Artsource Blog

Check back here from time to time to get updates on what we like, exhibits to see, and art related ideas. If you’re interested in more information about what you see here, please email us.

To Do List: December

Ektor Garcia “Untitled (butterfly stack)” 2021, cast bronze, copper wire.  Image courtesy of Rebecca Camacho Presents.

Ongoing to December 17 – Ektor Garcia: Rehacer at Rebecca Camacho Presents: Mexico City based Ektor Garcia takes inspiration from traditional Mexican craftspeople and the crocheting practice of his grandmother. Garcia’s works suggest an embedded past and future in each object. Simultaneously raw yet refined, Garcia mines personal and cultural histories, refracting this inheritance with a potent mixture of irreverence and a deep respect for all people using their hands to create objects of beauty and resourcefulness. The artist’s fluid transition through seemingly disparate materials only echoes his nomadic process, one defined by constant movement from place to place, his hands however remaining fixed in eternal activity, wrapping wire, smoothing clay or weaving fibers. Eschewing the idea of finality, garcia’s sculptures hover in time, snapshots of a moment, prone to alteration at a later date depending on the artist’s whims.

A Study for ‘In Place of Light,’ Sherwin Rio, 2022, digital image. Image courtesy of 500 Capp Street.

December 3 to February 25 – Sherwin Rio: As Above, So Below at 500 Capp Street: Sherwin Rio is an interdisciplinary artist working in San Francisco who makes site-specific and research-based work in sculpture, installation, video, performance, and audio. For his exhibition at 500 Capp Street, Rio is inspired by David Ireland’s affinity for enclosure, particularly his deep interest in the House’s basement, a space he called “The Grotto” where he sourced dirt for his work and spent many hours in solitude. Framed by David Ireland’s dual relationship to architecture above and below, Rio is creating works that provide alternative, inverse ways of experiencing a house—indebted to the past, the unseen, and the underground. For tours of the exhibition, please reserve tickets here.

 

Heesoo Kwan “Mago Leymusoom” (still) 2022. Image courtesy of SFAC Gallery.  Image courtesy of SFAC Gallery.

December 9 to February 11 – Sowing Worlds at SFAC Main Gallery:  The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) Main Gallery, in partnership with Alternative Space LOOP in Seoul, present Sowing Worlds, an international group exhibition featuring works by five artists based in the Bay Area alongside five artists based in South Korea. The effects of climate change have become ever clearer: massive wildfires, record breaking temperatures, floods, increasingly powerful storms, droughts and other calamities are taking place all over the world. The exhibition brings together artists who are thinking expansively and critically about living with climate change. The works in the exhibition explore sustainable agriculture, the intertwining legacies of colonialism and its effects on the land, and ancestral connection to a place in flux. Featuring work by Binta Ayofemi, Cristine Blanco, Heesoo Kwon, Emma Logan, Sun Park, Eunbi Kwon, Nayoungim & Gregory Maass, JongHeon Bae, Da-Seul Lee, and Go-Eun Im and was curated by Jackie Im, Sun Mi Lee, and Ji Yoon Yang.

 

Installation View of “The Sinking Ship/Prosperity” by Jota Mombaça. Image courtesy of KADIST SF

Ongoing to January 28 – Jota Mombaça: The Sinking Ship/Prosperity at KADIST SF: Jota Mombaça is the current artist in residence at KADIST SF. While in residence, Mombaça plans to visit the Port of San Francisco, study shipwreck records at the Maritime Research Center archives, and take a diving lesson on how to sink. These activities are part of a body of research the artist refers to as The Sinking Ship/Prosperity  which considers speculative memory, the dynamics of excess, and grieving time, among other water-related subjects. This exhibition continues a cycle of work that Mombaça began earlier this year: in the tired watering (2022) and expands on and makes material connections to this body of performance works.

Thursday, December 8, 2022, 6–7:30 pm: Performance by Jota Mombaça and debut of waterwill (2022)

 

Top Row: Cathy Lu, Maria A. Guzmán Capron, Marcelo Pardo Ariza. Bottom Row: Binta Ayofemi, Gregory Rick.  Images courtesy of SFMOMA.

