SAN FRANCISCO ART GALLERIES OPENINGS

FIRST THURSDAY - 03.01.12 - Part II



Artist/gallery contract considerations. Click Here.

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Jack Fischer Gallery: Solace From The Wild Side - Juan Carlos Quintana.

Comment by AB: I ask Juan Carlos Quintana about his art. He tells me starts painting and after that, pretty much anything goes. The results of his extemporaneous escapades shake out kinda like Hoarders meets Occupy. Capers in creative chaos, dense with action, antics, angst and amusement. Something for everyone; stop on by.

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Stephen Wirtz Gallery: Deborah Oropallo - Heroine; Tanyth Berkeley - Survey.

Comment by AB: OK. Here we go again. More superb digital creations from Deborah Oropallo, this time around themed on the concept of the heroine. You know I'm a major fan; I've confessed as much repeatedly over the years, and for the record, will continue to do so. But for the second time in as many months, a San Francisco gallery is calling digital prints "acrylic on canvas." They don't stop there though, gaming conventional terminologies even further by calling them paintings and works on paper.

According to the show's statement, "Oropallo borrows images from the internet of women in commercially-available super-hero costumes... and radically transforms them to create intricate and animated figural compositions, which she then prints large-scale on paper or canvas." So now which is it? Paintings and works on paper or digital prints? They can't be both. Why is clarification necessary? Who needs to know? Prospective buyers, and maybe curators and critics too... that's who. Last time I checked, a painting is painted by a painter, not printed out on a printer.

Since galleries seem to be taking it upon themselves these days to rewrite the descriptions and definitions of what art is according to their whims, I might suggest a professional convocation on the matter, or two or three or more, and hopefully down the road, a standardization of terms. I realize that delineations like "acrylic on canvas" and "painting" sound better than "pigmented digital print on canvas," but you don't simply amend the rules at your convenience to suit yourself without at least asking around first... or do you?

In the side gallery, Tanyth Berkeley's haunting portraits gift us with opportunities to discover beauty in the unusual. Descriptive quibbles aside, both shows are definitely worth seeing.

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Modernism Gallery: Mark Stock - Stage Stories; David Simpson - Paintings; William Davidson - Paintings.

Comment by AB: Mark Stock waxes theatric, from contemplative moments to impending incidents to full throttle brawls. No one has a vision quite like his and the moxie to materialize it, an accomplished painter whose mastery of lighting is to die for. He's at his best here tonight, entertaining his way through the crush of sycophants, wowing the crowd with professional sleight of hand... card tricks galore for kiddies and adults alike. In the front gallery, bask in a survey of perfectly preserved David Simpson geometric hard-edge abstracts from the seventies, looking like they could just as well have been painted yesterday. And along the hallway between these two shows, a wall of miniature riffs on primal modernism by William Davidson. A premium three-fer recommended for all, and Pick of First Thursday.

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Frey Norris Contemporary & Modern: Sherin Guirguis - Duwamah; Joshua Hagler - The Imagined Chase.

Comment by AB: Explosive abstracts by Sherin Guirguis are heavily influenced by the Arab Spring, particularly Egypt where he was born and raised, immigrating to the United States at the age of fourteen. Joshua Hagler independently interviews four men who "share commonalities including psychological trauma and complex and unusual philosophical and religious views," and transforms the upshot of that into art. Commendably convincing on both counts.

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Spoke Art Gallery: Ron Ulicny - New Works.

Comment by AB: Discards reinvigorated, revitalized and rendered indispensable yet again, this time around combined in atypically engaging ways.

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I realize I must sound like a broken record, but kindly click here.

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First Thursday - February 2, 2012

First Thursday - January 5, 2012

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