Two Openings You Don't Want to Miss This Friday

Artist: Suzanne Husky
Title: You Make Me You
Gallery: Triple Base
Opening Reception: Friday, May 23, 2008 from 7-10pm
Exhibition Dates: May 22 - June 29, 2008
Address: 3041 24th Street




Artists:
Patrick Blaeser
Robert Burden
Ross Campbell
Diane Derr
Robert Jackson Harrington
Claire Jackel
Whitney Lynn
Jana Rumberger
Brian Stinemetz
Title: Decoy
Gallery: LoBot Gallery
Opening Reception: May 23, 2008 from 7-11pm
Address:1800 Campbell Street, Oakland, Ca

Adam 5100 at Rowan Morrison

Artist: Adam5100
Gallery: Rowan Morrison
Exhibition Title: The Heart Vs. The Mind in a Fight to the Finish
Opening Reception: Saturday May 24, 2007 from 6:00pm - 10:00pm
Exhibition Dates: May 21, 2008 - June 21, 2008
Address: 330 40th St., Oakland, CA



"For 'The Heart Vs. The Mind in a Fight to the Finish', Adam5100 has created artwork that again pushes the limits of the medium of hand-cut stencil artwork. The show features photorealistic and figurative stencil paintings (sometimes using up to 9 different hand-cut color separations), shadow installations, sculptures, prints, and a 48 square-foot outdoor mural. His work takes on a modernist approach, using traditional yet revisited and refined techniques that are truly his own. Adam’s unique voice amid the final result is purely contemporary, yet his reverence for history in both technique and subject matter is palpably universal."

Upcoming Openings and Events

Artist: Tucker Nichols
Gallery: Lincart
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 15, 2008 from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Address: 1632 C Market Street





"The show will feature a site-specific wall drawing, a window installation, and elegant groupings of his signature 'note-to-self' drawings. It will also include text-based painted panels that remind us of the absurdity of our advertising-saturated world. "




What: Ping Pong Happy Hour
Gallery: Ping Pong Gallery
When: Friday, May 16, 2008 from 6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Address: 1240 22nd Street





"Be Fabulous. Play Ping Pong. Absolutely!

Ping Pong Gallery's ongoing social sculpture,
Ping Pong Happy Hour, is our continued commitment
to bringing together artists and friends, and to
provide a playground in which to help foster ideas
and acts of free play.

On the evening of Friday, May 16th, from 6-9pm,
we invite you to come play, drink beer, make friends,
and give shape to the act/art of playing Ping Pong.Ping Pong gear optional, but highly encouraged.
Let's play!"



Artist: William T. Wiley - Punball: Only One Earth
Gallery: Electric Works
Opening Reception: Friday, May 16, 2008 from 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Address: 130 Eighth Street





"Only One Earth - PunBall Pinball aficionados and fine art appreciators will delight in Only One Earth - PunBall, a show featuring a traditional Gottlieb pinball machine that has been re-figured by William T. Wiley and the staff at Electric Works."

Kelsey Brookes and AJ Fosik at White Walls

Artist: Kelsey Brookes & AJ Fosik
Gallery: White Walls Gallery
Opening Reception: Saturday May 10th 2008
Exhibit Dates: May 10th through June 7th 2008
Address: 835 Larkin Street


I would be here tonite if I wasn't working. Let me know how it is.



"Kelsey Brookes is a former biochemist who attributes his raw style to an educational system that refuses to teach scientists how to draw. With this his paintings explode with
a figurative nature that is influenced by Hindu an Buddhist deities, exotic animals and sex as well as rustic American quilts. Each Figure is adorned with ghostly representations of the natural world... animals and plants that unfold from the body into the surrounding canvas. His chimeras are frozen with animalistic intensity in explosive and sometimes tortured positions."






"AJ Fosik's eclectic handmade and intricately designed wood animal sculptures and paintings, combined with cryptic symbols, intrigue and provoke. Fosik creates an experience that at first glance evokes a questioning of familiar concepts and then pushes the viewer to look and think deeper. Inspired by subversive cultural influences which shift complacency, he creates pieces that suspend comfort while at the same time offer recognizable symbols and images. In this dynamic tension the art and the viewer hopefully come together in an expanded definition of culture and assumption."(from press release)

Park Life Tonight

Artists: Brian Willmont & Alex Lukas
Gallery: Park Life
Exhibition Title: Feudal Echo
Opening Reception: Friday, May 9, 2008 from 7 to 10 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: May 9, 2008 to June 8, 2008
Address: 220 Clement Street




Brian Willmont's work builds on the new American folktale with Technicolor paintings that are tarnished with American history, Pre-Renaissance and Persian miniature painting, worship, dreamscapes, blacklight posters, and the fantastic.




