San Francisco Photography Book Now Available!

I'm proud to post that the exhibition catalog for our San Francisco photography show is now available on Blurb as an e-book or print on demand. Tom Griscom and Wendy Crittenden's photos look beautiful.

The show is opening Thursday 4/2 5-7pm at the Special Collections Gallery on the 4th floor of the library at San Francisco State University. Tom & Wendy are scheduled to talk about their work at 6pm.

Check out the demo below:

Dual Views: Labor Landmarks of San Francisco by Kim A. Munson | Make Your Own Book

Dual Views: Labor Landmarks show to open April 2015

Landmarks photography by Wendy Crittenden (color, top) and
Tom Griscom (B&W, below)

Dual Views: Labor Landmarks of San Francisco will be exhibited at SFSU from April 2, 2015 through mid-July (details below). Taken in 2008 in the recovery from the 1999-2000 tech boom/bust cycle, Griscom’s black and white panoramas and Crittenden’s askew color c-prints celebrate the resilience of the ever-changing Waterfront, South of Market,Glen Park, Dogpatch, and North Beach areas while searching for echoes of their turbulent history.

The two photographers separately visited sites both iconic and “under the radar,” in an effort to capture the rebuilding period between economic cycles and to draw attention to the underlying history of militant labor struggles that helped shape the physical and political landscape of the city. While sifting through archival materials for this show, I continue to be amazed both by the dramatic changes in the city from one period to the next, and at the sacrifices people made to fight off companies that were exploiting their work.

The Dual Views show will be exhibited in the Special Collections Gallery on the 4th floor of the newly remodeled J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University, opening April 2nd and going through mid-July. An opening event/reception on April 2 and a closing event to coincide with Laborfest are being planned. As alumni, Tom, Wendy and I are all looking forward to finally showing this body of work at SFSU, and have been happy to continue our relationship with the Labor Archives and LARC director Catherine Powell.

The show will feature 11 photos each from Crittenden and Griscom, plus contextual material pulled from LARC's deep collection of historical artifacts. I have been developing a catalog, and hope to announce how it can be accessed soon. You can preview some of the pieces that will be featured in the show in the slideshow below. If you are a publisher and are interested in seeing a proposal, please contact me at kim_munson AT yahoo.com and I will be happy to send you one.

San Francisco Labor Landmark Photography from Kim Munson

Yerba Buena GalleryWalk 2013

The Annual Yerba Buena GalleryWalk was held on June 8^th. I made it to 10 of the 13 galleries participating this year, but couldn’t quite figure out overall attendance. The California Historical Society was packed, and the nearby Gallery Wendi Norris and Modernism had good crowds. Otherwise, it was pretty spotty. I saw lots of good work though. Here’s a quick run-down of what I liked. Since I got behind on posting and some of these shows might be closing at month-end, you should check the gallery sites to see what’s there now.

Totally worth a look is Curating the Bay on view at the California Historical Society through 8/25/13. After a painful transition in which the CHS actually stopped creating exhibitions, programming has returned in the last year or so. This exhibition categorizes some of the Society’s photos, paintings and other artifacts in a very general framework of questions meant to inspire ideas about what living in the SF Bay Area means to people and what they do. The Society’s intention is to crowdsource ideas that will utilize (and add to) their collection in new ways. They are collaborating in this project with researchers at Stanford University and Historypin in the Year of the Bay project.

Julio Cesar Morales. We are the Dead 3.

Around the corner at Gallery Wendi Norris, I was glad to see new work by Julio Cesar Morales, an artist whose work I was once well acquainted with through SFSU and I had completely lost track of. He’s still dealing with themes of immigration, memory and identity, this time in a new video installation Forever Now! Sharing the gallery was Kelly Barrie, who had a series of works about play, weeds and other organic materials.

