, 1973________

Note: This exhibition will close on 4/22/07.

SFMOMA has a good exhibit of work by Bay Area photographer Henry Wessel (born 1942). After I saw the show, the word that came to mind was “laconic.” Not many Americans are laconic anymore. Chattering seems to be the new national mission. Wessel’s pictures provide an escape from the din.

Wessel captures everyday places and people, a type of visual inventory that looms large in American art photography. Sometimes it can feel like a worn-out category. But Wessel has managed to capture a good many images that sing quietly in their plainness. His best pictures tend to be those with people in them, as he has a gift for capturing body language. There is an iconic dimension to his people, but without the reductionism that often occurs in photojournalism.

The examples included here are gelatin silver prints: the one at the top is from the Robert Mann Gallery website, and the two below are from the Charles Cowles Gallery website.

Southern California, 1985

Santa Monica, 1989

Women Artists at Mills (Oakland)

2007-03-01T03:27:00.000-08:00

Note: This exhibit closes on 3/15/07. The museum is open Tuesday-Sunday.

The Mills College Art Museum, currently seeking a director, has maintained its exhibition program by bringing in guest curators. The present exhibit was organized by Janet Bishop, curator of painting and sculpture at SFMOMA. She was asked to do a show focusing on women artists, and she wasn’t given much lead time. Nonetheless, by resorting to SFMOMA’s permanent collection and loans from a handful of collectors and galleries, Bishop has pulled together a fine exhibit called “Take 2: Women Revisiting Art History.” Nine artists are included.

As usual in this venue, the artwork looks too spread out, but the quality of the selections keeps the visual energy from dissipating as you move through the show. It’s a thoughtful exhibit that allows the works to unfold. It engenders a mood of calm alertness that is refreshing.

In a brief curator's talk, Bishop said that Sherrie Levine was one of the first artists she decided to include. More than a quarter century ago, Levine made her name—indeed, became notorious—for re-photographing Walker Evans’s documentary photographs of the Depression era and presenting them as her own work under the title “After Walker Evans.” (She photographed the images from catalogues.) This project sparked interest among Post-Modern and feminist theorists. Looking at the examples presented in the Mills exhibit, you might conclude that reading about this work is as good as seeing it.

Levine’s sculptures have a greater physical impact. Located in the center of the show is a work from 1990 that is derived from an image in a 1938 painting by Man Ray, “La Fortune.” (Photo above from the Whitney Museum website). The sculpture is a carom billiards table, regulation-sized, with its 3 billiard balls glued to the felt and turned wooden legs that look eccentric, though similar to the one visible in the painting. (See photo below.)

Traditional portraiture is brought into the mix with selections from Cindy Sherman’s History Portraits. In one of these photos (fairly large), she seems to be channeling Madame de Pompadour as painted by Boucher, but with a decidedly louche air. (Surely 18th-Century French women of this class powdered away the sweat from their bosom?) In a smaller photo, she impersonates a Colonial American type whose prosperity is matched by sobriety. This photo has an emotional core that seems absent from others in the series. (Images below).

Kara Walker is represented by several works, including the following silhouette (detail):

Janine Antoni turned to silversmithing to produce a small but riveting sculpture entitled “Umbilical” (2001). It’s a sterling cast of a silver spoon from the family collection, which is attached at the bowl end to a negative cast of the artist’s mouth, and at the handle end to an imprint of her mother’s fingers.

Even more perverse is Antoni's “Coddle” (1999), a color photograph in a hand-carved oval frame, about 22 inches tall. It depicts the artist cradling her own leg—a narcissistic version of a Madonna and Child painting. (The two images below, from the Luhring Augustine website, are clearer than my own.)

British artist Sam Taylor-Wood has made references to art history in a number of works, including the two short films at Mills, which are presented on monitors in separate galleries. One film, “The Last Century” (2005), looks back to classic photographs of Parisians in bars and cafes—for example, Doisneau in the 1950s and Brassaï in the 1920s and 1930s. Those photos in turn look back to 19th-Century paintings of similar subjects. Taylor-Wood’s film presents a scene in a British pub that looks momentarily like a still image, but isn’t. (Photo below.)

The other film, “A Little Death” (2002), is based on a painting by the 18th-Century painter Chardin. (The painting shown below is probably the specific source; the image is from Detroit Institute of Arts). This type of work by Chardin is based in turn on 17th-Century vanitas paintings, which were designed to remind viewers that time conquers all. Taylor-Wood’s version is time-lapse photography of a dead hare and a single peach. The hare decays horribly and become a host for swarming insects. Meanwhile, the supermarket peach stays “fresh.” (See images below.)

German artist Beate Gütschow fabricates large photographic images based on classic landscape paintings. Seventeenth-Century artist Claude Lorraine seems a particular influence. The elements of each image are skillfully assembled, but subtle mismatches are deliberately left unaltered. The results look lovely at first, and then quite unnerving. (The image below is from the Danziger Projects website.)

The youngest participant in the show is San Francisco artist Stephanie Syjuco, who was born in the Philippines. References to art history occur in some of her work—and she has acknowledged her attraction to the formal qualities of Modernist art and design—but her practice is more focused on issues of globalization, identity, and mass-marketing of goods.

In the first gallery at Mills, Syjuco has installed “Wirtschafts-werte (Economic Values)” (2003), a display of anonymous “products” on industrial shelving. (Photo at top.) The products are Minimalist blocks covered in woodgrain contact paper. The concept for the piece and its title are derived from a 1980 installation by German artist Joseph Beuys, in which he displayed food products from East Germany in the drab packaging produced by that Communist state.

In a rear gallery, there is a selection of poster-sized prints from Syjuco’s “Comparative Morphologies” series (2001). Digital images of electronic parts are arranged in the style of antique botanical prints. One example is shown above, and a detail from another is shown below.

Two other artists rounds out the exhibit. From Mills faculty member Catherine Wagner, there are large color photographs from her “Re-classifying History” series. Unfortunately, these are not her best work. Likewise, the drawings by Pakistani artist Shahzia Sikander do not show her to advantage. They are underwhelming, and there are so many of them. It's regrettable especially because Sikander is the only artist in the group who makes references outside the Western art tradition.

