Have a lovely long holiday weekend, everyone! I'll see you back here on Monday.
P.S. If you're local, don't miss Evan B. Harris and Alisha Wessler's new show, Back Channels, opening tonight at Johansson Projects as part of the monthly Oakland Art Murmur.
A few Bay Area events and art openings on the radar this weekend:
Thursday, June 4:
* Everything You Need Can Grow, new work by Christopher David Ryan, opens at San Francisco's Rare Device. The artist's reception runs from 7 to 9 p.m., and the show will be up through July 7.
* Worship Thee Kindly the Dark Hand That Guides Me, a new installation of sculpture, paintings, and mixed media work from Skinner, opens at 111 Minna. The reception runs from 6 p.m. on, and the show will be up at the SOMA gallery through June 27.
* Over in Oakland, Nathaniel Crane and Michael Deane's Becoming Non-Object opens with a reception from 6 to 9 p.m. at Uptown's Hatch Gallery. The gallery will also be open for Friday's monthly Oakland Art Murmur, and the show will be up through June 27.
Friday, June 5:
* There will be a First Friday reception for Val Britton and Michael Meyers's The Echo Fields from 5 to 9 p.m. at Oakland's Johansson Projects. While you're there, don't miss Jennifer and Kevin McCoy's Show Me installation in the project space.
Saturday, June 6:
* More than 400 local artists will provide glimpses into their work spaces and processes during East Bay Open Studios, which runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday as well as next weekend. Get a list of participating artists here, studio maps here, and preview the artists' work here.
* The Sunset Celebration Weekend transforms Sunset magazine's sprawling Menlo Park campus into a multi-acre test kitchen, demonstration garden, craft bazaar, home and garden trade show, and performance venue. The event takes place both Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and tickets are $15.
* Pop Noir is San Francisco nonprofit arts organization Southern Exposure's huge annual fundraiser, with art for sale from a veritable who's-who of the Bay Area art scene. The auction runs from 6 to 10:30 p.m., and there's a $35 admission charge. Preview the artwork for sale here.
* Annie Galvin's In a Golden State opens at San Francisco's Studio 3579. The reception runs from 6 to 9 p.m., and the show will be up through July 18.
Sunday, June 7:
* Oakland newsstand extraordinaire Issues holds its Second Anniversary Party from 2 to 6 p.m. Stop by for snacks and microbrew, palm readings, a customer-appreciation raffle, and a giant sidewalk sale featuring books, vinyl, t-shirts, "weird sculptures," and odds and ends galore at the popular Piedmont Avenue-area shop.
Lots to do!
* Saturday, May 9, from 10 to 3: Feria Urbana at Pizzaiolo in Oakland
* Saturday and Sunday from 10 to 4: Open Studios and Factory Store Sale at Heath Ceramics in Sausalito
* Opening Saturday at noon at Johansson Projects in Uptown Oakland: Val Britton and Michael Meyers's Echo Fields (the artists' reception for the show is next Saturday, May 16, from 5 to 8 p.m.)
* Saturday from 2 to 4: The First Annual Cupcake Bake-Off at Oakland's Rock Paper Scissors Collective (across the street from Johansson Projects); $4 at the door
* Saturday from 7 to 11 p.m.: The opening reception for Isabel Samaras's Into the Woodz at San Francisco's Shooting Gallery
* And at the same time next door at White Walls Gallery: The opening reception for New Work from Ian Johnson
* Finally, if you're still on the hunt for a Mother's Day gift, don't forget the exclusive discount for More Ways to Waste Time Readers at Atomic Garden in Rockridge.
Another fun weekend in store for Bay Area art lovers:
* On Saturday, March 21, from 4 to 7 p.m., Oakland's Johansson Projects hosts an opening reception for Kate Eric and Marina Vendrell Renaut's joint show, Flaming Furbelows. The exhibit "explores uneasy encounters between attraction and repulsion, tenderness and terror. From inside fleshy mounds of fur and yarn, Renaut's plush and bulbous monstrosities offer up wooly orifices and suggestive pleasures. Eric's 'Bug Wars' invoke similar unsettling dioramas of violence and seduction, as otherworldly insects wage battles across landscapes of post-apocalyptic glee and Dr. Seussian wonderment. Taken together, these artists present visions of a phantasmic post-natural world, where desire warps into perverse narratives and cross-contaminated forms." Johansson Projects is located at 2300 Telegraph Ave. at 23rd St. in Uptown Oakland.