December 17 to May 29 – 2022 SECA Art Award Exhibition at SFMOMA:  Since 1967, the SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art) Art Award has honored more than seventy Bay Area artists, supporting them at early stages in their careers. The award distinguishes Bay Area artists whose work has not, at the time of nomination, been accorded substantial recognition from a major institution. The 2022 SECA Art Award Exhibition celebrates Bay Area artists Binta Ayofemi, Maria A. Guzmán Capron, Cathy Lu, Marcel Pardo Ariza and Gregory Rick.

 

Lhola Amira “IRMANDADE: The Shape of Water in Pindorama” (detail), 2018. Image courtesy of the de Young Museum.

December 17 to December 3, 2023 – Lhola Amira: Facing the Future at the De Young Museum:  This exhibit launches a new program of special exhibitions that will interpret the African art collection as a living and evolving practice through the lens of contemporary art. This solo exhibition features the newly created, site-specific spiritual portal Philisa: Zinza Mphefumlo Wami (2022). Philisa are unique portals, sacred spaces for the cleansing of wounds, honoring ancestors, and fostering connection. Visitors are invited to enter this sacred grove with support for whatever may unfold.

 

To Do List: November

Stephanie Syjuco “Cargo Cults: Head Bundle (Small)” 2016, pigmented inkjet print. Image courtesy the Anderson Collection.

Ongoing to March 5 – Stephanie Syjuco: White Balance/Color Cast at Anderson Collection at Stanford University:  White Balance/Color Cast derives from Syjuco’s established interest in photographic standards of imaging, color calibration charts, and photography’s suggestive powers. The commonly used term, white balance, refers to the process of removing an image’s color cast, shifting the image to what could be considered a more “neutral” or accurate representation. In Syjuco’s case, she uses these traditional imaging terms to question how photography and imaging standards—such as the quest for “correct” color—reflect deep seated biases, positioning whiteness as its center.

Thursday, November 3, 6:00 pm – Stephanie Syjuco in Conversation with Kim Beil:  Syjuco will discuss her exhibition on view, her artistic process, and how her work addresses belonging, racialization, difference, and visibility. Kim Beil is the Associate Director of ITALIC (Immersion in the Arts: Living in Culture) program at Stanford and an art historian who specializes in the history of photography.  Reserve tickets here.

 

Chris Johanson “Untitled” 2022, acrylic and household paint on canvas. Image courtesy of Altman Siegel Gallery.

November 3 to December 17 – Chris Johanson at Altman Siegel:  Contemplating the cycle of life, and of the material possessions we accumulate, Johanson’s focus on repurposing found objects has deepened. Trading wood substrates for canvases constructed with found stretcher bars and recycled drop cloths, materials more resistant to paint than commercial canvas, Johanson has intentionally slowed down his process, using painting as a means of mindfulness and meditation. In slowing down, Johanson has eschewed text and figuration for thoughtful abstraction, utilizing form, color, and movement to reflect on themes of bereavement, connection, and impermanence. His swirling color fields, each shade unique, create peaceful rhythms, underscoring the artist’s exploration of artmaking as a healing, therapeutic process.

 

 

Kongkee “The Tears” 2020 animation still. Image courtesy of Asian Art Museum.

November 18 – Kongkee: Warring States Cyberpunk at the Asian Art Museum: Kongkee, an award-winning animation director and visual artist, takes you back to the future in an odyssey 2,000 years in the making. Explore an immersive animated futurist fantasy — part comic book, part motion picture — making its North American debut. Kongkee’s Warring States Cyberpunk traces the legendary Chinese poet Qu Yuan’s soul on a journey from the ancient Chu Kingdom to an imagined 21st century Asia of cyborgs, electro rock, and surprising romantic reunions.

 

 

Marco Castillo “Familia Castillo Valdes” 2022 mahogany.  Image courtesy of Haines Gallery.

November 5 to January 7 – Marco Castillo: Parlor Games at Haines Gallery:  Castillo’s ongoing investigation into the visual lexicon of post-Revolutionary Cuba sees him embodying a fictional designer from this time. Colorful works on paper from his Libreta de notas (Notebooks) series showcase these experiments in abstraction, each synthesizing the period’s aesthetic modes. At the center of the exhibition is Familia Castillo Valdes (2022), a multipart mahogany sculpture from Castillo’s latest series Juego de sala, which engages with forms and materials from Cuban modernism while examining the consequences of the revolution on domestic life.

 

Richard Learoyd “Mirror, Eye, Candle, Lemon” 2021 unique Ilfochrome photograph.  Image courtesy of Fraenkel Gallery.