“6 Pack” at The LAB (SF)

2007-02-27T16:42:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month, The LAB in San Francisco presented six compact solo shows under the title “6 Pack.” One of the artists was jammed into the entry way, and the rest were spread along the walls of the main space. That area looked uncluttered for a change, but still ungainly and decrepit. However, the show was pretty good.

I especially liked the white TV set by Matthew Cox, entitled “Static” (photo at top). The pattern on the screen is rendered in graphite.

There was a large array of photo-collages by David King, brimming with campy magic. Below are two faves (images from the artist’s website). The first is called “Lighting the Way,” and the second is “Breezes for Lila.”

Sarah Applebaum presented several of her large ink-on-paper drawings from a series she calls “Pelts.” Below is a detail of one of them (image from her website). Applebaum's other main body of work (not represented in the show, but documented on the website) is a world away from her delicate drawings, though appealing in its own extroverted way.

Sarah Bereza has created a collection of women-as-tropies in a series called “Conquests.” The style of painting could be more distinctive, but the objects as a whole have a bizarre pizzazz. Of the two examples below, the second is a self-portrait. Bereza also showed paintings of young women engaged in pillow fights, but these paled in comparison to similar but far more developed work by local artist Laura Ball.

Working in an illustrational style, Joseph Rizzo presented work that usually struck me as under-developed. But he’s capable of more interesting efforts, for example these two paintings:

The final artist was Meredith Miller, who makes photographs of obese women in an attempt to renegotiate how the women are viewed. Three examples are shown below. I found this project less compelling than the erotic self-portraits by Rachel Weeks, a local photographer who is a large woman.

Jeremy Mora at Mark Wolfe (SF)

2007-02-26T18:36:00.000-08:00

Anywhere But Here (schoolgirl at edge of deep chasm)*

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 3/23/07.

Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art (San Francisco) is presenting a solo exhibit of sculptures by young Los Angeles artist Jeremy Mora. Mora creates miniature diorama-like landscapes, and there are 53 of them on view. Some editing would have helped, but it’s a very engaging show.

Mora’s vignettes are usually views of nature, often remote spots, into which humans have intruded and left their mark. In some cases, miniature people (less than ¼-inch high) are present. In other cases, there is just some construction or paraphernalia of habitation. A few of the works depict urban infrastructure. The fabrication is meticulous.

It is probably time for a museum show of new miniatures—quite a few artists are working in this vein now.

Here is a small selection from Mora’s show:

And So We March (clowns on parade)

Weeds

Park

Graveyard (stacks of crushed automobiles)

New Beginning #2 (broken public statue on the right)

* Detail view (from gallery website)

A Drawing for $50

2007-02-25T22:55:00.000-08:00

In San Francisco on Friday night, Southern Exposure held its annual fund-raiser called the Monster Drawing Rally. I went over there for awhile, despite a slough of fatigue following a rather mild cold. Although the event took place at a different venue this year, it was the usual madhouse. Squeezing through the crowd, I encountered a young artist friend going the opposite direction, and we just looked at each other and screamed. That felt good.

For reasons that are surely not rational, it is deemed necessary to have DJs and loud music on top of HUNDREDS of people talking, or trying. One young artist whom I don’t know well, who was trying to be friendly, found it hard to converse with me because I couldn’t hear half of what she said. My hearing tends to fail me in these situations. The music was fun (“I might like you better if we slept together”), but PLEASE!

Anyway, I laughed when I overheard one guy say, “I thought they would be drawing monsters.” Actually, the monster aspect is the size of it: 100 or so artists, each drawing for an hour in shifts of 25. Each of the donated drawings was slipped into a clear plastic envelope, taped to the wall, and offered for $50. When more than one person wanted a drawing (this happened a lot), the contenders drew from a pack of cards, and the high card took the drawing.

I literally aced a graphite drawing by Eric Bodine (photo at top).

It was a feel-good evening: the generosity of the artists, the hands shooting up to bid when fresh drawings reached the wall, the happy faces, the sense of community.

SECA at SFMOMA

2007-02-25T21:33:00.000-08:00

Note: This exhibition is on view through 4/22/07.

Every two years, SFMOMA selects a handful of Bay Area artists to receive the SECA Art Award. The award is named for the Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art, a museum auxiliary whose role in the process is never fully explained in press releases. After the announcement of the awards, the artists prepare for the award exhibition, held in the early months of the following year. My sources tell me that the artists are assigned an area in the layout and then allowed to present themselves more or less as they wish.

The winners are selected by SFMOMA curators. Their general criteria are set forth in the exhibition's press release. One is “a high level of artistic maturity,” a puzzling phrase for artists who, in some cases, have just graduated from MFA programs. The other main criterion is that the artists’ work “has not yet received substantial recognition.” SFMOMA should retire this phrase, as it sparks titters. Many of the winners have had gallery representation at the time of the award, and some have had international exposure.

Generally the winners are young artists who have developed practices that are somewhat distinctive and that feel promising. Good work can be found in each biennial show, and it’s refreshing to see the locals featured at this museum, which otherwise is more interested in younger artists from elsewhere.

To followers of the local scene, though, some SECA choices can seem peculiar. Each time a round of winners is announced, people ask “Why this artist and not that artist?” Speculations about cronyism are floated with regularity. Also, many observers find the overall results too safe, too tame.

The number of SECA award winners varies from year to year. One of the five for 2006 is Leslie Shows, a painter whose method is collage. Working generally on a large scale, she creates barren, abandoned, or ravaged landscapes through a painterly accretion of materials glued to paper or panel. The materials are sometimes affixed with a degree of looseness, giving the surfaces a rough, even decaying quality. The paintings are as fascinating close up as they are from a dozen feet away. They reflect an enormous matrix of choices.

Typically, Shows works on several pieces concurrently, over an extended period. In the initial stages, her paintings look chaotic, with barely attached elements drooping forward rather pathetically. As each painting finally comes together, you realize what an exceptional visual imagination has been guiding the process. One work in the SECA show is actually owned by SFMOMA: “Two Ways to Organize” (photo at top by Leslie Wells/Fredrik Nilsen Studios). Another compelling work has a title as long as this landscape: “Heap of Elements for a Body, About to Act or Finished Acting” (photo above, from SFMOMA website). The immense detail and physical qualities of Shows's paintings are hard to capture in photos.

