People In Your Neighborhood

In conversation: Benjamin Echeverria+ Laurie Reid with Lawrence Rinder

2011-12-09T11:51:00.001-08:00

Art making and Collaboration: what things are, what they could be, what they are not.

“Our work stems from an intuitive process that extends, we hope, through the work to the viewing experience. The work does not exemplify, but rather embodies the emotional and psychological content inherent in a form of creativity that searches for and comes in contact with meaning through the creation of the work itself.”

Kenneth Baker's review of Laure Reid + Benjamin Echeverria's exhibition

2011-12-09T11:46:00.000-08:00

Take a look at Kenneth Baker's review. The review raises many interesting questions about coherence, collaboration and a contemporary culture in general.

Benjamin Echeverria + Laurie Reid at G16

2011-12-09T11:40:00.000-08:00

We opened with Laurie Reid and Benjamin Echeverria on November 11th for their collaborative project that is still currently on display. Here are some photos of the exhibition

Tucker in the sunday Times

2011-09-27T13:14:00.001-07:00

Tucker in the Sunday Times!

Urban Digital Color and Ari Marcopoulos

2011-09-20T09:23:00.000-07:00

Urban Digital printed a new series with artist Ari Marcopoulos, currently on display at Ratio 3

REX RAY AT GALLERY 16

2011-08-31T08:09:00.000-07:00

September 9th - October 30, 2011

Opening Reception with the artist
September 9th from 6-9 pm

New Edition with Ari Marcopoulos

2011-08-26T15:52:00.001-07:00

In these compositions Ari uses several of his photographs to make multi-pass Xerox prints, resulting in new compositions born out of chance. Using the Intaglio process, we elevate the simple and direct beauty of the low-fi Xerox technique through the lavish tradition of Photogravure. The edition will be presented from September 9th to October 30th at Gallery 16.

Review of Jered's show by Kenneth Baker

2011-08-09T10:53:00.000-07:00

Jered Sprecher's "Shadows of Friction"

2011-08-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

REVIEWS OF TUCKER NICHOLS SHOW

2011-06-06T21:41:00.000-07:00

Kenneth Baker and Mark Van Proyen
both weigh in with thoughtful reviews of Tucker's new exhibition.

Mark Van Proyen's review for Squarecylinder can be read here

Kenneth Baker's review for the SF
Chronicle can be read here

"blow up" by Jonn Herschend

2011-05-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

blow up from Jonn Herschend on Vimeo.

A short documentary about artist Tucker Nichols as he prepares for his May 2011 exhibition at Gallery 16 in San Francisco. Not everything goes entirely according to plan.

Tucker Nichols at Gallery 16, San Francisco, May 13 - June 30, 2011

Tucker Nichols interview with Dave Eggers and Gallery 16 installation photos

2011-05-08T09:27:00.000-07:00

As Interviewed by Dave Eggers

DE: Let's start with this: How many pieces of paper are there on these walls?

TN: At the gallery? Hard to say just yet, somewhere between 30 and 60. I won’t really know what’s in the show until I get all the stuff in there. It's a luxury of having a show in your hometown.

Let's say there are 46. Next question: I notice that you've drawn on many different-colored papers. Why not use the same color? Seems kind of willful to be using different colors so much.

I’m always on the lookout for paper with a bit of history. It sets the tone for the drawing, like a location in a movie. White paper is good too but sometimes I like different scenery.

It still seems willful, but moving on: Why do you write words on some things, and other things you leave without words?

The words mostly come from real text I've seen out in the world, and I like to mix some advertising into every show or book I make. Advertising is inescapable these days.

Was there a time in your life when advertising was escapable? You talk like you grew up before advertising was invented.

I don’t think there used to be ads on the thing that separates my groceries from the person in front of me.

Why work on paper? There's something so iconic about your work, but most of it's on paper, and often on paper of an everyday kind, which lends a weird fragility to the work. If I lived in your house, I would be afraid to ever take out the recycling, for fear that there would be some priceless work there among the newsprint. So again, why paper?

Paper is essential, even in our new digital age. It's everywhere. But a stretched canvas has no place in our lives beyond a gallery really. When you see a painting on canvas you have no choice but to think it was made to be a painting. But something on paper could exist for so many reasons, so things open up a bit. Also I make a lot of bad drawings and paper is much easier to destroy. I make paintings on panels too but even there I want there to be a slight chance that they were made for some other purpose, like a sign or a map.

Can you tell the readers where you work? I’ve been to your studio, and you have chickens out front, and a fruitful garden, and many cats. I felt like I'd gone to Vermont.

Things have changed. The chickens moved up to a farm in Sonoma with an aggressive rooster named Fucking Lucky, and I moved my studio out to the Headlands near the Golden Gate Bridge. Now I work in an old military building where they used to fix the missiles. It’s a crazy nice location, with hawks and bobcats and the ocean. The winter storms shake the whole building, which is mostly fun.

Here in this gallery you have all of this artwork tacked up in a certain way. When someone buys one of these, how should they display it in their home? That is, is it wrong to frame one? Do they lose their potency if put behind glass, or separated from their fellow drawings?

I like forcing people to figure out how something I made fits into their lives. When I send a drawing to someone in the mail, I know it could end up taped to the refrigerator, in a drawer with the scissors, in a fancy frame or in the trash. It’s good when someone else finishes the job. For this show, most things will be framed, but there will be clusters of drawings and panels that are intended to be broken up and reconfigured. It’s kind of like a sofa and table display in a furniture store. You can buy them together, but maybe you just want the sofa.

You produce a lot of work. How often do you forget you did something, only to see it on a wall somewhere and you say, Oh yeah, that was pretty good?

It's true I don't remember making some of the things I see, especially if they leave my studio right away or I bury them under a pile of other things for a while. Seeing them later I sometimes think, hey I like that, but just as often I think, I don't want to take responsibility for that but there's nobody else to blame. If it's still in my possession I can pretend it never happened, but once it's out in the world it's like a bad quote on your yearbook page or an outfit you clearly thought looked cool from a photo from 8th grade.

Can you talk about the sculpture in the show? It's not a form I immediately associate you with, but that's probably just me being dumb. I would think your approach to the ephemeral nature of things, a la paper, is different when you're making a 200-pound object that could stop a bullet.

I like sculpture because it's even more direct than drawing. It's not a depiction of something, it just is the thing right in front of you. I hate storing the stuff but once I started making sculptures a few years ago, I couldn't stop. It's satisfying to try to make sad things that wash up on the beach look important.

Hey, I never thanked you for recommending cutting my own hair.

It’s the only way to go. I’ve been cutting my own since 1993.

I'm at least a year in and nobody's said a word about how dumb my hair looks. What else should we be doing ourselves? Filling cavities? Replacing the brakes on our cars? I suddenly feel really capable.

1. I have the tools to do tooth extraction. Seriously.
2. I cannot fix your brakes but I can counsel you in other ways of stopping.

...and some installation shots of Tucker Nichols' new show at G16.
The show opened on May 13th and runs through June 30th.

Deborah Oropallo Art In America Review

2011-03-30T20:14:00.000-07:00

Deborah Oropallo's Atypical Archetypes

by Chérie Turner 03/25/11

Deborah Oropallo's "Tale Spin" at Gallery 16 in San Francisco is a big, bold show of female fairy-tale characters and other alluring archetypes—Snow White, Goldie Locks, the French maid and the Catholic schoolgirl, among others. Each of these collaged pieces amounts to an almost life-size full figure or portrait, comprising layered pieces of sheer material, each with a part of a figure printed on it. The figure is made up of about 10 sourced images, sourced from costume websites, which are assembled and mounted on paper to form a single woman. Gas masks and bondage accessories also appear-these are characters facing today's world.

The 56-year-old, Berkeley-based Oropallo addresses each new body of work, as a series, distinctly different from previous work. "It's not just searching for the new; it's building on the old," Oropallo told A.i.A. during a recent tour of her show. "As a painter you are painting on the shoulders of everyone who came before you, and all of the work you have seen and made in the past 30 years—that's in every piece."

In 2009, she made the "Wild Wild West.Show," an exploration of cowgirl imagery. The 2008 "Guise" series, featured in a solo exhibition at San Francisco's de Young Museum, comprised prints that melded 17th- and 18th-century male portraits with images of women modeling lingerie.

