Watch out for the new P.T. Barnum of Philadelphia's art world, Rah Crawford, who last summer was selling his work out on Second Street with not much more than a notebook of copies to show, is having his second solo show at Qbix Gallery opening Friday, and just in case you snored through his last show--paintings that mix up hiphop culture, politics and design with the Al Hirshfeld-words-embedded-as-lines technique all over the place--he has decided to wake you up and make you pay attention by promising to sledgehammer some of his pieces. And he's not talking copies, here. These are originals (right, "Mr. and Mrs. Bear," one of the four paintings scheduled for destruction).
Three of the four paintings scheduled for destruction on Sept. 23rd at the gallery can be rescued if collectors buy them that night.
But showman that Crawford is, he understands there's a need not to disappoint the mob's blood lust (paint lust). So no matter who tries to come to its rescue, one of the paintings will get the axe.
Crawford is a guy who knows how to sell, and I'd have to say, since he does it with such flamboyance, it's a part of his art. He's talking about collectors who rescue his paintings from destruction as deus ex machinas. I'm reminded a little of the guys who approach me on the street, telling me a yarn that makes no sense in hopes I'll buy the sad story and donate some dough to them (left, "Modern Mona," with words embedded in the shadows and in her hair).
He's a performer (a DJ) and a writer who has published a little zine about the local club scene called FILL.
And he's thinking of his show as part of a larger, multi-act performance, "Welcome to Earth." An exhibit last year was Act I. This exhibit at Qbix with the sledgehammer event is Act II. Another show at a place yet to be determined, with sexy paintings and therefore not open to minors, is his Act III, "Loovorfook." And a live show of some sort, "Abracadabra," will be Act IV. Meanwhile videographer Craig Hanna has been documenting Crawford's art career with plans to release a DVD by mid-2008, also entitled "Welcome to Earth."
Back on this planet, he really does have shows lined up in Amsterdam on Nov. 5, 2005 with Paris, Barcelona and Antwerp to follow.
For all that, I still take Crawford seriously with his mix of energy and productivity. I just hope with all the hype that the paintings aren't a come-down.crawford, rah permanent link
libby
3:04 PM
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Your intrepid reporter slips again
Posted by libby
Oh, I should have double-checked Rodger LaPelle's list of galleries going or gone out of business, but enough of them were right for me to believe in the whole list. Then I got this email suggesting all was not well:
Hi,
I don't believe Rodger LaPelle was quite accurate in the list of gallery closings he gave you (included in your August 25th posting).
While the rest of the list may indeed be defunct (pending confirmation...?), I think Rick DeCoyte and Michal Smith might be a bit bemused (to say the least) at the news that LaPelle has shed a premature tear for Silicon Gallery. Might be worth checking, but as far as we know at PPC, Silicon is very much alive and well...
DeCoyte just now assured me the demise of his gallery has been greatly exaggerated. Silicon as both a gallery and a terrific digital printmaker is still in business and DeCoyte was charming and amused, which makes me feel a little better. I'll put a correction in the previous somewhat erroneous post. permanent link
libby
1:01 PM
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Segal Outside Everywhere
Posted by roberta
I opened a piece of mail this week from Locks Gallery and in it was a postcard announcing the opening reception for the gallery's new rooftop sculpture garden on September 9, 5:30-7:30 pm. The image on the card is George Segal's "The Dancers" (bronze, white patina, 1971) which now sits in the treetop aerie overlooking Washington Square. The postcard image is beautiful and it made me start thinking about Segal again.
You may remember I'm not a big fan. Nonetheless, there's something about a Segal piece outdoors that seems better to me than a Segal indoors. Why would that be? Is it the improbability of stark white in a technicolor world and sunlight? Maybe.
Then Thursday I was having lunch with my painter friend and sometime artblog contributor Anne Seidman whose upcoming show at Schmidt-Dean I am dying to see. That show opens on Sept. 9, with a reception from 5:30-7:30 pm. (Seidman's work is paired with carved wood sculptures by Susan Hagen, and I'm real excited about those, too. Both artists are in the Operation RAW show at the Icebox, by the way. Seidman told me she and Jeanne Jaffe collaborated on a piece -- a topographical map of Vietnam with words added.)
After lunch, I'm strolling down Chestnut St. and just west of Independence Mall I see a mystery white thing nestled in the dark entryway to a building labeled One Independence Mall (street address 615 Chestnut). It's a whatizit and everybody passes by without another glance. But I know it's art. It just has to be.
And indeed it is. It's George Segal again, outdoors again, and a block away from the now-outdoors Segal "Dancers" atop Locks Gallery.
The piece on Chestnut St. titled "Woman Looking Through a Window" dates from 1981 according to the plaque nearby. It's a Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority Percent for Art production. According to the Fairmount Park Art Association website, a great resource for public art in Philadelphia, "Woman" dates from 1980.
I'm still sticking with my original opinion of Segal, although seeing the work in the great outdoors turns his people into rocks or architecture -- and I like that thought very much.
Post from Donna Sink [Ed. note: I am way overdue putting up this missive which came in last month. Donna Sink is an architect based in Indianapolis. She used to be based in Philadelphia and was the installation designer for Cheryl Harper's "A Happening Place" at Borowsky Gallery a few years back.]
Hi Roberta and Libby:
I was in town recently installing the show "Whimsical Works: The Playful Designs of Charles and Ray Eames". Basic information below:
Arthur Ross Gallery, University of Pennsylvania 220 South 34th Street (in the Furness library) Philadelphia PA 23 July - 11 September 2005
This exhibit examines the "whimsical" side of the design work of Charles and Ray Eames, focusing on their toy design projects and films.
The exhibition was organized by the Arthur Ross Gallery of the University of Pennsylvania in cooperation with the Eames Office by students in the Halpern-Rogath Curatorial Seminar supported by the Department of the History of Art, taught by Professor George H. Marcus.
The exhibit was curated by the Penn students in the seminar, I did the exhibit installation, and Orly Zeewy did the fantastic graphic design. The installation covers six examples of the Eames playful works, including three films by the Eames: "Kaleidoscope Jazz Chair" (projected on the floor so you can look down on it, with kaleidoscopes to play with), "Tops," and "Toccata for Toy Trains." The latter two are displayed in a theater construction that we built in the gallery. The Tops section also includes a play station: a video camera trained on a tabletop with tops to play with and a monitor, so you can "make your own" version of the Tops movie.