The other painter in the show, Sarah Cain, is accomplished in her flat work but often at her best when she can animate space via an installation. Her MFA show at UC Berkeley included one piece that featured a tree branch leaned against a wall, and there’s another in the SECA show. These totemic, delicately unruly works seem designed not just to represent magic but to embody it. They really charge the space around them. (Photo above.)

The show also includes Cain’s odd small painting, “Gladness Becomes Weeping” (photo above). It looks like a trial version of a Minimalist object, or maybe an artifact from a low-budget 1970s sci-fi movie. The piece is geometric but casual about it. The top part is a piece of cardboard wrapped with what looks like copper wire (though it’s actually string). The shiny line near the bottom is a string of beads.

Kota Ezawa explores famous images from the media and from art history by making reductive versions using a computer drawing program. (Yes, he draws.) The exhibit includes two images from his lightbox series called “The History of Photography Remix” (photos above). There is also an animation entitled, “Hardcore and Censored,” based on parts of the travel and porn video recorded by tabloid celebs Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee and subsequently stolen and posted on the internet. Ezawa's images are so flat that your mind drifts to the dialogue, which at first seems banal and then artificial. It’s like bad actors reciting a tone-deaf script. It's creepy to realize these sounds passed for real life.

Mitzi Pederson is a mainly a sculptor, though she also makes drawings that reflect some of the impulses expressed in her sculpture. The sculptures are often a mash-up of prosaic building materials and glittery craft supplies. She’s interested in physical balance and tension, and also in broken edges. She can work on an intimate scale but also likes to take over space. The largest piece in the show (photo above) is her cinderblock installation, “Untitled (ten years later or maybe just one).”

The final participant is Amy Franceschini, who gets a whole room for her “Victory Gardens 2007+” project. (The project also has a website.*) Given the attractive, marketable qualities of the other awardees, perhaps the curators felt a dose of social practice would be in order. I found Franceschini’s installation less compelling, both visually and conceptually, than some of her prior work. It felt less like art than like an ecological project put across with sharp design and PR skills. The reference to the Victory Gardens of World War II is poignant, though. The very name carries a whiff of national purpose that seems to have vanished, except in rhetoric.

*A project that addresses related issues is the Edible Schoolyard, created by food guru Alice Waters.

Presentation Aesthetics at the de Young (SF)

2007-02-21T18:54:00.000-08:00

On a recent visit to the new de Young Museum, I revisited many works of art with pleasure (more on that in a later posting) but also paid attention to how well the architecture and the installations served the art.

The new building, designed by architectural stars Herzog and de Meuron, was a politically thorny and very expensive proposition. It has won renown for its marvelous exterior and even for visitor treats such as the panoramic view of San Francisco from the tower. However, along with many art lovers, I have found many galleries not up to snuff as art environments, in matters of architecture as well as installation. Visual clutter is practically a theme of the museum. I would like to note some of the problems.

A group of 10 landscape murals by Gottardo Piazzoni (1972-1945) found a place at the de Young after San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum decided to remove them from a civic building that became the Asian’s new home. The removal, restoration, and new installation cost a million dollars, according to the Asian Museum, which paid the bill. So these works are not chopped liver.

The murals look splendidly calm in their new setting except for an assortment of visual clutter. The worst gaffe is that, in front of each panel, a black iron bar has been installed for protection. I would not be entirely surprised to walk in and find a bicycle locked to one of them. The bars cut right in front of each panel. (See photos above and below.) They ought to be removed, but the problem is how to protect the paintings in a room that is designed to be an “event room,” where crowds of people and outside caterers occasionally hold sway. I am sure there is a solution, but it’s not clear that the museum is moving toward one.

Another annoyance is that, at the north end of the room, the murals must compete with gilded donor lists (photo below).

Some huge air grates contribute further visual clamor (photo below).

These grates are everywhere. In the examples below, they are in front of paintings by Frank Lobdell and Sam Francis.

In the museum's main lobby, a number of Joan Mitchell paintings are currently installed. Consider the clutter surrounding this diptych from 1992:

In one gallery, a sculpture by Doris Salcedo has been placed (dumped?) next to a large installation by Cornelia Parker. The two works have a thematic relationship, but the Salcedo work is diminished by this juxtaposition. To make matters worse, Salcedo's work—part of a series referencing the catastrophic humanitarian situation in her home country of Columbia—is trivialized by nearby signage (see photo below).

The supreme instance of insensitive placement is the Cornelia Parker. Entitled “Anti-Mass,” this work was created from the charred remains of a Black Southern Baptist church that had been destroyed by an arsonist. The installation is jammed up against one wall in a gallery that contains a variety of work, including Bruce Nauman's sardonic neon, "Double Poke in the Eye II," and a comically sexy sculpture by Rachael Neubauer. Parker's work also shares visual space with the same exit door and signs that form a backdrop for the Salcedo. (See photos below at at the top.) In 2005-06, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts devoted a huge gallery to an exhibition of two Parker works from the church series, a memorable presentation that the de Young might have learned from.

Kala at YBCA (SF)

2007-02-21T17:08:00.000-08:00

Note: This exhibit closes on 4/1/07.

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is honoring Kala Art Institute (Berkeley) with an exhibition of 25 artists who have been in residence at Kala over the years. It's a worthwhile show, although the selection by YBCA curators is uneven. Not included are some former Kala artists who are more interesting than some of those picked for the show. Since YBCA has a “no photos” rule, this posting will be skimpy on visuals.

From Taro Hattori comes the latest installment in his “Beaut Brute” series of terrorist weaponry imagined as Mod/Minimalist consumer products. This time he has made a portable case that includes a cell phone and iPod, for the killer on the go. There are a couple of empty slots in the case, making you wonder what weapons had been there and how they were used. Below is a general view; at the top, a close-up of a grenade. (The images are from the artist’s website).

On a monitor in a hallway, Eunjung Hwang’s digital animation, “Fabulous Creatures and Bestial Delights,” is a hit. It’s funny, a bit morbid, and very skillful. A couple of stills are shown below (taken from the artist’s website).

Lauren Davies (who works at Kala) has contributed some work from her iceberg series. Grouped tightly on a wall are half a dozen drawings and one small sculpture. Davies, known for her odd materials, has made the drawing in graphite on vinyl upholstery fabric (two images below, from the artist).

