STEVEN WOLF - ALTMAN SIEGEL - JANCAR JONES

TRIPLE BASE - PROJECT ONE - MEDICINE AGENCY

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS

02.19.10

(with assistance from RWM)

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Steven Wolf Fine Arts: Keith Boadwee, Erin Allen, Isaac Gray - Denim on Ice; Rives Granade - Love Force.

Comment by AB: According to the defense, "Keith Boadwee asked two former students, Isaac Gray and Erin Allen, to collaborate. The body of work that emerged is a no-holds-barred, Germanic-inspired orgy of expressionistic figure paintings that takes low humor and bad taste so far they come around again as refinement." OK for a crank yanker, I suppose, but can they paint serious and sophisticated? I'm not buying that what's on display here "comes around" to anything, let alone refinement. Stay tuned for the sequel.

In the side gallery, Rives Granade burps up a pubic pandemonium of prodigious proportions. Twisted but tasty.

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Altman Siegel Gallery: Garth Weiser.

Comment by AB: Impasto was all the rage in the Impressionist Era and ever since, it's been kinda the same-old-same-old, but New York artist Garth Weiser manages to kick it up a notch. I should have gotten a pinkie cam shot of one of his precision linear works-- eminently admirably executed. Guess you'll just have to go see for yourself.

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Jancar Jones Gallery: William Leavitt - A Show of Cards.

Review by RWM: Nice to see the small images, a mode which is available to anyone, but here presented with distinction and style. Should inspire one to collect their own personal versions as well.

Comment by AB: Los Angeles artist William Leavitt tells me he sources his images from a picture dictionary, then arranges them up randomly (if I recall correctly), and to top it all off, crafts a script around them.

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Triple Base Gallery: Blow As Deep As You Want to Blow - New Work by Michelle Blade.

Comment by AB: Paintings upstairs in both the front gallery and back room, and sculpture downstairs comprise this split-level treatise on Michelle Blade's personal searches for knowledge and discovery. Famous faces, antique patterns, spirituality, literary endeavors, counterculture icons and more-- all part of those explorations and investigations that are so formative in fashioning how we live our lives.

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Project One: The Art of Noise. Curated by Elliot Kotek and Stacy Horne.

Artists: Lionel Deluy, Jullian Kogan, Scott McDermott, Russell Young, Ted Riederer, more.

Comment by AB: Group show of art inspired by music, presented in conjunction with Noise Pop 2010.

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Yerba Buena Center for the Arts: Renée Green - Endless Dreams and Time-Based Streams; Kamau Amu Patton - Icons of Attention; Taravat Talepasand - Drawings.

Comment by AB: A mungo multimedia spectacle by Renée Green who no-vacancies the entire first floor of the establishment, and in so doing, perpetrates somewhat of a "World According to Garp" blend of personal perspective and empirical investigation. You gotta set aside some serious time to decipher the dealie bob if you expect to come away with a coherent sense of any overarching anything. Me, I'll groove on the visuals, the layout, and the monumental amount of planning, time, labor and materials involved, and then briskly skedaddle off to the next exciting adventure. Why? 'Cuz I already have a life and see no need to get intensely inextricably intertwined in anyone else's, unless of course they ease up on the cover charge.

Now hopefully you won't get all thwarted downstairs and miss what's happening upstairs. Superb contemplative graphite drawings by Taravat Talepasand mixing Eastern and Western art line the hallways, and a cacophonous participatory sound installation by Kamau Amu Patton will for sure have your ears ringing with joy.

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Medicine Agency: Serge Gay Jr. - Xtcstasy.

Comment by AB: Grace Jones sticks her finger in a wall socket and electrifies her hair, it expands, razors itself up, escapes, takes over other people's heads, invades South Beach, goes Art Deco, and then vanishes into a flock of flamingos. Peppy art priced reasonable, topping out at $2000 for the biggies, but a good selection available in the low to upper hundreds. On a serious note, San Francisco artist Serge Gay Jr., a native Hatian, paints this one for the earthquake survivors and to help raise funds for the cause. Upbeat energized entertaining stuff. Stop on by.

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