After checking out Modernism and the Visual Aid Gallery, I walked down to 111 Minna and really enjoyed unearthed by Rob Reger (best known for Emily the Strange) in collaboration with Jim Dirschberger, Steve Ferrera, Buzz Parker and Jared Roth. I am always happy to visit this gallery; they have really built a community vibe, and it’s a great place to meet up, have a drink and hang out. A couple of blocks away, Varnish Fine Art had a show of beautifully detailed slightly surreal and spooky work by Dan Quintana that really intrigued me.

Stopping at Chandler Fine Art and walking by SFMOMA, I was struck by how forlorn the mighty SFMOMA building seems with paper over the windows and no signs of life. Just a few weeks ago, it was teeming with visitors, now… tumbleweeds. Change is good, but it felt weird anyway.

Dan Quintana. Zero Instruments

At 871 Fine Arts, I saw a fascinating group show of work done by 7 artists that have been meeting every Sunday at June Felter’s studio to paint still lives together (Felter, Keith Alward, Adelie Bischoff, Gary Bottone, Barbara Scales, Jack Schnitzius, and Louise Smith). Predominately water color sketches, it was interesting to see all this work together. I’d love to see a larger show where you could see how the artist’s styles evolved together over time. Of course, the really dangerous thing about 871 Fine Arts is that half the gallery is a bookstore focused on rare and out of print art books and exhibition catalogs, I’m amazed I got out of their without adding to my (already out of control) collection. Upstairs at Crown Point Press, there was a small exhibit of new monotypes by Robert Bechtle. These specific works interested me because they were very soft and watercolor/washy feeling instead of the usual precision I’ve come to expect from his work. They were quite lovely.

I am glad that the Yerba Buena Alliance coordinates this event every year. I hope they get a more consistent turnout in the future. Still everyone I saw in the galleries seemed really engaged, and that’s what we want.

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!

Gallery Views of Determining Domain

This past Wednesday night, our long talked about exhibition opened at Intersection for the Arts. Determining Domain is an investigation of intellectual property  issues like infringement, appropriation, derivative works and parody/satire and the tangled web artists have found themselves in since appropriation and/or "borrowing" has become a ubiquitous part of the contemporary artist's palette.  All the artists featured in the show are re-purposing, satirizing or paying homage to the work of another for a wide range of reasons, with great results. I hope that everyone enjoys the photos below, and can make it to the gallery to view the real thing.

Marc H. Greenberg will be doing a lecture about issues in IP at Intersection on 12/8 (Sat) from 1-3. There will also be a workshop on copyright basics (how to register, etc) for artists on 1/16 from 7-9 led by IP attorney Inder Comar.

Determining Domain.

November 7, 2012 – January 19, 2013

Gallery & Community Hours: Tuesdays through Saturdays, 12–6pm, FREE
Intersection's 5M gallery is in the San Francisco Chronicle building at 5th & Mission. See their site for directions, artist's bios (with links to their web sites) and other info. I was happy to see the show listed as a "can't miss" in today's SF Chronicle!

Scott Kildall & Nathaniel Stern, Wikipedia Art & Farnaz Shadravan's Apocalyptic bathtubs.

Detail of one of Farnaz Shadravan's Apocalyptic bathtubs based on Albrecht
Dürer’s late 15th Century woodcut series.

Marc H. Greenberg & Farnaz Shadravan

Two collages by Bigface.

Work from Sanaz Mazinani's Frames of the Visible series.

The exhibit includes several monitors that show artist's work that has been "borrowed" for commercials and other media,  and wall panels explaining what the law is and showing examples from famous cases.

An example panel on parody and satire, written by Kim Munson & Marc H. Greenberg.

Stephanie Syjuco. Raiders, which repurposes digital photos of antiquities of questionable provenance
from a museum web site. 

Scott Tsuchitani's visual commentary on the Geisha &
Samurai shows at the SF Asian Art Museum.

Scott Kildall & Nathaniel Stern, Wikipedia Art. The display includes the dialog between the artists
and Wikipedia, who sued them for infringement.

A wall of posters featuring free digital books about IP issues & piracy,
curated by Stephanie Syjuco.

