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ROOM FOR PAINTING ROOM FOR PAPER
LINCART - QUEENS NAILS
05.28.09
(with assistance from RWM)

Room for Painting Room for Paper: Marie Thibeault - When Worlds Collide, Recent Paintings; Stephen Westfall - Recent Gouaches.

Comment by AB: Los Angeles artist and Professor of Art at Cal State Long Beach, Marie Thibeault, sources her subject matters from natural disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, and presents the consequences as in the process of playing out-- in the vortex of the storm, so to speak. Homes, cars, and vestiges of civilization are apparent here and there, but flying debris and profound chaos clearly reign. In the room for paper, Stephen Westfall's precisely delineated geometric abstractions kinda remind me of road signs. I dunno.

Marie Thibeault art

Art by Marie Thibeault.

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Art (Marie Thibeault).

Art (Stephen Westfall).

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Lincart Gallery in collaboration with David de Rothschild's Adventure Ecology & Sculpt the Future Foundation: SMART Art Trash into Treasure.

Review by RWM: Amazing collection of art built from disposable items. Recycling meets Pop Art again in San Francisco, this time with wondrous results. A great deal of effort and ingenuity went into this fascinating exhibit. Warhol's influence is clearly recognizable. The works do not just acknowledge what we are losing in our throwaway society; they also remind of the artistic opportunities and materials available. There is a music-producing motor bike which depends entirely on pedal power to generate electricity, a Pop Art Coke bottle label collage, a plastic and packing material ball gown, and more. The assembled artworks make their environmental arguments with style and aplomb. Commenting about the toxics used may be the new brave environmental artistic frontier.

Comment by AB: Here's how environmentally scrupulous tonight's crowd is... There's this dude out front of Lincart giving away free copies of a book he wrote. He holds one out to a woman passerby, she asks if the book is printed on recycled paper, he says no, she walks away without taking it.

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First prize - "lawn" made out of sliced slivered magazine pages.

Art.

Prize winner - disembowled chair transformed into a hillscape.

Petition project to end junk mail.

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Another from the project to end junk mail.

Bubble wrap and plastic wrap Marie Antoinette.

Discarded plastic wrap Marie Antoinette verso.

Furniture.

Coke label art.

Pinkie cam close up of Coke lable art.

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Cardboard box barcode art.

Surf inside a wave of throwaway plastic bottle art.

Relative density.

Kinetic pedal powered boombox art.

Poet for hire out front.

Spillage.

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Queens Nails Projects : Sanctuary City/Ciudad Santuario 1989-2009.

Artists: Sergio De La Torre, Karla Claudio Betancourt, Dina Roumiantseva, Wenhua Shi, Rosario Alicia Sotelo, Chris Treggiari.

Comment by AB: To quote from the polemic, "In 1985, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors backed a resolution designating San Francisco a sanctuary city-one of the first in the US-for certain Central American refugees. The resolution decreed that police, schools, and health and social-service agencies were forbidden from assisting INS agents during potential investigations and arrests of Salvadoran and Guatemalan refugees." Since 9/11, federal immigration raids in San Francisco have increased, as has fear and paranoia among residents-- legal and otherwise. This show is about that-- thoroughly researched documentary installation, video and photography. And it's a good one. Highly recommended. Special opening night bonus at the refreshment counter-- "Illegal Mezcal." Yummy.

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