Alex Lukas' current work explores images of the destruction of the American landscape. Inspired by contemporary imagery in various media including blockbuster movies and the evening news where there is a dominance of images alluding to the story of an America destroyed. His fictitious drawings are more obscure than narrative, paralleling real life, meant to be slightly confusing while hinting at a sense of unease and anxiety.

Steven Dye

Steven is an SF based video, sound, sculpture artist who has an extensive exhibition history and can sometimes be caught at ATA.

He's also showing at David Cunningham Projects with Joan Perlman opening May 22.

Here's a sampling of the variety of work he does.

David Cunningham Projects presents Joan Perlman

I just realized today that I didn't have David Cunningham Projects listed under "My Favorite Bay Area Galleries." What was I thinking, I'm aghast!

This may be too early to mention their upcoming exhibit but I will put out a reminder later too.




Gallery: David Cunningham Projects
Artist: Joan Perlman
Exhibition Title: FLUX
Opening Reception: May 22, 2008 from 6-9 p.m.
Exhibition Dates:May 22 – June 28, 2008
Address: 1928 Folsom Street between 15th and 16th

"Perlman’s latest body of work finds its source in Iceland’s glacial rivers. The paintings included in this exhibition are an exploration of the shifting light, colors and energy patterns created by these powerful waters as they intersect with the land. Long interested in the mutable, metamorphic and metaphysical aspects of landscape and geology Perlman’s paintings eschew mere documentation, moving beyond realism and transcending metaphor to tackle nature at it’s most elemental."

Ratio 3 presents Ryan McGinley

"Ryan McGinley will present new color photographs that chronicle the summer road trips he has taken across the United States in the past three years. Inspired by images from nudist magazines from the 1960s and early 1970s, McGinley places his naked subjects in unusual and breathtaking situations. McGinley uses the vast and varied landscape of the U.S. as his backdrop, from arid deserts to lush green fields. An energetic feeling of idyllic freedom and youthful innocence suffuses the work." link

Artist: Ryan McGinley
Gallery: Ratio 3
Exhibition Title: Spring and By Summer Fall
Opening Reception: Friday May 9, 2008 from 6-8pm
Exhibition Dates: May 9 - June 21, 2008
Address: 1447 Stevenson Street

Terrarium Workshop at Queen's Nails Annex

I'm not sure what you are doing tomorrow in San Francisco, but I'm flying to my little brother's college graduation in Virginia! So, I'm missing this terrarium extravaganza. But somewhere on the east coast a frat boy is being released into the world and I can't miss that, no sir!





Check it out...and the auction events throughout the week.
A terrarium workshop will be held by master terrarium farmer Rocchelle Durst on Saturday, May 3rd,from 12-2:30 p.m. The workshop will discuss the practical applications of creating both botanical and art-related microenvironments. Please note that the workshop is free to attend, but a $25 lab fee will be required for anyone wishing to make their own terrariums. Sign ups will be taken in advance by contacting the gallery.

The official opening and closing of This Is Not An Auction / This Is A Terrarium will be on Friday, May 9th, from 7 - 11 p.m. At that time all works will be available for bid a raucous silent auction. Works will also be available online and over the phone. Cash, Checks, Credit Cards, and VIP payment plans will all be accepted. All proceeds will go towards continuing programming at QNA.

My Picks for This Friday

Gallery: Needles & Pens
Artists: Math Bass, Maya Bookbinder, Edie Fake, Kim Kelly, Sam Lopes, Dylan Mira, Leidy Churchman, Jason Fritz Michael, and Marty Winslow
Exhibit Title: OCEANS of POTIONS
Opening Reception: Friday, May 2, 2008 from 6-9 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: May 2 - 31, 2008
Address: 3253 16th Street (btwn Guerrero & Dolores)






Gallery: Bucheon Gallery
Exhibit Title: Fixture
Opening Reception: Friday May 2, 2008 from 6-9 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: May 2-11, 2008
Address: 389 Grove Street

