Thoreau Center for Sustainability : Livia C. Stein - Wanderings... Traveling of the Mind.

Reviewed by DeWitt Cheng: The Thoreau Center in the Presidio shows artwork with natural or ecological themes, so the animal and bird paintings of Livia Stein would seem a perfect fit. Stein's heavily worked paintings, monotypes and collages depict creatures variously as humanized, as friendly spirit guides and alternatively as innocent, or as instinctive hunters (especially in the raptor bird images), so they're right for the moment, when nature seems both vicitmized and baleful. She also shows paintings dealing with travel and other motifs.

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Dominican University of California : Michael Fram and Nina Zurier.

Review and images by DeWitt Cheng: Nina Zurier and Michael Fram share the Library gallery, Zurier downstairs, Fram upstairs. Zurier's conceptual photographs (hung with button magnets) are organized by color, pattern and rhythm into poetic composites, knitting together shots taken at widely differing places and times. Fram also edits reality, but more traditionally, juggling compositional elements in his realistic paintings, and creating scenes from memory-- the great editor-- and imagination, in his light-hearted, somewhat Rousseauesque scenes of daily life.

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George Krevsky Gallery : Theresa Bernstein - Discovering American Modernism.

Comment by AB: Survey of paintings from the estate of Theresa Bernstein (1890-2002), designated "Discovering American Modernism," includes cityscapes, landscapes, harborscapes, still lifes, genre pictures, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. Is it modernism? Uh... I don't think so. And I'm not sure who's discovering what either. But here's a fun fact-- in case you glossed over Bernstein's birth and death dates, she lived to be 112. In the local luminary department, Josh Kornbluth of KQED TV be in da house, host of one of my favorite programs, the inimitably aptly titled Josh Kornbluth Show.

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Clara Street Projects : An Exhibition in Three Parts; Part Three - Negotiations.

Artists: Jan Blythe, Colby Claycomb, Nina Elder, Robert Jackson Harrington, Claire Jackel, Joshua Keller, Dori Latman, Jasmin Lim, Jennifer Rarick, Kit Rosenberg, Zak Starer, Karen Thomas, Trevor Tubelle.

Comment by AB: Clara Street Projects was fun while it lasted, this being the final episode of a three-part exhibition. In it's short-lived run, some pretty respectable art graced the interior of this soon-to-be-repurposed garage, and tonight's no exception. For example, there's a perfectly balanced Katrina-scape installation at the entrance-- a scale model of a lone white house up to its first story in black water. For fans of garden gnomes, there's a Lilliputian installation of a battalion the little fellas perpetrating to corral a toppled swimming pool slide. And of course, the lemonade stand is honkin' away at full throttle. Tomorrow's art stars today? Perhaps.

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Manresa Gallery : On Site/Insight. Artists: Guillermo Galindo, Christian Karl Janssen, Lynn Marie Kirby, Jun Jalbuena.

Comment by AB: It's an art gallery in a church, specifically St. Ignatius Church at Parker and Fulton Streets. According to the proclamation, the gallery will present rotating exhibitions in its role as "lab for religious imagination." The name Manresa "refers to the town of Manresa where St. Ignatius did penance, begged, and wrote his Spiritual Exercises." The inaugural show consists of sound, video, art, and photography by artists as well as parishioners.

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Kearny Street Workshop : APAture 2008- 10th Annual Festival of Emerging Asian Pacific American Artists.

Artists: Weston Takeshi Teruya, Mark Baugh-Sasaki, Ali Dadgar, Queena Hernandez, Amy M. Ho, Barbara R. Horiuchi, Philip Hua, Stephanie Inagaki, Takashi Kawashima, Christina Mazza, Noritaka Minami, Leilani Nisperos, Dinesh Perera, Audrey Roy, Pallavi Sharma, Lisa Solomon, Jamie L. Venci, Lawrence Yang, Imin S. Yeh, Shadi Yousefian.

Comment by AB: According to the briefing, "APAture is an annual multidisciplinary arts festival presenting the work of emerging Asian Pacific American artists living and/or working in the San Francisco Bay Area." It lasts for about ten days with an events schedule that includes visual arts, performance, music, comedy, online media, and more. APAture is commendably comprehensive, well organized, healthy on talent, and yet surprisingly beneath the radar outside the Asian American community. Maybe that'll change. The visual arts exhibit opening tonight at the Kearny Street Workshop (KSW) headquarters on Capp Street features twenty emerging Asian American artists. Worth a look.

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Queens Nails Projects : Kamau Amu Patton - Zebulun.

Comment by AB: First things first. The former Queen's Nails Annex is now Queens Nails Projects. Now that we've got that straightened out, the premier event in this new incarnation is Kamau Patton's intense investigation of "African American 'New Age' spirituality," a provocative blend of art and documentary encompassing painting, sculpture, performance, installation, video, memorabilia, and photography. Good show; go see.

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