Determining Domain at Intersection

Sanaz Mazinani, Redacted March, 2011 (detail)

Determining Domain, Intersection for the Arts, November 7, 2012 – January 19, 2013. A group exhibition exploring complex issues regarding intellectual property and image ownership.

Years ago, I worked with Intersection on a show about the origins of various symbols (the peace sign, the AFL-CIO handshake, etc...). Since then, we have been discussing, on & off, an exhibition that investigates IP/copyright issues like infringement, appropriation, derivative works & parody/satire. The time has finally arrived, and the show will be opening 11/7!

Features work by Bigface, Scott Kildall & Nathaniel Stern, Sanaz Mazinani, Farnaz Shadravan, Stephanie Syjuco, and Scott Tsuchitani.  Marc Greenberg will be leading a copyright workshop for artists in early December (still TBA). See Intersection's site for calendar and more information.

Stephen Galloway, Beth Moon at Corden Potts Gallery, SF

Works by Stephen Galloway. Photo from a previous exhibition at the Bolinas Museum.

Yesterday I was checking out the galleries at 49 Geary and noticed several shows focusing on nature and natural forms. The most striking of these was Roots, Shrubs and Moss, an exhibition of the photography of Stephen Galloway, artist and photography professor (Sonoma State) at Corden Potts Contemporary Photography (suite 410; up 9/6 - 10/27/2012).

Galloway's works show plant forms in loving detail, with every leaf, branch and root shown to its best advantage. They are life size or larger, with the plant element floating in clean white space. This gives the viewer an opportunity to luxuriate in the forms, textures and colors of the natural world.  The rich color and crisp detail of the c-prints, face-mounted to plexi, left me feeling that the plants had an live inner glow, yet they also seemed somewhat preserved/fossilized in the process. A review of a previous show in ArtWeek (Brenneman, 2006), explains that he arranges the materials on a light box, and then uses a mounted camera/scanner to photograph it.  Maybe it's the light and amount of information this process allows him to capture that gives his works such a luminous feeling.

Beth Moon. Odin's Cove series. Platinum/Palladium Print, 28x22" 2012.

The same gallery had a couple of photos up from the Odin's Cove series by Beth Moon, who recently exhibited there. The subjects of the photos are a pair of Ravens, which is a subject dear to my heart, and I am sorry I missed seeing more of her work. In her introductory notes, Moon explains the close relationship between the mated pair (they mate for life) and the dynamic that developed between herself and the birds.  I have the same relationship/experience with a pair of Ravens myself, who have adopted my ocean front balcony as part of their territory and come over everyday for some peanuts and a chat. By an odd coincidence, I recently connected with another artist named Kim Munson, who lives in the San Jose area and happens to draw and paint Ravens as well.

Other shows I noticed focused on natural forms were the works of Ryan Bush at Modernbook Gallery, and the works of Charles Burchfield and Ralph Eugene Meatyard at the Fraenkel Galley.

Sherman, Nottebohm & Clerque in SF

Saw the Cindy Sherman (born January 19, 1954 in Glen Ridge, New Jersey) retrospective at SFMOMA yesterday. Although it was laid out more or less chronologically, I viewed it backwards (as usual) seeing her most recent work, the Society Portrait series first. These ¾ to full body heroic scale portraits were stunning. I'm sure I’ve seen all the women she is referencing, old money; the aging trophy wife; the philanthropist; the New Yorker with terrible teeth and a bad dye job. As a female person of middle age, I recognized the struggle of these characters beneath the glossy surface, trying in vain to hang on to beauty & status.  I also couldn’t help thinking about Renaissance female portraits and the the abundant symbolism employed in them to tell the viewer about the good qualities and status of the sitter, with the obvious symbols of wealth and taste like diamonds and Hermès scarves standing in for pearls, rubies, and the other traditional signifiers of purity & devotion.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled #465, 2008;
chromogenic color print; 63 3/4 x 57 1/4" (161.9 x 145.4 cm);
courtesy the artist and Metro Pictures, New York; © 2012 Cindy Sherman