Other sections are on the House of Cards, The Toy, and Children's Furniture. One very rare object we were able to get for the show is an early child's chair made of molded plywood, like the famous bent plywood lounges of the Eames, but child-sized - it is absolutely the cutest piece I furniture I have ever seen. When it came out of the crate I could not stop giggling and cooing over it - a mother can't resist! eames, charles and ray
[Ed. note: this post has been edited to correct two things: The image has been changed and is now a Bromirski image. And below, the name Spencer Finch has been deleted and Jeff Koons has been added. Sorry for the confusion.]
Two things rang my bell this morning. One is kinda funny and the other is kinda not-funny. Martin Bromirski, artist and anaba blogger, has a post about trying to define what is a mid-career artist. Apparently a standard definition is "7 years of professional practice." Bromirski considers he's at quarter-career, not mid career but he's freaked out by the clock ticking and the measurement of a career. People like Tim Hawkinson and Andrea Fraser whose careers are huge are referred to as mid-career. If you're using them as a measuring stick the bar is set pretty darn high.
All those descriptors like "emerging, mid-career, established" seem bureaucratic stickers to file people away in tidy drawers and not have to think more about them. It's counter-productive ultimately to slot yourself in any category. Libby and I have been working now as collaborating artists for 16 years. That puts us in the "aged like fine wine" category. Early on, we were in the "unripe cheese" category and then plateaued in "crispy tofu." What's the diff. Making art over a lifetime is a journey and my measuring stick of success is how plugged in to the community you are. That's not going to correlate with financial success of course but it feels like a more real indicator of success as an artist than financial success anyway.
Thomas Kinkade is successful mid-career artist. That's a dark thought.
Meanwhile, and because people are made of many parts, Bromirski, one of my flickr buddies, has another aspect of his quarter-career going on -- "art groupie." He's got a set of photos in which he poses with the famous at some art opening or other. There are three photos so far: Bromirski with Julian Schnabel; Bromirski with, I think, Jeff Koons; and, the best, Bromirski with Eva and Adele. Check them out here.
Gallery owner Rodger LaPelle of his eponymous gallery starts his conversations with the good-news headlines, then bad news in detail, and then back to the good news, maybe not in great detail, but still there. Some of his good news includes the recent sale of his 50th piece by young painter Matt Bollinger who had a solo show at LaPelle's in February. LaPelle also wanted me to know about a commission he brokered for another of his artists.
Then there was the bad news. It's August; he hasn't sold quite as many paintings as he would have liked this month; his stuff (especially the David Lynches) do better on ebay than on artnet.com, and the art market is therefore falling apart.
As proof of the art market disaster, LaPelle said eight Philadelphia galleries closed this summer. Here's his list--Hahn in Chestnut Hill, Mangel, Charles More, Union 237, Well Fed Artists, Pink Bridge, Pringle, Silicon Gallery--and he hears Indigo may lose its space, thanks to a new landlord.
CORRECTION:Rodger's list is not quite accurate. I just had a chat with Rick DeCoyte of Silicon Gallery, and it appears it is alive and well. I know that several of these are indeed out of business--More, Union 237 as previously reported here in artblog, Well Fed Artists and Pringle, also as previously reported. I called Hahn Gallery and learned from the recorded message that the gallery has indeed closed its space on Germantown Avenue, although they are still dealing out of an apartment at the Philadelphian apartment house according to the gallery's phone message. I cannot vouch for Mangel, where the phone message says it's reopening Sept. 13. If I get more info, I'll add it.--08/26/05
I'm not sure this list proves much. Here are a few reasons. Mangel has been retiring forever. More was beset with other problems. Union 237's business plan was a non-starter. Well Fed Artists Gallery was a sweet little hole-in-the-wall coop with a shaky business plan. Pink Bridge was (is?) a vanity gallery. I don't know why the other three went out of business, but maybe it did have something to do with the art market.
LaPelle was the second person who complained to me in one day about people in the Philadelphia area with lots of money who say they can't afford the price of a $2,000 or $3,000 painting. The other was Liz Afif (see previous post on the art now up there).
Here's what they are saying: If you're driving around in an SUV and feed it regularly at the pump these days, you can afford original art. You just need to rethink how you allocate your cash. Art deserves a bigger cut in your budget, and when it hangs on your wall, it lasts and lasts. So buy it. Better yet, buy it in Philadelphia.
LaPelle intoned his list of gallery failures all the while that Bill Ryan, a painter who took off 20 years from painting to run a florist's shop in Abington, was explaining his own dream of opening a gallery. Amazingly, Ryan seemed undeterred by LaPelle's litany of bad news.
Then in walked Matt Bollinger, he of the 50 paintings, and his friend Rachel Frank, who had just returned from Skowhegan, and the mood in the gallery lifted with their youthful prospects. This was a typical day at LaPelle. Oops. Better take time out to look at the art.
On the walls at LaPelle were some paintings from Simon Huelsbeck and Marcus Michels.
Huelsbeck (see a post from Roberta about his last show at LaPelle here) has been moving away from his sepia-toned, stylized urban spaces to full color and to somewhat different subject matter. The sense of lost memories is still there, but these in-color memories are about vertigo, childhood and a lack of control, a sense of falling, instability, and dislocation (top, "Intersection").
The cinematic/photographic spin may have changed, but the surrealism remains amid a tilt toward apocalypse.
The less realistic these paintings are, the more I like them. I love the loopy clouds in "All the World is a Stage." The three figures in "A Day on Earth" (right above) seem at once isolated and part of a miniature Day of the Locusts crowd, as the fish-eyed buildings threaten to fall.
The figures falling from the threatening sky in "My Ashland" (above left) are hanging from ropes. Nonetheless, they bring to mind 9/11 and the loss of a sense of security even in that small town. And in "Parade Flight (Astray)" the teddy bear float is hovering over shards of civilization--broken concrete or pieces of statues (right below, "Parade Flight (Astray)).
In a less reflective mode, painter Michels offers snapshots of the young and the restless spending endless hours hanging around. The smaller canvases feel like sketches crowded with too many details. Why are all those stacks of books and things included in the paintings, I wondered. But the bodies strewn across chairs in odd ways entrance Michels' eye.