Other highlights are James Sansing’s stairwell installation, Jeff Kao’s “Better Reception” sculpture, Samantha Lautman’s penny-sized engravings of Oakland scenes, and Srdjan Loncar’s installation “Mountain and Sunset Clouds with Mother’s Shoes.”

Bill Owens at Robert Koch (SF)

2007-02-19T19:47:00.000-08:00

Alert: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 2/24/07.

At Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco, there is a snappy little exhibit of medium-large color photographs by noted Bay Area photographer Bill Owens, under the title "Flesh." I noticed that the photos were framed using an excellent non-reflective glass. The gallery told me that the glass was sourced in Europe after the closure of the Denglas factory in the U.S. To my eye, the European glass is superior to the best grade of Denglas, which was serviceable for straight-on viewing but produced undesirable blue-green tints at an angle.

Also on view at Koch is work by Brooklyn-based photographer Christian Patterson: a series of color shots of Memphis, Tennessee, in the manner of William Eggleston.

Above and below are three favorite images from the Owens show (borrowed from the gallery website). The photo at top is called "Grill," and the reflections are part of it. The first photo below is called "Freud at the Met," referring to the Lucien Freud exhibition at New York's Metropolitan Museum some years ago. The third image is "Roasted Pork."

Freedom as a Tower

2007-02-19T17:42:00.000-08:00

Freedom Tower "curtain wall" — clear views of airplanes?

In today’s New York Times, architectural critic Nicolai Ouroussoff attempted a last-ditch rally against the design of the Freedom Tower in Manhattan. He described the working design as “a barricaded fortress” and a “clumsy bloated form” that speaks of “paranoia.” Many other people have take similar views, but the project has moved forward. The construction of the tower’s foundations has begun. Unless New Yorkers finally stand up and shout it down, a brain-dead, 1,776-foot office building will stand beside the footprints of the destroyed WTC towers. Here are some renderings of the project (the images are from the Skidmore, Owings & Merrill website for the tower).

A general view — designed to look like a dart so it won't look like a target?

The 20-story concrete bunker base.

Harbor view — New York giving the finger to the world?

West plaza — are those gravestones along the curb?

Fascist-style lobby with big paintings — uh, where's the security?

Here's a comparison building, the Shanghai World Financial Center, with a planned height of 1,614 feet, now under construction (image from China Daily):

Jason Middlebrook at Lisa Dent (SF)

2007-02-19T01:12:00.000-08:00

Alert: This exhibition is scheduled to close on 2/24/07.

Jason Middlebrook’s solo exhibition at Lisa Dent Gallery is a combination of sculpture, drawing, and installation. I saw it a month ago and was able to have a brief conversation with the artist, who lives in upstate New York. It’s a very crisp show and beautifully installed. But I came away feeling that I didn’t understand what Middlebrook was up to.

He applied the techniques of hobby mosaics to automobile and truck parts, all taken from types of vehicles he has owned. The results was like something you might see in an eccentric roadside attraction in the country. These fetishized objects were scattered around the main gallery terrain, where a few sprigs of silk flowers rose through cracks in the floor. In the second room, darkened for the occasion, an image of Los Angeles had been painted and collaged onto the walls—the city's night-time expanse of lights. In that space, many flowers popped up, like weeds trying to become a garden. All of this captured the eye. (Well, not the drawings so much.) But what did it mean?

Well, the flowers might be read as the stubborn resistance of nature, or the human spirit, against the crush of urbanization. The mosaics might signal the inevitable obsolescence of America's attitude toward the automobile. But these ideas and others didn't seem to unroll very far. The show resisted my effort to probe beneath its seemingly limpid surface. So, this is perhaps a show that needs to be left alone, registered with the eyes and converted to memory without any intervening analysis (the way children see).

In this spirit, I offer several photos. The one at the top shows one area of the darkened room. Below are Middlebrook's sculptures based on a muffler with pipe, a Ford truck grille, and a wheel with a whitewall tire.

“Close Calls” at the Headlands

2007-02-17T19:00:00.000-08:00

Alert: This exhibition closes on 2/25/07.

The Headlands Center for the Arts (HCA) is a short drive from San Francisco, across the Golden Gate Bridge into the Marin headlands. In recent years, HCA has presented a “Close Calls” exhibition featuring California artists who applied for residencies at HCA or for the Tournesol Award in Painting, but who narrowly missed being selected.

Here is a look at some of the work in the 2007 edition of this show.

Zachary Scholz like to find sculptural moments in junk. Above is a foam cushion split and installed on the wall. Below is more foam, resting on top of some empty bottles.

Victoria May contributed a sculpture, "Collateral Damage," in which thread stands in for blood. Below is a general view and a closeup.

Steve Lambert, currently in New York as a fellow at Eyebeam’s Open R&D Lab, asked several Bay Area friends to staff his "I will talk with anyone..." table, but they turned him down. Somehow, though, the table got used.

A beautiful graphite and charcoal drawing of a "Horned Owl Wing" seemed larger than life even for a notably large species. The artist is Sheila Ghidini.

Below is Lucas Murgida standing next to documentation of of project in which he installed himself at various locales to teach people locksmithing techniques. Murgida's projects are always related to his daytime job, and he became a locksmith (for 4 years) in order to do this project.

David O. Johnson installed two neon pieces, one on the floor and one in a nearby wall, that seemed to function as one work:

Finally, a rather mystical abstract painting by Chris Duncan (very shiny):

Outside the de Young Museum (SF)

2007-02-15T20:22:00.000-08:00

Above: On Guard (Diptych)

Today I explored the grounds of San Francisco's de Young Museum, the $200-million landmark designed by Herzog and de Meuron. Here are some photos with captions (mostly snarky).

The Secret Door:

Sculpture with Plastic Lining:

Food-Service Minimalism:

Specific Object Series:

Enchantment, They Said:

The Two Towers:

Composition in Dust:

Merci, John Constable:

Mother and Child (artist unknown):

“The Unknown Quantity” at Gregory Lind (SF)

2007-02-14T21:06:00.000-08:00

Alert: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 2/28/07.

Group shows at Gregory Lind Gallery are compact and fun. The current one, named "The Unknown Quantity" after the 1933 Hermann Broch novel, comes with a heady curatorial statement better suited to a museum show, but nobody will mind. Gregory Lind has lived in Germany and no doubt has read the novel, perhaps in German. Broch was a remarkable character, so add that book to your list.