Ongoing to December 23 – Richard Learoyd at Fraenkel Gallery:  Learoyd’s recent work deepens his exploration of classical themes, using exacting techniques to create pictorially lush, one-of-a-kind photographs. The exhibition features approximately twenty works— nudes, still lifes, and portraits—made over the last three years using the artist’s room-sized camera obscura in London. His meticulous process uses cumbersome technology to make rich, grainless images that are painterly in their nuanced attention to pose, detail, tone, and texture.

 

 

To Do List: October

Jeffrey Gibson “This Burning World” 2022, video still. Image courtesy of ICA SF.

October 1 to March 26 – Jeffrey Gibson: This Burning World at ICA SF:  Jeffrey Gibson’s multimedia practice synthesizes the cultural and artistic traditions of his Cherokee and Choctaw heritage with the visual languages of Modernism and themes from contemporary popular and queer culture. His exhibition at the new ICA SF – THIS BURNING WORLD speaks to the urgency and importance of our collective relationship to the planet. It places the earth under the ICA SF building in dialogue with video of the natural world beyond the walls.  ICA SF is located at 901 Minnesota Street in San Francisco.

 

Awol Erizku “Asiatic Lilies” 2017 .  Image courtesy of Aperture, New York.

October 5 to March 5 – The New Black Vanguard: Photography Between Art and Fashion at MoAD:  Curated by New York critic and curator Antwaun Sargent this exhibition highlights the work of 15 contemporary fashion photographers—from London to Lagos, New York to Johannesburg—whose images present radically new perspectives on the medium of photography and art, race and beauty, and gender and power.  The exhibition includes over 100 select works from these groundbreaking artists, including Campbell Addy, Arielle Bobb-Willis, Micaiah Carter, Awol Erizku, Nadine Ijewere, Quil Lemons, Namsa Leuba, Renell Medrano, Tyler Mitchell, Jamal Nxedlana, Daniel Obasi, Ruth Ossai, Adrienne Raquel, Dana Scruggs, and Stephen Tayo, as well as images created by other young artists contributing to this movement. MoAD is located at 685 Mission Street.

 

Bernice Bing, “A Lady and a Road Map” 1963, oil on canvas.  Image courtesy of Asian Art Museum.

Opening October 7 – In to View: Bernice Bing at the Asian Art Museum:  This exhibition features the museum’s recent acquisition of 20 paintings and works on paper that shine a light on an important local Asian American artist who has only recently gained broad recognition for her achievements. These works reveal the evolution of Bing’s remarkable practice, from paintings of the 1950s and 1960s that straddle Abstract Expressionism and figuration to work from the 1980s and 1990s that explores a synthesis of Zen calligraphy and Western abstraction.  The Asian Art Museum is located at 200 Larkin Street in San Francisco.

 

Saturday, October 8 starting at 12 noon – Our Labyrinth for Grace by Lee Mingwei at Grace Cathedral:  Grace Cathedral’s 2022 Artist in Residence is the New York and Paris-based Lee Mingwei. Lee creates participatory installations, infused with beauty and ritual, where strangers can explore issues of trust, intimacy, and self-awareness. The culmination of his residency will be Our Labyrinth For Grace, an epic twelve-hour performance by three dancers, with introductory music by the Men of the cathedral’s Choir of Men and Boys, and a finale by organist Susan Jane Matthews.  Grace Cathedral is located at 1100 California Street in San Francisco.

 

Image from a past Monster Drawing Rally. Image courtesy of Southern Exposure.

Saturday, October 15 from 3:00 – 9:00 pm – Monster Drawing Rally at Southern Exposure: The Monster Drawing Rally is an incredible afternoon of artmaking and fundraising where over 100 artists create brand new work right before your eyes in a frantic race against the clock. As you spy on the creative process, you’ll see sketches morph into full-fledged artworks – immediately available for just $100 each.  This event combines the energy of a monster truck rally with the creativity and brilliance of the Bay Area art community.  Southern Exposure is located at 3030 20th Street.

 

The Commons at the Headlands Center for the Arts.  Image courtesy of Headlands Center for the Arts.

