FECAL FACE DOT - RATIO 3 - ELECTRIC WORKS - JANCAR JONES

JELLYFISH - Z SPACE - SOUTHERN EXPOSURE

INCLINE - CITY ART -- TRIPLE BASE

DRIFTWOOD SALON - ASPECT GALLERY

01.07.11

(with assistance from DeWitt Cheng and Clare Coppel )



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Fecal Face Dot Gallery : Paul Urich - Take Me to Paradise.

Comment by AB: Artist/tattoo artist Paul Urich works on paper homage vintage tattoo art and tattooists of yore. He does it up so true and righteous, often using aged paper, that some pieces can easily pass for being decades old. Urich even attaches a ballpoint pen to a tattoo machine and "draws" on handkerchiefs. Good stuff.

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Ratio 3 Gallery : Mrzyk & Moriceau - The Man With The Golden Gun.

Artists: Petra Mrzyk and Jean-Françios Moriceau.

Comment by AB: Manifold pen and ink drawings in various groupings and sizes by Petra Mrzyk and Jean-Françios Moriceau conjure up a curious reality, a number of them generously reminiscent in style of caricatures by the famed Al Hirschfeld . Don't forget to check out the slick selection of mat black plastic masks in the back gallery. Nicely done.

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Electric Works Gallery : Geoff Chadsey - shift, return; Sandra Ono - Homeostasis.

Review by DeWitt Cheng: Geoff Chadsey's show, "shift, return," comprises about a dozen medium-sized colored-pencil figure drawings on Mylar. Although the subjects derive from internet photos (hence the keyboard allusion?), New Yorker Chadsey (a CCA alumnus) transforms them into posing theatrical characters, nude, with masks or face paint, with some of them even sporting enlarged or supernumerary appendages. Excellent draftsmanship.

In the project room are a half dozen or so of Sandra Ono's biomorphically shaped sculptures in banal everyday materials-- a branch is fabricated from rubber bands, and turdlike or fetal blobs are daintily crafted from wads of putty or gum. The title, Homeostasis, refers to the condition of stability that an organism maintains in order to survive, if my high school biology is trustworthy.

Comment by AB: Check out the Sandra Ono sculptures-- nicely done and worth a look.

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Jancar Jones Gallery : Paul Cowan, Cameron Soren, Amy Yao.

Comment by AB: Paintings and balloon with ribbon by Paul Cowan, sculpture Amy Yao, video installation by Cameron Soren. Don't ask me anything beyond that 'cuz I won't know the answer.

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Jellyfish Gallery : Spy Emerson - Books From the Underground Public Library.

Comment by AB: The show that was banned (and then unbanned) in Berkeley because certain works were deemed sexist, so they tell me. Sheesh. What next?

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Z Space at Project Artaud: Oliver DiCicco - Sirens.

Review by Clare Coppel: Oliver DiCicco metal, water, movement and sound both simple and complicated, high tech and not. His work references the ocean.

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Southern Exposure : Jaime Cortez, Kenneth Lo, Ginger Wolfe-Suarez.

Comment by AB: Jaime Cortez waxes melancholy on Michael Jackson. Kenneth Lo, among other delights, immortalizes his resume on a granite headstone. Ginger Wolfe-Suarez trends conceptual with an arcane spatial installation.

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City Art Gallery : First Friday.

Artists: Jack Androvich , Glenn Caley Bachmann, Suzane Beaubrun, Marianne Bland, Robin Bordow, Brenton Bostwick, Johnny Botts, Beka Brayer, Andreina Davila, Angelo DiPietrantonio, Richard Dodds, Marisa Escolar, Hilary Fleming, Anna Fizyta, Katie Gilmartin, dk haas, Jeanne Hauser, Tom Heinz, Ann Marie Hodrick, Rachel Lyra Hospodar, Glenn Hummel, Mike Kimball, Ann Krilanovich, John Kraft, Amy Levine, Amelia Lewis, Ytaelena Lopez, Lynn Mechanic, Kevin P. Mosley, Chiyo Miyashita, Hadley Northrop, Sonya Philip, Garrett Robinson, RubySpam, Kaya Sattva, Richelle Semenza, Lauren Shahroody, Tony Torrez, Trish Tunney, Pete Villasenor, Stephen C. Wagner, Beth Wellington, Jane Henri Williams.

Comment by AB: Monthly group show.

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Triple Base Gallery : Jay Nelson - With Edits; Wild Combinations curated by Jay Nelson.

Wild Combinations artists: Todd Bura, Ernesto Burgos, Bryson Gill, Alex Hubbard, Rachel Kaye, Lise Soskolne.

Comment by AB: Raw rugged resolute paintings, notable for their well worked surfaces, and a solidly constructed plywood installation round out this exhibit by Jay Nelson. Plus he curates a group show in the back gallery.

You know, it's never too late to set the record straight. I recall railing some years back about a Barry McGee painting that had been nailed to a wall at a group show, thereby, according to my way of thinking at the time, substantially devaluing the piece. Well, it turns out Jay Nelson curated that show, he informs me tonight, and it turns out that nailing art to the wall was entirely typical of Barry McGee's presentation, and it turns out that the display of this particular painting was true to that tradition, and it turns out that I stand corrected. So there.

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