Hackett-Freedman Gallery : David Park - Works on Paper 1930-1960.

Comment by AB: A healthy selection of classic portrait and figural works on paper by important Bay Area Figurative painter David Park are on display here at Hackett-Freedman Gallery, the exclusive representative of the Park estate. Most all appear to be unsigned, at least on the fronts-- not quite sure why. Working sketches maybe? The lighting is low, I'm told, to preserve the integrity of the works. I'm also told that a number of examples are among the last that Park produced. Near the end of his life, unable to get out of bed, family members would bring him art supplies so he could continue to create. Hardly anything's for sale; almost everything's owned by the family.

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San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design : Within Two Hands - The Eye of the Collector.

Artists: Laura Andreson, Peter Voulkos, Ruth Duckworth, Hans Coper, Philip Cornelius, Shoji Hamada, Jun Kaneko, Kanjiro Kawai, Bernard Leach, Kenneth Price, Billy Al Bengston, James Lovera, James Melchert, Mineo Mizuno, Gertrud and Otto Natzler, Lucie Rie, Paul Soldner, Beatrice Wood, Betty Woodman, more.

Comment by AB: A cogent cull of contemporary ceramics dating from the mid-1950s on through the seventies, some later, mainly on loan from the Marer Collection of Contemporary Ceramics at Scripps College.?Fred Marer, a math teacher at Los Angeles City College, began collecting ceramics in the early 1940s. His collection ultimately grew to some 900 pieces, all of which he donated to Scripps. Styles on exhibit include abstract expressionist, postwar modern, sixties funk, functional, non-functional, and more. Excellent survey; Fred Marer knew what he was doing. Go see.

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MMGalleries : Henry Jackson - Descendants.

Comment by AB: Henry Jackson takes figural abstraction about as far as possible without having his abstracted figures vanish entirely into their respective compsitions. He works in two distinct formats-- large color paintings and small monochromatic mixed media pieces.

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Visual Aid : Spring Forward - 7th?Annual Art Auction Presented by Visual Aid and Academy of Friends.

Artists: Ross Bleckner, William Wiley, Michael Beck, Isabel Samaras, Timothy Cummings, Maria Porges, Sandow Birk, Robin Denevan, Monica Denevan, Frank Lobdell, John Bonick, Gregg Renfrow, Jock Sturges, Jenn Shifflett, David Gilhooly, John Patrick McKenzie, many more.

Comment by AB: Visual Aid's annual spring auction fundraiser includes both live and silent auctions. Plenty of worthy works of art plus plums like luxury hotel accomodations, fine wines, fine dining, and more are on the block for a preeminently worthy cause. Visual Aid supports and encourages artists with life-threatening illnesses to continue their creative work, and also helps produce, present, and preserve the work of artists whose careers are challenged by life-threatening illness.

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California College of Arts : 2008 CCA Graduate Exhibition.

Artists: Loads.

Comment by AB: There's a panoptic panoply of all kinds of everything everywhere-- certainly more than I can hope to cover. Nearly 50 artist graduates pack CCA's main building to overflow with the fruits of their creative endeavors. So here's a Bamberger's-eye view of tomorrow's talent today courtesy of the brand new Masters of CCA. If you wanna help identify unidentified artists please email me . And thanks to Chrissie Bradley, CCA Graduate Fine Arts Program Coordinator for her generous assistance with captions.

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Crucible Steel Gallery at CELLspace : Veronica Graham - Bonus Map.

Comment by AB: Impressive wall-to-wall-to-floor-to-ceiling installation by Veronica Graham covers almost the entire gallery. Here's how it works-- Graham hand prints over 2000 cloth swatches in a dozen or so patterns, each swatch measuring about 6 X 6 inches. Then she tiles them into fascinating large-scale fantasy maplike landscape configurations, and tacks them to the walls one-by-one with mathematical precision, the overall effect painstakingly gratifying. Her sources of inspiration include early video games, Japanese woodblock prints, cartography, and more. The swatches are available for purchase priced at $1 each. I love hard work, dedication, and persnicketiness which means I love this show. In fact, I'm gonna give it a rare mid-week Pick. Go see.

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Fifty24SF Gallery : RockFace D'Arm ? D*Face and Armsrock; Orchestrated Oddities - Brian Barneclo, Romanowski, and Dia (Sean Somer).

Comment by AB: In the street-level gallery, D*Face festoons the walls with intensely urbanized pop imagery, most notably his wacked out plays on Warhol. Armsrock meanwhile, with only painted corrugated cardboard, creates a poignant diorama directed to the horrors of war.

Upstairs we've got a superior three-fer. Brian Barneclo paints up a batch of funky bar fly city scenes, and caps 'em with a carved painted wood totem sculpture. Sean Somer takes off on the "Yellow Brick Road," concocting a black vinyl road out of LP records, culminates the affair with Art Nouveau-esque paintings, and seasons the meld with an installation or two just for good measure. My favorite, Romanowski, goes off the charts with his hepcat assemblages, composed mainly of unfinished recycled wood. He offers options for both floors and walls, all shapes and sizes, the crowning touch being an elaborate romantic corner number embellished with fresh fruit and candlelight that looks almost like an altar. Excellent.

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