Jack Hanley Gallery : Chris Johanson.

Comment by AB: Chris Johanson transforms Jack Hanley Gallery into a mazelike adventureland of art and wood where you're required by the nature of the construction to take your time and experience the experience. With Johanson, it's as much about the ethos as it is about the art-- or maybe even more about the ethos than it is about the art-- the art merely represents the ethos. In fact, it's almost like you buy the ethos and Johanson throws in a piece of art to sweeten the deal. As he explains in his statement (while simultaneously entertaining the limits of conventional grammar), "The main reason I had to do this is this is my daily ritual to make pictures is to contemplate life and death, world and place is part of my religion."

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[ 2nd floor projects ] : Tariq Alvi - Hanging Matters; The Bandaged Lady by Dodie Bellamy.

Comment by AB: Tariq Alvi tells me the evolution of the show begins with his discovering an image of two men being hanged in Iran because they're gay. Alvi responds to this eternal indignity by taking an issue of qx Magazine, a gay "listings and scene magazine for London and the UK," shredding it into little pieces, then sorting and reassembling those pieces, mainly by color, into disjointed incoherent collages. The results of this exercise in artistic destruction and semi-resurrection are displayed along one wall of the gallery. I'm here a little early, so it's just me and Alvi, who generously consents to adding a human element to my images. Oh... almost forgot... we're all just a breath away from being executed somehwere for some reason.

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20 goto 10 : Josu? Rojas - Los Disappeared, Deporting the American Dream.

Review and images by Eva Lake: The gallery is crammed with individual paintings and video installations stacked on top of murals. All of the work addresses the plight of young Salvadorans in various states of displacement. The video interviews are especially poignant and even though the opening is noisily packed, one has to stop and listen to some of them. They are all suitably framed by the wall paintings, a nice segue between paint and screen. ?

The press release states that some of the designs on the walls are from folk art of La Palma. They are well married into the more urban or contemporary aspects of this show. Part of the now-ness is also derived from scene of the opening, with all the press and their variant strategies. I don't know if I've ever walked into such a small art room with so many cameras and microphones flashing.

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Michael Rosenthal Contemporary Art : Michael Pauker - A Disturbance in the Force.

Comment by AB: I happen to be on my way to the South Bay coincident with an opening at Michael Rosenthal Contemporary Art in Redwood City, and you know what means, don't you dear artsters? That's right-- I'm there. Tonight's featured creative practitioner, Michael Pauker, has transitioned from making diminutive subdued collages to painting big bold obstreperous unrestrained dreamlike scenarios, some of which have collage-like auras about them, collage gone wild, that is. He also tells me he paints himself into many of his compositions.

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