A440 - ART EXCHANGE - MARX & ZAVATTERO

HOSFELT - CLARION ALLEY - ARTZONE 461

CORDEN POTTS - BEKRIS - CHROME SF

ADOBE BOOKS - ELEANOR HARWOOD - VENUSIAN

(with assistance from RWM, DeWitt Cheng and Kathryn Arnold )

10.24.09

A440 Gallery : rtst4mrlyknwnasfrnd (Arvin Flores, Manuel Ocampo, Juan Carlos Quintana, Carlo Ricafort) - Sorry Friend, This Is No Hemorrhoids ;-{o>.

Review by RWM: Colorful work with discordant messages, but that is because they are collaborations by a number of artists. One does not see such work very often in San Francisco. The beautiful colors draw you in, but like the images in the works, one may also feel repulsion.  Are the messages conflicting or are there multiple perspectives being presented?  One's eyes cannot keep still among the symbols long enough to decide.

Comment by AB: According to the liner notes, this show is "a collaborative project that involves a game of painterly taunting and one-upmanship between four friends who explore the tragic-comedy of the sublime human condition." There you have it.

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Art Exchange Gallery : Katherine Barieau.

Comment by AB: Retrospective exhibition of abstract and figurative art paintings by Katherine Barieau dating from 1947-1962. Also on the docket-- the 25th Anniversary celebration of the Art Exchange Gallery. Congratulations on your first quarter-century in business! May there be many more.

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Marx & Zavattero : Michael Arcega - The Collaspe.

Review by Kathryn Arnold: Chelsea moment! The sense of a spontaneous and interactive installation at Marx & Zavattero Gallery recreates for me-- great memories of NYC Chelsea together with nostalgic views of nature. Bannister rails develop into tree-like totems, sky high wall works, and also a campfire form. The dismantling of this designed objects' prior use into its 'prior' prior form (trees, natural wood) creates context for the installation.

The bannister-rail "campfire" conceals a hidden mechanism that projects an outdoor scene into the interior of an actual tent. One is invited in to view nature, as it were, from the inside rather than from the outside. This is truly one of those brilliant ideas. The fog rolling into the Headlands appears on an interior wall providing a better view than actually you might see while camping at night. Conceptual, yes. Installation, yes. Engaging, yes. Brilliant, yes!

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Hosfelt Gallery : Gerhard Mayer - Organic Virtual Aseptic Lines; Ruth Marten - Side-Saddle; Andrea Higgins - Appearance.

Comment by AB: Rousing three-fer here. In the main gallery, Andrea Higgins works the paint with prodigiously rigorous precision, creating the illusion of fabric patterns and weaves. Just excellent! In the rear sector, Ruth Marten morphs antique engravings into wigged out absurdities, appending the originals so deceptively-- barely distinguishable from their style-- that I have trouble figuring out what she does and how she does it (I had to have it explained). And I actually know something about antique engravings. The weird thing here is that the gallery is selling limited edition mediocre quality digital prints of the originals for close to as much as the originals themselves. In other words, skip the prints; buy the originals. Lastly but certainly not leastly, Gerhard Mayer's subtly sumptuously exacting ink drawings are guaranteed to satisfy. Three thumbs up on this one. Yo!

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Clarion Alley Mural Project : Block Party.

Comment by AB: Block party, and decisively so. But intrigue. Apparently young uninitiates are defacing some of Clarion Alley's venerated masterworks. Artists vs vandals. Or is it some kind of seniority deal where vandals evolve into artists or claim territory by unwritten graffiti law and then they own it forever? Or is it vandals-turned-artists vs vandals aspiring to be artists? Or is it whoever gets pooked on the hooch and happens to have a spray can and a reputation to establish among colleagues? Sometimes keeping score gets tricky. One thing for sure-- San Francisco's walls are vital with artistic endeavor. Everywhere, all the time. And that's what counts.

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ArtZone 461 Gallery : William Wolff - A Printmaker's Odyssey; Six Centuries of Printmaking (Part 1).

Review by DeWitt Cheng: William Wolff was a San Francisco painter and printmaker of the Bay Area Figuration generation. A friend of eminent artists like James Weeks and Theophilus Brown, a lover of literary and musical culture, and a political progressive, he represents the engaged humanist artist, SF-style. Wolff (whom I had to pleasure to know as a newbie here) is best known for his dramatic woodcuts, many of which are based on those mainstays of Western art-- Shakespeare, classical mythology and the Bible, here compellingly reimagined through a pictorial synthesis of Picasso, Matisse, and Beckmann. Also on view-- a miscellany of woodcuts and engravings from 16th through 18th centuries. This is Part I of the gallery¹s six-century print project.

Review by RWM: Fascinating prints by William Wolff with style and verve. His prints highlight romance instead of architecture. The older prints display fascinating architectural detail. The new images are jazzy, the older images are traditional. A nice mix with interesting contrasts.

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Adobe Books Backroom Gallery : Bookish.

Artists: Patricia Augsburger, Jennifer Brandon, Sonya Derman, Harrell Fletcher, Katie Herzog, Arthur Huang, Jennie Ottinger, Nat Russell, Orion Shepherd, Sonny Smith, Michael Swaine, Nicolas Torres, Jina Valentine, Scot Velardo.

Comment by AB: I happen to be in the hood and drop on into Adobe. This show, "an artistic exploration into the phenomenon of the book" has been on since last month. I missed the opening, but it's worth a look. So here you go...

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Eleanor Harwood Gallery : Robert Minervini - A Means to an End.

Review by Kathryn Arnold: Architectural shapes and forms are overlaid by spray paint; flat stenciled color shapes interact with perspective enhanced spaces. Subtle colorations fit nicely within the architectural scheme of things, lending at times a surreal cast and glow to the compositions. Cole's Course of Empire comes to mind due to the play of nature with architecture-- only these might be seen as contemporary 'classical' buildings in various states or ruin mixed with American landscapes. The locations imaged often mirror Los Angeles and the titles create commentary.

Comment by AB: I ask Robert Minervini about this reality that he and certain of his contemporaries) have been putting forth in their art for a while now. As far as I can tell, the storyline goes kinda like this-- something catastrophic has happened and passed, the dust has essentially settled, and though things ain't great, there's hope on the horizon... hopefully. You might moniker the idiom something like "Post-apocalyptic Dystopianism" or maybe just plain Dystopianism. Fantasy or prophecy? Time will tell.

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Venusian Gallery West : The Luminous Art of artist Eric Ehlenberger; Sculptures by Claudia Cohen.

Comment by AB: An art party in a surreal circumstance. Eric Ehlenberger's neon jellyfish are suspended from the ceiling; his other lightworks line the walls. In the center of the gallery is an aquarium containing live jellyfish, hypnotic to watch as they propel around and about. In the parlour are sculptures by Claudia Cohen.

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Addendum:

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