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The Shooting Gallery: Aaron Hawks - Locus In Quo, Erotic Photography and Interactive Sculpture Installation.

Comment: This is without question one of the best openings I've been to in a long time. Every once in a while I see a show that makes this whole "San Francisco Art Openings" thing I do worthwhile (for me) and this is that show for this while. Aaron Hawks' erotic photography slithers the discipline into new territory, its magic being that even though he explores the limits of sexuality, he somehow manages to keep it tasteful, suggestive, and, most importantly, visually satisfying from an aesthetic perspective. So you're not looking at sex so much as you are at art, but if you want sex, it's there. And if you wanna get prurient about it, that's your business; you're not obliged. But wait; there's more...

Hawks constructs every set for every photograph entirely from scratch. In fact, he completely transforms The Shooting Gallery into a set for this show, the twin pinnacle of which is a ceiling-hung piano, and a ceiling-hung minimally clad woman enveloped in a fishnet contraption that makes her look like one of those Genoa hams you see hanging at the Italian Deli. But wait; there's more....

Hawks also makes strange boxy polished wood and metal sculptures with openings for fingers or hands, that when occupied with said appendages, vibrate or lightly chomp on them. Now we all know that artists get tired from long hours of hard work, so for relaxation purposes, Hawks builds himself a modest loungy den area at the rear of the gallery where he can sit and share with a second minimally clad woman, also hanging from the ceiling and enveloped in a fishnet contraption. Stir in the people and the vibe and the raw sensual undercurrent, and I'm laid out like a sock in the sun. I bet you a dollar to a donut that this Aaron Hawks dude can fill a room at Yerba Buena Center with such a spectacle that it'll be the talk of Artland.