Jack Fischer Gallery : Dan Lydersen - Yesterday's Here.

Comment by AB: Dan Lydersen tells me a portion of his work is about children with beards-- simultaneously young and old and mildly unsettling (and looking suspiciously like Lydersen himself). His composite dreamscape fantasy paintings additionally incorporate past memories and events. Plus he's quite versatile in his subject matters and comes off as capable of painting whatever he wants. Several pieces are perhaps a mite uneven in quality, but when he's good, he's good. My favorite-- his painting of a soldier on a horse done in trompe l'oeil to mimic peeling paint. Well done overall; go see.

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Togonon Gallery : Peter Forakis - Timeless Geometry; Leo Valledor - Between Sound & Space.

Comment by AB: It's two retrospectives in one. Fifty years of industrial sculpture by Peter Forakis in one gallery and tight geometric abstracts by Leo Valledor, mainly color field paintings, in the other.

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Chandler Fine Art : Kuan Chang and Alexis Manheim.

Comment by AB: Super subtle nonrepresentational paintings by Kuan Chang-- you really gotta get in there close to see 'em-- offset by lively abstractions with classic modernist and architectural elements by Alexis Manheim.

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Catharine Clark Gallery : Ray Beldner - The Word; Nina Katchadourian - A Fugitive, Some Maps, Cute Animals and a Shark.

Comment by AB: Ray Beldner transforms text into sculpture using as his inspirations "found notes, advertisements, desperate pleas on homeless signs, biblical quotes" and reactionary talk show radio hate. Nina Katchadourian's art is about the relationship between humans and animals, offering insight from a variety of perspectives including a video of an orangutan walking a high wire which progresses around a circular display of video monitors from one to the next, a shelf of mini photogrphs of cute baby animals, an line-drawn animated shark, and more. In the video parlour is a work by (I'm not sure who) composed of fragments of VCR tape found tangled in trees or blowing along the streets of New York. The presentation is constructed in such a way that by pushing buttons on a remote control unit, you can channel surf from found video to found video on a TV screen. All good. Go see.

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twenty goto ten : Tramaine de Senna - The Butcher Boutique.

Comment by AB: Tramaine de Senna puts forth an entertaining boutique-style installation all about food-- mainly meat. The presentation, she tells me, is designed to explore both the appetizing and disgusting aspects of edibles, as well as encourage us to reflect on the various consequences of what we consume.

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Fecal Face Dot Gallery : West, Wester, Westest.

Artists: Eric Lebofsky, Frank Magnotta, Josh Mannis, Amy Mayfield, Erin Morrison, Alexander Kvares, Tom Long, Scott Anderson, Mike Rea, Casey Jex Smith, Geoffrey Todd Smith. Curated by Ryan Christian.

Comment by AB: Curator Ryan Christian miraculously crams gems by eleven select artists from New York, LA, East Bay, Chicago, Seattle and Atlanta into the diminutive Fecal Face space. My faves? Punctilious psychedelic gel pen and gouache pattern pieces by Geoffrey Todd Smith, and Frank Magnotta's graphite on paper rendition of a postman.

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ArtSpan at SomArts : Private Preview Gala for 2008 SF Open Studios.

Comment by AB: The San Francisco Open Studios 2008 season is officially upon us, and this event celebrates the over 400 artists from all corners of The City who'll be participating. Lining the walls are representative works by those artists for all to enjoy (and purchase if you're so inclined). As for Open Studios, visit the ArtSpan website for details on that, but briefly, ArtSpan divies up San Francisco into quadrants, and for each of the next four weekends, participating artist studios will be open to the public at the rate of one quadrant per weekend. Like I said, visit ArtSpan for details.

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Iceberger Gallery : Steven Baudonnet - Respiration.

Comment by AB: To remind us of our romance with carbon monoxide, Steven Baudonnet places an internal combustion engine in domestic settings and then photographs it, rolls us up some complimentary cigarettes, and photograhs tobacco plants. Nicely done.

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Receiver Gallery : Christopher Baird - New Paintings.

Comment by AB: Christopher Baird tells me his four enamel paintings exemplify a progression from abstraction towards representation with the final painting in the progression looking somewhat like a table. He also tells me the enamel is real easy to clean (care and maintenance over time, as you all know, is an issue near and dear to my heart). Baird also creates several posters for the show. I'm puttin' a strong buy on this dude. Prodigious upside potential.

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Addendum:

Paintings by Henry Riekena, part of the Mission Arts & Performance Project a bi-monthly creative covocation where over a dozen venues open late with art, music, dance, performance, and more.

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