Gail Wight: Artist in Residence Exhibition

January 15 - April 17, 2010

This exhibition explores the making of Restless Dust, made during her one year Imprint residency at SFCB. The source of the book title is a quote from Mary Wollencraft (author of Frankenstein): "It appears to me impossible that I should cease to exist, or that this active, restless spirit, equally alive to joy and sorrow, should be only organized dust." In addition to the completed limited edition book and documentation of her residency, the exhibition will include earlier referential works such as Neural Primers 1995, five volumes made of paper, ink, chalk and text modeled after reading primers.

Each book presents the nervous system of an animal chosen for the way its system reflects in a significant way, either through contrast or similarity, to the world of human emotion; Cabinet of Curiosities 2001, an interactive cd-rom encased in a wooden cabinet that is based on 17th century precursors to natural history museums. Each object in this cabinet of curiosities leads to a small time-based meditation on the nature of evolutionary science. Images show the main screen, the interactive cabinet, and a composite image showing details from seven different meditations; Ghost 2004, a work in plexiglas & electronics made in honor of all of the small beetles, moths, butterflies and bugs who lost their lives in the course of the practice and pedagogy of science; Ground Plane 2007-08, digital pigment images constructed from hundreds of exact-scale photographs of squirrel, marmot, snake, frog, and other animal bones, with no repeats within each image. The bones are one to ten thousand years old, from the Hadly Lab collection at Stanford University.

Wight states: “These images became a way for me to think about deep time and the earth's crust as a crowded record of that time, a conduit of information about the past, and the space upon which we draw our present lives.” J'ai des papillons noirs tous les jours 2006, consisting of silk, paper, plexiglas, lights, electronics 2800 bug pins. The title is a colloquial French expression for depression, each of these butterflies is pinned down with one hundred bug pins. Their bodies slowly pulse with light, out of sync with each other, like stars in a night sky. The artist will present a lecture and walk-through with Executive Director, Dyana Curreri-Ermatinger who worked with the artist to curate this exhibition for SFCB. Catalog available.

Los Angeles Lotería: An Exploration of Identity

These beautifully letterpressed fine art edition cards were produced by cocurator Gary Ocon (co-owner of Aaardvark Press, Los Angeles) and designer Rick von Diehl, and the exhibition is cocurated by Lisa Jane. The coordinator for the exhibition at SFCB is participating artist Daniel Gonzalez. On view May 7 – September 16.

Traditionally, the Lotería is a game of chance played with 54 cards that represent significant icons in Mexican culture. In the spirit of the Los Angeles Lotería, the project involved several artists strongly identified with Los Angeles, including Dan McCleary, Ed Wexler, Andre Miripolsky, Daniel Gonzalez, and Ernesto Yerena, who selected and interpreted some part of the L.A. experience in their own style within the deign frame and layout that von Diehl created for them. The edition created was accessible and affordably priced -- attracting new collectors and enticing the general public to consider letterpress as fine art. [Lotería Series I], [II], [III] is a signed and limited edition of 100, with 54 framed cards each QUERY: is the edition 100 copies, with 54 cards each Edits OK (19” x 13”) printed on Crane’s Lettra 220 with the Aardvark letterpress chop.

Opening Reception
Fri, May 7, 2010
6pm - 8pm
T1-050710-EVT

Amy Franceschini: 2010 Resident Artist

This exhibition will focus on the process, production, and finished work created by our 2010 artist-in-residence. Franceschini is an American artist and designer whose practice spans a broad range of media including drawing, sculpture, design, net QUERY: Refers to Internet? If so, capitalize art, public art, and gardening. Franceschini founded Futurefarmers in 1995 as a way to bring together multidisciplinary artists. Through Futurefarmers she has collaborated with a number of artists including Sascha Merg and Josh On. She teaches courses at Stanford University and the San Francisco Art Institute. On view October 18, 2010 – January 16, 2011

Franceschini’s work takes a visual approach to articulating perceived conflicts between humans and nature and between the individual and the community. In 2005 she was part of the “SAFE: Design Takes On Risk” exhibition at MoMA, showing the work “Homeland Security Blanket” (made with Michael Swaine). In 2006 she participated in the SECA Art Award exhibition at SFMOMA. She has also exhibited at the Platform Garanti Contemporary Art Center in Istanbul, Turkey; ZKM Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe, Germany; Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum in New York; Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California; and Gallery 16 in San Francisco. Futurefarmers was featured in the 2002 Whitney Biennial.

Opening Reception
free
Sunday, Apr 18, 6 - 8pm
T1-101810-EVT