Arspace Gallery - Hayes Valley Market - Cafe Tartine - Giant Robot - ArtSF - Soap Factory - David Best - Art Openings - San Francisco: July 9, 2005
SAN FRANCISCO GALLERY OPENINGS
SECOND SATURDAY; 07.09.05


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  • First, a brief note to those considerate folks who send me opening announcements: Please please please place the name of the gallery and date of the event in the subject line. I like it, newspapers like it, websites like it, radio and television stations like it, and anyone who teaches public relations at any level covers this topic in Lesson One. When, where, who, what, and why. Got it? Good. Now let's check out some art...

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    Hayes Valley Market: Grand Opening - Felix Macnee - 500 Drawings; 1 Painting.

    Comment: The Hayes Valley Market used to be a grocery store; now it's a gallery, but only for about a year because it's gonna be demolished and replaced with senior housing. In the meantime, it's an all-volunteer experimental space debuting with a bountiful bevy of creatibles by Felix Macnee. He's covered an entire wall with charcoal drawings, priced $200 a pop, and the opposite wall with a recondite meandering Guernica-esque mural. The large square room with its grey-blue and white checkered linoleum floor is mildly surreal and quirks the arty aura. It's so much fun to shoot, I can't stop taking pictures.

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    Art.

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    Felix Macnee - art.

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    Art.

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    Planar.

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    Felix left some paint on the floor.
    He graciously allowed me to incorporate it into a photographic composition.
    (Always remember to tidy up for the guests.)

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    Outer.

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    Comment: You can't go to Hayes Valley without offering up a quick prayer for peace at the David Best pantheon of artistic expression.

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    Shrine art.

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    Detail.

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    Giant Robot: Brendan Monroe - Momentry Murk.

    Comment: Brendan Monroe paints and draws soft fantasy figurals and landscapes on the art side of illustration. He also carves facial features into polished round-topped cylindrical wooden segments, some polychromed, others left natural. He then inserts cleaned polished twigs into either the tops or the bottoms of the segments. And there you go-- art. Some hang; others set. Everything's selling well, Monroe agrees, when I note the plethora of little red "sold" dots throughout the shop, though he's not quite sure what's moving the goods other than the fact that he gets his fan base to the show. I suspect the art might be selling because it's good. Prices range from about $100 on up, but not that far up.

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    Brendan Monroe - art.

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    Art.

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    Facade.

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    Page One Project, 1752a Mission St., San Francisco, CA 94103: Molly DeCoudreaux - Fierce Moments.

    Comment: I'm not sure what this gallery is about or who proprietates it, but it gets pretty decent turnouts, including street spillage, which generally indicates a scene with a pulse. Molly DeCoudreaux photographs are sorta sexy sultry celebratory intoxicatory clubby in nature, as is the opening. Noteworthy in the edibles department is a meringue cake, an entree not often evident at art receptions.

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    Photography.

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    Photography.

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    Spillage.

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    ArtSF: Kinky Phylum - A Feast of Erotic Arts, Family Style.

    Artists: Anonymous Bosch, Cuba, Garre E, EiMaj, EIRIK, Fitz, Aaron Hawks, Master Hines, David Houston, S.N. Jacobson, K2, Kasper, Kittylac, Rev. Steven Leyba, Mim, Ashes Monroe, Bella Muerte, Dennis Osborne, Rivkah, Sphinx, Chuck Stevens, Blue Stitches, Joe Twisty, Quae Vide, more.

    Comment: The final show at this venue for ArtSF-- and one of their best. Before ascending the funky creaky crooked five flights of stairs to get there, I'm handed a half-sheet photocopy explaining, among other things, that the property manager of the building tattled to the SFPD and the ABC (Alcohol and Beverage Control) that a "pornographic kink fest" was in the works, the upshot being no alcohol allowed.

    Well, I woudn't exactly call it a kink fest, but the art is darkly carnal, lightened by a nude dude selling raffle tickets. An artfully bare-bound woman dangles from the ceiling, occasionally rotated by her binder. Miscellaneous males stand dopily motionless staring at this roperotica like they're witnessing The Resurrection or something. (Note to men who stare at women under any circumstances anywhere: Catch yourself in the stare, hold the expression, go to the nearest bathroom, and look at yourself in the mirror.)

    One of my favorite artists, Reverend Steven Johnson Leyba is showing three superbly unsettling pentagonal portraits. Leyba tells me he's doing commission work now, one of his portraits being commissioned by the musician/progenitor of Industrial music (I forget his name). The rest of the art's worth seeing too. Anyway, bye-bye ArtSF-- hope to see you somewhere new soon.

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    Reverend Steven Leyba - commissioned art (pick).

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    Raffle jockey.

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    Art.

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    Art.

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    The Soap Factory, 555 De Haro, Suite 220, San Francisco, CA 94107: False Walls.

    Photographers: Alison Bank, Freda Banks, Aaron Beachnau, Andrea Brooks, Maria McLaughlin, Laura Plageman, Loren Earle-Cruickshanks, Alexander Warnow.

    Comment: Photo show in a twisty atmospheric communal two-floor live-work space, produced under the auspices of the anti-corporate-greed folks at False Profit.

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    Photography.

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    Viaduct.

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    Arspace Gallery: Land Funk - Brad K. Alder.

    Comment: Being a firm believer in deferred gratification, I always save the best for last, in this case being a Brad Alder rambling 8-hour discoursive party-esque schmooz-a-thon of an opening at Arspace. In typical Alder fashion, prices are ridiculously reasonable, starting at $15, topping at $500-- with some HUGE canvases available. The only other way you're ever gonna get this much acreage this cheap is to get hoodwinked at one of those fly-by-night land auctions. Anyway, Alder has a ladder set up which he occasionally mounts for some easy-paced live painting. And for our auditory enrichment, the turntabular potentate plays, among other titles, "Fight the Power" by the Isley Brothers, one of my all-time favorites, harking me back to my longhair disco soul metal days in Cleveland when you could buy a Biggie Beer at Val's for 50¢.

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    Brad K. Alder - art.

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    Not sure.

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    Brad K. Alder live painting.

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    Art.

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    Northwest quadrant.

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    Addendum:

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    Justin Fluger - art at Cafe Tartine, 244 Gough St., SF 94102.

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    One more from Cafe Tartine; 415.553.4595.

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    Articles and content copyright Alan Bamberger 1998-2008. All rights reserved.