In this latest work, Oropallo deftly updates age-old tales, a theme Oropallo has treated previously. The "Guise" series demonstrates the similarities in poses between her subjects, begging questions about portrayal of power and how it differs between the sexes. Fortified (2011) shows an adult Rapunzel. With her braided hair tied like a rope-ladder down the front of her body and shiny black gloved arms encircling her head, this modern woman is going to protect and save herself.

Uniforms and costumes are deployed for their relationships to gender and power. The interest stems from Oropallo's childhood, she explained, including memories of her uncle's grand presence in full Navy garb, as well as her experience wearing the traditional blue-and-green uniform to Catholic school for years.

Oropallo grew up in Hackensack, New Jersey, and started making art at a young age. But it wasn't until she started the fine art graduate school program at UC Berkeley, where she earned her MFA, that she got her first formal art training, studying under esteemed Bay Area Figurative painter Elmer Bischoff. Shades of those early self-teaching, however, continue to be visible in her work today.

"I actually think of paint-by-numbers paintings as the original conceptual paintings... They have a prescribed beginning and end," said Oropallo in an interview for her 2001 midcareer retrospective at the San Jose Museum of Art. "This has been in my work since I was a kid. I copied things out of how-to books, always using this type of methodology."

Oropallo's work is structured according to a modular, graphic, Pop ethic. She used to often work with silk-screened images or patterns, all sourced from photographs. For the 2003 series "Replica," she arranged repeating depictions of duck figurines for Spill, a toy suburban tract house for Free House. For Oropallo's 2005 "Stretch" pieces, she digitally pushed, pulled, and stretched, images to the verge of being unrecognizable. What remained was their contemporaneity.

DEBORAH OROPALLO : TALE SPIN

2011-03-09T20:38:00.001-08:00

Installation views of Deborah Oropallo's new show TALE SPIN. The show consists of a group of twenty-two new pieces, equal parts painting, printmaking and collage. Oropallo uses these techniques to construct radically composed portraits of imaginary woman. As source material for these compositions, Oropallo draws upon her intrigue with early traditions of children's fairy tales. Fairy tales were moral plays meant to scare girls into being good. These portraits embody the complexities of girls/women, their submissive/dominant roles, and touch on their corresponding thematic costumes.

We are not having any trouble in our department despite what you’ve heard

2011-02-11T11:50:00.000-08:00

Here is a fantastic glimpse into our friend Jonn Herschend's film. It was made while in he and Tucker Nichols were in residency in Copenhagen.

http://jonnherschend.com/projects/welcome-to-den-frie-videoinstallationperfromance/

"This piece was created for the exhibition entitled Koh-i-noor, in January of 2011 in Copenhagen. I was in the Copenhagen’s Artist in Residency (CPH AIR) program during this time and decided to create something that would change over the course of the exhibition. It became a site specific fiction, starting with an apology video (Part 1), which introduced the characters only through text, and then a performance in the space while we were shooting, and finally the promised video (Part 2)… see below for an excerpt.

The show’s theme involved chaos and I wanted this piece to appear to be a promotional video that Den Frie had commissioned. It needed to look and feel real. I also wanted it to be specifically for the Danish people who would come to see the show. So I began working with the translation as an element of further confusion in the guise of clarity."

Tucker Nichols In Copenhagen

2011-01-24T20:08:00.000-08:00

I'm in Copenhagen on the invitation of Jonn Herschend and Koh-i-nor, a Danish art collective,
for an exhibition at Den Frie Museum.

In Copenhagen all your needs are met

everything is made with intention

you will find astonishing sandwich spreads

and distinguished headwear

Den Frie is a special place

maybe the nicest galleries I've ever
been in

Of course, I chose to make work in the less glamorous parts
of the museum

Sometime I question these decisions

I was planning to do text pieces on all the windows
in the lobby of the museum.

but I had been making all these dot drawings back in SF and then I was
noticing how often you see dots in a grid here

maybe it's a lego thing.

They use dots to communicate things
in the subway without words.
Enter the train here.

this side for going up

haven't figured out what these ones meant yet

don't bump into the glass

eat this

So, I decided to make vague advertising messages
using colored dots.

Outside

going in

Stairs leading up to the kitchen

directors office

where they post press clippings

broadcasting dot messages as if they meant something

like it was urgent

as it turns out, to people in Copenhagen, this actually means
"keep christiania free", the nearby anti-establishment commune area
that has it's own government and laws
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/freetown_Christiania

I'm going there tonight to understand
what I'm supporting

I also made this bulletin board piece
in the conference room

a map of sorts using the dots and grid
language

like a bulletin board at the university where people speak
this graphic language of dots and grids.

But, mostly it was an exercise
in futility of symbols, no matter
how many you put there.

I told the director it was an attempt to help
them with their future strategy and fund
raising plans

Someone put the floor cleaner in front
of it and I decided to leave it there

UPDATE:
So Christiania is a magical land and it
was true what they said about the three
dots.

The upper label translates to "your opinions and
habits are protected"

even the handstamps for the jazz club is
in on it

Shhh, the older woman said as she drew the dot on
my hand promise not to tell anyone the code.

Update 2:

the next day at the state museum I run into
this security guard whose logo really confuses
me.

These Are The People In Your Neighborhood

2011-01-12T19:05:00.000-08:00

On THURSDAY January 20, 6-9pm, Gallery 16 will attempt the improbable.

In our left hand we will present a fantastic new exhibition of prints by artists Amy Ellingson, Stefan Kirkeby, Shaun O’Dell and Inez Storer. While those balls are in the air, our right hand will attempt the Worlds Largest Booksigning in the history of mankind!

On the evening of January 20th we will release the long awaited book,
These Are The People In Your Neighborhood. The book chronicles the seminal
years of Gallery 16’s innovative exhibition space and publishing program.
Over 70 artists are included and all are invited to participate in the book signing.
Scientists tell us this collection of talent in one location will create enough energy
to change liquid to gas.

Book Release:

These Are The People In Your Neighborhood chronicles the seminal years of
Gallery 16’s innovative exhibition space and publishing program in San
Francisco. The gallery was founded in the early nineties by artist Griff
Williams. At the time of the gallery’s founding, San Francisco was on the
verge of the dot com boom and the Bay Area was at the center of
technological innovation. At this nexus, Gallery 16 and its companion fine
art press Urban Digital Color began a remarkable and groundbreaking
project. The marriage of art and technology that defined the business
relationship between Gallery 16 and UDC also came to define a new and
pioneering concept in art funding.

The book includes essays by Maria Porges, Glen Helfand and Mark VanProyen.
Hardcover with 228 full color pages, the book features over 70 artists
including William Kentridge, Mark Grotjahn, Rex Ray, Xylor Jane, Arturo
Herrera, Jim Isermann, Michelle Grabner, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Deborah
Oropallo, Harrell Fletcher, Shaun O’Dell, Darren Waterston, Libby Black,
and many others.

For additional information, please contact Vanessa at Gallery 16,
415.626.7495 or email vanessa@gallery16.com

2010-12-11T19:57:00.000-08:00

WHERE COLLABORATION ENDS:

Kenneth Baker

The title of Brad Killam and Michelle Grabner's show at Gallery 16 prepares us for levity: "Collaborating With Michelle Grabner Isn't as Much Fun as You Might Think It Is."

And the pieces the couple - who are married - have produced together suggest collision as much as collaboration, though they are famous for beyond-the-studio doings such as the artists residency program, they have hosted for a decade in Oak Park, Ill.

Grabner's paintings and silverpoint drawings on gessoed canvas follow strict programs: radiating or gridded lines, staccato spirals that can make a circular canvas resemble a braided rug.

Killam's sculptures, such as "Blast Double" (2010), bring to mind things such as clotheslines, hanging lamps and bird feeders as readily as they do the mobiles of Alexander Calder.

Yet in their simpler collaborative pieces, such as the two-titled "Head Gear" (2010), Grabner and Killam evoke a tension between sensibilities respectively centered on studio practice and on seeing grist for art in the street or backyard. Nothing here suggests they can't inhabit the same person.

Griff Williams at Sonoma State University

2010-12-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam

2010-11-01T20:22:00.000-07:00

Gallery 16 is thrilled to welcome artists Michelle Grabner and Brad Killam back for their fifth show with the gallery. "Collaborating With Michelle Grabner Isn't As Much Fun As You Might Think It Is."

