Tag: Masako Miki

December To Do List

Nov 25, 2019 In: To Do List Tags: Alice Shaw, Alicia McCarthy, Bob Hudson, Christina Seely, Cornelia Schulz, Cynthia Ona Innis, Don Ed Hardy, Donzell Lewis, Ehren Tool, EUQINOM Gallery, Gallery 16, Hosfelt Gallery, Jim Campbell, Jim Melchert, KALA Art Institute, Masako Miki, Mike Henderson, Miriam Bohm, NIAD, Ratio 3, Rebeca Bollinger, Root Division, Ruby Neri, Sahar Khoury, Southern Exposure, Wanxin Zhang By: Kerri Hurtado, Curator

Miriam Böhm, “Nothing”, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist and Ratio 3.

Ongoing to December 20– Miriam Böhm: While, Weil at Ratio 3: Through a combination of studio-based photography and natural motifs, Böhm brings her meticulous and perplexing image-making to the tradition of landscape photography. By repeatedly photographing a physical arrangement of paper or other simple materials and incorporating sections of those photographs into the original arrangement, Böhm constructs a still life that features itself as a subject. By combining images of trees, lakes, and mountains in her camera’s frame, Böhm’s photographs suggest familiar vistas without resolving into traditional landscapes. Each image maintains a relationship to studio-arranged still life photography, while expanding on Böhm’s distinctively sculptural photographic practice. The works are varied in their presentation and complex in their conception, as Böhm’s practice becomes at once more expansive and distinct. Ratio 3 is located at 2831A Mission Street in San Francisco.

View from past art sale event. Image courtesy of Kala Art Institute.

December 5 to 8– Holiday Pop-Up Sale at Kala Art Institute: Kala’s highly anticipated holiday sale features mark-downs of up to 50% on framed and unframed works on paper and printed goods by Kala resident artists. Proceeds support the artists and non-profit programming. Kala Art Institute is located at 2990 San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley.

Preview and Opening Reception: Thursday, December 5, 6-8:30pm

View of Southern Exposure’s exterior. Image courtesy of Museeum.

December 5 to 7, 12-8pm– Holiday Art Sale at Southern Exposure: Southern Exposure will bring out treasures from their archives and offer them for in-person purchases at affordable prices for this 3 day art sale. Hidden gems from past Monster Drawing Rallies, beautiful catalogues and publications, exhibition posters, rare prints, and more will all be for sale. 100% of the proceeds from the holiday sale go to support Southern Exposures free programming. Southern Exposure is located at 3030 20th Street in San Francisco.

Installation view. Image courtesy of Gallery 16.

Ongoing to January 17– Shaw & Co at Gallery 16: The exhibition honors the legacy and influence of the Shaw Family, whose influence and contributions to the Bay Area’s art and music scene have been on display for over four decades. On view is a collection of work by members of the Shaw Family as well as a collection of work by many Bay Area artists for whom the Shaws have been friends with, inspired by or inspirations for including Rebeca Bollinger, Mike Henderson, Don Ed Hardy, Bob Hudson, Sahar Khoury, Alicia McCarthy, Jim Melchert, Ruby Neri, Cornelia Schulz, Ehren Tool, and Wanxin Zhang. Gallery 16 is located at 501 Third Street in San Francisco.

(left) Masako Miki, (right) Donzell Lewis (detail). Images courtesy of Cynthia Ona Innis.

December 7 to 26– Fiberful, Tippy Toes: Terry Hoff, and Right Here, Right Now, Richmond at NIAD Art Center: Three exhibitions are opening at the NIAD Art Center’s galleries. Fiberful, organized by artist Cynthia Ona Innis, showcases the work of artists who explore themes of identity, the human condition and their own personal narratives using traditional and non-traditional methods of fiber-based work.

Tippy Toes: Terry Hoff exhibits Hoff’s unique canvases with abstracted forms that often include discarded tape, fabric and plaster, resembling large rocks. Drawing from his suburban upbringing, the works frequently mirror the textures of suburban track home ceiling textures. Combining a nostalgic and psychedelic aesthetic elevates Hoff’s notion of a visual language that lies somewhere in between past, present, and future.

Right Here, Right Now, Richmond is a juried exhibition that looks at the excellent and risk-taking new work being made in Richmond. NIAD Art Center is located at 551 23rd Street in Richmond.

Opening Receptions: Saturday, December 14, 1-4pm.

Jim Campbell, “Southern California”, 2019. Image courtesy of Hosfelt Gallery.