Michels' palette of bubblegum pink and light ochre yellow hits its stride in some of the larger paintings that have not quite so much junk included in every scene. The big ones also have some sense of mystery.
In "Sunday Morning" (left above) the lounging apartment dwellers are awakened from their poses of ennui and exhaustion by a couple of Mormons at the door (you know, young men dressed unnaturally formally in black pants and tie and white shirts). I loved the subject matter here, the two societies with different values.
In "Winter" (right) two chairs beneath the glowing lamp are draped in brightly colored afghans. The sense of heated rooms and too much time spent indoors and early darkness are nicely captured. I think this was my favorite of the paintings for the wild colors and the thick atmosphere.
But mostly Michels never met a figure he didn't want to paint.
In "The Annunciation," (left) a floating blond in a virginal nighty and a dark shadow bracket an unhappy couple. Anyone can make up some stories for this one.
When Michels leaves room for stories and speculation, the paintings rise above just unedited bric-a-brac. The best of the paintings have some ambiguity even as they stay natural and stay close to what Michels seems to like best--Gen Y hanging out with the clutter.michels, marcushuelsbeck, simonbollinger, mattfrank, rachel permanent link
libby
10:23 PM
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Nice view--Paris by Puma
Posted by libby
Paintings and drawings of Paris fresher than the Bois are hanging at Afif Gallery until Sept. 2 (top image, "Sunday," oil on canvas).
The love affair with Paris are by Jessica Puma, one of the Philadelphia area artists included in this year's issue of "New American Paintings," and as in the book, she's still using lit-up skin tones and textures for architecture, giving light and warmth to the usual grim grays. Shots of Mediterranean blues practically turn the place into the tropics. She must have had a hell of a trip (left, "Godsend," oil on canvas).
The other lovable quality in these paintings is the absolute rejection of right angles, a general lack of interest in long perspectival views down streets, or rigid reproduction of architectural balance. Puma digs right in and pulls out the juiciest visions of windows, walls, and rooftops that then become quirky still lifes breathing against the sky. She's fearless with graphite and crayon and slams down jittery lines with force (right, "Kingdom of Heaven," oil on canvas).
Afif is also showing a small group show, "Being and Self," in the back that has some gems. In case you hadn't been paying attention, Afif has been putting out national calls for small, juried shows in the back room on a regular basis, and they usually include several things I find interesting--sometimes from local artists I've never heard of, sometimes from somewhere in the hinterlands. You never know.
This show had several works that caught my eye.
From Inga Poslitur, a Brooklynite who was born near the Black Sea, paints beautiful gouache and watercolor images with a storybook quality. The rich color infusions in the large fields, the details in the oriental rugs, the Russian-folk influence in the figures, the gentle sense of light, all add up to beauty (left, "Childhood Memories").
From Heather Spriggs Thompson, an operatic "Sunday Morning" hits just the right notes of pink and blue in a C-print of a family melodrama. I especially loved the glee of conquest in little sister. Perfect (right, "Sunday Morning").
Memphis artist John Hilton drew a portrait of disappointment, a couple sharing "A Meager Fish." The graphite picture, with its somewhat outsider technique, has a touch of wry humor and great sympathy with the couple, who form a unified block of drapy t-shirts at the top of the picture. Even though their irritation pushes their focus in opposite directions, the man is still comforting the woman whose eyes are madder than a hornet's. They have a right to be irritated. Look at the size of the fish. Loved it (left, "A Meager Fish).
In the front window (that's why I've got such glare in the corner there) playful, curly bears catch streams of darts amidst beachballs and bubbles. "Valley of the Balls," by Erin Harmon, is darned loopy. I loved it. Harmon is also from Memphis. Something good must be happening down there. The description says oil on canvas, but it looks like a resin-layered image (right, "Valley of the Balls").
Others in the show include: Philadelphian Burnell Yow!, whose photo, "One Life no Encore" of a metronome assemblage, which is also on display, augurs life's time passing. Pam Aloisa's "Small Details" is a dense and intriguing monoprint with a baby on glowing sheets, surrounding by a suffocatingly gloomy space full of stuff; Aloisa is from Florida. Also in the show are Sarah Demas with a couple of academic paintings, Tami Crupi with a silverprint photograph in which the nude and the bathroom both have more texture and age than is traditionally desirable, Margot Herster with a digital C-print of coffee cups and love, and Pittsburgher Monique Luck's large mixed media collage, "Butterfly Drowning."puma, jessicaposlitur, ingahilton, johnthompson, heather spriggsharmon, erinaloisa, pam permanent link
libby
12:14 PM
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Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Propper Mural in Manyunk
Posted by roberta
I mentioned last week in the Weekly Update (see post)that Ann Northrup's new mural in Manayunk is full speed ahead with a Sept. 22 dedication coming up fast. Herein are some pictures from my visit with my and Libby's friend at her new mural, on the side of Propper Brothers Furniture right off Main St. (another big wall -- one of Northrup's specialties)
Gabe Tiberino, recent PAFA grad (pictured above), is one of Northrup's assistants on the project. The mural, painted under the aegis of the Mural Arts Program, has an ovarian cancer awareness theme.
Kitty Hankins, 78, worked with Northrup on her previous mural in Germantown. She volunteered for this one, too. The Germantown mural was painted in sections on parachute cloth. This one is going straight to the wall.
We've written about Northrup's murals a number of times. They're among the best in Philadelphia. I'll put some links to prior posts a little later.
Taking a meeting between cars -- an occupational hazard of plein air mural painting in Philadelphia.
Here's the mural plan laid out on a table at La Colombe the excellent coffee house on Main St. around the corner from the mural. See the picture bigger here.
The artist's design shows a sublime landscape of rocks, sea and sky with figures symbolizing cancer survivors dancing in the sunset. tiberino, gabe The landscape depicted is the Headlands, a part of the San Francisco Bay area (Sausalito, maybe) where Northrup grew up. Last summer she did an artist's residency at the Headlands and this mural's vista is from the photographs she took. northrup, ann permanent link
roberta
12:10 PM
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Weekly Update - Hom's Clouds and Vox Newbies
Posted by roberta
This week's Weekly has my report on Libby's and my studio visit with Mei-ling Hom and her husband David McClelland. And in the Editor's Choice section of the listings, my quickie on the Vox new members' show. Here's the link to the Hom article and here's the link to the Editors' Choice page. And below are the stories -- with some additional pix. This is Libby's post on the visit.