Grabner and Killam are artists and founders of The Suburban, an important exhibition and project space operated from the couples home in Oak Park, Illinois. They recently celebrated The Suburban’s ten-year anniversary. Since January 1999 they have worked with over one hundred and twenty artists including Luc Tuymans, Joseph Grigely, Martin Parr and Tony Feher. Can I Come Over to Your House?, a book about its first decade has just been released and will be available at Gallery 16.

The exhibition will consist of new paintings and silverpoint drawings by Michelle Grabner with sculptures and mobiles by Brad Killam. Michelle Grabner’s paintings and silverpoints index the passage of time. Created with lines, marks, ticks, points, and dots, Grabner’s compositions are simply organized, accumulated, and sequenced, thus leaving virtually no space for the imagination. Killam’s installation of sculptures made from found objects focus on finding the aesthetic qualities of art in ordinary materials and studying the transformation of a functional object into something that causes viewers to regard it as artistically interesting.

Cliff Hengst at Gallery 16

2010-09-17T13:36:00.000-07:00

Cliff Hengst working on a mural for his new show at G16.

2010-06-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

by Kenneth Baker

Zecca rules at 16: Bay Area artist Alex Zecca parallels Gonzalez in having found a procedure he can push to limits that only he may ever visit productively.

Zecca systematically rules on paper thousands of lines in colored inks. As they intersect and add up, they generate effects reminiscent of Op art at its subtlest, and occasionally suggestive of phenomena such as aurora borealis, lens flare or the color blur in a film or video of something streaking past.

Op art ran its course quickly (except in the hands of Bridget Riley) because viewers could sense too easily the involuntary nature of the optical responses it sparked. Zecca has brought his work to a pitch of complexity where we cannot tell how much control he has over what we - or even he - will see in a finished work. In this respect, his art has a deeper affinity with that of Sol LeWitt (1928-2007) than with Op.

Each show of Zecca's work leaves a viewer wondering "How can he top this?" The latest is no exception.

Rex Ray at Sharks Ink

2010-05-19T12:18:00.001-07:00

Rex Ray is spending the next two weeks working with master printer Bud Shark on a new print edition at Sharks Ink in Lyon's Colorado. This is the first edition Rex has done with the press, we are very excited to see
the results!

Here are some images of the
prints in progress.

A Conversation with Photographer THOMAS HEINSER

2010-05-10T19:50:00.000-07:00

Überblick: A Conversation with Photographer THOMAS HEINSER
Thursday MAY 13, 6-9PM

The gallery hosts a celebration and conversation with artist Thomas Heinser on Thursday, May 13, from 6-9 p.m. Music by Art Khu Trio and special guests, lager and links by Let's Be Frank follow the interview with the German photographer.

Translated as “over-view or "view from above,” Überblick explores the beautiful and graphic intersection of man, steel, sea, and land as surveyed from above. A monumental and ongoing project, the Heinser's photographs include views of some of the world’s most captivating bridges and structures, from Lisbon and Millau to New York and San Francisco.

KQED releases video interview with Sonny Smith: 100 Records at Gallery 16

2010-04-25T15:44:00.000-07:00

SONNY SMITH 100 RECORDS OPENING!

2010-04-10T09:14:00.000-07:00

Sonny Smith signing the Limited Edition
100 Records Volume One. Only forty were made!

The set contains a 16 track cd of original
music made by Sonny for this edition and signed prints by twelve artists, including Chris Johansen, William Wiley, Jo Jackson, Chris Duncan, Alika Cooper, Tucker Nichols, Kyle Field, Paul Wackers, Ester Peal Watson, Reed Anderson, Jovi Schnell and Alice Shaw.

What an amazing night. Hundreds of folks came out
for the show. Thanks to the Sandwitches for playing!
Also, thanks to Sonny and the Sunsets.

Sonny Smith 100 Records Project

2010-03-31T19:56:00.000-07:00

April 9-May 31, 2010

Opening reception April 9, 6-9 pm. Live music with Sonny and the Sunsets and The Sandwitches.

Gallery 16 is pleased to welcome San Francisco based artist, musician and playwright Sonny Smith to his first solo show with the gallery. 100 Records is a dauntingly ambitious project that bridges his interest in art, music and dramatic form. Smith invited 100 artists to produce artwork for the record covers of fictional bands. Smith concocted the personas of each 100 fictitious bands, then wrote and recorded two hundred songs (the A side and B side) for each. All of the original artwork will be on display as well as a jukebox that plays all two hundred songs recorded by Sonny Smith and other notable musicians. Artists include, William T. Wiley, Mingering Mike, Chris Johanson, Reed Anderson, Jo Jackson, Harrell Fletcher, Chris Duncan, Tucker Nichols, Paul Wackers and 91 others!

Sonny’s CDs include This Is My Story, This Is My Song, released in 2002, followed the next year by Sordid Tales of Love and Woe. His critically acclaimed album Fruitvale is a collaboration with Wilco’s Leroy Bach and other Chicago musicians that features songs Sonny wrote about his then neighborhood in Oakland. Watchword Literary Magazine commissioned Sonny to produce One Act Plays, a CD that includes Edith Frost, Neko Case, Miranda July, Jolie Holland, Andy Cabic, Virgil Shaw, Mark Eitzel, John Dwyer and Mekons’ Rico Bell, among other talented artists.

In 2000, he wrote and directed his first short movie “Kid Gus Man.” In 2005, he earned a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts to write and perform the play "The Dangerous Stranger," and received a residency in 2006 from the LAB in San Francisco to produce part two of the saga, “Stranger Danger!”

SOULFOOD no. 2, A Night of Live Music, Vintage Vinyl and Rare Films To Benefit Music in the San Francisco Schools.

2010-03-06T09:30:00.000-08:00

Soulfood no.2 is the second event in a quarterly music series organized by Griff Williams, Tommy Guerrero and Marc Capelle. All the money raised through the music series goes directly to support local charities of our choosing. The beneficiary of the upcoming event is MuST (music in the schools today). In this time of peril for public education, music and arts programs are often the first victims of budget cuts.

MuST serves over 10,000 children and youth annually in schools and community centers, conducts research and development and advocates to restore music as an essential principle of K-12 education.

Live Music by MONE Y MARK, Tommy Guerrero,
Marc and The Casuals.
Rare 16mm Films by Stephen Parr of Oddball films and and vintage soul sounds on original vinyl with DJ Chas Gaudi. all amidst the art at the spacious Gallery 16 in San Francisco's Soma District.

Date: Friday, March 26th at 7:00PM
Venue: Gallery 16, 501 3rd St., (At Bryant) San Francisco, CA 94107
Admission: $20.00 Donation

Very special thanks to all the incredible musicians and disc jockey Chas Gaudi; Stephen Parr of Oddball Film+Video for the rare film treasures; Owsley Brown + Josh Metz of the Magnanimus Wine Group and Bryan Whalen + Steve Nilsen of Pabst Blue Ribbon for their generous donations.

a clip from Soulfood no.1 can be viewed here

Griff Williams at Missoula Museum of Art

2010-02-16T20:13:00.001-08:00

I typically don't spend much time promoting my own work, but I've just sent off ten new paintings to the Missoula Museum of Art in Missoula, Montana for a solo show that opens February 20th. The show title is lifted from a line written by Herman Melville in Moby Dick, "Its not down in any map, true places never are". Here are a few images of the work.

LOWELL DARLING IN SF CHRONICLE

2010-02-10T20:56:00.000-08:00

Artist's Platform: change state budget process

Marisa Lagos, Chronicle Sacramento Bureau

Monday, February 8, 2010

The last many Californians may have heard of conceptual artist Lowell Darling was in 1978, when he ran against sitting Gov. Jerry Brown on a platform that called for "urban acupuncture" to fight drought pollution and replacing parking meters with slot machines to discourage driving.

Darling lost the Democratic primary. But 32 years later, Brown is expected to run again. And so is Darling, this time on a single-minded platform: abolishing the two-thirds majority required to pass the state's budget.

"I used to try and look like Jerry Brown from the neck down - now I look like him from the forehead up," joked the balding artist, now 67, as he looked at a wall-size photo of himself from an old news clipping.