December 14 to January 25– Jim Campbell: Closer to Nothing at Hosfelt Gallery: With light as his primary medium, Jim Campbell probes the liminal boundaries of perception. His newest body of work exploits extreme data deficiency as a means of engaging primal pathways of comprehension. Each piece, effectively incomplete without viewer participation, resolves itself only through the brain’s capacity to extrapolate meaning from a paucity of information. The exhibition will include work that incorporates imagery from Eadweard Muybridge’s groundbreaking human and animal motion studies from the late 1800s. Muybridge devised a method of sequential still photographs to capture aspects of bodily motion undetectable by the human eye. Campbell inverts this concept to test the limits of discernment by breaking down Muybridge’s images into minimal data with continual variations in magnification. Navigating the threshold between the analog and the digital, his work activates an experience of neurological alchemy whereby data transforms into knowledge. Hosfelt Gallery is located at 260 Utah Street in San Francisco.

Artist Reception: Saturday, December 14, 4-6pm

View from last years event. Image courtesy of Root Division

December 14 to 18– Misfit Maker & RD Makes: Inaugural Studio Artist Exhibition at Root Division: This exhibition and event will consist of live art making and local vendors. The exhibition showcases the range of processes and works being produced at Root Division. Over 30 Bay Area artists will be making small sculptures and other giftables on site in Root Division’s gallery. These objects range in spectrum with distinct designs and innovative approaches to object-making. Each artist made item will be available for sale as they are completed. Root Division is located at 1131 Mission Street in San Francisco.

Reception: Saturday, December 14, 4-8pm

Christina Seely, “Quantitare – glacies (Exponential Ice, Gully Breen / Svalbard Territory )”, 2019. Image courtesy of the artist and EUQINOM Gallery.

Ongoing to January 11– Christina Seely: Perdita, In Finding(s) at EUQINOM Gallery: In this current complex moment of dramatic; political, cultural, and environmental flux, Seely’s recent work faces into the inherent tentativeness brought on by exponential change. Using the word perdita, Latin for “lost”, and drawing from the content of an archive of materials, or “findings” accumulated over the last ten years of expeditionary travels to the arctic and tropics, the project functions as a set of impossible riddles. While this invitation points to the fundamental human proclivity of our need to understand, the work as a set of visual puzzles that are designed to fail, has the aim of finding a home in ongoing disorientation. The photograph functions in the project as a foundational prompt, referencing the “real world”. Imagery is used to build as a set of semiotics that formulate a kind of language of the natural world. While an uneasiness may form in the cumulative experience of the work, satisfaction and discovery lie in a realization of what is familiar along the way. In evoking a search with inherent failure woven in, the project also suggest a need for humility by pointing to the impossibility of truly comprehending the fullness of nature or our place within the complexity of the larger planetary whole. EUQINOM Gallery is located at 1295 Alabama Street in San Francisco.

February To- Do List

Jan 31, 2019 In: To Do List Tags: Brendan Fernandes, Casemore Kirkeby, Codex, Cult Exhibitions, Ellen Berkenblit, Jack Fischer Gallery, Javier Ocampo, Masako Miki, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, Minnesota Street Project, Patricia Lagarde, San Jose Museum of Art, Sarah Braman, Steuart Pittman, Todd Hido, Traywick Contemporary By: Kerri Hurtado, Curator

Patricia Lagarde, “Quetzalcoatl, The Rabbit The Moon Or The Invention Of Photography”, 2018. Image courtesy of Jack Fischer Gallery.

Ongoing to February 23– Patricia Lagarde: Luna at Jack Fischer Gallery: Almost two thousand years ago, Luciano de Samósata described the first expedition to the moon. He imagined that a ship dragged by a storm, rose and navigated through space for seven days and on the eighth arrived at a round and bright island, the moon. Many authors have narrated stories influenced by myths and folk tales. Beyond the historical moment of Neil Armstrong walking the surface of the moon, Luna explores the mystery of the moon, the poetics of that star that regulates the tides and allows fertility on earth, the original myths and about the time that unceasingly passes by. Lagarde’s work addresses themes of memory by exploring collections of objects centered on memories. By using alternative process photographic techniques, such as the ambrotype, ferrotypes, and cyanotypes, the artist imparts mundane objects with a fascinating yet obscure history. These works begin to suggest a cultural background that we can only guess at as we are led in an endearing journey of a certain time period or memory. Jack Fischer Gallery is located at 1275 Minnesota Street.

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 2, 5- 7pm

Todd Hido, “#11801-1971”, 2017. Image courtesy of Casemore Kirkeby.

February 2 to March 30– Todd Hido: Bright Black World at Casemore Kirkeby: Exploring the dark topography of the Northern European landscape, this new work highlights Hido’s first significant foray extensively photographing territory outside of the United States, recording new psychological geography and environmental concern. Hido’s photographs mysterious suburban scenes, desolate landscapes, and stylized portraits. He travels through North America capturing places that feel at once familiar and unknown; welcoming and unsettling. The narrative shift from the personal to the political-environment is apparent in Hido’s new work. Iceland, formed by lava fields, mountains, and glaciers, transports viewers to a seemingly other world. Images of lifeless roads approaching horizons evoke a sense of abandonment and formerly lush forests are dwindled to twisted embers. Casemore Kirkeby is located at 1275 Minnesota Street, #102.