My Picks for This Thursday

Artist: Group Show
Gallery: The Lab
Title: Subversive Complicity
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 1, 2008
Exhibition Dates: May 1-24, 2008
Address: 2948 16th Street




Subversive Complicity brings together a group of artists whose work inhabits the interstices of contemporary life – physical, temporal, and conceptual gaps within existing structures – in order to subvert everyday systems and raise social awareness in subtle, humorous, and radical ways. link



Artist: Betsy Walton
Gallery: Rare Device
Title: Sacred Spring
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 1, 2008 from 7-9 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: May 1 - June 1, 2008
Address: 1845 Market Street





Ms. Walton's new body of work---Sacred Spring---depict iconic characters experiencing quiet moments of transcendence in settings inspired by forests, backyard swimming pools and grassy riverbanks. Walton uses an experimental approach to rendering the narratives, loosely incorporating diverse formal elements such as collage, hand drawn patterns, pencil drawings, and layered brushwork.




Artist: Michael Katakis
Gallery: Bonnafont Gallery
Medium: Photography
Opening Reception: Thursday May 1, 2008 from 6-8 p.m.
Address: 946A Greenwich Street





A man who captures strong contrasting black and white images from around the world. Above is titled, "Roof Tops In Morocco."



Artist: Daniel Tierney
Gallery: Steven Wolf Fine Arts
Title: Ghost Hesh
Opening Reception: Thursday, May 1, 5:30 – 7:30
Exhibition Dates: May 1 – May 31, 2008
Address: 49 Geary Street, Suite 411




His artist statement:

"They all started out picturing a real. A geometric space imagining its opposite.
The abstract bends concrete.
Here, outside of time, everything always is and everything is always visible.
Over touched and all at once.
A horizontal system of organization, compressed and with no divide.
A new library. A new fiction.
Structures walk on the backs of their hands and grandmothers never die.
A method of production formed by repetition and mutation.
One landscape built of thousands giving rise to thouands more
The lost inhabitants? Their luddite knuckles drag right through their future.
The mighty drift their only hope."

Silverman Gallery's Hypnotic Show

Artist: Group Show curated by Raimundas Malasauskas
Gallery: Silverman Gallery
Opening Reception: Tuesday April 22, 2008 at 8 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: April 22 - April 28, 2008
Address: 804 Sutter Street at Jones



A friend just introduced me to Happenstand.com, a San Francisco art site. It's the most resourceful I've come across, as far as layout, content, and depth. I recommend visiting it, maybe frequenting it.

They had this opening posted there and I thought it would be good to reiterate.



Other artists included in the show:

Julieta Aranda, Deric Carner, Asli Cavusoglu, Torreya Cummings, Gintaras Didziapetris, Cerith Wyn Evans, Michael Fliri, Loris Greaud, Joachim Koester, Jennifer Di Marco, Nicholas Matranga & Francesca Bennett, Piero Passacantando, Yuval Pudik, Gareth Spor and Mary Elizabeth Yarbrough.


A good Q&A dialogue on Blow de la Barra about the concepts behind the show.

Space Gallery

Hooray for robots and space aliens!

I was taking some friends to see the "Oral Sect II" exhibit at Space Gallery, but found "Attack of the B-Movies." They change their exhibits so fast, I am impressed with all the energy that must take.

Some of the pieces in this exhibit had grabbing concepts but could be rendered more complexly. Fun stuff though!

Saturday's Openings

Artist: Greg Lamarche
Gallery: White Walls
Opening Reception: Friday April 19, 2008 from 7 - 9 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: April 19 to May 7, 2008
Address: 835 Larkin Street







Exhibit: Group Sects
Gallery: Giant Robot
Opening Reception: Saturday April 19, 2008 from 6:30 to 10 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: April 19 - May 14, 2008
Address: 618 Shrader Street






Exhibit: Five Year Anniversary Show
Gallery: Varnish Fine Art
Opening Reception: Saturday April 19, 2008 from 7 - 10 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: April 14 - May 31, 2008
Address: 77 Natoma Street






Exhibit: Welcome to CardBurg "End of The Ages"
Gallery: CELLspace
Opening Reception:
Exhibition Dates: Ending April 19, 2008
Address: 2050 Bryant Street

Friday's Openings

Below are openings I am definitely going to catch tomorrow night.

I also hear there is a evening to morning opening party for Pete Doolittle's installations somewhere in SOMA. I'll keep you abreast on details as I figure it out.


