For our December To Do List, we have something for everyone. Are you looking to give the gift of art? Both the Creativity Explored Holiday Art Sale and the SF Camerawork Benefit Auction are great opportunities. If you need to escape the holiday bustle, take in the artist talk at Haines Gallery or see the More American Photographs show at the CCA Wattis Institute. Finally, if you have out of town guests, make sure to stop at SFMOMA to dazzle them with Jim Campbell’s site specific piece Exploded Views. Enjoy!
December 2-22nd – Holiday Art Sale at Creativity Explored, 3245 16th Street: Creativity Explored is a nonprofit visual arts center where over 130 artists with developmental disabilities create, exhibit and sell art. For the sale the studio will be filled with original prints, paintings, drawings, ceramics, sculptures and textiles, as well as seasonal items like note-cards and artist made wrapping paper. Opening weekend hours are Friday 12/2 6:00 – 9:00pm, Saturday-Sunday 12/3rd-4th 12noon – 5:00pm.
The studio at Creativity Explored
December 3rd – SF Camerawork Auction, 657 Mission Street, 2nd floor, Live Auction at 1pm: If you’re looking for photography there are many pieces to choose from while supporting SF Camerawork. SF Camerawork is a non-profit artists organization whose purpose is to stimulate dialogue, encourage inquiry and communicate ideas about contemporary photography. SF Camerawork’s Benefit Auction of vintage and contemporary prints is on view now, culminating in a live auction at 1pm on December 3rd. Doors open at 11 am. View the auction catalog here.
Artists in the Auction: Anne Collier, Reid Yalom and Todd Hido
December 14th – 5:30 – 7:30, Haines Gallery, 49 Geary Street 5th Floor: See Leslie Shows’ current exhibit Split Array at Haines Gallery and stay for the conversation between the artist and Lawrence Rinder, Director of the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. Learn how she photo realistically constructs her mixed media paintings based on pyrite rocks – more commonly known as fool’s gold. The results are beautifully luminous paintings on aluminum panels that use sheets of plexiglass, inks, mylar, crushed glass, metal dust and engraving.
Leslie Shows, Face M, ink, acrylic, paper, aluminum leaf, and engraving on aluminum
On view until December 17th –, More American Photographs, at CCA Wattis Institute, 1111 Eighth Street: This exhibit features historical photographs from the Depression-era Farm Security Administration’s photography program, which commissioned photographers to document the rural poor of America. Curators Jens Hoffmann and Jana Blankenship commissioned 12 contemporary artists to travel the U.S. for a year and document the impact of today’s “great recession”. Installed together along with FSA photography program objects and documents, this project aims to update the FSA file, showing how some parts of America have floundered while others have flourished. Special talk with photographer William E. Jones on Wednesday 12/7 at 7:00pm.
Photographs by: John Vachon, Sharon Lockhart, William E. Jones and Hank Willis Thomas
Ongoing at SFMOMA – Jim Campbell’s Exploded Views, 151 3rd Street: “This new installation by acclaimed San Francisco-based artist Jim Campbell explodes the moving image into three dimensions, illuminating the Haas Atrium with a flickering grid of light that is part sculpture, part cinematic screen. Thousands of computer-controlled LED sphere create the illusion of fleeting shadow like figures that dissolve and resolve as one moves around and beneath the suspended, chandelier like matrix. Exploded Views investigates the nuances of perception through a series of four different films, changing every two months, the first of which is a collaboration with Alonzo King’s LINES Ballet.” – SFMOMA
Watch the video of Jim Campbell describing the process of creating this piece by clicking here.
View of Exploded Views from SFMOMA's 2nd floor landing source: SFMOMA/Ayesha Ghosh