SAN FRANCISCO ART GALLERIES OPENINGS
FIRST THURSDAY; 05.07.09
PART I
(with assistance from Jennifer Jeffrey ,
Lynnore Goldfarb , Alan Kaufman and RWM)

General comment by AB: You know how everyone's running around saying stuff like "This is the new that" and "That's the new this" in reference to the current economic calamity? Well my artful darlings, I've got one for you-- $500 is the new $2000. As you may or may not be aware, I look at a pretty fair amount of art, and I pay pretty close attention to what's selling for how much and under what circumstances. Whereas back in the good old days, sales in the low to mid-thousands were routine, these days $250-$850 seems to be popular with collectors. Broadening that out-- and for you math hounds in da house-- the formula seems to go something like this... Take your typical selling price pre-asset evaporation, divide it by 4, and that should give you an approximate level at which motivated buyers will seriously consider smaller works comparable in quality (and medium) to your larger pricier ones. Hey-- I'm only trying to help.

Meanwhile back at First Thursday, our local purveyors of haut gout have managed to burp up a noticeably gratifying variety of creatibles for our viewing enjoyment this evening-- and more of the good stuff than I've seen in many an episode. In fact, there's so much to cover tonight, I'm gonna do it in several parts. I hope you don't mind. Shall we? You betcha...

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Jenkins Johnson Gallery : JeongMee Yoon - Pink and Blue Project.  

Comment by AB: In case you haven't thought about "blue for boys" and "pink for girls" lately, JeongMee Yoon takes up the slack with an unequivocal series of photographs-- compositionally complex and painstakingly arranged-- demonstrating the profound impact that something as simple as one color vs another can have on young children's lives. Straightforward yet effective.

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Caldwell Snyder Gallery : Greg Miller.

Comment by AB: Large mixed-media and collage works by Greg Miller recall good times, easy living, and carefree days of yore with their time-worn feel, vintage all-American pop-style images, and high gloss finishes.

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Hangart Gallery : Siddharth Parasnis - New Paintings.

Review by RWM: Vivid colors intensify these decontextualized images of houses, and work well as abstract walls with foreign roofs. This new work by Siddharth Parasnis appears as an amalgam, as if Diebenkorn coupled with the AIA (American Institute of Architects).

A couple of doors down from Hangart here on Sutter Street, Cantina is having an opening which features a security guard at the door giving people a hard time.

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San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design : Matt Kahn - Artist and Educator. 

Comment by AB: I'm a complete modern design junkie so it goes without saying (but I'll say it anyway) that I love this show. Matthew "Matt" Kahn has taught at Stanford since 1949. That's 60 years. Woah. But it's only half the story. The other half is that he's also been involved in the design, production, and creation of a distinguished body of work-- high points on view here-- including rugs, paintings, lighting, textiles, metalwork, jewelry, furniture, interiors, and more. An exceptionally versatile multi-talent. Definite go see.

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Gallery Paule Anglim : William Tucker; David Hannah.

Comment by AB: Oil paintings on canvas by David Hannah, Professor of Art emeritus at Stanford University, also incorporate digital printing, ink, acrylic, silicone and casein. Tree imagery is central to most of his complex abstractions, with figures of gods, satyrs, angels and ghouls dispersed around and about. William Tucker's forceful bronze sculptures, beautifully patinated, appear abstract at first or maybe more like rocks or boulders. But according to the itinerary, they source from classical head, hand, torso, and animal forms. With that in mind, I look at 'em again and-- yes indeedie do-- the representational aspects (which I completely missed the first time around) are instantly apparent. Like 'em. It's all good here. See for yourself.

Comment by RWM: Meteorites? Wow.

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Stephen Wirtz Gallery : Ulrike Palmbach - New Work; Gabriel Klasmer - Parzoufot.

Comment by AB: In the side gallery, Ulrike Palmbach demonstrates preeminent proficiency in sculpture with a group of works-- mainly carved painted wood, but also mixed media-- that mimic objects you might come across in real life, but are nothing of the sort. It's how they're positioned, or how they hang or rest or appear to respond to gravity that fool you into believing they're anything more than pure psychological fabrications. They're so good, in fact, that while I'm there, someone comes up to me, points to what looks like a broken down cardboard box on the floor, and wonders whether whoever installed the show forgot to clean up before the opening. Yes my lovelies-- the art's just that good.

But wait. There's more. In the main gallery, Gabriel Klasmer paints up what appear to be portraits of women, but as you zoom on in or transit about the gallery, they seem to mysteriously morph or even dissociate right before your eyes. You find yourself saying, "Self, that was a portrait a moment ago, and now I'm not so sure."

The verdict? Twin Picks of First Thursday.

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Haines Gallery : Darren Waterston - Recent Paintings and Works on Paper; Nigel Poor - The Relative Value of Things.

Comment by AB: In the main gallery, Darren Waterston's transcendental paintings and works on paper glimpse realms of imagined realities-- extraterrestrial, undersea, inner earth, and microbiological. In the anteroom, Nigel Poor documents stuff she's thrown out over the past several years. Talk about trash to treasure...

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Gregory Lind Gallery : Bob Matthews - Garden Ruin .

Review by Jennifer Jeffrey: The Gregory Lind Gallery opens a show for London artist Bob Matthews tonight, and the first thing that catches my eye upon walking through the door is an enormous mahogany-colored circle etched with colorful, jagged shapes. Is it a tree trunk? A piece of wood painted to look like a tree trunk? Or something else entirely? The rest of Matthews' works are similarly electric, like a romp through a forest decorated with paint splatters and mysterious symbols. I don't understand it, but it makes me feel buoyant.

Review by RWM: One can enjoy the browns and rust colors of these lived-in images. Added are enjoyable color arrays, symbols, and shapes. Abstraction meets the Earth, leaving a human imprint.

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Brian Gross Fine Art : Tony Berlant - More Than Meets the Eye.

Review by RWM: Fascinating detail in this show with an unusual approach and unusual medium-- metal collage on plywood with steel brads. The numerous steel brad hold the collage images together. You'll enjoy a nice assemblage of colors depicting what could be skies, snows, ocean, and night, and you can't help but look closely.

Comment by AB: Tony Berlant's principal inspirations? Desert and ocean. Rigorous, meticulous, precise, and worth a visit.

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Robert Koch Gallery : Kenneth Josephson.

Review by Jennifer Jeffrey: Kenneth Josephson is playing with us. His photographs are delightful follies, clever visual puns that make me smile repeatedly as I walk throughout the gallery. In one photograph, he captures an arm holding a Polaroid of the ocean up to the sea; in another, a fly swatter looms large against the sky, seemingly ready to bat down a plane flying at a distance. Experiments with scale, distance, whimsy and wonder-- Josephson pulls it off with freshness that makes this work a joy.

Comment by AB: Another good one-- and more than deserving of a perusal. Kenneth Josephson recalibrates the ordinary so simply yet effectively.

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Addendum:

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This could be interesting .

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First Thursday - April 2, 2009

First Thursday - March 5, 2009

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