BART was the Future

Glen Park Underground

When I first moved to San Francisco, when I was 18, BART was something that meant "the Future". I grew up in southern California, and I clearly remember a 3rd grade textbook in the 70's, all about Our Great State. Agricultural wonders of bioengineering would produce more, with less; square tomatoes would get to supermarkets undamaged; and BART was the Future! It was brand new, it was wonderful, it would connect us with the urban centers quickly and cleanly and quietly... Stratigraphy, as a non-archaeologist, is the relational placement of different contexts from the past. As they are unearthed, artifacts are described as 'higher' or 'lower', 'above' or 'below', based on their relationship to the contexts around them. I think about this when I go below to the future that I live in now.  Both newer and older than the deposits above it, the system tells a story that never came true.

- Sarah Newton

http://www.sarahmnewton.com

Detail of miniature BART sculpture replicates

I am intimately familiar with the large relief sculptures that adorn the entrance to the 24th St. BART station, it is 2 blocks from my house and I don't own a car so BART is one of my primary means of mobility. I don't know who made them, I'd like to check but a temporary structure built to repair the escalator is covering the information placard for these artworks.

These sculptures are dated, they are dirty, they are large and impressive. They represent a different way of looking at public space than today's age of smartphones and private this and that, they show that BART's builders sought to honor the commons, today we are busy chipping away at what is shared, chopping it up and monetizing it.

I set about to replicate these sculptures as the miniature maquettes they probably once were, when, instead of being encrusted with pigeon droppings and dirt they were imbued with optimism and egalitarian ideals.

-Anthony Ryan

http://anthonydanielryan.com

Conversation: Two Voices by Macy Chadwick

In my artist books and prints, I am interested in the way that we communicate and what is said between, within and behind words. In this installation, I explore two different modes of communicating: the logical and the emotional. Using symbolic shapes to represent the words, I present an emotional, romantic communication style as a colorful, layered and organic arrangement. In contrast, a logical, unemotional manner of speaking is shown as a rigid and orderly layout of black, grey and white shapes. Dancing between these two modes of communicating, an arc of playful orange shapes symbolizes the imagination; even when speaking in very different styles, our imaginations are activated by personal exchanges.

The installation is made up of three large relief and intaglio prints created from laser-cut plexiglass plates. The actual shaped printing plates are suspended in layers in front of the prints, expanding the images off the two-dimensional surface.

On display 24/7 through April 30, 2014.

Contact the artist at incahootspress@gmail.com

See more books and prints at macychadwick.com

Featured in the SGC Mission Art Walk, Saturday March 29
http://sgcisanfrancisco.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Mission_Art_Walk.pdf

SPALTED boundaries: An Installation by Lise Currie

There is a beauty and ease we covet. We are constantly negotiating trespasses and consequences.

“Spalting” is the coloration of wood which is typically the result of a fungal invasion. This biological interaction creates lines and patterns that are highly sought after, however this often compromises the integrity of the wood.

SPALTED boundaries is an installation at the Window Treat consisting of an artist book and a dense maze of porcelain coated limbs through which the accordion book unfolds. The text of the book consists of a letterpressed poem about negotiation between two entities, or perhaps the dialog could be interpreted as one voice within another.

The imagery of the entire accordion book was created by printing and offsetting, essentially mirroring, one small (5 inch x 6 inch) etching plate—over and over.  The limbs were collected from the pruners at Golden Gate Park who annually remove the growth to preserve the health of the main organism. They were then coated in porcelain, which rendered them completely bone white, and arranged in a maze of hanging white lines.

The overall effect of the installation is to have the book arranged in a drawing of white limbs, which highlight the drawn nature of the accordion book’s imagery. The lines of the white limbs echo how the etching plate was used to make a drawing for the background of the book.

City trees on the street outside of the Treat Street Window had to be recently cut down due to damage from a biological trespasser. As San Francisco and the rest of the world warms up, such interactions are becoming more and more common.

Lise Currie is a printmaker and artist living in San Francisco. She has always been interested in the process of making and a particular love of drawing, as they always felt integral in terms of processing and learning about the world around her. Having scuba diving parents, she spent much time growing up at remote dive sites in Mexico with homeschooling (on the beach, of course) and had the Sea of Cortez as her own lab of discovery. The experience of feeling like I spent half my childhood in the sea fostered a profound respect and admiration for design, body plans, the balance of nature, and fascination with its dichotomies. She has a particular interest in how we navigate, interpret, and negotiate our interior experiences with the outside and social world. She studied both Sculpture and Biology in school and earned her MFA at the San Francisco Art Institute where she was granted the Printmaking Fellowship Award. “The process of printmaking became the perfect umbrella in terms of gathering up all my abilities and concepts about image, text, and forms. I feel so grateful about my work, even though it is agonizingly tough at times, and the opportunity it provides me to interact with people through what I love to do.” See more of Lise's work 

Grace Rosario Perkins

Detail

This installation features work by Grace Rosario Perkins, alongside her father, Olen Perkins.

Grace Rosario Perkins has spent a large chunk of time residing on the Akimel O'odham Indian Reservation (Blackwater AZ) and on the Navajo Nation (Fort Defiance AZ). This upbringing has affected her body of work which consists of repetitive motifs of women, mountainscapes, abstract patterns, and shapes built from a consciousness in which memory, familial identity, pop culture, and obsessive mark making are paired with text.

Though the work is often pointed, it incorporates a use of language that is often vague and can invoke meaning from the viewer; words with widespread meaning such as "Feeling," "Vision," and "Circumstance" are used frequently. In a recent body of work, Grace has used fragmented sentences and words from the Diné language lifted directly from Navajo dictionaries and other reference materials as a means to challenge both the transmission and disintegration of culture.

In 2012, Grace was part of a group of women who founded the Black Salt Collective, a small collective with aims to make work that "embodies cultural and contemporary narratives" and increase the visibility of women of color artists. See more work here: http://hhhhiiii.tumblr.com/

$3 a gallon by Kai Klaassen

oil on canvas

"$3 a gallon" is part of the workers category of agricultural related work which explores the human dimension of farming and corporate agribusiness.

This Is All There Is, Part 1 by Vanesa Gingold

In this installation, best viewed at night, a paper quilt is inscribed with, “this is all there is”. Slits cut in the quilt provide a glimpse of a still life arrangement, in the process of change.

Vanesa Gingold is an artist based in San Francisco. You can view more of her work here.

Housed Inside Our Physiology by Jonathan Barcan

Future Tense

I have always been curious to what extent people relate to one another, and ultimately, this is my deepest fascination. In my work, this manifest in large figurative, mix-media drawings, and at other times, etchings. I live and work in San Francisco. As a dedicated Painter/Printmaker/Installation Artist I have exhibited internationally, including shows in Oakland, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Beijing, Montreal, Toronto and Florence.

To see more of my work and to read a little about my ideas, please visit JonathanBarcan.com.

Housed #4

Flooded

Housed #2