Cloud Coverage
My friend and collaborator Libby Rosof and I went to Mei-Ling Hom's South Philadelphia studio on Aug. 9. Hom invited us in to preview a body of work she'd soon be installing in the Smithsonian Institute's prestigious Sackler Gallery. A sculptor whose work deals with the issue of being Chinese in America, Hom is a public artist whose work I've long admired. (image is the artist and her husband, David McClelland, at our studio visit. See bigger here.)
Not only is the artist and Pew fellow installing at the Sackler, but she just won a design competition for the campus walkway at Fleisher Art Memorial. (See post.) In October her "Chinatown Eyes" will debut as part of the Asian Arts Initiative's PEI-funded "Chinatown Influx" project. (Hom's the only local artist included in that effort.)
And the morning we visited she'd just shipped some large sculptures (her "Silkworm" pieces made in conjunction with the Fabric Workshop and Museum) to Tufts University Museum for a show. All this is in addition to teaching at Community College of Philadelphia.
Hom is a gentle, generous soul. Our visit, which I thought would last an hour, stretched to more than two and a half, fueled by green tea and a bubbly, wide-ranging conversation about art, studio life, South Philadelphia and China. Hom's husband David McClelland -- himself an artist, writer, carpenter and Hom's assistant on her installations-was an active participant in our discussion. The couple seem to be completely in sync.
Seeing work in an artist's studio requires imagination. Studios are happy places but usually cluttered with tools and raw materials. In Hom's cavernous, high-ceilinged studio, the new work-35 wire mesh clouds, hanging from the ceiling, sitting on boxes and curled up in the corner-was almost invisible. (clouds in a corner of the studio)
Hom's clouds are made from standard-issue chicken wire that the artist bends into shapes and closes at the ends the way you would if you were making a pillow or a stuffed animal. She doesn't start with a pattern but goes straight to the chicken wire for inspiration. Hom uses the scratchy wire mesh itself to close the seams, twisting and knotting it with needle-nose pliers. Sometimes she makes a dart this way too. (She covers her fingertips with electrical tape to protect them.)
Like real clouds, the metaphorical clouds are dreamy and evocative, but take up real space. It'll take four trucks to get the almost three dozen clouds down to Washington, she says. The pieces will be on exhibit at Sackler for six months. "Free storage!" Hom says. Actually there are six more clouds waiting to be installed at Philadelphia International Airport, she adds, which is even more free public-sector storage.
The airport clouds burst on the scene last year in a show at Fleisher-Ollman Gallery, for which Hom commissioned Curtis grad Eli Marshall to compose a musical accompaniment. She commissioned Marshall again for the Sackler piece. The recorded music, played on a bamboo flute by a Chinese musician, will create a soundscape that ebbs and flows as you stroll beneath the clouds suspended at different levels and coming together in what Hom calls "a critical mass" at one end.
Hom met Marshall through Community College. "His grandmother was my student, and she said, 'You should collaborate with my grandson.'" Marshall, now living and working in Beijing after completing a Fulbright residency there, will help install his new piece in Washington, D.C.
These are tight budget days for the Sackler, which has no money for a reception. And Hom had to pay for the brochure out of her artist's fee. But Smithsonian Magazine is doing a story about her. Hom started making clouds in 2001. "The cloud is a symbol of fortune," she explains. "Repeated cloud forms means never-ending fortune." Her first efforts were carvings of laminated wood blocks using a hatchet. That's bringing on the big guns to make something so ephemeral. But the small wood clouds I saw in the studio strongly resemble their wire mesh second cousins twice removed. (image of carved wood clouds)
"Chinatown Eyes," Hom's outdoor project for the Asian Arts Initiative, was planned for the side of a building, but because the building's going to be demolished, it'll be on the cyclone fencing on Vine Street. The artist, ever flexible, retrofitted her idea to accommodate the new space.
Working with digital photographer Richard Ryan, Hom is photographing the eyes of Chinatown community members. She'll enlarge the photos and place the eyes, mural-like, on the fence facing both the passers-by on the expressway and the residents of Chinatown. That project will have its official opening in late October.
Hom's eyes will be upon you this fall and her lyrical clouds will be just about everywhere. Don't miss a chance to see them.
"Perspectives: Mei-ling Hom" Sat., Aug. 27. Through March 5. Sackler Gallery, 1050 Independence Ave., SW, Washington, D.C. 202.357.2700.
"Triple Trouble"
I don't know what possessed me to go into a hot fourth-floor gallery on a 90-degree Saturday, but there I was at Vox Populi's new members' gallery talk last week. And while the newbies -- Corey Antis, Sarah Daub and Xiang Yang --spoke and everybody sweated gallons, I learned again that youthful enthusiasm shines through no matter what the temperature. Each of the artists makes labor-intensive pieces that mine personal territory but do so in a veiled, impersonal way. Young artists today seem to work one of two ways -- autobiographically (hot) or impersonally and conceptually (cool). I prefer hot, but that's a matter of taste, and here there's much to like. Daub's delicate paper drawings are beautiful and rebus-like. Yang, a Chinese native who brought along a translator, makes embroidery thread drawings in takeout plastic salad bowls (from Così, he said). He showed some at Spector last year, and they're virtuosic wonders. Yang's garlic bulb "Museum Invasion" project is a little too Banksy-like for me, although the snapshot documentation is nice. Antis' beautiful small drawings of fantasy bunkers (anti-architecture, he says) are social commentary that feels like a work in progress. I'll watch to see where the artist takes it. A good debut show. (image is detail of one of Yang's embroidery thread drawings in a plastic box)
Twice in one week the issue of commerce co-opting art has come up. First there's the brouhaha over the Ecko graffiti-art project in Chelsea (see today's Inky) that a federal court judge in New York ruled yesterday was First Amendment protected free speech. This struck me as pretty funny, since it was more about promotion for Ecko clothes (at least, that's how it looks to me from here).
Here's the plan as described in the article:
The exhibition, set for Wednesday in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, is the brainchild of Marc Ecko, a fashion designer who began his career as a graffiti artist in New York.