"Back then I dressed up like a politician, and Jerry Brown was in on it. I was out of politics for a while, and I've been trying to figure out what was the real problem. I've decided it's the two-thirds majority required to pass a budget. Until they change that, it doesn't matter who's governor because they can't do anything anyway."

Darling kicked off his admittedly longshot campaign with an art gallery opening Friday night in San Francisco. Entitled "Full Disclosure," the exhibit features all of Darling's personal possessions that he has in this country.

Included in the exhibit at Gallery 16 on the corner of Third and Brannan streets: a tracing of Henry Longfellow done when he was 4 years old, a letter to Darling from Norman Rockwell (who was answering an inquiry from the then-teenager as to why Rockwell's art was featured in a liquor ad), and a February 1969 letter from the Internal Revenue Service telling Darling he had not made enough money to be considered an artist under the tax code (that's how he became a conceptual artist, he says).

Gallery owner Griff Williams said Darling, as always, is playing with meanings in his show, which will run through the end of March. It's funny, Williams said, but it's also poignant.

"The notion of the scrutiny of running for public office - he's using it as an opportunity to present everything he has. It's full disclosure. He's saying, if you want to find the skeletons in my closet, you will have to dig through everything I own, literally," he said. "He pulled up with a van and started unloading boxes."

Darling has been busy since his last gubernatorial bid - he's been married several times, had two daughters and, of course, done a lot of conceptual art. He's been living in Europe for the past several years, and when he came back to California last year, he discovered he's lost nearly all his investments and savings in the financial crisis.

If he gets through the primary, he'd love to face Meg Whitman, one of the Republican hopefuls, "who doesn't even vote most of the time," he said.

But most importantly, he wants to focus on the rule he said is hurting the state more than anything else.

"A vote for me is a vote to get rid of the two-thirds majority, and I won't do anything until the Legislature figures out how to do that, which means I will be impeached," he said. "California is like the world - you can't get two-thirds of people to agree on something. Do you agree with yourself two-thirds of the time?"

TUCKER NICHOLS "ARTIST TO WATCH" IN FEBRUARY ISSUE OF ARTNEWS

2010-02-06T12:08:00.000-08:00

Wake Up and See the Coffeepot

BY KENNETH BAKER
February 2010 ARTnews
Kenneth Baker is art critic for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Vistors could be forgiven for overlooking the centerpiece of Tucker Nichols’s solo show last fall at Gallery 16 in San Francisco. Those who knew his work may have recognized the artist’s hand in the wayward blue verticals running up an 11-by-
30-foot wall; for others the wallpaper, which he made, may
have faded into the background. But creating work that might
go unnoticed is one of Nichols’s hallmarks.
The wallpaper design began as a small brush-and-ink
drawing. “They scanned it at some ungodly number of dots per
inch. I’m not really a fan of anything digital, but these details,”
he says, pointing to the fine mottling of the enlarged ink
strokes, “are the pores of the paper and the way the ink set-
tled into them or not.” Looking at the work with an air of won-
der, he adds, “I start to see things I just can’t believe. I just
can’t imagine what motion of my hand produced that mark.”
Nichols has a diverse practice that includes an ongoing
mail-art project (anonymouspostcard.org) and quirky sculp-
tural interventions in public spaces, like the work he made in
2008 as the first ever artist-in-residence-at-large at the de
Young Museum in San Francisco. “We gave him a staff badge
and let him go to freely do things like wrap harmless tape
around everyday things such as trees, garbage cans, orange
construction cones, chairs, light posts,” explains Renee Bal-
docchi, the museum’s coordinator of public programs. “Many
visitors would do double takes. Most couldn’t understand
why he was fascinated with such utilitarian objects.”
The Gallery 16 show emphasized paintings and drawings,
which Nichols executes with a casual, intuitive scrawl. The
wallpaper suited this exhibition because so much of the im-
agery there held a sense of domestic intimacy: a cup, a glass,
a teapot, a trophy, a scoop of ice cream. “While putting to-
gether this show, I realized that everything I was making was
really about one kind of thing that has some weight to it,” the
artist says. “There’s a part of me that is trying to use the
choices I make about the banal sorts of things I like to paint
and draw to sort out my relationship with everything else in
the world.” With a note of perplexity in his voice, he asks,
“What isall this stuff? If I can get on top of it, maybe I can
feel a little more comfortable with it all.”
Nichols, 39, a Boston native, has drawn prolifically all his
life, but took a long detour into Chinese art history, earning
degrees in the field from Brown and Yale before renouncing
the academic for the artistic life. He began showing his work
only in the past decade. In addition to Gallery 16, ZieherSmith
in New York represents him; it will host a show of recent work
in June. (His prices range from $1,000, for small drawings, to
$15,000, for larger installations.)
Nichols’s search for a way to cope with the culture of over-
supply springs from his own habits. “I’m addicted to the Inter-
net, bombarded with messages; I read tons of news,” he says.
“I guess the literal way of working that out would be to draw
newspapers, cell phones, and such.” But the humble mementos
pictured in his recent work feel more like the kinds of things
that “somebody once thought mattered. The idea of these
things having lost all those associations kind of appealed to
me—the idea that all the stuff people are trying to push on us
now is ultimately going to look something like this.”

2010-01-10T09:31:00.000-08:00

ARTS

When a Word’s Look Counted as Much as Its Meaning

A view of the 'Emigre' exhibition at Gallery 16 is flanked by Rudy VanderLans's design work for Emigre magazine, now defunct.

By CHLOE VELTMAN
Published: January 9, 2010

Typography is ubiquitous. A world without letters, numerals and symbols designed by skillful font makers would consist of boring billboards, pages and street signs. Yet unlike other forms of applied design, typography remains an obscure and little-understood field. When buildings are constructed, they make news. A new font barely registers in the public consciousness.

In the 1980s and ’90s, however, the Bay Area was at the forefront of a movement to change this reality. The work of the graphic design company Emigre, based in Berkeley, is the focus of an exhibition of artwork and artifacts at Gallery 16 in San Francisco. An accompanying book, “Emigre No. 70: The Look Back Issue — Celebrating 25 Years in Graphic Design,” further stresses the efforts of a group of graphic designers (mainly locals) to elevate design in general — and typography in particular — to an art form.

But over the years, frictions between the forces of art and commerce have hindered Emigre’s cause. In today’s environment, where fonts can be created and replicated by anyone with a personal computer (United States copyright law does not extend protection to typeface design), the idea that a font can be an objet d’art in its own right seems like a utopian reverie.

“Emigre was born out of a ‘digital dream,’ ” the graphic designer Erik Adigard, based in Sausalito, wrote in an e-mail message. “But it was short-lived. Emigre is history, even if still somewhat of a cult.”

Yet the marriage between a font’s beauty of form and the context in which it is employed is what makes the written word jump off the page. In striving to demonstrate this truth, Emigre deserves our attention.

Founded in 1984 by the husband-and-wife team of Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko, Emigre was influential on the graphic design scene in the ’80s and ’90s. This was partly because of the company’s magazine, also called Emigre. First a quarterly and later a seminannual, it featured innovative typefaces and posters; eye-catching photography; offbeat profiles of writers and artists; and wide-ranging critical essays on subjects like the Bauhaus movement and the legibility of fonts. Although the magazine no longer exists, Emigre still operates as a font foundry; its library houses more than 300 typefaces.

From 1984 to 2005, Emigre magazine achieved cult status. With their unconventional and striking use of fonts, publications like Wired and McSweeney’s, both based in San Francisco, owe it a debt. In 2006 the Museum of Modern Art in New York acquired the entire Emigre magazine canon for its permanent design collection, and put the magazines on display for a year.

“For me, like many others galvanized by graphic design during Emigre’s heyday, the magazine was the most consistently interesting design publication produced anywhere by anyone,” the design journalist Rick Poynor wrote in 2005.

Emigre chronicled a revolution in typography that went hand in hand with the birth of the personal computer, which brought new methods for creating type. (It’s perhaps no accident that Emigre and the Macintosh computer made their debuts in the same year.) The transformation also ran in tandem with the rise of postmodern theories then popular in art schools concerning the aesthetics of utilitarian design.

Such ideas helped to free font design from the constraints of functionality. Possibly for the first time since the elaborate but often illegible opening capital letters of medieval illuminated manuscripts, font designers didn’t have to worry about readability and reproducibility.

