5 CLAUDE LANE - SF CAMERAWORK - ELECTRIC WORKS

INTERSECTION FOR THE ARTS - ROMER YOUNG

WONDERLAND SF - TRIPLE BASE - LAKE

(with assistance from DeWitt Cheng and RWM)

10.21.11



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5 Claude Lane Gallery: Juried Exhibition with Rush Philanthropic.

Artists: Travis Catlett, Bryan Keith Thomas, Elliott Jackson, Gthinji Wa Mbire, Nancy Totten, JR Doty, Michael Massenburg, Rachel Burnstein, Courtney Raney, Jennifer Perlmutter, William Palank, Milton Bowens, Jason Mecier, Josh McCay, Michael Lownie, Emily Koonse, Tracy Kessler, Simon Kangiser, Nicole Hayden, Bernard Hoyes, Annamarta Dostourian, Stan Bemis, Joanna Ali.

Comment by AB: Juried group show sponsored by Bombay Sapphire will travel to five major us cities (including SF). Winners get trips to Art Basel, Miami where they'll compete to win a a show in NY in 2012.

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SF Camerawork: Arthur Pollock - Book Launch & Exhibition.

Review by RWM: Impressive show highlights the best of photojournalism. Enjoy Arthur Pollock's odd and quirky subjects, unusual compositions and atypical poses. Find here memorable images and events. A feast for the voyeur.

Comment by AB: Survey of the career of Boston news photographer Arthur Pollock. If I recall correctly, Pollock tells me that most images date from the late 60s through the early 80s.

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Electric Works Gallery: Hughen/Starkweather - Approach, Transition, Touchdown... The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge Project; Andy Vogt.

Review by RWM: Bay Bridge construction in progress with art as the documenter. You might call it aesthetic investigative reporting.

Comment by AB: Jennifer Starkweather and Amanda Hughen wax interpretive in their homage to the 75th anniversary of the opening of the San Francisco Bay Bridge. In the project room, Andy Vogt gets inventive with lath. Particularly worthy is a free-standing (or should I say leaning) construction. Two works involving projected light round out the program.

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Intersection for the Arts: Here Be Dragons - Mapping Information and Imagination.

Artists: JD Beltran & Scott Minneman, Val Britton, Eric Fischer, Flora Kao, Wendy MacNaughton, Tucker Nichols, Jenny Odell, Matthew Picton, Lordy Rodriguez.

Review by RWM: The city can at times be daunting as shown here by those who seek to explore it. Revel in the approaches these artists take to order, quantify and get to know their surroundings.

Comment by AB: A really cosmic coincidence here... while walking by JD Beltran & Scott Minneman's "video table," an installation that allows viewers to explore the entire surface of the earth via satellite images, I look down to see the very neighborhood in Shaker Heights, Ohio where I grew up-- including my house and elementary school. Whiplash. I wonder what it all means? Probably nothing.

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Romer Young Gallery: Kirk Stoller - I Hope I Don't Fall Down.

Comment by AB: I love nothing more than a clear, concise, easy-to-understand show statement, and Kirk Stoller gets my highest admiration for his. Behold the brilliance...

"'I Hope I Don't Fall Down' reflects the difficulty of remaining upright against the rapid onslaught of change we confront in our daily lives: personal, societal, economic, technical. It is overwhelming, and indeed at times can seem impossible to withstand. That's when we lean on the pressure points for balance and, by virtue of our weight and stubbornness; we hope to remain standing so as to face another onslaught. This, in turn, may require another adjustment, a shift in balance, or new points of connection."

Conceptual to be sure, but I get it completely, totally, entirely and absolutely-- even with my dearth of higher art education. The bottom line upshot? Instant art appreciation.

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Wonderland SF Gallery: White + Monochrome and Color.

Artists: Ade Olufeko, Alberto Hernandez, Alec Huxley, Ben Jones, Chris W. Stokes, Corey Berendzen, Joshua Lawyer, Kate Daly, Kurt Winkeman, Lee Harvey Roswell, Miko Simmons, Robert Garcia, Todd Laby.

Comment by AB: The fan base turns out in droves for this peppy group show proffering a fare that includes urban, urban academic, pop surreal and illustrative. The ground rules? Three pieces per artist. Special guest appearance by gallery owner Irene Hernandez-Feiks' father, Alberto Hernandez who designs sports cars for a living, who here contributes three stunning concept-car watercolors.

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Triple Base Gallery: Rachel Kaye - Cut Out; Keegan Luttrell & Susana Corcoran in Ellipsis Space.

Comment by AB: Rachel Kaye's colorful pattern works represent close cropped views of the whole, cropped to the point where you can't really tell what the whole is. She pays plenty of attention to detail, so when you zoom in on her zoom-ins, the art gets even better. Love the deliberateness of the brush strokes in particular, but it's all good here. My kind of art. Stop on by.

In the Ellipsis Space, Susana Corcoran makes art about skies while Keegan Luttrell presents several unexpectedly refreshing sculptures.

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Lake Gallery: SCUBA - Move In With Me.

Comment by AB: Santa Fe artist duo Sandra Wang and Crockett Bodelson aka SCUBA gift us with a sensitive upbeat lighthearted respite from reality. Priced right-- good selection under $100. Buy now.

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