Here are some highlights of the exhibit—alas, with mediocre photos except the two I borrowed from the gallery website.

1. A sculpture by San Francisco artist Christian Maychack (photo at top, with detail below).

2. A painting on paper (below) by New York artist Franklin Evans, who will have a solo show at the gallery in March. This one is called "FF frenchkiss." Makes you want to look close, no?

3. A mysteriously coded drawing by New York artist Will Yackulic (below).

4. A drawing by San Francisco artist Mat O'Brien, with a great title, "Between Theories" (below).

5. A thread drawing by another San Francisco artist, Chris Duncan (below).

Porfolios and Boxes at 871 (SF)

2007-02-14T20:19:00.000-08:00

Note: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 3/31/07.

Specially assembled portfolios (or boxes) of artwork are a common moneymaking item for fine art presses and non-profit art organizations. The practice goes back decades and perhaps originated with Marcel Duchamp’s “Boîte-en-valise” (1935-41). In San Francisco, 871 Fine Arts is presenting a small, interesting show, “Portfolios and Boxes,” that covers a surprising range of artistic styles.

Top of the charts for fun is the “Rubber Stamp Portfolio” from 1976, which includes work by Richard Artschwager, Chuck Close, Agnes Martin, Myron Stout, Tom Wesselmann, and eight others. In the display, the Stout piece was placed next to the Wesselmann and appears to echo the female crotch in the Wesselmann (detail photo above). Perhaps this is a sly bit of stagecraft by the proprietor, Adrienne Fish. On the website of Parasol Press, publisher of the portfolio, the Stout piece is shown oriented the other way, resembling a flying saucer.

Another contender is the Richard Pettibon box from 1998 that includes 12 lithographs and one original drawing (photo at top).

Ritualists will be interested in “Das O. M. Theater,” a 1971 box by the notorious Viennese Actionist, Hermann Nitsch. It includes collages made with “blood” and gauze, and Aktion photographs like the one below. (O.M. = Orgien Mysterien. Orgies and mysteries, dude!)

For relief—sort of—turn to the photographic prints in the “Ventriloquisms” portfolio by Laurie Simmons (photo below).

A variation from the flat work is “7 Objects, 1969,” which includes objects by Eva Hesse, Bruce Nauman (soundtrack from videos, photo below), Richard Serra, Keith Sonnier, and several others.

The gallery does not have a website. The address is 49 Geary St., Second Floor. The phone is (415) 543-5155. The hours generally are Tuesday-Saturday, 10:30-5:30. In addition to the artwork, there is an excellent art bookstore at the back.

(Apologies for the quality of the photos; I didn't use the right settings during my visit and had to salvage what I could.)

Rosana Castrillo Diaz at Anthony Meier (SF)

2007-02-14T15:45:00.000-08:00

Alert: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 3/2/07.

Anthony Meier Fine Arts is presenting its first solo exhibition of San Francisco artist Rosana Castrillo Diaz. This artist’s work has previously appeared locally at CCA Wattis in the “Warped Space” show (2003) and in the SECA Award show at SFMOMA in 2005.

The exhibition consists of still life drawings in graphite, abstract white-on-white drawings, white grids cut from graph paper and hung sculpturally against the wall, and an abstract wall installation made of loops of transparent tape.

There are numerous rewards in this show, although it operates in a narrow band of tastefulness that some viewers may find constricting. The aesthetic is conservative rather than disruptive.

Within its aesthetic boundaries, the work shows an experimental impulse, although there isn't much sense of playfulness. Everything is created through precise, repetitive processes that are surely taxing, although possibly meditative as well.

The still lifes depict mundane objects in the artist’s studio: books, papers, rubber bands. There is a careful rendering of details that attract the artist's eye, with an emphasis on forms and the play of light rather than on the object’s texture. The control of the graphite medium is exemplary. The rubber band drawings seem formal and intimate at once, with an impish edge. (Photo at top.) A beautiful rendering of the edges of various paper items shows the stack emerging from a hazy background, as if arriving from another dimension. (Photo above, detail below.)

Castrillo Diaz’s white-on-white works are probably her most distinctive. Of course they belong to a long tradition of Modernist white abstractions: Malevich, Rauschenberg, Ryman, and others. By pushing her white forms to the edge of visibility, she also invades a perceptual territory that has interested Robert Irwin.

The artist’s works in this vein do not seem to be part of an extended argument about a medium, as is the case with Robert Ryman’s paintings. The works are clearly related to each other, but seem largely to stand on their own. But perhaps it’s too soon to see what dialectic Castrillo Diaz may be developing.

In addition to the West’s modern tradition, another tradition comes to mind. To me, the white-on-white drawings resemble light shining through the filigree of a Moorish architectural screen. For an artist born in Spain, this would not be a far-fetched point of reference.

Among the white drawings on view, my favorite is the one in which a faint white square is created by means of an untold number of ultra-thin vertical lines drawn freehand. It’s a knockout.

Other high points of the show are the two cut-paper grids that hang sculpturally from the wall. Their forms and fragility are captivating. I am including a photograph of one (below), if only to show how elusive the work is. Like the white drawings, which are even more recessive, the grids can be appreciated only in person.

One disappointment in the show is the large tape piece. With its chrysanthemum-like forms, it looks too much like decoration. Castrillo Diaz’s earlier tape pieces seemed to be more about subliminal awareness and the poetics of space.

(Photos provided by Anthony Meier Fine Arts.)

Carlos Basualdo at SFAI

2007-02-14T03:41:00.000-08:00

Carlos Basualdo, originally from Argentina, is the new Curator of Contemporary Art at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. On 1/31/07, he gave a lecture at the San Francisco Art Institute on an exhibition he curated, “Tropicália,” which recently ended its tour at the Bronx Museum of the Arts.

“Tropicália” refers to a period of artistic efflorescence in Brazil in the late 1960s (mostly in Rio de Janeiro). This coincided with the first years of a military dictatorship—one of several in Brazil—that soon turned to bloody repression. “Tropicália” is also the title of a celebrated 1968 album of Brazilian music, and it is the musical side of this movement that Norte-Americanos know best: Gilberto Gil, Caetano Veloso, and others. (An image of the album cover, borrowed from the BBC website, is shown above.)