According to plans laid out by Ecko's company, Ecko Unlimited, 20 former graffiti artists will spray graffiti onto two-dimensional replicas of subway cars.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg went to court to try to stop the show on the grounds that it would incite graffiti vandalism of real subway cars.
He may be right; or the judge may be right in saying, as quoted in the paper, that according to Bloomberg's reasoning, "a street performance of Hamlet would be tantamount to encouraging revenge murder."
While the decision pleases me, I can't help but think that what's being protected here is commerce and Ecko, rather than art. However, if the graffiti artists go ahead and make some good art, well, then that too is under the protection of the court order.
If the work is spectacular, we're more in the sphere of the Target ads in this week's New Yorker(top, Robert Risko's floaty construction worker).
I loved tons of these images. They are beautiful and witty. But ultimately, they too are mainly about commerce, capturing the Big Apple sizzle and identifying it with that formerly down-scale joint Target.
I don't know how much money the artists got from Target, but I hope it was plenty. Ditto for the artists in the Ecko project.
As for Target, it got what it wanted--an incredible image boost that builds on the already hip tv advertising campaign (left, Ruben Toledo's maze of traffic lights and cell phone towers).
After all these years of whining about how artists are undervalued and living in poverty, it's good to see some of them finding their way toward making some dough (we assume)--so long as they can be clear-eyed about what they themselves, rather than the corporations, are trying to say with their work.
So here are the ones I was really super crazy about, because they went in some direction that was beyond mere advertising: Robert Risko's big construction worker floating at a coffee counter; Yuko Shimizu's motorcyclist emerging from a network of bridge cables; James Jean's symphony of a little violinist's mind as she steps onto a subway platform; Ruben Toledo's city of utility poles, from streetlights to cell transmitters to dog walkers with a Don Quixote vibe; Andre Dubois' shoe bridge; Rachel Salomon's transformation of skyscrapers into flower petals on a decorative scroll (right, Shimizu's motorcyclist).
Each of the others also had some element that drew me in, like the hair landscape in Jason Greenberg's otherwise expected cocktail party; or the target animals in a classic New Yorker cartoon milieu, by Gary Baseman; or the merger of photos and other media in Katherine Streeter's creepy mermaid (left, the shoe bridge from Dubois, and Salomon's wallpaper-like take on birds eye building views as flowers).
I got a stiff reminder of how marginalized the artists are marginalized in this advertising campaign when I read around the blogs that came up on Google. The chit-chat was about how much money was spent on advertising space and whether the ads violated editorial integrity. No one seemed concerned about whether the artists made money or how much they made or whether the art was any good.
...well almost no one. The one voice that had something to say on the subject of art was Anna Conti, with great pictures and all. But her post didn't come up in Google. Who knows how many others there are out there?
On a local note, whenever I go into 222 Gallery, I feel like I'm walking on the edge of the commercial design world, and rarely does the work transcend its commercial impulse--although the gallery presents it as if it does.
No way am I saying that art shouldn't make money. What I am saying is that art needs to go beyond commercial appeal. It's too narrow a subject.risko, roberttoledo, rubenshimizu, yukojames, jeandubois, andresalomon, rachelgreenberg, jasonbaseman, garystreeter, katherine permanent link
libby
9:20 PM
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• the guy behind the desk at Gregory Lind Gallery is always testy, but I think he's sincerely trying to be polite. He's just not very good at it. • the Viola Frey sculptures are in the hallway at 77 Geary, between the Heather Marx gallery and the George Krevsky gallery, and just down the hall from the Rena Bransten gallery (which reps Frey.) • the "senior-xing" sign is next to a senior subsidized housing building. The traffic on Howard Street is so horrendous that the slow-moving residents kept getting mowed down at an alarming rate, so this is part of the civic response.
Sigmar Polke and Christof Karlhofer are the artists who made the terrific video for which I was a little short on information yesterday when I posted about the Kramlich Collection show I saw at the Fabric Workshop and Museum (see post).
Part of what gave this video, "The Head Feels Light and Wants to Fly," its interest was its visual simplicity. The sequence with the red men's pointy-toed shoes beset by snakelike long green veggies (cucumbers? zucchinis?) was beautiful and hilarious--beautiful for the colors against the white background (even the socks were white), hilarious for the reference to cowboy movies, the shoes looking like a cross between Euro-young-dandy and cowboy boots, the veggies almost passing for rattlers at the first moment, until their stupidity as vegetables takes over and the invisible hands manipulating them into looking like a threat becomes the subject (right, the red shoes and cucumbers).
The "snakes" were not the only threat. There were a couple of sequences involving a large, swinging plumb bob that looked heavy as it swayed above one man's face--he looked a lot like Polke. One of the plumb bob sequences included what looked like a squeeze bulb for clearing out a baby's nose, the bulb in the man's mouth, the pointy end being moved by the mouth to wiggle and to interact with the plumb bob. Another plumb bob sequence involved a man in a sort of executioner's hooded mask. Another involved just the naked face with the threatening bob above.
In all cases, the threat's manipulator is off-screen, implying a greater force than is visible. And there's a hint of torture in the plumb bob sequences. As in the cucumber sequence, there's also a hint of play, of boys playing at torture. And finally there's the question of control, and who has it. It's sort of an arty version of Harold Pinter's play "The Dumbwaiter" (right, a picture of Polke without a plumb bob).
This video is a loose, barely choreographed or planned body-art performance, and reminded me more of Bruce Nauman than the nearby Bruce Nauman videos did (one of these also involved a shoe, but to a quite different purpose). For all their casualness, Polke and Karlhofer kept my attention.
That's more than I can say for Gilbert and George's interminable, one-note video, "The Nature of our Looking," in which they pose seated on a bosky hillside, looking in one direction, and then they stand on a bosky hillside, looking in the other direction. They look perfectly Victorian in their prissy jackets, ties and hats, and other than striking their two poses, the do absolutely nothing. Torture. I suppose the reference here can go to Andy Warhol and his videos of no motion, but that ground got broken long ago. I was reminded of their deliberately haphazard non-video work--annoying, supercilious and mannered.
I didn't give a fair shake to Belgian artist Marcel Broodthaers' video "Belga Vox-Mode-20th Century Fox," other than to observe it was a series of old black-and-white film clips that included the 20th Century Fox screen logo, scenes of fighter planes lined up on the ground, and scenes of the manufacture of a mysterious large white-ish block. It reminded me of old World War II newsreels and looked kind of interesting, but I needed more context and patience.