Source: http://www.sfmoma.org/about/press/images/919#ixzz21nrrFQcE
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

This left me in the perfect frame of mind to view Sherman’s History series, in which she parodies the styles and motifs often seen in classical European painting. These works, with their exaggerated prosthetics and deft manipulation of the subject matter, consider changing artistic processes, social mores and gender roles in Western society.  The giant noses, bellies and breasts make an interesting commentary on the changing meanings of words like “sexy” and “desirable” from one era to another (good article on these here). Seeing these very theatrical portraits juxtaposed with the raw vulnerability of the Centerfolds series in the next gallery was a breathtaking contrast. I finished at the beginning, with the photos that first brought Sherman to prominence, the Film Stills. It was great to see these all together in order. I was lucky to be there on a weekday, and there was space to step back and see entire series as a composition. They have a rhythm together that you would never get looking at them individually in a book. Comparing these with her newest work (the Society Portraits in the next gallery), I felt that the artist has great awareness of humanity & inner life, as seen through the lens of the culture she skewers so well.

Andreas Nottebohm. AN-2001, May 2012, oil on aluminum 29 x 48" at Modernism

Around the corner from SFMOMA, I stopped in at Modernism, where the works of Andreas Nottebohm (born 1944, Eisenach, East Germany) and Lucien Clergue (born 1934, Arles, France) are on display. While Sherman’s work delves into the inner life of her characters, these works are lovely and very much about the surface. Nottebohm distresses the surface of aluminum panels with power tools, and then paints them with glazes of oil. They have a luminescent holographic quality that has to be seen to be believed. The most interesting (to me) of Clergue’s photographic works were a series of female nudes striped by the shadows of venetian blinds.

Lucien Clergue. Zebra Nude, 1997. gelatin silver print, at Modernism.

 Nottebohm and Clergue are at Modernism on Market Street July 11 - August 25, 2012.  Cindy Sherman is at SFMOMA July 14th - October 8, 2012

Wendy and the Lasso of Truth

If you can't see the photos in the slideshow above, click here to see them on Flickr
Click the link above to see the slideshow full-size with captions.

I met Wendy Crittenden in grad school at SFSU, where she earned her MFA. I was immediately drawn to her quirky humor and her equally quirky large-scale color photos. We looked for projects to work on together, and her photos of theatre facades were included in our Syndicate project for the Bay Area Now 5 show at YBCA (also with Tom Griscom; posts about this project). About mid-way through the MFA program, Wendy started to create small, intricately detailed drawings of people, animals, and things that were often unique takes on a well-known word or phrase.  When she started drawing elements of superhero costumes, I was really intrigued. She answers questions about her work below:

KM: Wendy, I think the contrast between your photography and drawings is interesting. Your photos tend to be in color on a large scale, making mundane architecture look heroic, yet the drawings are very intimate, small and detailed in black & white. Do these show different sides of you?

Wendy Crittenden.
big boy, 2009.

WC: I guess they're different sides of me, I don't generally think of them that way though.  I see each as a different process that I can tap into my imaginative space with:  the drawings usually start with a title and then the image arises where the photographs are a process of my meandering through space and then manipulating what I see into a more interesting and iconic visual image - in this case the title comes after the image is made.  Each process is a way for me to solve a puzzle, that puzzle is "How do I draw/photograph this in a way that is unexpected and witty?"  If it feels even just a little bit hokey or sentimental, I scrap it.

As for color, I love bright saturated color, which is evident in the photography.  The more I have been shooting photographic images in the desert, though, the more muted that palette has become.   The drawings are a muted palette because I started out with santa beards, wanting to make white on white drawings for the sheer challenge of it...  and then I evolved to using different shades of white to bring out or subdue certain elements of the drawings.  Bright white is usually used to highlight the most poignant element of the drawing, at least in regards to the title, and the other shades I use to give more depth to the image.  I use translucent paper so that I can work the backside of it with white to add depth, and sometimes I add another layer of paper behind to create even more depth with white.