Basualdo’s exhibit was designed to highlight the visual artists from the movement, especially Lygia Clark, Hélio Oiticica, Antonio Dias, and Lygia Pape. A sense of continuity was proposed by showing some recent Brazilian artists too, including the omnipresent Eli Sudbrack (code name: assume vivid astro focus). The exhibit provided information on a key background figure, Oswald de Andrade, a founder of Brazilian modernism in the 1920s whose idea of cultural cannibalism influenced the Tropicália movement.

Not having experienced the exhibit in person, I can only say that as shown in Basualdo’s installation photos, the artwork seemed to be stranded in the large white-box spaces. Of course, a lot of exhibitions look that way.

Among the artists included in the show, Lygia Clark seems a very interesting figure. Her goggles, hoods, and interactive suits resonate well today. (There are some photos of this work on CuteCircuit.) In reading about her, I was intrigued by her step-by-step progression from a somewhat conventional modernism to a post-modern practice. A full account of her career would make an interesting exhibit in itself.

The lecture was tasty, but I left it feeling I’d had an appetizer rather than a meal. I would have preferred a visual walk-through of the exhibition, with commentary and historical sidebars to fill out the experience.

For further reference, there is a longish article about Clark and Oiticica is available at Leonardo Online.

Back to the Future at New Langton (SF)

2007-02-14T03:01:00.000-08:00

Alert: This exhibit is scheduled to close on 1/24/07.

New Langton Arts’s current exhibit is mostly paintings, and that’s a shock. For an art space that has been so devoted to the conceptual, it feels almost like a breach of decorum. In any case, the choice is deliberate. The guest curator is Pamela Wilson-Ryckman, herself a painter. She deserves kudos for including several artists whose work is normally viewable only in other cities.

The show is called “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” borrowed from the 1966 Sergio Leone film. The title reflects the curator’s intent to show abstract painting in a mood of soured modernity. The curatorial statement suggests a name for this approach: de-transcendentalized modernism. Wilson-Ryckman says that the works “retain a faint trace of modernism’s promise of a utopian future. Yet they reflect neither post-modernism’s celebration of kitsch, nor the current fetish with popular culture (though they are not an explicit rejection of either).”

The show registers its point, but because it includes so few works, it can’t put forth an extended argument. The viewer must take the show as presented, as a set of specific choices. There is notably retro feel to nearly all the work, and I must admit that for an instant I thought: this looks like a re-sale gallery. An unfair impression, which I banished to the far reaches of my mind, not being able to banish it altogether. A more accurate metaphor is that the show often seems like watching good actors in an outdated play.

The most arresting work comes from the three women painters, born from the beginning to the end of the 1960s. Charline von Heyl is a German artist who lives in New York. The show includes one von Heyl painting of intimate size, and another that is towering. In the small one (photo above), there is a representational subtext that seems to flip the Abstract Expressionist manner into the realm of reportage. What you see looks like the aftermath of an explosion in the sky. There are black smears and a worrisome spray of sooty flecks. The most vibrant color is a bad-news orange.

Heyl’s larger painting (photo above) is less crisp and seems to recede. The brownish areas suggest a pair of creatures, human or quasi-human, in an outdoor setting. It could be a satyr’s picnic. But I don’t think the specifics matter. What seems to matter in this smudged representation—if that’s what it is—is the queasy feeling of visual security lost through some uncontrollable slippage. The overworked quality of the painting, which is off-putting, may be its actual subject.

Amy Sillman, also from New York, is represented by just one work, though a sizable one. East Coast critics, including Jerry Saltz, have enthused about her work. The February 2007 issue of Artforum features an 8-page article on Sillman by Boston writer and curator Linda Norden. I found that article to be over-written, verging on nutty. Norden refers to Sillman as “an avatar of a new order of painting.”

Sillman’s canvas at New Langton (photo above) is called “Big Girl.” It looks more structural than anthropomorphic, but there is a vague suggestion of a figure, perhaps seated in a chair. The image could be a large sketch for a sculpture. As usual, Sillman’s style brings to mind art of the Post-War period, in this case Willem de Kooning and Franz Kline. While artists often revisit the styles of predecessors, I can’t see any revelations in Sillman’s penchant for doing so. Often, Sillman seems to have absorbed not only the original instance of a style but the devolved versions adopted by secondary artists. There is a staleness that she can't shake. Sillman’s gambit is puzzling, especially as she plays it straight, without irony.

Certain strengths are evident in "Big Girl." You can feel the energy that went into the painting, and the improvisation that created it. The paint handling is confident. But it all seems to lead to a dead end. The energy begins to feel like agitation rather than action. The palette, although seemingly the most up-to-date element, gets tiresome fast. It feels like bright new packaging for for hand-me-downs. The painting's representational elements seem to pull awkwardly at the abstraction. The image seems to be simultaneously flaunting and hiding something, and this registers as evasion rather than as an interesting doubleness.

For me the most engaging works on display were those by Rebecca Morris, who lives in Los Angeles. She’s an artist who hits the mark less often than she should. Fortunately, the two paintings in this show are fairly unhinged, which is her best manner. Both use motifs she has explored in other paintings. She mounts her canvases on deep stretcher bars, so the paintings jut forward from the wall.

The large painting (photo at top) presents a quilt-like mosaic of geometric shapes in a riotous mix of patterns and colors. Some of the segments seem to lie adjacent, some on top of others. Several dark segments read as holes. The whole arrangement seems to swirl in space. The painting’s disorienting nature was given an unconscious tribute at New Langton when the piece was hung the wrong way at the opening of the exhibition (a mistake later rectified).

Some segments of the painting look like throw-away remnants from a painter’s practice, like rags or scraps of paper used to test colors or catch drips. The shapes are all a bit sloppy, the brushwork too. Along the borders of many sections, crude separation lines have been added. The palette includes some pretty colors, but the overall effect is nauseating. It’s a raucous painting, gleefully upending how paintings should behave. But it’s not out of control.

Morris’s smaller painting (photo above) finds other tactics of rebellion. Oval blobs of black and brown paint have been allowed to dry on the surface while the canvas was horizontal. The result is a group of wrinkled shapes that hang onto the bottom half of the canvas like scabs. They bring to mind engine oil, gangrene, and squashed dog turds. The ground layer is an uneven wash of girly pink, soiled with black smears and splatters of black and pink. The overall effect is toxic yet a bit tongue in cheek. Call it ugly fun.