Going beyond the no-nonsense look of archetypal typeface families like Times and Helvetica, designers in Emigre’s orbit, like John Hersey, Joachim Müller-Lancé and Ms. Licko, saw font design as a form of creative expression. With its thick-contoured, cartoonish forms, Mr. Hersey’s Blockhead typeface won’t be used for street signs anytime soon, but the fonts are eye-catching. The same could be said of Ms. Licko’s aggressive and angular Oblong typeface.

For all the theoretical debate and creative output inspired by Emigre, the font-as-art movement seems to be over. The commercial interests in the fast-paced digital age have reduced typeface design to cookie-cutter templates and formulas. Unbridled innovation has largely been supplanted by nostalgic exhibitions and commemorative books.

Emigre magazine’s demise may be symptomatic of the fact that it was primarily a showcase for the company’s fonts. Its journalistic endeavors often supported the founders’ business goals, as is evidenced by its numerous articles denouncing designer-unfriendly typeface copyright laws. But Griff Williams, owner and director of Gallery 16, wrote in an e-mail message: “For me, the lesson learned from Emigre is that business and art can coexist. The typeface business was a guise to deliver content in profoundly interesting ways. Not the other way around.”

Mr. VanderLans was grappling with the tension between art and commerce while publishing his magazine. “The entrepreneurial element, which is crucial to the existence of any subculture, avant-garde or underground work, is largely overlooked when assessing the work, because to most people, whenever the commercial aspects become prominent, it somehow taints the work and renders it less pure or authentic,” he wrote in Emigre in 1995. “Yet it’s difficult to imagine how any movement can operate without a concentrated effort to make money.”

“Emigre at Gallery 16” continues through Jan. 29 at 501 Third Street, San Francisco; (415) 626-7495, gallery16.com.

Emigre at G16 in SF Chronicle

2009-12-17T19:49:00.001-08:00

Don't miss: 'Emigre at Gallery 16'

Mary Eisenhart for SF Chronicle

Thursday, December 17, 2009

When Rudy VanderLans and Zuzana Licko launched Emigre, it was one of the first independent type foundries to take advantage of the Macintosh. Catching the creativity wave that ensued, the Berkeley house became a global leader in the design field, particularly with its self-titled magazine. This exhibition celebrates Emigre's 25th anniversary and the publication of a retrospective collection from the magazine.

Kenneth Baker reviews Tucker Nichols!

2009-11-22T19:23:00.001-08:00

Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle Sat Nov. 21

Can art be as easy as Tucker Nichols makes it look?

Maybe, in his hands. But bear in mind when you see his enjoyable show at Gallery 16 how much he benefits by historical circumstances not made by him and not evident in the exhibition.

A long line of self-effacing, even self-abasing art gestures stretches from early Dada days through Fluxus to the contemporary prizing of the slight and ephemeral above the grand statement and heroic artistic ego. Nichols finds himself working close to the spearhead of this progression.

When he uses found stones and a salvaged wooden stool to produce a counterpart to Constantin Brancusi's "The Kiss," of which Brancusi (1876-1957) made many versions, Nichols banks on an audience well informed enough to get the joke and the quotients of homage and apology in it. He could not anticipate such reception had not reproductions of Brancusi's work flooded the world long before.

Perhaps Nichols had the 2000 Sol LeWitt retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in mind when he devised the very limited edition wallpaper showing at Gallery 16 for the first time.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987) famously produced wallpaper blazoned with life-size fuchsia cows' heads on a mustard yellow ground. But Nichols' wallpaper - immensely magnified hand-brushed blue verticals, with drips, on a white ground - responds more directly to LeWitt's wall drawings.

LeWitt (1928-2007) took abstract drawing up to the scale of Jackson Pollock's paintings by doing it directly on the wall. But LeWitt deliberately downplayed touch and delegated to others the execution of most of his drawings.

Nichols' wallpaper magnifies his touch, which does not make it expressionistic, yet somehow produces an elevated feeling in the viewer. It is almost as if Nichols had unconsciously recollected Matisse's art at its most consoling through the screen of LeWitt's wall drawings.

The wallpaper offers the feeling of moving impossibly close to the relaxed caprices of the hand that Nichols' small paintings, drawings and inscriptions display.

TUCKER NICHOLS AT GALLERY 16

2009-10-30T18:40:00.000-07:00

November 6 - December 11, 2009

Opening reception on Friday November 6

from 6 - 9pm

We are really excited to present our second solo exhibition of artist Tucker Nichols. Tucker will be presenting new drawings, sculpture, text pieces, and his first line of experimental wallpaper.

"We each find our own strategies to cope with the growing deluge of information--I use drawing as a filter. This is the stuff that gets through, vague representations of items on display: buildings and found text and rocks and the like. It's therapeutic to picture a world where these are the things we leave behind."

San Francisco Chronicle critic Kenneth Baker wrote, "Nichols has made himself into a necessary visual poet of our tension-ridden moment."

San Francisco Examiner writer Tiffany Maleshefski wrote, "Simple, childlike, Nichols’ brand of drawing is the kind that causes critics of modern art to loathe the genre even more."

His work has been featured at the Drawing Center and John Connelly Presents in New York, and Rocket Gallery in Tokyo. His drawings have been published in McSweeney's, J&L Books, The Thing, and the Op-Ed pages of The New York Times. He was recently commissioned by the de Young Museum in San Francisco to be its first roving artist-in-residence.

Tucker is the creator of the Anonymous Postcard

PBS Documentary on Rex Ray

2009-10-16T19:11:00.000-07:00

Please join us Friday evening, October 23rd, 6:30-9PM for a very special screening of the new PBS Documentary "How To Make A Rex Ray." The first screening will be at 7PM, and the second at 8PM.

No other contemporary artist has mastered the handcrafted aesthetic of fine art while pushing the limits of graphic design as Rex Ray. This celebrated artist takes us on a tour, from his hometown in Colorado Springs to his glorious live/work studio space in San Francisco, showing us the magic of his artistic process and everyday practice.

Whether he’s creating a painting or donating a graphic design for a Smart Car, Rex Ray is continually reinventing a language that speaks in both worlds of art and computer graphics. Cutting, pasting, gluing, painting, collaging, installing—not since The Mystery of Picasso has a documentary captured the grace and handiwork of an artist as casual and sophisticated as Rex Ray.

Raised in Colorado Springs, Rex Ray moved to San Francisco in 1981. He established himself as a premier graphic designer in the US with groundbreaking work on book covers, CD packages, and rock and roll posters. His work has been featured at SF MoMA, Gotham in London, University Art Museum at Berkeley, The Crocker Museum in Sacramento, Gallery 16 in San Francisco. His first major solo museum exhibition opened in 2009 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver.

Colorado Public Television - KBDI PBS presents "REX RAY: How To Make a Rex Ray." Producer/Director Joshua V. Hassel with Videographer/Editor Adam Reynolds /Acentric Video; Music Matmos, courtesy of Matador Records.

SOUL/FOOD

2009-10-13T17:23:00.000-07:00

On behalf of Tommy Guerrero, Marc Capelle, Griff Williams and the SF Food Bank, we would like to THANK EVERYONE for helping us realize the first quarterly music series inSan Francisco, designed to support some of our favorite local non-profits and their amazing work. Your attendance, energy

and enthusiasm made for a very special and fun evening!

Thanks to your very generous support and donations, the SOUL/FOOD! Music Spectacular, featuring live performances from Tommy Guerrero, Marc & The Casuals, Ron Silva & The Monarchs, and Special Guests, successfully raised 3K for the San Francisco Food Bank.

Very special thanks to all the incredible musicians and disc jockey Chas Gaudi; Stephen Parr of Oddball Film+Video for the rare film treasures; Owsley Brown + Josh Metz of the Magnanimus Wine Group and Bryan Whalen + Steve Nilsen of Pabst Blue Ribbon for their generous donations, and to all the Volunteers who helped make this event possible.

We are looking forward to round two, so stay tuned

SOUL/FOOD

2009-09-26T08:55:00.000-07:00

Tommy Guerrero, Marc Capelle and Griff Williams started kicking around the idea of creating a new quarterly music series in San Francisco, that would raise money for some of our favorite local charities. The result of these beer/brainstorming sessions is SOUL/FOOD! The first will be a Soul/R&B Music Spectacular featuring live performances from Tommy Guerrero, Marc & The Casuals, Ron Silva & The Monarchs, and Special Guests. The proceeds going to the San Francisco Food Bank.

