SAN FRANCISCO ART GALLERIES OPENINGS

FIRST THURSDAY - 09.06.12 - Part I

(with assistance from Lindsey Millikan and RWM)



Misconceptions collectors have about galleries & buying art. Click Here.

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John Berggruen Gallery: Highlights 2012.

Artists: Doug Aitken, John Baldessari, Robert Bechtle, Chuck Close, Mark di Suvero, Richard Diebenkorn, Helen Frankenthaler, Philip Guston, Damien Hirst, Anselm Kiefer, Yayoi Kusama, Robert Mangold, Henri Matisse, Julie Mehretu, Beatriz Milhazes, Henry Moore, Martin Puryear, Richard Serra, Wayne Thiebaud.

Comment by AB: High caliber hits from the gallery's extensive collection. Worth a visit.

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Dolby Chadwick Gallery: Marshall Crossman - Big Water.

Review by RWM: Nice to frolic here in waters that thrill and not often chill. Fun to go in for a swim with others, but unfortunately for the fish, the waters are not just theirs anymore. Sad to see fish as trophies rather than living beings. They do have faces similar to ours and sometimes expressions which suggest emotions. We need to be careful what we eat from the sea for other reasons as well. The ocean beckons, but it will not in all ways continue to provide if we have too much fun at its expense or eat too much of what it has to offer.

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Hespe Gallery: Sea Change - Kim Cogan.

Review by RWM: Interesting to see the ocean in motion. All sorts of strange views of landscapes in process. The ocean does not always transfix here, but it does invigorate. The waves elude depiction and description. Not everything can be captured, even in paint. One can also get caught in the somber night mist.

Review by Lindsey Millikan: Oil paintings by Kim Cogan attract quite a crowd. While some of Cogan's large-scale cityscapes are on display, the show focuses primarily on waves painted on oval panels and one large canvas.

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Sandra Lee Gallery: Hyun-Su Park - Recent Paintings.

Comment by AB: Precise works by Korean artist Hyun-Su Park consist of paintings over paintings. Complex kaleidoscopic abstractions are overpainted with fundamental forms like circles and rings. Numerous small sections of the over-painting are then carefully scraped away to reveal details of the painting underneath. Nicely done. Stop on by.

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Gallery Paule Anglim: Milton Resnick - Paintings 1973-1983; Tom Marioni - Percussion Works in Dry Fresco.

Comment by AB: Thick impasto paintings by Milton Resnick range in tone from brooding and subdued to manically expressive. Behold the gravitas of abstraction here. In the anteroom, Tom Marioni inserts pencils, one at a time, into a section of bamboo and beats them repeatedly against a plaster surface. The results are intricate graphite drawings that look somewhat like swarms of birds or insects when viewed from a distance.

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Fraenkel Gallery: Charles Burchfield & Ralph Eugene Meatyard.

Review by Lindsey Millikan: Two late artists' works are presented with a focus on the landscape. The work of Charles Burchfield is primarily watercolor paintings with some chalk mixed media as well. It is complimented by the small-scale black and white photographs of by Ralph Eugene Meatyard.

Comment by AB: This unexpected pairing compares visionary and imaginative landscapes of painter Charles Burchfield and photographer Ralph Eugene Meatyard, presenting enough in the way of similarities to make a case, similarities which are at times remarkable. What that case is beyond uncommon coincidence, I'm not entirely sure.

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K Imperial Fine Art: Randy Colosky - Infrastructure.

Comment by AB: According to the liner notes, Randy Colosky's bronzes reference industrial New Jersey while his geometric colored glass sculptures are conceptual representations of the structure of the Tower of Babel. Nicely done on both counts.

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Addendum:

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Care to support the cause? I'd surely appreciate it.

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First Thursday - August 2, 2012

First Thursday - July 12, 2012

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