RENA BRANSTEN - DOLBY CHADWICK - ITALIAN CULTURAL INSTITUTE - RAYKO PHOTO - LAKE GALLERY - RARE DEVICE - 12.11.08

Rena Bransten Gallery: Ron Nagle and Don Ed HardyDuo Mysto.

Comment by AB: Legendary tattoo artist Don Ed Hardy masterfully transits from body art to fine art via a bevy of energized mixed media works, and hand-painted porcelain vases (my favorites). What makes his art worthy is that even though the tattoo connection is evident, the art succeeds entirely on it's own with or without the pretext. So often you go to art shows by tattoo artists and the art is little more than minimally reworked tattoos, the only difference being that now they're on paper or canvas or whatever instead of torsos, and it's like... yawner. Don Ed Hardy's work is the exceptional exception. Ron Nagle, meanwhile, shows a series of diminutive abstract ceramic forms, almost amusing in essence, with marvelous magical glazes. Worth a visit on both counts.

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Dolby Chadwick Gallery: Sherie' Franssen - Driving into the Ocean.

Comment by AB: I'd love to be a fly on the wall while Sherie' Franssen paints. Her brushstrokes are so intense, abandoned, and saturated with action, I can only imagine the paroxysm she must work herself into during the course of her creative fervor. She may even levitate... who knows? To truly grasp the forcefulness of her work, you gotta face 'em straight on. Definite go-see.

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Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco: The Doublefold Dream of Art (Doppio Sogno dell'Arte) - 2RC... Between Artist and Artificer (Tra Artista 3 Artefice).

Artists: Alberto Burri, Lucio Fontana, Francesco Clemente, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Enzo Cucchi, Louise Nevelson, Victor Pasmore, Sam Francis, George Segal, Alexander Calder, more.

Comment by AB: A combination retrospective of the work of the internationally renowned Roman print studio, 2RC, and a visual history of graphic design from the 1970s to the present (courtesy of prints by 2RC). Superior examples by significant artists.

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RayKo Photo Center: Jessica M. Kaufman - Panopticon; Michael Starkman - Where Nepenthe Flows; Group show in the side gallery.

Artists in the group show: Ann Donahue, Jan Watten, Rebecca Chang, Rebecca Sittler Schrock, Saul Robbins, Sam Linville, Susan Hillbrand, Victor Volta

Comment by AB: According to Michael Starkman, "the photographs from the series 'Where Nepenthe Flows' began during the year following my mother¼s death. For me, they are about opening myself to the darkness at the edge of beauty, mourning, slow healing, and the awe of staring at the Veil." Nicely put. Jessica M. Kaufman's haunting images are reconstituted from photographs she takes on the grounds of Nazi concentration camps. Her technique entails obfuscating recognizable scenery and employing a process that involves actual physical decay.

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Lake Gallery: Bradley Wilson - Bridges and Blues.

Comment by AB: Basically, Badley Wilson melds abstract backgrounds with urban scenes and musical elements to create appealing compositions that sport a vibrant late-night vintage feel. Interesting work; look forward to seeing more. Priced reasonable-- $150-$1500.

Anyway, Lake Gallery is brand new and located in a small room upstairs at Plant' It Earth; the rest of the floor space is filled with grow lights and high-tech plant-rearing apparatus, and they're growing mainly basil (actually more like basil on steroids). In an epiphany of brilliance, I realize that all this fancy schmantsy plantsy stuff isn't for growing basil at all-- it's for hemp farmers. So I commence to share my magnificent insight with everybody I talk to, and they listen and act perfectly nice and polite, but they're probably all thinking, "Who is this clueless pinhead." Hey-- I don't get out much. Sorry.

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