Sunday, October 16 from 12 to 6pm – 40th Edition Open House at Headlands Center for the Arts:   This is a special 40th anniversary edition of Open House. Along with an opportunity to roam the various buildings of the campus, meet current artists, and experience works in progress, the day will feature film and performances by Headlands Alumni, including jazz musician Beth Custer (AIR ’98, ’91), and dance collective Fog Beast. Also on view in the Project Space are installations by Artists in Residence Hannah Jayanti and Weston Teruya.  Headlands Center for the Arts is located at 944 Simmons Road in Sausalito.

 

Brett Cook paintings mixed with Liz Lerman dance documentation.  Image courtesy of YBCA.

October 20 to April 2 – Brett Cook & Liz Lerman: Reflection & Action at YBCA:  Visual artist Brett Cook and choreographer Liz Lerman turn YBCA’s galleries into a space for collective creation and inspiration guided by their intuitive desire to forge new paths in their respective fields. Featuring video, dance, installation, paintings, and more, audiences are encouraged to explore Cook and Lerman’s artistry as catalysts for enacting collaborative change in the world.  YBCA is located at 701 Mission Street in San Francisco.

 

Mildred Howard “The Time and Space of Now” 2022, video still. Image courtesy of SJICA.

Ongoing to February 26 – Mildred Howard: The Time and Space of Now at the San José ICA:  Centered around the first-ever Bay Area presentation of Mildred Howard’s film “The Time and Space of Now” (2021) in the ICA’s Cardinale Project Room, the solo exhibition features three multi-media installation pieces exploring the triangulation between time, space, and the migration and movement of people.  The film was created following Howard’s discovery, amongst materials left by her mother, of 8 mm. film that had been stowed in a purse for decades. It is composed of archival footage Howard took as a 14-year-old girl in Texas, interspersed with material shot on the beach in Alameda, and augmented by a fictional, unscripted, metaphysical dialogue between the artists Dewey Crumpler and Oliver Lee Jackson. The work illuminates storytelling, borders, migration, and the interconnected nature of time and space.  San José ICA is located at 560 S First Street in San Jose.

To Do List: September

Milford Graves: A Mind-Body Deal, September 25, 2020—January 24, 2021, installation view at the Institute for Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Photo by Constance Mensch.

September 1 to October 15 – Drum Listens to Heart Part I at The Wattis Institute:  This exhibit explores the nuance and nature of the percussive with Drum Listens to Heart, an iterative exhibition that weaves together myriad forms of percussion—physical and socio-political, literal and metaphorical—and juxtaposes instances of physical impact and vibration with forms of control, emancipation, and community-building. The exhibition brings together an international roster of artists presenting works in a variety of media to explore rhythm, pulse, music, cultural history, healing, power, freedom, and control. The show will be presented in three chapters, on view September 1–October 15, 2022; November 9–December 17, 2022; and January 17–March 4, 2023 respectively.  The Wattis Institute is located at 360 Kansas Street in San Francisco.

 

 

Xaviera Simmons, “Skin Hunger,” 2021, photographs, videos, animations, paintings.  Image courtesy of BAMPFA.

September 3 to December 18 –Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration at BAMPFA:  Undoing Time: Art and Histories of Incarceration considers the foundational roots of confinement from philosophical, sociological, theological, and art historical perspectives to better understand the fact that today’s mass incarceration crisis has been centuries in the making. This exhibition traces images from history that contribute to the entrenched cultural beliefs associated with today’s carceral system.  The exhibit features newly commissioned works of contemporary art based on the analysis of art historical images of incarceration.  Artists in the exhibition are —Carolina Aranibar-Fernández, Juan Brenner, Raven Chacon, Cannupa Hanska Luger, Ashley Hunt, Sandra de la Loza, Michael Rohd, Paul Rucker, Xaviera Simmons, Stephanie Syjuco, Vincent Valdez, and Mario Ybarra Jr.  BAMPFA is located at 2155 Center Street in Berkeley.

 

Linda Geary “Explode The Flowers” 2022, acrylic and oil on canvas;  Reed Anderson “Billie Friend” 2020, acrylic and spray paint on hand-cut paper.  Images courtesy of Gallery 16.

