RATIO 3 - CENTER FOR SEX AND CULTURE

ALTER SPACE - 111 MINNA

NORTH BEACH FIRST FRIDAYS

10.05.12 Part II

(with assistance from Anneliese Vobis and Marian Ferrara)



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Ratio 3 Gallery: Lutz Bacher.

Review by Anneliese Vobis: Small wooden framed telescope photographs invite for a very close look. Interesting astronomical constellations take us to far away events and formations. The endless mass of black balls on the floor is the ideal contrast to the picture imageries.

Comment by AB: Ratio 3 continues to ratchet up the quality of the San Francisco art experience with this debut show at their expansive new dogleg gallery deep in The Mission. Lutz Bacher festoons the walls with intermittent neatly framed astronomical images excised from the pages of Burnham's Celestial Handbook (New York, Dover, 1978), a tome widely available on the Internet for as little as 99¢ (plus shipping). Several thousand black foam balls are strewn about the gallery floor as if to create their own universe, free to be reconfigured at the whims of anyone's feet. Highly recommended.

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Center for Sex and Culture: The Dirty Comics Show.

Artists: Agnes Czaja, Avery Cassell, Nickie Charles, Edie Fake, Mari Naomi, Christine Smith.

Comment by AB: There's a place for erotica in all of our lives, whether we care to admit it or not. For those art aficionados among us who do, there's the Center for Sex and Culture and their monthly aesthetic junkets into boundless realms of human sexuality.

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Alter Space: What's Wrong With Candyland?

Artists: Indira Allegra, Ashley Fitzpatrick, Rowena Chan, Guerda Mezidor, Esra Canigullari, Zena Segri, Elliot Cost, Jessica Leimone, Lael Seltzer, Josh Vidal, Esther Wald, Josh Coolidge, Immi Hill, Lauren Beato, Celeste Johnson, Dylan Rupert, Rachel Wardenburg, Kellie Arceneaux, Anne Gable, Jessica Jenkins, David Lauer, Lorien Stern, Julia Guarneri, Tori Manferdelli, Olivia Neal, Haegen Crosby, Courtney Costello, Ian Liu-Johnson, Burke Boynton, Maria Fang.

Review by Anneliese Vobis: The space is transformed by California College of the Arts' Individualized Major Department students into an otherworldly looking Museum about strange mystical spaces and hidden secrets. Many projects guide us to faraway subconscious situations. The chosen materials and techniques are highly diverse and show good craftsmanship. Post-minimalist nervous sculptures contrast with playful social projects. References to the human body and fragments remind to Eva Hesse, Sigmar Polke and Scotts.

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111 Minna Gallery: Penpal - Lennie Mace Solo Show.

Review by Anneliese Vobis: At first sight the work appears like a printed illustration show, but then you realize the excellent craftsmanship and Mace's love for detail in all of his work. He is a master of ballpoint pen illustration. His lines create new formations which bring movement and life to the original flat shapes and forms. The images range from poetic fishes to apocalyptic scenarios. Japanese subway posters, a huge woven tapestry, artified jeans, and more-- he covers everything with his symbol-rich stories and develops in this way a new cosmos around his artistic view on life.

Comment by AB: Technically exceptional and conceptually intriguing as well. And a master of the ballpoint pen. Worth a visit.

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North Beach First Fridays-- images c/o Marian Ferrara:

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