Wendy Crittenden. bated breath, 2010.

KM: I remember that you like to base your drawings on traditional fables. What's your favorite one?  What's your favorite source material?

WC: As for fables, I actually think that I only have one drawing that is based on an Aesop Fable, telltale, based on the Ass in the Lion's Skin, but I intend to pursue more.  My drawings are actually mostly based on phrases and the history of phrases; sometimes the actual history, sometimes the misunderstood history and sometimes my own imaginative interpretation of the phrase.  My favorite misunderstood and often misspelled phrase is bated breath, I had a hard time parting with the drawing I did of that.

I'd have to say my favorite source material is the phrases that I just mentioned.  I have a list of "to draw" phrases that is always growing.  I usually draw the one that I am most excited about at the time I am looking at the list.  Usually the newest added wins.  However, I am currently working on a drawing of a whippet on very tall stilts, I think it will be titled stilted.  I just had an urge to draw my dog on stilts, for the absurdity of it.  She already has long legs, why would she walk on stilts!?

Wendy Crittenden.
lasso of truth, 2009.

KM: You do lots of drawings referencing superheroes. Often it's an isolated item central to the character, like Wonder Woman's lasso. What do these mean to you?

WC:  The superhero drawings, in particular the lassos of truth, are related to my santa beard drawings.  I like isolating one of the iconic items about a well known character and then I redraw it without any context; it's not only pushing an iconic element further than the character, it's also a way for me to collect multiple examples of that item to point out how each is so different from the other though they are all the same thing.  Like fingerprints, snowflakes, or Becher water towers, but santa beards and lassos of truth.  I love it.

KM: I remember you had a long talk with Margaret Harrison after her Intersection show at their gala when they moved into the M5 space. Did she influence you?

WC:  I did have a lovely talk with Margaret Harrison, I don't think the talk was influential, but her early work is.  People themselves don't affect me, but seeing their work does.  I love the way she drew her early work that was shown at Intersection for the Arts that year.  Especially the women, I recall a woman with a lemon that I adored and the women in the sandwiches (Take One Lemon, 1971 and Good Enough to  Eat, 1971 can be seen on the Tate web site).  That's some witty stuff.

KM: The TV series Parenthood bought one of your drawings, soft serves, as a prop. Have they used it?

WC:  I don't actually know if Parenthood has used that drawing.  My drawing soft serves was purchased for the third season's set design, but I haven't seen any current episodes.  I don't subscribe to cable, I just watch old seasons of shows on Netflix, and to be perfectly honest, I only started watching episodes of the first two seasons after they purchased the piece.  It's a great show, and the set design of the first two seasons is really good, so I imagine that if they have used the drawing, they have used it well.  I will be looking out for it once the third season comes out.

KM: Any upcoming shows/goals?

WC:  I don't have any current shows coming up, I am mostly focused on making more large drawings right now.  I am quite obsessed with detail, so much so that the large drawings can be very time consuming.

See Wendy's etsy store here.

Griscom in Fraction Magazine

Beale Street, Tom Griscom

 Tom Griscom's Bay Area Labor Project photos are featured in this month's issue of Fraction Magazine. Even though we worked on this project together in 2008, I'm still surprised by the depth and beauty of these photos everytime I see them. Please check it out.

Graduate Fellows Show at Marin Headlands

2009/2010 Graduate Fellows Exhibition, Headlands Center for the Arts, Building 944, May 9 - June 6, 2010

Congrats to SFSU Alum Tyson Washburn on his great work in the Graduate Fellows show at the Headlands Center (this is his Headlands Activation, Ink Jet, 2010 on the left). His detailed and lovely black and white landscape photos evocatively capture the feeling of the ruins of this long abandoned military installation returning to nature.