The show includes a concrete sculpture (wall-mounted) by Avery Preesman. It looks like a Sixties grid turned biomorphic (photo above). I kind of like it, but he has done larger works in this vein, and one of those would have served better as his sole representation in this show.
Bay Area artist John Zurier adds a dark note with a series of three black paintings (called “Night”) done using distemper on linen, which yields a silky, stained look. Distemper—a mix of pigment and glue (or casein)—is an ancient technique that caught Zurier’s attention. I asked him if these were his war paintings, and with a surprised look he told me a similar thought had crossed his mind after he saw the paintings hung in the show. The black layer is painted on top of an undercoat that shows through slightly (note the green left edge in the image above). The works are dominated by broad horizontal brush strokes that, to my eye, batten down the surfaces instead of letting them open into more meditative territory.

The remaining works, which I did not find interesting, consisted of two paintings by New York artist Robert Bordo and several ceramic sculptures (on pedestals) by Bay Area artist Annabeth Rosen. A friend tried to argue that Bordo’s paintings are deliberately vacuous—a conceptual strategy. To me they looked reductive and slick, as if designed for book covers.

Jon Pylypchuk at Jack Hanley (SF)

2007-02-14T02:52:00.000-08:00

Alert: This exhibition closes on 2/24/07.

Several creatures fashioned by Winnepeg artist Jon Pylypchuk are now hanging out at Jack Hanley Gallery in San Francisco. Once glance tells you they’ve had a bad history. Perhaps they started out as stuffed toys made by inept hands in a family strapped for cash. Then they grew up, fell into trouble, developed bad habits, and rattled around the crummy parts of town. They seem beat-up, uncouth, unsavory, unwashed—and funny.

In one tableau of abjection, a beer-drinking little guy (above) watches a beer-drinking big guy take a piss on the floor (below).

Pylypchuk also goes to extremes in his paintings, several of which are on view. They depict malformed little creatures collaged onto landscapes that look like toxic waste dumps. The title of each work comes from a creature’s comment, which you can read in the painting. One of them says “Alright send me the heater motherfucker.”

Media Blitz at The Garage (SF)

2007-02-13T23:09:00.000-08:00

The Garage is an occasional, artist-run exhibition space in San Francisco, hosted by Justin Hoover. On 1/27/07 (for one night), guest curator Charlene Tan put together a group show called “Media Blitz.” It was the best so far at this venue.

Appropriately, one project was a car, which I failed to photograph. It was an old-style Volkswagen Beetle, white in color. The insides of the windows were covered in white paper. It looked like a Pop version of a Minimalist object. If you opened a door, however, you heard a soundtrack of female sexual cries and moans from a porno film. You could climb inside and be enveloped by the sound. Ricardo Anibal Perez was the artist.

Jaren Bonillo showed one of her silhouette projections, which look uncannily like a real person moving around (images at top).

Kenneth Lo created a small tribute to the lovelorn. Underneath a clear plastic drinking cup, placed upside-down on a white pedestal, rested a dead fly that had been painted in 24-caret gold. Nearby was taped a page from a pocket notebook. Looking at the paper closely, you could see the residual impression of handwriting, like a clue in an old detective movie. The words read: unlucky in love. (Photos above.)

Stoyan Dabov turned The Garage’s beloved pit into a sort of cyber grid space (photo above).

A large video projection dominated one wall: “Eyeplugs 2.0 (remixed).” It featured a barrage of images, distorted and degraded, and moving too fast. It conjured up a feeling of memory loss in a speeded-up world of competitive images. This project was assembled by Experimental Channel & Decaycast/Ratskin Records.

Other video and sound works were included. Somehow the blitz effect was maintained without crushing any individual work—a neat trick.

Carrie Mae Weems at CCA (SF)

2007-02-13T22:54:00.000-08:00

On 1/30/07 at California College of the Arts, artist Carrie Mae Weems was the featured speaker in an event that kicked off CCA’s 100th anniversary celebration. She took it as an occasion to give a heart-to-heart talk, veteran artist to young artists.

To start off, she cited some facts about the domination of commercial thinking in the art world. She advised artists to pay attention to the art market because they are not outside of it even if they think they are. She discussed price versus value, and referred to her puzzlements about pricing her own art work. At one point early in her career, she found that her photographs sold better when the price was dramatically raised.

Later in the talk, she returned to the art market, describing it as “incredibly invasive.” She observed that the market is about the construction of taste and about manipulation of value. She said it has little to do with artistic merit. More than once, she reminded the young artists in the audience that the market has little room for most of them. The likelihood, she said, is that “you will be left out.”

In the middle section of the talk, she recounted her recent experiences in looking for a gallery to represent her. For reasons she did not divulge, she had left the New York gallery where she had been represented for 15 years. (I assume this was P.P.O.W., though she didn’t cite the name.) After some years of strong sales, she was unsettled to find that her work was no longer so highly valued in the market. On the other hand, she continued to receive a stream of offers of museum shows and commissions, as well as invitations to lecture. But the lack of gallery representation bothered her. She didn’t like “being on the sidelines.”

She made some efforts to find new representation. She sent out feelers among her acquaintances. She traipsed around Chelsea, carrying a laptop and discs to show her work to a handful of interested parties. She found this depressing. One of her gallery visits was with a gallerist she had known for 15 years, a man who had long expressed interest in her work. At the end of their discussion, he reiterated that he liked her work and was moved by it, but said (smiling) that he needed to discuss with his gallery partner whether they could take her on. This was a lie, Weems said. She knew it immediately. She knew that this gallerist made his own decisions about showing artists. What seemed worse to her was that the gallerist had a look in his eye that told her he was enjoying his feeling of total control. At this point, Weems said she felt “lost in the game.”

In her focus on finding a new gallery, Weems said she was negligent, even rude, toward the various opportunities that continued to come her way outside the commercial market. Finally, while traveling in Europe, she had an epiphany. She began thinking about the notion of value: what is valued, and by whom, and why. She began to focus of the components of the art world outside the commercial galleries. She was struck by a remark that John Baldessari made to her in another context: that what’s not included is often more important that what’s included.

Her advice about the market now is: run away from it, not toward it. She sees an upswing in organizations founded with the intent of moving away from the market. The marketplace is one possibility for art, but not the only one. She ended her talk by reciting a list of people and collectives who have not accepted the market as their standard of value: Coco Fusco, Mel Chin, the Gorilla Girls, Hans Haacke, Group Material, Jenny Holzer, Lucy Lippard, Robert Smithson, and many more.