Artist: Adam Flores
Gallery: Gallery 3
Opening Reception: Friday April 18, 2008 from 7 to 10 p.m.
Exhibit Dates: April 18 - May 20, 2008
Address: 66 6th Street




Adam was in a group show at Shooting Gallery, parent gallery to Gallery 3, this past fall. I like his use of color and fairy tale/ medieval scenes.



Artist: Karin Smith
Gallery: Mission 17
Opening Reception: Friday, April 18, 2008 from 6-9 p.m.
Exhibit Dates: April 18 - May 23, 2008
Address: 2111 Mission Street, Suite 401




"A garden is a sign of purpose and a sense of place--no one plants one with the intention of leaving it. With this insight as her point of departure, Smith reconsiders the image of the People's Temple as a death cult, whose members were merely helpless victims of the church's leader. Instead she presents this predominantly African American institution as a product of longstanding racial inequalities in the United States, which worked to redress the legacy and persistent trauma of slavery."(from their site)

Hamburger Eyes Tonight

What: Basically a party with art or art with a party
Gallery: Hamburger Eyes
When: 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.
Address: 26 Lilac Street off of 24th and Mission




Hamburger Eyes is a gallery, photo processing center, publisher, and more. Exhibiting art from emerging artists and people who are outspoken when it comes to expressing themselves. Honesty, here folks.

Greg Lamarche at White Walls

Artist: Greg Lamarche
Gallery: White Walls
Opening Reception: Friday April 18, 2008 from 7 p.m. - 10 p.m.
Exhibit Dates: April 19, 2008 to May 7, 2008







New York based artist, Gregg Lamarche, plays with the variety of text, color, and shape in collage. Each piece is a blend of street graffiti and pop images.





Juxtaposing words and images he creates new meanings and highlights themes in American society. He has been featured in several publications and been able to exhibit widely in New York City as well as around California.

Nathan Phelps at 20 GOTO 10

Artist: Nathan Phelps
Gallery: 20 GOTO 10
Opening Reception: Saturday, April 12, 2008 from 7 to 11 p.m.
Address: 679 Geary Boulevard by Leavenworth Street





From the artist's statement:
"I want the first moments to go on forever. This is th space between thoughts which has the fruit we want. The thoughts themselves are only echoes of the radiance, and language is even farther removed. This is why I'm not naming the individual pieces, but titled the show to be what it is (neti neti). Maybe it's necessary to talk about it, and certainly it's inevitable, but the reality of what it IS has already become real in the viewer. This is what this show is about."




Nathan has done installations for the San Diego Museum of Contemporary Art, Space Gallery, and locations in San Jose. His work mimics computer generated lines and mechanical structures as it spreads across walls and takes over rooms.

With this exhibit and those before, I like to see 20 GOTO 10 examining objects and ideas, in an experimental light, relevant to todays culture.

Lauren Davies on Our Environment

Artist: Lauren Davies
Gallery: Gallery 16
Opening Reception: Friday, April 11, 2008 from 6 to 9 p.m.
Exhibit Dates: April 11, 2008 - May 31, 2008
Address: 501 Third St






I first saw Lauren's work last fall at Intersection for The Arts doing a wrap up discussion concerning her exhibit "Don't Try This at Home: Obsessivley Reshaping the Ordinary." She talked about going to the dog groomer and collecting their cut hair scraps at the end of the day. So, yeah she uses real hair for these sculptures.

This exhibit has more to do with environmental concerns and the stories we make out of history.


A bit from her bio:

"Combining mixed-media sculpture and installations with drawing, Davies meshes dark humor with a “do-it-yourself” approach to materials and construction. Curiosity about slightly oddball hobbies and vocations such as correspondence course taxidermy and pedigreed dog breeding has been explored as subject matter. Scientific processes involving the counting of elements found in the natural world is also a preoccupation."

How to Talk About Utopia Without Saying Utopia

Artists: Anthony Marcellini & Matthew David Rana
Gallery: PLAySPACE Gallery CCA
Opening Reception: Thursday, April 10, 8-10 p.m.
Special all night film screening: Saturday, April 19 at 5 p.m.

"How to Talk About Utopia Without Saying Utopia, takes as its starting point the history of 19th century California communes. The works in this exhibition consider the relationships between alternative forms of social organization and fictional narratives in order to reflect upon utopias of the past, the present or for the future."