Also in the show are fellow SFSU Alum Michael Namkung, Andrew Witrak, representing Mills Collage, who created what looked like a mattress out of hundreds of paper cocktail umbrellas (loved it!), Michael Arcega (Stanford), Patrick Gillespie (California College of the Arts), Vera Kachouh (San Francisco Art Institute), Aaron Maietta (UC Berkeley) and Joshua Short (UC Davis).

Quick SF Gallery Notes

A quick note about some art I saw yesterday in a quick tour around a few downtown SF galleries.

First of all, there were beautiful landscapes. From the lush forests painted by John McCormick (Elins Eagles-Smith Gallery, this is his Olema Valley, 60 x 48 Inches, Oil on Canvas on the left), to the suburbs of 1980’s Colorado by Robert Adams (Fraenkel Gallery), to the classic New York Street scenes by Elliott Erwitt (Robert Koch Gallery, all at 49 Geary).

There was pop art: A lovely group of etchings reproducing automotive emblems by Ed Ruscha at Crown Point Press, and a show of Mel Ramos’ nudes at Modernism. Ramos is a master of the female form, and I like the juxtaposition of these sleek bodies with commercial products, but I have to admit that I find myself uncomfortable seeing the heads of female celebrities like Jennifer Aniston and Drew Barrymore stuck on a nude model’s body. I know this isn’t new, yet it still bothers me.

Also at Modernism, in the 2^nd gallery, were the hauntingly luminescent “imagined interiors” by Patti Oleon. Her grand ballrooms, empty theatres, and moonlit rooms were ghostly, yet realistic enough to have you wonder where everyone was, or that you had stumbled into the hush of a great and glamorous empty room by yourself. I wasn’t familiar with this artist, but will definitely watch for her now. Her work Double Curtains, 2009, oil on panel, 55 x 35" is on the left.

I went to YBCA, curious about Death’s Boutique, an installation by Marc Rios and Kara Tanaka (guest curated by Julio Morales). The artists created several interesting pieces on the theme of death, ritual and desire. Tanaka particularly explores the Swedish practice of Promessa (much like New Orleans, the body/and or ashes of the newly dead are mixed in a communal basin with their ancestors). When I think of how much history is discovered by studying tombs, I find her question a good one, “what is left for future study when we move away from individual burial rituals”? The one bone I had to pick with this exhibition, which also seemed to hurt the elaborate interactive installation downstairs (Renee Green’s Endless Dreams & Time-based Streams), is that YBCA didn’t seem to install identification labels anywhere near the work (that I could find, and I truly looked), aside from the main wall text posted outside the gallery. I felt that the materials used in Rios & Tanaka’s pieces were probably rich in symbolic meaning, but there was no way to know.

Albuquerque/Santa Fe Museum Tour

For me, seeing art is a key element of any trip. I hadn’t been to New Mexico before, so this recent trip gave me the opportunity to view a sample of the art offerings in Albuquerque and Santa Fe.

Albuquerque had a small but quite interesting art museum, across the street from the museum of natural history, and next to that tourist trap known as “old town.” Imagine SF’s Fisherman’s Wharf with native American pottery and Route 66 mugs. Albuquerque also has the National Atomic Museum, which I was fascinated by, unfortunately my timing was bad and I didn’t get there.

The exhibit that really spoke to me at the Albuquerque Art Museum was the Albuquerque Now – Winter show (1/24-4/18) which featured contemporary artists with an Albuquerque connection. Mary Tsiongas’s piece Vanish consisted of a monitor (32”?) in an ornate gold frame (at the left), showing an idealized river valley (by Bierstadt) with a small herd of deer and mountains in the background. The artist walks into the scene, stretches and waves her arms above her head. In response, the background quickly fades out, and then gradually reappears as the artist looks on. She looks back at the viewer, as if saying “if we would stop interfering, nature would recover.” I thought it was subtle and lovely.