Opening Reception: Saturday, February 2, 6- 8pm

MASAKO MIKI, (left) “Karakasa-obake (umbrella ghost)”, 2018; “Ungaikyo (possessed mirror)”, 2018; “Kinoko (mushroom ghost)”, 2018. (right) “Hyakki Yagyō (Night parade of One Hundred Demons), Fox’s Dream”, 2018. Images courtesy of CULT/ Aimee Friberg Exhibitions.

Ongoing to February 23– MASAKO MIKI: Shapeshifters at CULT/ Aimee Friberg Exhibitions: Masako Miki explores the ideology of transitional space, through the lens of her ancestral narratives, specifically Buddhist and Shinto traditions and early Japanese folklore. By reinventing visual symbols and narratives from her cultural traditions, Miki suggests alternative interpretations of ancient symbols, making a new synthesis possible. In the exhibition, Miki uses the Shinto concept of, yōkai, or “shape-shifters” as a metaphorical departure point to explore blurred boundaries and dichotomies within the human condition. In Shinto mythology, yōkai are animated characters who can shift their form to appear as different objects. They range from living things including animals and humans, to inanimate objects like tools such as sandals, prayer beads and mirrors. As a Japanese immigrant woman living between two cultures, shapeshifting can be seen as a metaphor for cultural adaptation and survival. CULT/ Aimee Friberg Exhibitions is located at 1217 B Fell Street.

View from 2017 event. Image courtesy of CODEX.

February 3 to 6, 12:30- 6pm– CODEX VII Book Fair at Craneway Pavilion: Every two years the CODEX book fair takes place in Richmond with over 100 exhibitors from around the world. The books in the fair range from historically significant publications to contemporary books, offering a rich history of the civilization of the book. The Codex Foundation preserves and promotes the contemporary hand-made book as a work of art. The goal of the fair is to bring public recognition to the artists and the craftsmanship. Craneway Pavilion is located at 1414 Harbour Way South in Richmond, CA.

Tickets will be sold at the door.

María Elena González, “Bark Framed #5”, 2012. Image courtesy of Mills College Art Museum.

Ongoing to March 17– María Elena González: Tree Talk at Mills College Art Museum: Exploring the translation between the physical and the acoustical, María Elena González investigates the unexpected visual parallels between the bark of birch trees and cylindrical player piano rolls. González graphically recorded the distinctive bark pattern from three birch trees found in Maine onto long rolls of fine paper; the transcriptions from each tree resulted in unique compositions for the piano player. Mills College Art Museum is located at 5000 MacArthur Blvd in Oakland.

Related Event – Tree Talk: Wednesday, February 6, 7- 8pm

In collaboration with the exhibition, composers Marc Zollinger, John Ivers, and Dirt and Copper will perform works generated from María Elena González’ birch tree rubbings. The composers translate the visual, gestural, and topographic data found in the tree rubbings into scores to be premiered at the event.

(left) Ellen Berkenblit, “The Lane “, 2018. (right) Sarah Braman, “Bird Call”, 2018. Image courtesy of McEvoy Foundation for the Arts.

Ongoing to May 4– True Blue Mirror: Ellen Berkenblit and Sarah Braman at McEvoy Foundation for the Arts: True Blue Mirror stages a theatrical dialogue between Berkenblit’s gestural, semi-abstract paintings and Braman’s blocky, quasi-mystical sculptures and environments. The exhibition brings together for the first time Braman’s sculptural animation of vernacular materials – camper shells, chairs, wallpaper – with Berkenblit’s boldly realized, often recurring cast of characters that are imbued with a Pop sensibility. Their pairing proposes an impromptu stage production of sorts, engaging Braman as set designer and Berkenblit as casting director. Juxtaposing the work of the artists reveals correspondences in line, color, and composition, yet differences in scale and dimensionality, as reflected and refracted through the vision of the other. McEvoy Foundation for the Arts is located at 1150 25th Street, Building B.

Artist Talk and Opening Reception: Saturday, February 9, 3:30– 8pm

View of Brendan Fernandes, “The Master and Form”, 2018. Image courtesy of the artist and Monique Meloche Gallery, Chicago.

February 21, 5 to 10pm– Brendan Fernandes’ Inaction: A Performance with The New Ballet Studio Company at the San José Museum of Art (SJMA): Choreographer and artist Brendan Fernandes, a former dancer, is acutely aware of the particular way in which ballet dancers are trained to walk. Their strut broadcasts an authority, a calculated deliberateness, which Fernandes notes is “not unlike the presented authority of the museum.” In Inaction, Fernandes has choreographed the movements of a team of dancers to explore boundaries and thresholds within SJMA’s building. Blocking entryways, restricting doorways, and disrupting normal circulation, the dancers draw attention to borders and bodies within the Museum, and by extension to the growing tension surrounding borders and bodies in the world at large. SMJA is located at 110 South Market Street in San José.

Buy tickets here.