(left) Susanne Kriemann, “Gessenwiese, Kanigsberg”, 2018. (right) NIC Kay, “pushit! [exercise 1 in getting well soon], Judson Memorial Church” (video still), 2017. Images courtesy of The Wattis Institute.

Ongoing to July 28- Susanne Kriemann: Canopy, canopy at The Wattis Institute: Kriemann investigates the medium of photography in the context of social history and archival practice. Pushing the boundaries of the idea of a photographic document, her work in the exhibition reflects on the world as an analogue “recording system” for human-caused processes. This has lead to preoccupations with radioactivity and mining, but also with archaeology and landmarks in previous works as well as to a media archeological interest in photography and connections that can be made to a history of military technology.

Opening Reception: Thursday, May 31, 6:30– 8:30pm

Ongoing to July 28- Deep- Time Construction at The Wattis Institute: The exhibition brings together artists who create images, text, and use archival material to compose films that consider the fabrication of time: from the forging of coloniality, the continuous uprisings and the many more to come, and the potential spaces in between. Deep–time is the scientific term for the earth’s existence, denoting its geological epoch. Playing with this notion of a settled time, the time in which settlements continue to be built, the artists featured in this exhibition strain familial forms of apprehension. The six time–based works demonstrate the potential and longing of durational experience—as movement, as a distillation, as arrangement—to be the reconfiguration of colonial time and measurement. The Wattis Institute is located at 360 Kansas Street. 

Opening Reception: Thursday, May 31, 6:30– 8:30pm

Artist Talk: Friday, June 1, 6:30pm

Yetunde Olagbaju, “The Beforeness” (video still), 2017. Image courtesy of Southern Exposure.

June 1 to 30- Thekla at Southern Exposure: The title of the exhibition, Thekla, is taken from a city described in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities as endlessly built and rebuilt by its citizens, using the patterns of stars as blueprint. The exhibition consists of work from 6 artists: Mark Baugh-Sasaki, Lisa K. Blatt, Ala Ebtekar, Yetunde Olagbaju, Elia Vargas, and Marvin K. White. The artists in the exhibition, like the citizens of Calvino’s city, reflect on the vastness of the universe in our material realities. In their investigations of both darkness and light, the artists in Thekla create experiences for viewers in which the mind can rest, overwhelmed by it’s contemplation of the infinite. Southern Exposure is located at 3030 20th Street.

Opening Reception: Friday, June 1, 7- 9pm

Ragnar Kjartansson, “Scenes from Western Culture, The Boat”, 2015. Image courtesy of the McEvoy Foundation for the Arts.

Ongoing to September 1- Ragnar Kjartansson: Scenes from Western Culture at McEvoy Foundation for the Arts: The exhibition presents two major installations: Scenes from Western Culture (2015) and Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt (2015), shown alongside preparatory watercolor sketches. The exhibition explores Kjartansson’s fascination with artifice, the sublime, Western dreams and norms, and French Rococo painter Jean-Antoine Watteau. Scenes from Western Culture is a collection of videos depicting a faintly absurd and occasionally ominous vision of Western life. Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt features a series of free-standing paintings of snowy crags. The exposed plywood on the reverse side transforms the sculpture to a theater set. Translated as “only he who knows longing” from a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Nur wer die Sehnsucht kennt champions the sublime and the mundane as one. McEvoy Foundation for the Arts is located at 1150 25th Street, Building B. 

Opening Reception- Saturday, June 2

View of last years event. Image courtesy of Headlands Center for the Arts.

June 6, 5:30- 10pm- 2018 Headlands Center for the Arts’ Benefit Art Auction at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture Festival Pavilion: Headlands Center for the Arts’ Annual Benefit Art Auction is their biggest event and fundraiser of the year. The auction is a lively evening of competitive bidding on museum-quality contemporary artworks, immersive installations and creative experiences. There will be cocktails and small bites as well as a DJ and pop- up shop. All proceeds directly support Headlands’ mission, artists, and public programs. Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture is located at 2 Marina Blvd.

Schedule:
5:30pm- Sponsor Preview
6:30pm- General Admission
8:00pm- Live Auction

Tickets available here.

(left) Indira Allegra, “Blackout” (Detail), 2015. (right) Rebeca Bollinger, “Slip Up”, 2017. Images courtesy of Mills College Art Museum.

June 6 to July 22- Art + Process + Ideas at Mills College Art Museum: The exhibition features new work from current artists-in-residence, Indira Allegra and Rebeca Bollinger. Both artists explore tensions in our emotional fabric, spaces warped by time, and the stains left behind. Indira Allegra uses textile production to shuttle between social practice, memorial and an obsession with unseen forces like memory, haunting and emotions born from trauma. Rebeca Bollinger creates hand-built ceramics, cast glass, aluminum and bronze pieces, photographs, drawings, video, binders, and short stories to give visual form and language to invisible realms, memory impressions, imprints, stains, fictions, objects and instabilities. Mills College Art Museum is located at 5000 MacArthur Blvd in Oakland.

Opening Reception: June 6, 6- 8pm

Irene Chou, “Untitled”, 1995. Image courtesy of Cantor Arts Center.

Ongoing to September 3- Ink Worlds: Contemporary Chinese Painting at the Cantor Arts Center: Ink Worlds considers ink painting from the 1960s through the present, examining salient visual features and international connections, as well as the ongoing impact of historical techniques, materials, and themes. In so doing, the exhibition addresses not only the capacity of ink painting to evolve but also the contemporary nature of ink painting as a distinct genre whose achievements can already be documented. The Cantor Arts Center is located at 328 Lomita Drive at Museum Way in Stanford. 

Artist Talk: Thursday, June 14, 6-9pm- Artist Zheng Chongbin will discuss the foundation of his art practice and the new paths he’s forging in ink.