Also on display was a famous news photo of then President G.W. Bush meeting with President-elect Obama in oval office at the White House by Eric Draper. Seeing a large, clear print of this photo for the first time, I was mesmerized by the symmetry of it. Another piece I really enjoyed was a large surreal oil painting by Scott Greene called Ship Shape (2010, Oil on canvas over panel). In what I assume was meant as commentary on the state of world, a galleon bearing symbols of Western consumerism sails wildly off the edge of a waterfall.

I had one afternoon in Santa Fe, hardly time to do it justice. Santa Fe has made a big investment in the arts, and walking though the snow from the train station to the central plaza, galleries and studios were everywhere. Near the central plaza was the beautiful St. Francis Cathedral, where we watched as 29 couples of all ages marched down the aisle toward marriage (apparently the thing to do on Valentine’s weekend…). Across the street from the St. Francis was the Institute of American Indian Arts. The main galleries of the IAIA were closed for roof repairs, but their museum store filled with art, jewelry and pottery by local artists was worth a look.

About three blocks from the plaza in a small adobe style building was the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum (her former home, outside Santa Fe at Abiqui, has been converted into a museum and research center). The museum’s permanent collection had on display many intriguing works by O’Keeffe that I had never seen in person before. For example, they had many of her works in pastel (such as Pederal, 1945, Water Lily, 1921 and The Black Place, 1945). I was struck by the way the pastel forced her to adapt from her normally smooth, blended style to layers of color with a more illustrative quality. Also interesting were The Cottonwoods (1956), a pair of undulating forest scenes reminiscent of Cezanne’s. In the largest room, I was captivated by three contrasting works placed next to each other at the end of the gallery; A Street, 1926, flanked by The Beyond, 1972 and Apple Family 2, 1923. A Street was the only “urban” painting on display, a view down the middle of street with non-descript grey and brown buildings rising in steep verticals on both sides of the canvas. The contrast between the muted pallete and vertical of A Street with the calm horizon painted in rich blues and greys (The Beyond, one of her last unassisted works), and the lively reds in a still life of apples (Apple Family 2) was quite striking.

Also on view at the O’Keeffe were works by the contemporary painter Susan Rothenberg. Known for her abstract horse paintings (such as Cabin Fever,1976, shown on the left), it was interesting to see a wider range of her work. In one series of paintings, she depicts over head views of situations in nature she came upon while riding her horse. Dogs Killing Rabbit, a monumental oil painting from 1991, makes use of wild brush strokes and surface texture to capture the violence of the moment. She is also able to harness and internalize this energy for more meditative pieces, such as her Folded Buddha (1987-88).

After a day full of galleries and window shopping, we were very happy to discover the Margaritas at the Del Charro Saloon (corner of W. Alameda & Don Gaspar). We got on a nice buzz at this warm and friendly place, and it greatly enhanced the train ride back to Albuquerque.

Yerba Buena Gallery Walk 09

The annual Yerba Buena Free Gallery Walk was this past Saturday (11/24) in San Francisco. This year 14 SOMA galleries opened their doors and provided drinks and munchies to wandering art lovers. SF photographer Wendy Crittenden joined me in having a look at about 80% of them.

We started at SF institution Crown Point Press and once we dragged ourselves away from their addictive bookstore, we found lots of interesting art. Among the works on display was a special exhibition by London based painter Tomma Abts, who had done a two week residency at CCP in the fall. Her etchings with color aquatint were gorgeous.

From CCP, we went downstairs to 871 Fine Arts, who had a special exhibition of paintings, watercolors and books by June Felter. We oooed and ahhed over a lot of her work. She often did still lives that include a newspaper open to a comic strip in the middle of the table, in this case Calvin & Hobbes, although I’ve seen pieces that feature Krazy Kat and other strips.

Around the corner from these two galleries was the Sculturesite Gallery which featured a joint show of works by Bella Feldman and JP Long. Neither Wendy nor I had ever been to this gallery before, and we were impressed by the range of sculptural works on display both inside and out in the courtyard.