Disk Jockey Chas Gaudi spinning 45s. We've also enlisted the help of Stephen Parr of Oddball films who will screen a treasure trove of rare 16mm films of James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and many more. A special thank you to Mendocino Farms for helping making this event possible.

Friday, October 2, 2009 from 7-11pm. $10 donation at the door. Gallery 16, 501 Third St 415 626 7495. griff@gallery16.com

Jim Carroll August 1, 1950 – September 11, 2009

2009-09-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

"When I say I "fucked up," what I mean is that I'm sitting here watching the NBA All-Star Game on TV and I'm watching guys I used to seriously abuse on the court scoring in double figures now against the best in the game. Ergo, I fucked it up. I should have stayed an athlete, body well-tuned, cruising around with my accountant in a Porsche, maroon and chrome. More important, with basketball there's always only one direction: to the cylinder on the fiberglass rectangle. And you don't have to aim. If you do, you're off.

Poetry has too many variations. Mr. Frost was right about one thing: there are always promises to keep, and variations on that theme. With basketball you can correct your own mistakes, immediately and beautifully, in midair.

Oropallo Book Signing and Print Release

2009-09-16T20:45:00.001-07:00

Please join Gallery 16 to celebrate the release of three new editions
by Deborah Oropallo as well as the release of Deborah's new book entitled POMP, published by Gallery 16 Editions. We will host a special release party and book signing with the artist on Thursday evening, September 24th from 6-8PM.

POMP is a survey of Oropallo's last two bodies of work. It includes the acclaimedGuise series of prints published by Gallery 16 Editions and premiered at the DeYoung Museum in 2007 as well as the most recent series, Wild Wild West.POMP contains 64 pages of beautiful color reproductions of Deborah's work along with an essay by Nick Stone and an interview with the artist. Nick Stone will also be in attendance for the book signing.

REX RAY at Gallery 16

2009-08-18T12:59:00.000-07:00

Rex Ray at Gallery 16

September 11-October 31, 2009

Opening reception for the artist September 11 from 6-9 pm.

Gallery 16 is pleased to present its sixth solo exhibition with San Francisco luminary Rex Ray. As a fine artist, Rex Ray works in a wide range of media, including painting, collage, print and photography. His dynamic and immediately recognizable collages grew out of the simple pleasure of cutting shapes from magazine pages. His work has grown into an increasingly complex process involving printmaking, painting and collage in an inspired adaptation of twentieth-century Modernism.

Cydney Payton, former director of Denver's MCA, describes Ray’s work: "It exudes beauty with a subversive edge that stems from an attitude grounded in alternative subculture. He was an early admirer of punk and new wave music. Music holds a special place in his life. He has worked with leading contemporary musicians, contributing designs for many album covers and concert posters for artists such as Radiohead, Björk, Nine Inch Nails and David Bowie. Drawing inspiration from his acknowledged influences— organic and hard-edged abstraction, pattern and textile design, and Op Art—Ray playfully combines these formalist concepts, gracefully bridging the gap between fine and applied art..."

A new PBS documentary about the artist "How To Make A Rex Ray" will be premiered at Gallery 16 during the exhibition.

Rex Ray was born in Germany in 1956. He lives and works in San Francisco’s Mission District. His paintings, collages, and designs have been widely exhibited at galleries and museums internationally.

For additional information, please contact Vanessa at Gallery 16, 415.626.7495 or email vanessa@gallery16.com.

Deborah Oropallo's new book!

2009-07-13T14:01:00.000-07:00

Gallery 16 has just finished production on a new book by Deborah Oropallo entitled "POMP". The book is a survey of Oropallo's last two bodies of work. It includes the acclaimed Guise series of prints published by Gallery 16 Editions and premiered at the DeYoung Museum in 2007. POMP contains 64 pages of beautiful color reproduction of Deborah's work along with essay by Nick Stone and an interview with the artist. To purchase copies of the book contact Gallery 16 415 626 7495 or vanessa@gallery16.com

Bill by Bill Berkson and Colter Jacobsen

2009-06-11T10:10:00.000-07:00

Review by
Jason Morris
for Bigbridge.org

BILL, a seemingly effortless collaboration between Bill Berkson and Colter Jacobsen, is profoundly strange each time you open it. Immediately it struck me as something that had resurfaced: its cover—a beaten-up manilla folder with the word "BILL" written casually and matter-of-factly in Sharpie, also bears a gorgeous and subtle drawing of an astronaut, or maybe a sailor. Some figure with a space helmet or a diving bell on, prepared to rediscover a lost place.

As both Berkson and Jacobsen explain in their afterwords, BILL was, in fact, lost for a long while. Sometime around 1980, Tom Veitch gave Berkson a young-adult detective novel called Bill, from which he then worked much of the dry, crackling language in the book Gallery 16 just released in a beautiful hardcover edition. For twenty some-odd years, the manuscript had just mellowed in a drawer. Colter writes, in his afterword, that Bill Berkson sent him the manuscript "out of the blue," after their mutual friend Mac McGinnes (to whom BILL is dedicated) suggested that Colter provide artwork to accompany the words.

Similarities between Jacobsen's artwork and Berkson's lines shift and resurface, too, as though the images had long ago accompanied the text; the pairings seem like they'd been lost, only now to be magically realigned. However the book coolly resists allowing the two elements—the verbal and the visual—to ever entirely cohere. The images float above the lines, inviting a correspondence that's consistently fresh with interference. Which is what makes the book so pleasantly weird each time you go through it. It's a mystery novel for kids that's been chopped up and lost, a book that's resurfaced bearing its erasures whole.

Jacobsen's artwork is taken, as he writes in his afterword, from a couple of collections of old postcards he then rendered, gorgeously, in graphite. The translation, from faded black and white photos to subtly realized pencil drawings, not only retains the old ghostliness of the originals, but also suggests that the earasures and blank spaces of the drawings are proper to the postcards themselves. Gorgeously detailed but mutely refusing to yield context, they're like elegant analog recordings of 78s, with all the tape hiss and ambient noise intact.

Initially, Jacobsen's work will amaze you with its sheer technical capacity. The drawings are assured and solid, somehow both meticulous and off-hand. When you look at them closely, a number of Colter's fascinations come through, too: symmetry and the pairing of twinned things, plus a casually sophisticated variation on composition (check out all the W's).

Bill Berkson's writing often takes its cues from artwork, so it's interesting to see the reverse, where drawings illuminate his words. In crisp, droll language unscrolling at the bottom of each page, we watch a hidden story take place. Doubly hidden, in a way, insofar as we're reading fragments of a detective story. It's sort of like a Hardy Boys installment guest-authored by Beckett. The good humor abides, clipped and terse, and the darker elements suggest a little nastiness to the Secret of the Old Mill or the Short-Wave Mystery. Pieces of language float up to the bottom of the page as if through a dream, buoyed by an outmoded familiarity: "Bill was feeling his biceps. 'Tomorrow we're going to have a life-and-death struggle!"' Below a drawing of trapeeze swingers extended out into the empty space of the page in a kind of V, the line, "Of course there were some risks involved, but a detective must take risks. If he didn't want to do that, he might just as well run a hot-dog stand." There's a musicality to a lot of the lines that's probably impossible for a poet as masterful as Bill Berkson to hide: "the door fell with a dull thud." Berkson's poetry fires its synapses just beneath the stock language of a kid's detective book, creating a disjointed narrative of surprise.

This is a gorgeous book—a beautiful, slim hardback replete with sophisticated graphite drawings and mysterious blips of otherworldly language. It emerges with its lost and found aura to take its place beside Ashbery and Brainard's Vermont Notebook and Brainard's collaboration with Kenward Elmslie, The Champ, among others. BILL is a nonchalant triumph, a fresh classic.

