MICAELA - ROSS MIRKARIMI - MARKET STREET - AMPERSAND
REAVES - CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF INTEGRAL STUDIES - HYDE STREET
PING PONG - LAB - PIER 5 LAW OFFICES - PARK LIFE - PAINTED BIRD
(With assistance from Erica Eller)
09.19.08
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Micaela Gallery: Stig Persson - The Big Silence.
Comment by AB: Denmark glass artist Stig Persson strives to emphasize the strength and endurance of glass rather than its delicate decorative or ornamental nature by casting it into sturdy essential industrial-like forms.
Glass art by Stig Persson. Glass art. Stig Persson - glass art. Glass art. Glass art. Glass art.
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Market Street Gallery: Word on the Street - Interpretations of the Urban Landscape.
Artists: Charles Ford, Evan Hecox, Mike Kimball, Hilary Williams.
Comment by AB: Screen prints (serigraphs) by four local artists depict various aspects of life in the big city-- our big city, in most cases. Nice work on all counts; worth a visit.
Screen prints by Mike Kimball. Screen prints by Hilary Williams. Screen prints. Screen prints.
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California Institute of Integral Studies: Glenn Hirsch - Abstractions in a Lost Tongue.
Comment by AB: Mixed media paintings by Glenn Hirsch blend imaginings and archeology, particularly Mayan glyphs. They speak to our obligations to respect, nurture, and sustain our universe and hint at what might happen if we don't.
Paintings by Glenn Hirsch. Glenn Hirsch - art. Art. Art.
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Hyde Street Gallery: Rick Camire.
Review and images by Erica Eller: The small crowded Hyde Street Gallery is filled with Richard Camire's foreboding architectural, filmy, gritty and stark abstract paintings. What are they about? Ask the artist. He's a man who materializes his ideas through his art. For example, when the Yangtze river Dam was being built, Camire attempted to travel to China to make art about it before it displaced 1.8 million people and destroyed an immense region filled with temples, shrines, and natural wonders. He repeatedly applied for Guggenheim Fellowships to do this work, but even though he was unsuccessful, the idea persisted and has lead to a number of activist paintings of the Three Gorges Dam Project-- process paintings, as he calls them-- where he dwells on an idea and allows it to resonate in his being before making a brush stroke. He's explores other ideas as well, although this collection mainly consists of Three Gorge paintings.
Paintings by Rick Camire. Rick Camire. Inside. Out front.
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Ampersand International Arts: Ellen Babcock - Passage.
Comment by AB: Ellen Babcock expresses her concern for the blight of discarded styrofoam on the environment by salvaging and transforming it into things more dignified (which in the case of styrofoam would mean just about anything). Here Babcock sculpts it into an iceberg, the form based on a detail of the famed painting Icebergs by Frederic Edwin Church.
Installation by Ellen Babcock from the front. Installation from the rear. Ellen Babcock - art.
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Ping Pong Gallery: Gwenaël Rattke - Nouveau Système.
Comment by AB: Berlin, Germany artist Gwenaël Rattke cooks up a kettle of killer collages. His complicated compositions stun you not only with their marvelous symmetry, but also with the intricate interwoven details of their component parts-- bits and pieces of images from books, old magazines, found photos, record album covers, and sundry other printed ephemera and memorabilia. You can appreciate Rattke's work either close in or at a distance. It's all good, no matter where you stand. In fact, I hereby officially affix a rare mid-month pick on this baby. Excellent art; go see.
Collage by Gwenaël Rattke. Collage closer. Collage closer. Gwenaël Rattke - collage art. Collage. Collage pinkie-cam close. Collage pinkie-cam close. He makes pencil drawings too - nice, huh? Demographics.
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The LAB: Code-Switchers. Juried by Steve Dye and Stephanie Syjuco.
