SAN FRANCISCO ARTS COMMISSION - STEVEN WOLF

FOUR BARREL COFFEE - ART EXPLOSION - BLUE STUDIO

1890 BRYANT STREET STUDIOS - ACTIVSPACE - FABRIC8

LOWER HATER - MISTER S - MADAME S

PLUS A SPECIAL REPORT FROM DAVIS, CALIFORNIA

(with assistance from Vanessa Marsh , DeWitt Cheng,
Pilar Vree and Lynnore Goldfarb )

10.09.09

San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery : Immediate Futures - The Murphy and Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts..

Artists: Miguel Arzabe, Mara Baldwin, Michael Barrett, Bonnie Begusch, Oscar Bucher, Carlos Castro, Emily Dippo, Llewelynn Fletcher, Matt Kennedy, Ace Lehner, Bobby Lukas, Eric Martin, Susan Martin, Armando Miguelez, Kusum Nairi, Ruth Robbins, Eirini Steirou, Rebecca wallace, Doug Williams, Sune Woods, Wafaa Yasin, Daniel Yovino.

Review by Vanessa Marsh: As Murphy's Law would have it, I trek out for my first time shooting and commenting for Artbusiness, miss my bus and forget my camera batteries at home. Luckily, the kind folks at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery give me some batteries and I'm on my way. Tonight's show, Immediate Futures, offers a varied and condensed look at what graduate students in the Bay Area are up to. Although the show is a bit crowed, it's well curated and there are some pieces and artists that really stand out to me. Specifically, Carlos Castro Arias's The One Who Does Not Suffer Does Not Live strikes me as a poignant look at the inevitability of decay, even in that which we consider monumental and permanent (my photos do not do it justice.) This is a great show to check out to see what the future holds for Bay Area art.

As described by SFAC: "The Murphy and Cadogan Fellowships in the Fine Arts are annual awards sponsored by The San Francisco Foundation to assist art students in funding their final year of graduate studies. In partnership with the Foundation, the Arts Commission Gallery is committed to supporting works by outstanding Bay Area art students through the annual fellowship exhibition. The jurors for this year's awards were Betti-Sue Hertz, Ellen Oh, Isis Rodriguez and Meg Shiffler.... Bay Area colleges and universities represented by the twenty-two 2009 recipients are the Academy of Art University, California College of the Arts, Mills College, The San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University and Stanford University. Media represented in the exhibition include drawing, film & video, installation, mixed media, painting, fiber art, performance art and photography."

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Steven Wolf Fine Arts : Bessma Khalaf - You're Not There; Ryan Boyle - Concrete Poetry.

Comment by AB: Bessma Khalaf's videos-- effective as well as entertaining-- investigate matters as diverse as Victorian spirit photography, the military, global warming, and the essence of illusion. In her military/global warming video, for example, she sits astride a horse made of ice until it melts and collapses (my scrotom shrivels just looking at it). And for her video illusion, she presents what appear to be serene landscapes and seascapes. But the images are actually photographs on paper, and the serenity of each is unceremoniously interrupted by a fist punching through it from behind.

In the side gallery, Ryan Boyle centerpieces his show with a fine three-dimensional escapade in architectural fantasy ($5000), and surrounds it with equally gratifying works on paper and several additional Rube Goldberg-esque sculptures. Rigorous, meticulous, disciplined, accomplished and artful-- it doesn't get much better.

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Four Barrel Coffee : Paul Madonna - Palindrome, A Small Potatoes Adventure.

Review and images by Vanessa Marsh: Four Barrel has been coming up with some pretty interesting and dynamic shows and this one featuring Paul Madonna is no exception. A series of original ink and watercolor drawings, the pieces are aesthetically pleasant as well as humorous. Also, very reasonably priced. Lighthearted yet intelligent, this show is definitely worth stopping into Four Barrel to check out.

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Art Explosion Studios : Open Studios Big Fall Show.

Review and images by Lynnore Goldfarb: Tonight Art Explosion is packed and I believe it is closing in fifteen minutes. I find someone I know and ask her to show me the new stuff. I am taken immediately to a nook in the hallway that has been completely transformed into an outdoor scene. The scene is complete with an actual bench, on grass with children's clothes standing as if there are bodies in them, holding balloons with a face of a missing child on each one. Behind the prominent but ghostly figures are the two adjoining walls covered with names and info of missing children. Projected on top of the lettering is a silent home movie with kids in it-- kids that look to be wearing the same clothes that are in the piece. The scene is at once breathtaking and horrifying. This is a conceptual piece I am very glad not to miss. 

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The Blue Studio : Open Studios.

Review and images by Lynnore Goldfarb: I have a great time winding my way around the entire fourth floor of this Mission Street building peeking in at the individual artists' studios, talking to the artists I know and snatching little morsels of food set out in each workspace here at The Blue Studios. I have been here for open studios before, so my mission (on Mission Street) is to concentrate on work that I normally do not. I find that task very difficult, because I know most of the artists and I am dragged into some great conversations as well as great studios. However, I do talk to a few artists I have not previously met and am pleasantly surprised.

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Fabric8 Gallery : Ursula Xanthe Young - Altered States, Dreamscapes and Underworlds.

Comment by AB: Girlie-cues rule. That would be the apparent outcome according to the art of Ursula X. Young.

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Lower Hater Gallery : Paul Hayes, Andrew Perry, Lawrence Yang - Creep Show.

Review by Pilar Vree: This collection of deviously ghoulish art comes just in time for Halloween. Featuring work that looks ready to walk off the canvas and into a Tim Burton-esque film, Lower Hater's newest show is a delight that inspires childlike curiosity. The work ranges from cartoon-inspired pieces to inky, eerie creatures and is definitely worth a peek.

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Pence Gallery , Davis, California: GEO-MORPH - New Currents in Geometric and Biomorphic Abstraction.

Artists: Val Britton, Julia Couzens, Anna Fidler, Sid Garrison, Robin Hill, Jeff Konigsberg, Lisa Marasso, Joan Moment, Hearne Pardee, Leslie Shows, Ellen Van Fleet, Peter Voulkos, Darren Waterston.

Review and images by DeWitt Cheng: This exhibit at the nonprofit Pence Art Gallery in Davis delivers on the premise succinctly defined by its curator, the Sacramento/SF-based art critic David Roth (who also publishes an online art magazine, SquareCylinder.com)-- "GEO-MORPH - New Currents in Geometric and Biomorphic Abstraction is a works-on-paper show that draws from two contemporary trends. One, rooted in architecture, combines surrealism with drafting and illustration. The other, expanding on historical styles of non-objective abstraction, employs collage, geometry, gesture and pencil drawing to describe organic and otherworldly forms, using landscape, symbols, topography and mapping as jumping-off points for reformulations of pictorial and psychic space." Terrific work from NoCa artists, and a beautiful space, so if you're going east, say, to check out Sacramento's art galleries, don't miss Davis. I lost some shots from my  %#$@*&^ memory card, so my apologies to the artists not immortalized here.

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Addendum:

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