More Alice Shaw in the News

2009-06-01T19:42:00.000-07:00

Artist as Subject, Curator, and Author

by Michelle Y. Hyun for ArtSlant

Auto(biography)

Gallery 16

501 3rd St., San Francisco, CA 94107

May 21, 2009 - June 27, 2009

Artist-curated exhibitions are a particularly interesting site of information and disinformation about the artist. Alice Shaw creates a prescribed path of viewing around the gallery in a trajectory that begins with what at first may appear to be a very self-indulgent series of work. It begins with a self-portrait, shot in a style similar to her previous identity-based work, and moves on to non-photographic work and documents created by others. Auto Portrait (2003) is followed by an exhibition statement, handwritten by the artist, hung in a diptych with a graphological (handwriting) analysis telling Shaw about her character and personality based on the lines, dots, and space in her writing. Consequently, these documents are followed by a handmade worksheet, Cursive Practice (2009), complete with dotted blue guidelines in which Shaw doesn’t quite fit the entire alphabet on one page.

The rest of the show follows in a humorous, associative manner, relying on wordplay and relating visual cues, making for a brief but fun exploration of Shaw’s conceived “autobiography.” A mysterious psychic reading appears to have been created on a typewriter and then redacted with black marker. This is followed by an astro-location reading, assessing the location of planets passing over the earth on the day of the Shaw’s birth and complete with suggestions by the astro-locationer of where Shaw would be most happy living. Following a list of disparate locations such as Hawaii, Sante Fe, Israel, and the western coasts of India and Australia, a diptych of Sea (2009) and Desert (2009) ties together the bisecting horizons of a blue ocean and brown desert in cyanotype and van dyke brown prints, respectively. Similarly, a block print palm reading filled with scrawled notes is followed by another diptych of “palm prints” of palm tree fronds in cyanotype and van dyke brown. To complete her series of call and response works, Shaw asked a synesthete to tell her what color he/she saw when hearing her name, “Alice.” The response to which is displayed in Colorfield #1 (2009), an 18 x 14 inch canvas painted over in dark gumball pink. Logically, or so thought in the artist’s mind, Colorfield #1 meets the Guessing Game (2009), a corner in which a gumball machine on a pedestal invites viewers to insert a penny and try to guess the color of their gumball before turning the knob. Although this author’s penny got stuck, one might hope that any or all the gumballs would come out pink – despite the rainbow variety seemingly possible inside the glass globe.

The next sequence of works appears to be a jocular pondering by the artist on her role as feminist or maybe just a female. Again, drawing upon puns and associations with femininity, Shaw shows us Colorfield #2 (a candid photo of the artist in a bright pink dress), Face Print of My Colors (2008) in makeup on paper, almost monochrome polaroids of the four seasons, a $10,000 envelope sealed with a kiss, Lacquer Painting (2009) made entirely with fingernail polish, and a photo of grocery store aisle sign listing off “Hosiery, Feminine Needs, Facial Tissue, Shampoo, Hair Care, Stationary, Magazines” in Feminine Needs (1997/2009).

The exploratory journey takes an interesting leap from here, though relating back to the colorfields, gumball machine, and monochrome prints. In A Portrait of the Artist at Work – 18% Grey, Shaw reminds us that she is a photographer. As only the third self-portrait in this autobiographical show, the artist is seen standing in a corner. In the photo, Shaw points at the intersection of two walls, one painted white and the other in 18% grey – a standard reference value against which photo light meters are calibrated. This is then followed by a sequence of “rainbows,” spray painted in black and white, depicted in as a water color palette, and then in makeup palettes staged along with q-tips and brushes on a wooden chair.

After rounding this second corner, (Auto)Biography leans again in the direction of the occult and mysticism. Premonition (2009) appears to be a rubbing of a headstone for “Alice Shaw,” which is then followed by an interesting group of works on three mini-shelves. The remnants of a tea leaf reading and a cigarette butt in a ceramic teacup on one shelf are flanked by two “daguerrotypes.” The Artist as Medium is an actual daguerrotype self-portrait, and Daguerrotype is an archival pigment print self-portrait. In both photos, Shaw wears a costume, of a gypsy and 19th century gentlewoman respectively, and both photos are presented preciously in book frames. One could spend several minutes creating multiple narratives about these two women and a tea leaf reading.

What follows thereafter seems to trail off and away from the artist as subject. Another series of diptychs play on words, media, and the word “medium.” Viewers who expected a truly autobiographical exhibition or deep insight into the artist may feel disappointed. Nevertheless, Shaw allays such concerns and wins us over with her light-hearted humor in a final sequence of works that seem to say “to be continued…” In What My Show Probably Should Have Looked Like (2009), Shaw depicts in graphite and collage the exact same corner of gallery space hung with two large “commercial fine art photographs.” Shaw then predicts the future in a crystal ball showing herself standing next to a shiny white truck parked in front of a stately white mansion in Prediction (2009). Her methods are never the stuff of magic tricks, as the crystal ball is simply just a photograph resting in between a glass ball and a red velveteen beanbag. Fittingly, (Auto)Biography concludes with six drawings from the Magic Tricks series, each of which reference Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland.” See Alice cut into three parts. See Alice in a mirror floating in midair. See Alice watch Mr. Rabbit disappear with a poof. See Mr. Rabbit reappear from the magic hat.

There is not any real conclusion when it comes to Alice Shaw’s (Auto)biography. Nor does the viewer come away with any better understanding of Shaw as a person. However, as an artist, Shaw has revealed a thought process, meandering through personal and universal associations, visual symbols, and the use of verbal puns, in a playful and interesting way. Shaw may have yet more to reveal through a post-medium practice, yet still as a photographer.

- Michelle Y. Hyun

IMAGE CREDITS:

Installation View
Show Statement, 2009, 8.5 x 11 inches
Handwriting Analysis, 2009, 8.5 x 11 inches

Installation View
Palm Reading, 2009, block printing ink on paper, 8.5 x 7
Palm Print – Cyanotype / Palm Print-Van Dyke, 2009, Spray paint on paper, 22 x 15 inches

Installation View
Color Field #1, 2009, acrylic on canvas, 18 x 14 inches
Guessing Game, 2009, gumball machine and gumballs, 12 x 7 x 7 inches
Color Field #2, 2009, 1 of 3, archival pigment print in plexi, 4.5 x 7 inches

Alice Shaw, Prediction, 2009, archival pigment print, bean bag, and glass ball, 9 x 9 x 5 inches.

All images courtesy of Gallery 16, San Francisco

Posted by Michelle Y. Hyun on 5/31 | tags: figurative abstract lan

Alice Shaw in the news

2009-05-22T10:53:00.000-07:00

Alice Shaw's new show (Auto) Biography was on the cover of the
SF Chronicles 96 Hours section on Thursday. Here is the story about
Alices project as it appeared.

'(Auto)Biography': The delicate art of identity

Kimberly Chun

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Palm readers and makeup artists, style-hopping dilettantes and spiritual mediums - San Francisco artist Alice Shaw is interested in constructing an identity from the information these know-it-all strangers have to offer in her new show at Gallery 16, "(Auto)Biography."

She's hired a handwriting analyst to dissect her show statement and then commented on that analysis with a work of her own. She's gotten a makeover and then made an imprint of this painted face. And she's had her name taken apart by a synesthete before photographing herself in her moniker's hot pink hues. In the process, last week, the Mission District denizen appeared to be putting together the perfectly imperfect portrait of an artist as a skeptic - unwilling to settle on a medium or any one medium's intuitive/off-the-cuff interpretation.

"This is something I've had in my head for a long time," Shaw, 43, said. She was still putting together the pieces for the upcoming show. Works-in-progress were gathered on a small card table and settees around her Victorian parlor, which was also strewn with antiques and stuffed animals. "Showing with (gallery owner) Griff (Williams) at Gallery 16 is great because he gives you complete freedom - he doesn't know what I'm going to be doing at all! That's the best way."

Shaw appreciates this creative freedom. Coming from a family of artists - her father and mother are ceramicist Richard Shaw and painter-printmaker Martha Shaw, her grandfather was a Disney cartoonist, and her brother is singer-songwriter Virgil Shaw - she's a maker who has "dabbled in a lot of different things."

Wordplay and teasing out the real from the unreal are factors she's toying with, as well as ideas revolving around doubled or mirrored selves - notions that popped up in her book, "People Who Look Like Me," and her 2007 solo exhibit, "Alice Shaw: A Group Show," also at Gallery 16.

