Currency - SFAI at the Old Mint

Vernissage by
Tony Maridakis

I had a look at the San Francisco Art Institute's MFA Graduate exhibition at the Old Mint on Mission & 5th over the weekend (you can see the catalog on this page). Maybe it was the weathered environment of the Mint building itself, but almost every piece that attracted me seemed to be about texture.  I enjoyed seeing the work of Tony Maridakis (left), Marcella S. Davis, and the video installation Winter Solstice by Andreanne Michon.

One idea that particularly captivated me was a group project, the theoretical Museum of Exhibition History.  I agree that exhibitions can shape our ideas about art, but exhibitions are a thing of the moment, painfully reconstructed through catalogs, grainy documentary photos and reviews buried in archives. The thought of completely reconstructing a long-ago exhibition seems daunting. It would be an art historian's dream to jump in the time machine/Tardis/Delorean and see influential exhibitions from the past. Apparently, they reconstructed parts of the first YBCA Bay Area Now show in April at SFAI's Diego Rivera Gallery. Good luck to them, and I wish this idea would become reality some day.

I also liked The Dress Factory an installation by Momo Yao that used fabric, photos and paintings to tell the story of Yao's visit to a dress factory in China and the conditions there,  and Lauren Visceglia's Dream Project which featured rough bowl shaped ceramics with crystals inside.  An interesting show. Best of luck to the graduates!