As for the Joseph Beuys videos, they had two strikes against them before I even looked. They were on small monitors and they were by Beuys. I am not a fan and the other large projections upstairs and the Ruscha videos downstairs held my attention. So I cannot report.
These videos and the ones I previously posted on will remain up (except when the lecture room is otherwise in use) until Nov. 12. An additional wave of videos from the Kramlich Collection will go up Oct. 7, and will run simultaneously with these for the duration of the exhibit.polke, sigmarkarlhofer, christofgilbert and georgebroodthaers, marcelbeuys, josephwarhol, andynauman, bruce permanent link
libby
9:17 PM
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Conti and the PG&E explosion
Posted by roberta
Q: Where was Anna Conti the day of that PG&E explosion in San Francisco? (What explosion, you ask? See post.)
A: Conti -- who apparently didn't know about the explosion but was aware of annoying helicopter activity overhead -- was right down there trying to do some plein air painting in Union Square Park. Read her amusing post about it all. conti, anna permanent link
roberta
6:51 PM
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Fisher's Soldiers spotted in Basel, Chelsea and Oslo
Posted by roberta
One of artblog's favorite artists, Matthew Fisher wrote to say he was in two group exhibits, "Honeymoon with Romeo" in Basel, Switzerland at Groeflin/Maag Gallery and "Sasquatch Society" in Chelsea at Sixty-Seven Gallery. Fisher's drawings and paintings of disaffected-looking poet-soldiers in Bismarkian get-up have appeared several times at Spector Gallery -- in the Great Re-Masters' show and in a solo exhibit in the back space where he was paired -- perfectly -- with Randall Sellers in the front. See post on the latter show here.
(top image a Matthews soldier from the Basel show which is up to Aug. 27.)
Sasquatch also has work by another one of my faves, Chris Bors, a video/performance artist whose video "Slayer" in the metalhead show "Scarab" at Project Room was a highpoint. Ketta Ioannidou, whom we've written about here, is also in the show, which is up to Sept. 10.
Coincidentally, collage and mail artist Mike Leigh who I told you about here, happens to have a photo of real world soldiers in Oslo who look remarkably like Fisher's imaginary army men. See here.
Fisher who usually works easel-sized paintings and small drawings also said:
I am trying to finish the largest painting to date, around 54 x 78 inches or so. I will also have a piece in Jane Irish show at Icebox come September. So look out for that!
That Jane Irish show at the Ice Box Project Space, Crane Art Center, for which there's much buzz, is "Operation Rapid American Withdrawal," opening Sept. 2, and up through Sept. 25. It's a Vietnam-themed show commemorating a 1970 antiwar march by Vietnam Vets Against the War, from Morristown NJ to Valley Forge PA. Irish says her show is about "heroic resistance." The activist-artist often paints about activist subjects. Her solo show at the Morris Gallery featured, among other things, photo-based paintings of Vietnam War protesters. irish, jane With more than 60 excellent local artists in the show including Susan Hagen, Susan Moore, Sarah McEneaney, Terry Adkins, Mark Campbell, Charles Burns, Steve Donegan, Joy Feasley, Susan Fenton, Nick Kripal, Richard Hricko, M. Ho, Josh Mosley, Ann Seidman, Mark Shetabi, Ben Woodward and all of the work brand new, the show is going to be great. It also includes ancillary events like a poetry reading and an oral history panel. The opening's Friday, Sept. 2, 6:30-9:30 pm. See you there. (image is one of Irish's paintings, depicting what I think is a symbolic funeral of a soldier that was part of the antiwar march in 1970) fisher, matthew permanent link
roberta
8:50 AM
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Sunday, August 21, 2005
The blogger's brain
Posted by roberta
Ok, so this is old news for some of you, but I just got the link yesterday from my husband who happened upon it who knows where. It's a post from Wednesday, March 02, 2005 called "Brain of the Blogger" on Eide Neurolearning Blog, that's a blog run by Drs. Fernette and Brock Eide out of Edmonds, WA.
The good doctors, husband and wife practicing physicians and specialists in learning difficulties in children, say blogging is good for the brain! They have a sister website and a book, Neurolearning, due out with Hyperion Books in 2006.
The Ed Ruscha video "Premium Saltines," and the Bruce Nauman/ William Allan triplet of videos now at the Fabric Workshop and Museum are enough reason to visit there.
(One more video was really great, but there's some labeling confusion and until I straighten it out tomorrow, I'll hold off writing about it.)
At the movies with Ed Ruscha
Anyway, what sets this particular Ruscha video apart from art video in general is plot, conflict, dialog and character--oh, and by the way an incredible eye for color and texture. Just give me these ingredients and I'll sit through all 22 or so minutes.
Its main character, played by artist Larry Bell, is a creepy control-freak manipulative artist who arranges fresh vegetables artistically on a seedy bed in a seedy hotel room (the bed of lettuce reminds me of the giant, catered platters that the Famous Deli used to make when it was owned by Dave Auspitz). He then lures/manipulates a woman to the room and to his veggies. I won't tell you the rest.
But we get amazing shots as Bell shops for tomatoes in the supermarket, the beautiful colors of off-beat, painted walls, close-ups of the vegetables as they are being arranged, a retro limo gleaming and reflecting light at night, the texture of a blanket that looks like it's imitation fur. The camera plays on Bell's face. He looks like a psycho jerk in the movie--repelling and attractive all at once. And there's the story to keep you entertained (top image is Bell, a moving white blur, shopping for tomatoes).
The Fab is showing this one in the Pardo Lounge on a monitor, which makes you feel like you're watching an old movie on tv (you are). Perfect.
The other Ruscha video (also in the lounge) is of him making his food prints. You get to see him squeezing berries and silkscreening the juice. This is basically documentary and has a more limited interest (at least to me--although if you're mad for the process and worshipful of art history, this might fascinate you).
Video philosophy
The Nauman/Allan videos also document an artistic process. But their intent is quite different. They raise philosophical questions about what makes a thing what it is, to ask whether an art object is the thing it represents. (In some sense the Nauman/Allan videos are closer to "Premium Saltines" than to Ruscha's more documentary work. "Saltines" also raises questions about what art is.) I especially loved "Abstracting the Shoe" and "Legal Size."