Artists: Facundo Arganaraz and Nicole Anne Crescenzi, Tim Armstrong, Taha Belal, Terry Berlier, Jan Blythe, Lauren Dicioccio, Claudio Dicochea, Mark Edwards, Ariel Goldberg, Jason Hanasik, Carrie Hott, I, Daughter of Kong, Ace Lehner, Jennifer Little, Sarah Lockhart, Yuki Maruyama, Naomi McCavitt, Klea McKenna, Ranu Mukherjee, Claire Nereim and Julie Cloutier, Kit Rosenberg, Karen Ruenitz, Eric Sidner, Julia Kim Smith and David Beaudouin, James Pitt, Anna Tsouhlarakis, Adrian Van Allen, Melissa Wyman, Eiko Yamamoto, Aygul Idiyatullina.
Review by Erica Eller: This show is packed, even in the huge space, probably because there are so many artists on the docket. The art is full of visual and cultural puns, and references among other things, the surrealism of text messaging, sidewalk chalkscapes, logos, artifacts, and identities. Curious and more Curious. Is surrealism the right word? Or perhaps 'morphology.' Nice unicorn skull on display, by the way!
Comment by AB: According to the poop sheet, "Code-switching" is defined as the use of more than one language in a single conversation, and here is used within the context of the ever increasing frequency of cross-cultural occurrences. Some pretty spiffy endeavors on display, and worth checking out. Wanna help identify artists? Please email artbusiness@artbusiness.com.
Why we're here (photo c/o Erica Eller). Art (photo c/o Erica Eller). Art (photo c/o Erica Eller). Art. Art closer (photo c/o Erica Eller). Video art. Art. "Folded Sunset" (kinda like it). Art. Art. Art. High heel diorama art (sorta like it). Art. Art. Longhorn unicorn art (photo c/o Erica Eller).
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Pier 5 Law Offices: Ninth Annual Prison Art Show.
Review by Erica Eller: This is like stepping into a strange closet-- walls lined floor to ceiling with over 600 works of art by male prisoners, mostly from California. If I could categorize, I might use words like softcore porn, tattoo inspired, politically charged, and fantastical. So much art, yet not a single female artist in the show. Anyway, the show has no clear beginning or end because all of the walls are lined with art, there's art on tables, and more-- and no blank wall space greater than three inches square in the entire office.
The scent of marijuana accompanies sitar music, and decorative silk pot leaves on the ledge of a desktop speak to the spirit of legalization. The head of the firm, Tony Serra, tells me the event began when the law office showed the work of one Native American prisoner-artist, on death row at the time but later acquitted. No supporters of capital punishment are to be found anywhere.
Art (photo c/o Erica Eller). Art. Art. Tony Serra (photo c/o Erica Eller). Art (photo c/o Erica Eller). Art. Art.
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Painted Bird: Christelle Imperial de Castro - Outter Spatial.
Review and images by Erica Eller: Someone drives a golf cart to get to this show, Outter Spatial by Christelle Imperial de Castro at Painted Bird. So of course, fun-loving fashion ladies abound-- and males too, entrenched in hip. The art consists of sketched cone-heads, puns on street fashion, neon colors, geometric shapes, and big graphic wall-triangles to put it all in perspective. de Castro's a photographer, actually, but tonight she just wants to put some of her other stuff on the walls... arranged with care. She might laugh about it but she's got something going on.
Art by Christelle Imperial de Castro. Art. Christelle Imperial de Castro - art. Art. Art. Art.
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Park Life: Zachary Rossman - Disrepair.
Comment by AB: Precision works on paper, some freestanding, all adept. There's a soft thoughtfulness or maybe contemplation or maybe even a sense of brooding to a number of them. Perhaps they're meditative exercises-- a means to an end. The "Black Hole" series in particular exemplifies the solitary essence of the creative act.
Art by Zachary Rossman. "Black Hole" series (should have taken a close-up; kinda like 'em). Art. Art.
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Addendum:
B&W photos by youth from California Lawyers for the Arts' Spotlight on the Arts program at Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.
One more from photo show at Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi.
Ride Green/Green Ride intallation by Lucky Rapp and Matthew McKee at Reaves Gallery in conjunction with PARK(ing) Day, sponsored by REBAR (Re:mix. Re:make. Re:configure. Re:consider). According to their website, "REBAR is an interdisciplinary collaborative group of artists, designers and activists based in San Francisco."
One more from Ride Green/Green Ride installation at Reaves Gallery. The goal of Ride Green/Green Ride-- less cars on the road.
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