September 9 to October 29 – Linda Geary: What Gives and Reed Anderson: No Love Lost at Gallery 16:  Bay Area artist Linda Geary presents a new body of work that includes large canvases and mixed media collages.  Geary uses collage and other approaches that reference actions of sewing and construction, modes of working that sometimes exist outside of the patriarchal history of painting, and more akin to laying a path of stones or making a quilt.  Reed Anderson is known for obsessively layered cut paper paintings.  He describes his process as “additive and self generating”.  He begins his cut paintings by applying patches or bands of color onto paper before cutting oval and circular shaped holes, then folding the paper and further applying paint through the cut holes, later collaging additional elements onto the work.  Throughout the making of these works they exist in constant flux, a dance between cutting, painting, and collaging.  Gallery 16 is located at 501 Third Street in San Francisco.

 

Libby Black “Brooms” 2022, paper, pencil, acrylic paint and glue.  Image courtesy of 500 Capp Street.

September 10 to October 8 – Libby Black: The Way Things Also Are at 500 Capp Street.   Berkeley-based painter, drawer and sculptural installation artist Libby Black mines the everyday for meaning charting a path through personal history and a broader cultural context to explore intersections of politics, feminism, LGBTQ+ identity, consumerism and more.  For her solo exhibition at 500 Capp Street, Black takes inspiration from late conceptual artist David Ireland’s home, archive, art practice, and legacy to both reveal and propose unseen narratives with the House’s domestic spaces and collection.  The exhibit also includes works by Maryam Safanasab, AJ Serrano, and Nicole Shaffer.  The David Ireland House is located at 500 Capp Street in San Francisco.

 

Tyler Cross & Kyle Lypka “Nicotiana” 2022 glazed ceramic.  Image courtesy of Blunk Space.

September 10 to November 6 – Gravity Corner: Tyler Cross & Kyle Lypka at Blunk Space:  Using drawing as a gesture of departure, Cross and Lypka interpret flatness into form.  Line drawings on gridded paper developed by Cross act as glyphs or rough architectural plans for the sculptures.  Lypka then interprets and expands upon the formal structure of the drawing, stewarding graphite outlines toward an uncertain three-dimentionality in clay.  Hand-built, the resulting forms are comprised of hard lines and blind curves made by touch and the human hand. Oftentimes, the final product greatly departs from its original proposal – a mirror images of two shapes, twinning on the page.  Blunk Space is located at 11101 CA-1 #105, Point Reyes Station.

 

 

Kija Lucas “In Search of Home, Easton 002”, 2013, archival pigment print.  Image courtesy of SF Camerawork.

September 17 to December 17 – Kija Lucas: Taxonomy of Belonging at SF Camerawork’s new gallery space:  The Taxonomy of Belonging includes work from Lucas’s nine-year project In Search of Home, and consists of photographs of plant clippings, rocks, and other objects that explore the emigration patterns of her family, and Carl Linnaeus’s racial taxonomy. This body of work questions how the scientific frameworks society has inherited from Linnaeus misrepresents Othered communities, while specifically addressing the invention of race in his taxonomy of man. This racist categorization of human beings perpetuates stereotypes and continues to be used widely today. Lucas challenges the frameworks of scientific categorization and the resulting implications of belonging found within the language of “native” and “non-native” plant species. With these works, the artist interrogates how we choose what is considered “natural,” “beautiful,” and “useful.”  SF Camerawork is located at Fort Mason Center, 2 Marina Blvd, Building A.

 

 

Richard Learoyd, installation view of “Fragments”.  Image courtesy of Pier 24 Photography.

Ongoing to May 23 – Looking Forward: Ten Years of Pier 24 Photography:  This is the second of two consecutive exhibitions celebrating the tenth anniversary of Pier 24 Photography—highlighting a selection of photographers collected by the Pilara Foundation over the past decade. With a focus on single artist galleries, Looking Forward demonstrates their belief that exhibiting photographers’ works in depth is the best way to communicate their visions for a given project or moment in time.  To make an appointment to visit, please click here.

 

Adia Millett “The Embers you Left Behind 3D” 2022, acrylic on panel.  Image courtesy of di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art.

Ongoing to October 30 – Adia Millett: Force of Nature at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art:  Adia Millett works across a broad range of media – from paintings and textiles to sculpture and sound installation – creating bright, fractal compositions that skirt the boundary between landscape, figure and abstraction. Over the last year, Millett spent countless hours wandering di Rosa’s 217 acres, collecting leaves, feathers and visual impressions that ultimately found their way into her work. Inspired by this ever-changing landscape, Millett created an arresting series of works evoking “earth, water, air and sun—the elements that birthed us and keep us alive.” di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art is located at 5200 Sonoma Highway, Napa. 

 

...