Next we worked our way through the cluster of galleries around Mission and 3rd Street. We stopped at Chandler Fine Art and Baer Ridgeway across from SFMOMA. At BR, we enjoyed Brendon Lott’s quirky oil paintings, and were fascinated with the sound/film installation by Maurico Ancalmo in the downstairs gallery (still on the left). In the center of the room was a sculpture constructed from old film projectors, which cast 3 movies amongst the stills. Alternating between a group of traditional African singers and footage of classical pianist Vladimir Horowitz, we were both taken by the contrast. We also loved their bookstore! A great selection of artist made books in all price ranges.

Catherine Clark Gallery was host to Sandow Birk’s impressive American Qur’an series, an ongoing project to hand-transcribe and illuminate the Holy Qur'an with scenes from contemporary American life. These are intricately detailed and colorful, sometimes humorous and sometimes heartbreaking. There were also a few works from Birk’s Disasters of War series, commenting on the Iraq War (with a nod to Goya, of course).

We were blown away by the exhibition upstairs at SF CameraWorks, An Autobiography of the San Francisco Bay Area - Part 1: San Francisco Plays Itself. Wendy and I both agreed that it was one of the best we had seen there. I’d like to point out 2 artists doing work on labor themes that really stood out: Jona Franks Uniforms series (photos of workers in uniform immediately after finishing their shift) and Ken Light’s mid-1970’s series of workers in heavy industry.

We had a look at Topher Delaney’s model train installation at the UC Berkeley Extension Art and Design Center Gallery, and then went on to the Modernism Gallery. The featured artist in the front gallery was Jerry Kearns, whose large acrylic paintings depicting Jesus in ironic situations really cracked us up. Here is his Lowland Drifter ( 2008, acrylic on canvas, 72 x 112) on the left. Among the other works on display were some by Kasmir S. Malevich, and a selection of small works by Le Corbusier. We were most fascinated, however with the gallery office, which was basically a large desk ringed with towering stacks of art books. Reminded me of home, although we are a little better at hiding the piles (ignore all that research piled in laundry baskets under the dining room table…). After this we toasted the Pied Piper mural at Maxfield’s (Sheraton Palace) and fortified ourselves with wine and cheese.

Griscom Gets a Rave!

SF photographer Tom Griscom's labor landmarks photos recently got a rave review on Jen Bekmen's Hey Hot Shot blog. Tom started this body of work while we were both finishing up our programs at San Francisco State, which sort of culminated in the Syndicate collaboration with the Labor Archives at SFSU for Bay Area Now 5. Some of this work has also been included in the SFSU 2009 MFA show and as part of Laborfest:Art & Labor Today. Griscom has continued to build on the framework of this narrative and done some beautiful work. To the left is Griscom's photograph of Beale Street in San Francisco.

Griscom has also been assisting photographer David Maisel on his latest series, the X-Ray Project, which is based on x-rays of artwork taken during Maisel's residency at the Getty Research Institute in 2007.

Best of SlideShare

I just found a notice from SlideShare that 2 of my posted presentations were designated "Best of SlideShare" around the beginning of April. Most viewed were the sample slides of my work on art exhibitions and the SF Labor Landmarks photography proposal (photos by Wendy Crittenden and Tom Griscom on the left). Thanks, whoever you are.

MFA's Get Noticed...

A quick note to point out some recent reviews in the blogosphere:

The graduating SFSU MFA's are discussed on SFGate in the article New Art From Fresh Minds, featuring Wendy Crittenden's photo big boy (see my April 2 posting below). A second review in the SF Bay Guardian's Best of the Bay featured one of Tom Griscom's photos from his SF Labor Landmarks series, which I've previously featured on this blog. Tom has a great portfolio of this work on his site.

Tom's recent work has also been selected for Jen Beckman's 20 x200/Hotshot blog. He is now officially in the finalist category for their emerging photographer show in NY. Tom's photo Cecil Hotel, Los Angeles is on the left.

Congrats to all...