Leaving CCA that night, I wondered how the young artists (and others) received it. Cynically, people might have thought: she turned her back on the market AFTER it turned its back on her. And they might wonder what tune she’d sing if a major New York gallery suddenly begged to represent her. In any case, they would have gotten the message: the art market is a drug, it affects your perceptions, don’t say you weren’t warned.

(The photo at the top, borrowed from the University of Delaware museum site, is from Weems’s Kitchen Table series.)

Kenneth Lo at ATA (SF)

2007-01-22T17:04:00.000-08:00

Alert: This exhibit closes on 1/30/07.

The worst place to see an artist’s video may be the window gallery at Artist’s Television Access (ATA) in San Francisco. Although I can recommend Kenneth Lo’s entertaining “Rice Balla Chronicles,” now showing there, I must point out that the video is displayed on a monitor with a bulging screen and poor color adjustment, situated behind a non-pristine window. Also, the sound is either muffled or tinny, depending on which speaker is activated—the one inside the TV, or the lone speaker driver hanging naked in the doorway outside. Under the cascades of vehicular noise on Valencia St., the video soundtrack often disappears.

Lo’s video is a 12-minute edit of material originally prepared for his Berkeley MFA show last year. In part, it’s a fantasy revenge project, a kiss-off to his high school years in Orange County when, as Lo informed me, the jocks bullied him because he was a short, skinny, Asian, and artistic. But it’s also a comedy about social identity, from the perspective of a young Chinese American guy. Basketball is brought into the mix because the artist is a long-time Lakers fan and, growing up, he observed African-American players adopt hip-hop styles as part of their identities.

The video reinvents the 5’7” artist as a basketball phenomenon who once played against Kobe Bryant. The time sequence of the imagined story is a bit confusing, but apparently what you see is Ken Lo at his basketball peak in 1996, before an injury sidelined him for good. The montage includes a hip-hop music sequence, an animation sequence using shadow puppets, and some hand-written inter-titles. The live action features a toy-sized hoop and ball. To accompany the video, Lo created two basketball posters, framed by a Chinese lattice pattern (photo at top).

As recounted in the video, Ken Lo’s athletic skill and moxie made him the talk of the town. Several hot young babes tell the camera they love Ken Lo. A guy in a hoodie and a ball player banter about Ken Lo, giving praise. Ken Lo’s mother speaks from her kitchen to say how popular he is. A basketball coach is interviewed in his office. The only nay-sayer is an old Chinese guy eating in a restaurant, hen’s foot in hand, saying that Ken Lo doesn’t speak Chinese, he dates white women, he’s no good. All the characters are played by the artist himself. He disappears into them, with superb results.

Below are some fuzzy screen shots.

Post Mortem for Artists

2007-01-22T14:12:00.000-08:00

Nadine Jarvis, a recent graduate in design from Goldsmiths (London), has invented a new way to handle the residue of cremation. In a project called Carbon Copies, she has envisioned the transformation of the carbon content of a person's cremains into graphite, which is then used to manufacture a set of pencils (about 250 per person). Each pencil is imprinted with the deceased person’s name and life dates. The pencils are kept in a special wooden case, which includes a build-in sharpener. The shavings from the sharpener remain in the case.

This could provide a final outlet for the artistic impulse.

Here are links to photos of a case and a pencil.

"Listening" Re-opens at The LAB (SF)

2007-01-19T12:52:00.000-08:00

Following a holiday closure, The LAB in San Francisco has re-opened its exhibit "Listening: Living Art from Japan and San Francisco." The show will run through 1/27/07. I blogged about this show on 12/19/06 and 12/29/06 (at the end of each posting). The show has problems but also rewards. A special delight is Yoshinori Niwa's deadpan video, "People like us," which shows Niwa transporting a bag of trash from his home in Tokyo to San Francisco. A tiny QuickTime version can now be seen on Niwa's website, but it's much better to see it normal-size as part of his trash installation at The LAB. Below are a few images from the QuickTime verson.

Heading to the train in Tokyo:

Close-up of the bag:

The bag on the train:

The bag at security, Narita Airport:

The bag on the airplane seat:

Lauren Davies at Ampersand (SF)

2007-01-13T19:28:00.000-08:00

Note: This exhibit closes on 2/11/07. The gallery has limited hours.

Lauren Davies’s childhood fascination with natural history museums plays out in her art, with weirdly wonderful results. Her latest project, entitled “Dominion,” is on view at Ampersand International Arts in San Francisco. Her point of departure for the show was a decrepit French schoolroom map of colonial Africa (detail at left).

In recent years, some of Davies's best work has been animal sculptures and dioramas. Elements of these can look realistic, but everything is fake. The animal sculptures are often incomplete, or in process, in ways that can be unnerving. The dioramas merge several aesthetic styles: traditional displays of natural history, Modernist abstractions, and Arte Povera’s use of abject materials and lack of finish. There’s a slightly demented air to the proceedings, with a comic edge that adds pressure instead of releasing it.

In this show, one of the dioramas is called “Petting Zoo Pongo” (photo at top, from the gallery website). While Pongo is the genus for orangutans, the paw in this piece is presumably a gorilla’s. It's a duplicate of a gorilla paw noted below. Perhaps Davies is referring to legendary gorilla-like creature called pongo, as in the B-movie White Pongo (1945).

The other diorama is “Ivory Products,” in which Ivory Soap is the stand-in for true ivory. The debossed product logo is partially visible in one section. Despite the pun with materials, the invocation of ivory, and the tattered display, give the work an elegiac quality. (Photo above.)

There is also a poignant aspect to “Glove,” a simulated gorilla paw that has been dropped casually on the floor, suggesting human negligence. (Photo above.)

One of the strangest works replicates what the zoo industry calls a chimpanzee “enrichment device.” (Photos above and below.) In this case it's a feeding device in the form of a high-rise termite mound. Chimps in the wild use twigs to probe the real mounds for termites, which they eat. In zoos, their probing gets them some mashed food. Next to her replicated mound, Davies displays a simulated tube, stuffed with simulated food, that is ready to be installed inside the fake mound. After pondering this work, you can go home and enjoy your own “enrichment devices.”