The hands in "Abstracting the Shoe" build an object out of some yucky material that they shape into a shoe (a real shoe sits right next to it on a little pedestal). The sculpted shoe is without function, without a hole for a foot. But it is identifiable as a shoe.
In "Legal Size," hands create a legal-size envelope by taping together two shorter ones. The hands ultimately paint over the masking tape with white, to make the new envelope more closely resemble the white legal size envelope that served as a model. The new envelope does in fact work. It has a flap (with two points instead of the traditional one) and it has an interior space. This object is indeed the thing it represents--and yet not. Plus, it's pretty funny and hokey (image above right is from "Legal Size").
The videos are part of a group now up at the Fab that are from the Kramlich Collection, which includes early performance-related video in the 1960s to recent work. (This collection also was shown at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and at P.S. One in New York.)
The Fab's exhibit, which is in two installments, includes work by Joseph Beuys, Marcel Broodthaers, Henning Christiansen, Christof Karlhofer, Sigmar Polke, Larry Clark, Mariko Mori, Dara Birnbaum, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Dan Graham, and Alan Ruppersburg.
By the way, the Fab would like you to know that they have a Ruscha collaboration coming up in the fall.ruscha, ednauman, bruceallan, william permanent link
libby
2:04 PM
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Do NOT try this on your computer
Posted by libby
I've been mulling over whether to put up these two links, because after all they are so self-serving. On the other hand, I did think some of you might want to read them. Goodness only knows, my family were wild about them. And I had to fan myself and sniff smelling salts after reading these (although the visuals me right back to earth--another good reason to need smelling salts).
So here's what Zoe Strauss had to say about us and here's what Chris Ashley had to say. I swear we didn't beg for these, or bribe either of these amazing people (we may have labeled one of them amazing in the past), or even blackmail them. And I doubt the two of them are in communication.
But I'm adding that any of you out in cyberspace who are thinking, hmmm, so that's how you get a link on artblog, fuggedaboudit. Future paeans will *NOT* get links. Two's my limit. permanent link
libby
11:50 AM
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SF Gallery out-takes
Posted by roberta
Anna Conti and I saw a lot of art the day we went to the San Francisco galleries. In fact we saw so much art I'm kind of in a fog about it all. I have some postcards -- and no notes or photos after Catharine Clark Gallery -- so herein I will wing it. I remember we stopped in Gregory Lind Gallery. The man behind the desk was notable for being uniquely (in my experience) testy. But the show "Sometimes It Takes Ice to Cut Ice" with gouache drawings by Will Yackulic was very nice. Little ice cubes in what appear to be hand-made graph paper-type arrays, some of them referring to landscapes and others more abstract. Above is "Interior as Familiar to Some as Unknown by Others." There are a lot of words and letters in various typefaces in the work and Conti wondered about that. I remember the gallerist gave us an answer to the question -- the artist uses a typewriter and a letterpress. He wasn't too thrilled with the question though. serra, richard
Here's Yackulic's "Black Ice." The show's over now. I want to say the work's obsessive, hand-made, forlorn aspect reminded me of what's being made by many young artists. And while Yackulic's aesthetic not at all the same, I want to put him in a show called "Lost, Oh, Lost," together with work by Jennifer MacDonald and Jonathan Berger. brown, joan Speaking of lost, here's where I get lost in space. I don't have a clue what building we were in when we encountered these giant Viola Frey ceramic ladies. But they were such a delight to find and so perfectly placed in the hallway I just had to take a picture. See bigger.
We saw a show of 1970's drawings and paintings by Joan Brown at Paule Anglim Gallery. That show's up to Aug. 27 and I see that next up at Anglim is Louise Bourgeois. Sorry I'm going to miss that.
Brown's works all had a fashion sensibility to them. I hadn't realized that before. Shoes, clothes, cigarettes, fashionable posture -- it all adds up to something a little Austin Powers on the Bay. For more about Brown check out this website.
Meyerovich Gallery had some great Richard Serra intaglio etchings. They curved this way and that and had textures like an asphalt road (Ask me about asphalt - my street just got repaved). They're absolutely great.
Paired with Serra's asphalt arcs were some Andy Warhol truck screenprints from the 1980s. A match made in heaven. I just about laughed out loud. Maybe I did?
George Krevsky Gallery had a show of Raphael Soyer prints and paintings. Soyer has a PAFA connection, which I guess I knew, and which the gallery attendant was happy to explain to us when she learned I was visiting from Philly. The museum-quality show was very good and is up til Sept. 10. The work looked WPA-ish and threw you right back to those days when men wore hats and stood in lines for bread and work. Those lines exist today. I see people queued up at soup kitchens on Arch St. behind the Convention Center and elsewhere. And I've heard of the random pickup points in cities across the country where undocumented immigrants sign up for day labor, no questions asked. Who's documenting it?
Now for some SF ambiance I said goodbye to Anna and met Steve and Stella and we headed back to the car for the trip back to Pacific Grove. Here's something I thought was fun. A Wells Fargo bank near a sign that says Post. (Maybe Post St.). Wells Fargo? Post? It seemed to go together nicely in my mind. See bigger.
I brake for oddball signage. And while I've seen many signs for ped-xing or deer xing or even pig-xing, I'd never before seen one for senior-xing. See bigger.
I like the little SF Police three-wheeler creeping up on us. See bigger. warhol, andy One thing about driving to or from San Francisco is that you notice all the low-lying cloud action. The clouds seem frisky and playful in the way that they hug the ground and play hide and seek behind signs. See bigger. soyer, raphael OK. That's it for California and me. I was so fortunate to have met Anna Conti, a blogger who lives thousands of miles away and who is a real sweetie. That's the fourth out of town blogger I've met in the real world after knowing them first as writers and/or writers and artists. (The others are Tyler Green, Mark Barry, Martin Bromirski). Pretty great group. Pretty nice folks. yackulic, will frey, viola permanent link
roberta
11:28 AM
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San Francisco Gallery going
Posted by roberta
A small item in yesterday's Inquirer caused me to sit up a little straighter. It told about an underground utility explosion in San Francisco's Crocker Galleria area that sent one woman to the hospital in critical condition and blew out a bunch of windows when a PG&E transformer burst, a manhole cover popped, and a fire started. See SF Chronicle story for more.
somerville, travis I mention this because Crocker Galleria is where Anna Conti and I had lunch before gallery-going back on Aug. 2. And Post St., site of the blast, (see map) is where Newmark Gallery is, one block up from the Galleria. Newmark is where Conti's paintings are featured in a group exhibit.