* Over in San Francisco, the exhibition party for Hilary Williams's A City With Colored Dreams runs from 6 to 10 p.m. Saturday night at the Frankee Uno. If you haven't seen Williams's incredible, surreal silkscreen prints of the City, you must rectify that immediately. Music, snacks, and libations will be provided. Frankee Uno is located at 1221 Divisadero St. at Eddy.
* Also on Saturday night, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., San Francisco experimental-arts organization the Lab hosts its 25th annual Silent and Live Auction. More than 200 local, national, and internationally renowned artists have donated work to the event, and most of the original pieces have a starting bid of just $25. Participants include Mike Arcega, Leo Bersamina, Michelle Blade, John Casey, Ajit Chauhan, Joshua Churchill, Gail Dawson, Victor De La Rosa, Tara Lisa Foley, Matt Furie, Bryson Gill, Taro Hattori, Cynthia Ona Innis, Xylor Jane, Jeff Kao, Tom Marioni, Karla Milosevich, Paul Mullins, Trevor Paglen, Hillary Pecis, Genevieve Quick, Ed Ruscha, Casey Jex Smith, Kirk Stoller, Stephanie Syjuco, Heather Wilcoxon, and many more. There's a sliding-scale, $10 to $25 admission fee, which includes snacks and drinks. The sale continues Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m., when admission is free. The Lab is located at 2948 16th St. at Capp in the Mission District. More info here.
* Finally, although Alex Lukas's new solo show, And Another Shall Rise to Take Her Place, actually opened at SF's White Walls Gallery last weekend, it looks amazing, so I had to include it for those of you who may not have checked it out yet. The show will be up through April 3 at White Walls, 835 Larkin St. at Myrtle in San Francisco's "Tendernob" area.
Opening at Oakland's Johansson Projects this weekend: Collective Compulsions, a kind of "greatest hits" of the gallery's featured artists over the past 18 months. All share an obsession with "intricate visual detail ... Stepping back from the image, the meticulously built forms disappear into the context of the whole. Delicate, dense, panoramic memory maps stretch before us in one piece, only to collapse into spiraling abstractions in the next."
Among the featured artists:
Amanda Hughen (previously blogged here)
Val Britton (previously blogged here)
Anna Fidler
Nathan Cordero
Tadashi Moriyama
Kristina Lewis
Jill Gallenstein
Jen Stark
Misa Inaoka
Andrew Benson
An artists' reception will be held Saturday, January 17, from 4 to 7 p.m., and Collective Compulsions will be up at Johansson Projects through February 21.
Tomorrow, November 15, from 5 to 8 p.m. Oakland art gallery Johannson Projects hosts an opening reception for Collapsitalism: The Holiday Recession Sale.
The exhibition "is an attempt to [visually] connect art prices to stock-market fluctuations beyond ... charts and indexes" -- not to mention giving strapped art collectors a break and helping to support working artists who are feeling the economic pinch. Nearly a dozen emerging and established Northern California artists, including Zach Houston, Marci Erspamer, Nathan Cordero, Hunter Longe, Eric Larson, Susie Grant, Carson Murdach, Joan Moment, Andrew Benson, and Alex Case will have new, original pieces available for less than $500 each.
Collapsitalism will be up in the Johannson Projects Project Space through January 2.
More and more local art openings, it seems, are veering off the standard "First Friday" schedule for new shows. That might be a good thing, because while the Oakland Art Murmur is a blast, it's often so packed that it's all but impossible to really appreciate the art.
I'm super-excited for Seattle artist Katy Stone (top) and Oakland local Yvette Molina's (above) joint show, Tickling Thicket -- which "considers the ephemeral thrills and underlying decrepitude of the natural world." The exhibit opens with an artists' reception from 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, October 30, at Johansson Projects. JP shows never miss, and this one looks amazing: Delicate, luminous, earthy and yet out-of-this world. Tickling Thicket will be up through December 13.
At CCA's Oliver Art Center, Oakland artist and cultural anthropologist Lydia Nakashima Degarrod's Geographies of the Imagination presents "both the emotional dislocation of migration and its transformative power" and invites viewers to explore "the cultural and physical landscapes of their past." The show debuts with an opening reception from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 29, and will be up through November 21.
My friend and neighbor, Bedford Gallery curator Carrie Lederer, is part of a group show at Blankspace called Double Exposure. The show features the work of ten local gallery curators -- including Daniel Healy, Rowan Morrison's Pete and Narangkar Glover, and Root Division's Michelle Mansour -- who are also artists in their own right. Lederer's pieces for the exhibit "depict turbulent gardens informed by nature’s riotous beauty." Double Exposure will be up through November 17.
On Thursday, October 30, from 7 to 10 p.m., the Rowan Morrison gallery and bookstore will host a signing and launch party with Oakland artist John Casey for his new, limited first-edition book, Scarecrow, featuring more than 60 "unseen biomorphic drawings from the depths of the subconscious." Casey will also have original art on display in the gallery. (If you're not in the area, Scarecrow can be procured right here.)
Finally, at Compound Gallery on Saturday, November 1, from 6 to 9 p.m., there will be an opening reception for Scott Reilly's solo exhibit, October 9, 1969, in which he exposes "a deeper emotional source that lies within all of his creative expression." The show will be up through December 1.
Loads of fun stuff happening in the East Bay this weekend for any locals who may be reading:
Friday night, September 5, is the monthly Oakland Art Murmur. A few gallery openings worth checking out:
Everybody Get Up: The Poor Man's Art Show runs from September 5 through 26 at the Rock Paper Scissors Collective. It features over 100 pieces of original art on cardboard, with nothing priced over $50.
At Johansson Projects, Outpost showcases the work of David Hamill and Jeff Konigsberg, which "probes the imaginary and illusory properties of architecture."
Swarm Gallery hosts an opening reception from 6 to 8 p.m. for Casey Jex Smith's Materials Unorganized, which strives to "create a visual narrative of spiritual experience."
While you're there, pick up a copy of Dan Nelson's limited-edition All Known Metal Bands ($22), which is exactly what it sounds like and is the latest offering from the irony-laced McSweeney's publishing empire.
At Rowan Morrison, L.A. artist Seth Armstrong's solo show, Where So Ever You May Go, features narrative paintings that "mix a personal family history with the exploits of marauding masked men." (Update: Rowan Morrison won't actually be open Friday night, but you can see the new show there during regular business hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesdays through Saturdays.)
Horror Vacuuim at WELL consists of solo pieces from Jeff Roysdon and Mats!?, as well as "improvisational collaborations with disastrously successful consequences," and promises to "give your retinas a serious work-out. Optical Electro-Shock Treatment."
As always, the Murmur runs from 6 p.m. until about 10.
(Note: I just read on OakBook that Esteban Sabar Gallery has closed. I know that Sabar himself was somewhat controversial among his Art Murmur peers, and I didn't always love the shows at his gallery -- though I did like many of them. Still, I'm sad to see him go, and sad to see any high-profile gallery in Oakland's burgeoning Uptown area shuttered.)
Also in Oakland Friday evening: Red Cake Gallery's Autumn Open House, featuring affordable new paintings by Allen Stickel (above) and others. Email for reservations and directions.
Finally, Old Oakland's FiveTen Studio will hold an opening reception from 6 to 9 p.m. for Inseparability, a new show with work from Zoe Blackwell (above), Christine Kesler, Brooke Inman, and several other participating artists.
The shops on Berkeley's Fourth Street are having their annual Sidewalk Sale on Saturday, September 6, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Discounted wares from the splendid-but-spendy Gardener, for instance, will be 40 percent off.
Also on Saturday, West Oakland's fiery Crucible hosts its annual, free Fall Open House from noon to 6 p.m. Come check out the fire-arts organization's 56,000-square-foot studio and see artwork from Crucible students and staff; fire, music, and dance performances; a metal pour in the foundry; and welding, glass working, metal casting, and blacksmithing demonstrations.
If you're hungry, don't miss the Green Potluck from 1 to 4 p.m. at Old Oakland boutique Mignonne. Food from B Restaurant, Tamarindo Antojeria, G.B. Ratto & Co., and Sweet Adeline Bakeshop will be provided -- you simply choose from the shop's selection of lovely vintage tableware on which to enjoy the goodies. Once you're done chowing down, you'll get 25 percent off the dishes you used.