The world is small and so are we and coincidences abound. Did I mention Conti has a painting of a blue PG&E truck looking anything but sweet and innocent? You can see that in a previous post and here's the link to the studio visit I did with Conti.
And here's Newmark Gallerist Mark Wladika's blog post about the explosion on his brand new blog. He's ok, the gallery's ok, no other injuries reported and the SF mayor is yelling at PG&E and investigating.
Meanwhile So with that preamble, today I'm putting up some pictures and some commentary about the Conti-Fallon gallery-trek Aug. 2. I'm so following edge I'm embarrassed. But I do want to share some pictures of great stuff we saw.
Conti posted about this a while ago, two nice posts here and here. And here's her post on the Newmark show's opening.
And while we're linking, here's a post Conti put up with two fabulous pictures: 1. of a bag of Libby's and my art I took out there as a little present for her; and 2. a group of antique Cracker Jack toys. Conti compares the Fallon and Rosof goody bag treats to the CJ toys. Love it!
Social Insecurity at Catharine Clark Our first stop after Newmark was at Catharine Clark Gallery, a venue Libby and I first became aware of at the NY Scope Fair. See post. We were smitten by Chester Arnold's symbolic narrative paintings of men acting out what looked like mythic boxing matches in a prison.
Arnold had paintings in this group show, "Social Insecurity" but for some reason I didn't take pictures. If memory serves, Conti said she's met Arnold and that he's a nice guy.
Sandow Birk has this great interactive miniature in the show. It's from a suite of work based on Dante's Inferno. The piece is made in collaboration with Elyse Pignolet. (see bigger) I love this litle mini environment which shows an airport waiting room in the gate area. It has a tiny delicate lever under the left side allowing a viewer to move the policemens' arms up and down in a threatening way. Everybody's so pot-bellied and schlumpy it reminded me a little of R. Crumb. Birk has been working with Dante for some time. He's got several books that appear to be graphic novels of dante's stories. As we leafed through one that was behind the counter Conti pointed out that Birk had located all the scenes in Northern California, which is a great idea. Birk also has some serious leather-bound books in a back space. My gallery list says it's his Dante's Purgatorio and Paradiso each illustrated with around 70 hand-drawn lithographs. And located nearby almost as if it's guarding the books is what must be a sculpture by Al Farrow who has another, similarly dark and goth, sculpture in the show. See bigger.
Next to Birk's work is a three-shelf installation by Packard Jennings, also interactive. (see bigger here) Comprised of, from left to right, a book, a roll of stickers and a scissor, the piece riffs on the Gideon bible and invites the viewer to clip off a sticker and carry it with them until they are in a hotel room at which time they are invited to place the sticker inside the bible in the room. Here's what the sticker says: pignolet, elyse
This Bible contains material on creationism. Creationism is a parable, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material was written by normal men almost two thousand years ago and should be approached with an open mind and critically considered.
beldner, ray I love interactive pieces, free give-aways and souvenirs, as you know, and so I was excited to cut my sticker from the roll and carry it off. Actually it fits nicely into my snap bag in my purse. This is the place where I keep my home away from home (comb, band-aid, chapstick etc). But it's become the perfect place for my Gates relic (square of the orange cloth used for the Christo/Jeanne Claude project.); my three Tim Hawkinson signatures, likewise souvenir give-aways from that his retrospective at the Whitney, and now the Jennings bible sticker. Not quite a boite en valise, it's my mini-travelling exhibit. (see bigger)
Andy Diaz Hope's photo "Sugar Daddys" is virtuosic and has Fred Tomaselli chops (beauty is life is drugs is life). The photo shows a gelcap installation in which a previous photo is sliced up and put piece by piece inside the tubes and arranged into what I have to assume is an approximation of some original source photo.
jennings, packard Julie Heffernan, represented by a great "Self Portrait as Netherworld," (see bigger) also has a painting hanging over the desk in the office, Self Portrait as Hostile Takeover." That piece was the very one that Amy Lipton brought in to Abington for her curatorial debut show last winter. Excellent Philly/SF connection.
Travis Somerville's Civil War era portraits (Sherman, Grant and John Brown) updated with weird contemporary references -- e.g. swastika and pigtails are lovely drawings and great in their details. (see bigger) Here's John Brown with pigtails for example. The mostly black and white work has subtle color thrown in -- blue eyes and pink bows on JB's pigtails. Messing with icons is an entirely good thing and this guy can draw, so I'll be on the lookout for more from him.
Ray Beldner's "Gelt Suit v. 2 (After Joseph Beuys' Felt Suit)" speaks for itself. It's made of sewn American currency. Yoram Wolberger's "Toy Soldier No. 3 (crawling soldier)" is a toy blowup that's nice but not unexpected.
It's a big exhibit including two video works in separate video project rooms -- two curtained-off spaces with a bench inside to sit on and view in comfort. What a great idea!! The videos, by Christoph Draiger and by Julia Page were not compelling enough to hold my interest, and the one by Page, shot from a cellphone, with the clips randomly sequenced, nicely techno-savvy, has disappointing content. farrow, al Others in the show are: Mike Rollins, leonardogillesfleur, Masami Teraoka, Al Farrow, Reuben Lorch-Miller, Scott Greene (with a great people falling down a staircase painting that evoked twisting DNA strands -- I'm so sorry I don't have a picture) and Walter Robinson with a wood and epoxy map of the red state/blue state phenomenon done up as a great big iced cookie. birk, sandow In sum, the show is excellent. It's up til Aug. 27, so run on in if you can. And Conti, who knows much about many of the Bay-area artists featured, provided color commentary for me that was the best. We had a fabulous time nosing up to things, standing back, thinking aloud together and just generally sharing our enthusiasms.
In the interest of moving on, I'm going to stop here and get to Joan Brown, Viola Frey, Will Yackulic and Raphael Soyer in the next post. heffernan, julie diaz hope, andy wolberger, yoram permanent link
roberta
8:43 AM
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