The San Francisco Art Institute instructor was also provoked by those complicated yet all-too-easy fabrications facilitated by digital media. "I think a lot about how digital photography has created this society of skeptics," Shaw observed, "because you look at things and think, 'Well, I don't know if that's been changed or not.' " But rather than bemoaning the switch, the artist is taking notes from digital media's fake-book, making, say, faux salt prints and punning on the form visually by depicting "positive" and "negative" salt shaker images. "Sometimes," she said with a chortle, "I take things way too literally."

Reception today. Through July 3. Gallery 16, 501 Third St., S.F. (415) 626-7495. www.gallery16.com. - Kimberly Chun, 96hours@sfchronicle.com

This article appeared on page F - 12 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Alice Shaw at G16

2009-05-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

Opening Reception before Memorial Day Weekend.
THURSDAY MAY 21, 6-9PM
MUSIC by Joel Murach

Gallery 16 is pleased to welcome back Alice Shaw for her third solo exhibition at the gallery.

Alice Shaw is back at G16 for her third solo show at the gallery! As anyone familiar with Alice's work can attest, she never disappoints.

In her upcoming exhibition entitled (Auto)biography, Alice Shaw has employed others, such as a handwriting analyst and a psychic, to tell her information about herself that she may not have been aware of. She has taken what she has learned from these sessions and made artwork in response to this new knowledge.

For this show, Shaw, primarily known as a photographer, has also used painting, printmaking, drawing, and other media to illustrate her responses. Shaw looks at the theory that 'digital photography is more closely akin to painting than traditional photographic techniques because of its malleability.' She also believes that the digital arts has created a 'society of skeptics.' Auto(biography) sets out to satisfy these skeptics, and suggests 'we should not always believe what we see.'

As many already know, G16 is in love the whole Shaw clan. Alice is the daughter of renown bay area sculptor Richard Shaw and brother to musician Virgil Shaw. If you don't own a copy of Virgil's "Still Falling", go buy it!
http://www.amazon.com/Still-Falling-Virgil-Shaw/dp/B000083MGL

Baker vs. Killian

2009-05-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite aspects of artmaking is the discourse that inevitably follows the artworks completion. Yes, I know that much of what gets created never makes so much as a ripple of critical attention. But, Bruno Fazzolari's recent show at Gallery 16 yielded two very different view points. The first was the noted SF Chronicle critic Kenneth Baker's review in the Saturday May 2 edition of the newspaper. The other was penned for SFMOMA's Open Space blog by Kevin Killian, noted playwright and novelist. While these two reviews are very different in intent and tone, it started me longing for more real-time battles of opinion in art criticism.

Here's to hoping for more art critical lucha libre!
The two reviews for your indulgence.

Kenneth Baker (courtesy of the San Francisco Chronicle),

Fazzolari at 16: Bruno Fazzolari's paintings and drawings at Gallery 16 present connected problems that I do not encounter often. His work leaves me equally unsure of how seriously to take it and of how to take it seriously.

Consider the painting "Griefly Thurible" (2009). Should we regard it as unfinished or as effectively unbegun? The forms and gestures in it seem both rehearsed and relaxed to the point of abandonment from lassitude. What might count as allusions - to Philip Guston's late manner, for instance - never quite congeal.

Yet nearly every piece on view evokes volleys of inner disputation that conclude with manifest decisions unintelligible to anyone else. Only a symptomatic trail of ambivalence remains.

To learn that Fazzolari has adapted certain forms and marks from comics and other vernacular illustration only makes us wonder whether we have mistaken his report of a cultural condition for peculiarities of his own temperament.

Fazzolari has given his ongoing series of ink drawings the title "Six Realms." It echoes the Buddhist notion of the six realms of being into which karma may cause a soul to be reborn, but even the Buddhist spiritual vision takes on a comic-book bizarreness from the perspective of contemporary pop culture's cynical materialism.

Fazzolari's work exemplifies the surprising and not necessarily likable forms that sophistication takes in contemporary art.

Opening and Closing by Kevin Killian

Over the weekend I finally got over to Gallery 16 to see the last week of Bruno Fazzolari’s exhibition Cold Turkey, a selection of drawings broken up by six recent paintings. This is the last week you can see it, so get down there if you can. As you probably know, the Gallery is only a few blocks from SF MOMA, at Bryant and Third, and if you haven’t been there it is one of the pleasantest places I know with always plenty to see. This time around Fazzolari‘s show is a winner indeed.

The drawings come from a series called “Six Realms” on which the artist has been working for many years; apparently there are dozens of them. I took the traditional gallery walk, with a map in my hand of what I was seeing, and proceeded from left to right, an arrangement that usually adds no meaning, only the comfort of habit. This time around however, I convinced myself I was catching something happening in those drawings, that I was seeing them progress from simple gestures towards more complex renditions of the social world. From the self — even the self of the young child — to perhaps the loss of that self within the increasingly organized and globalized state. I looked again — made the circle one more time — and by George, I was so pleased with myself!

Nowhere did I manage to agree with even a single word of Kenneth Baker’s review — but wait. I can imagine a few of my readers don’t know who Baker is, but he is the highly respected art writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. He’s been at his post so long that when I first came to San Francisco and I was gullible, someone told me, and I believed it for a time, that he was the man they named the phrase “a baker’s dozen” after. (Boy did I feel like a fool when I told someone that, and they proved that the phrase was established in, I don’t know, the era of Chaucer!) Cold Turkey seems to have flickered simultaneous off and on switches in Ken Baker. Like Gerald Manley Hopkins or someone, Baker is nearly impossible to summarize, but you can read for yourself the review that made me so curious. The particular picture that gives KB so much trouble, “Griefly Thurible” (2009) is, for my money, utterly convincing and never brought late Guston to my mind, but to get there I would really have to have more art training I suppose. If the work in the show is guilty of too much “sophistication,” I, suspiciously, tend to embrace it.

What does the title mean? I asked Fazzolari. “Cold Turkey,” he explains, “is a phrase which has been on my mind for awhile–I like phrases which slip away from their literal referents, but double back on them. Several other reasons why: It refers back to my food work (which I don’t do anymore); to the free-fall of the economy; to the fact that it’s my first show in 8 years; to a state of naked awareness–bracing perception without crutches–before you recognize/decide what you’re seeing. Then I asked him if he had heard about the new movie coming out by the makers of Borat. It’s called Bruno, and I suggested it would give his name new currency. His face grew dark with fear, then he lightened up. “Growing up in Tucson, Arizona, with a name like Bruno was a challenge,” he laughed. “And just when I’d outgrown the taunts now here comes Sacha Baron Cohen to finish me off.”

Rex Ray at MCA Denver

2009-05-08T13:52:00.000-07:00

A new video prepared by the MCA Denver of his
current solo show! Watch out for the upcoming
PBS Documentary about Rex's work!

Darren Waterston + Silversun Pickups

2009-04-26T15:55:00.000-07:00

The new Silversun Pickups album "Swoon" features the prints from
Darren Waterston/Gallery16 Editions portfolio "The Flowering".
The Silversun Pickups are currently on tour.

Darren Waterston in SF Chronicle

2009-04-26T15:41:00.000-07:00

Waterston's Big Artistic Gamble Pays off
Kenneth Baker, San Francisco Chronicle

Saturday, April 25, 2009

The art public has accepted installation too uncritically as an open-form mode of invention. Masterly examples by artists such as Dan Flavin (1933-96), Joseph Beuys (1921-86), Jannis Kounellis and Barry Le Va have unintentionally paved the way for all sorts of slack, self-indulgent production by others.

So San Francisco painter Darren Waterston risked a lot when he set out to create at Stanford's Cantor Center his own version of a Victorian "mourning parlor."

In it, he daringly mingles his own paintings and watercolors with relics of the university and of its founding family. Any note of flippancy or false feeling might have poisoned the whole affair.

Extremes meet here: the Victorian obsession with remembrance of the dead, with its class-conditioned overt display of grief, and contemporary culture's instructions to "get over it" and indulge our instinctive wish to deny mortality.

When 15-year-old Leland Stanford Jr. died of typhoid fever in Florence, Italy, his parents embarked on an eight-month procession of mourning that made headlines and culminated in the founding of Stanford University in the boy's memory.

Of course, we continue to profess and feel sympathy for anyone whose children die, especially when they die young. But we regard as pathological the immersion in grief expected of privileged Victorians, particularly women.

Waterston does not take sides. He merely sets up the polarity of attitudes, challenging us to position ourselves within it, hence the aptness of the installation mode, which makes positioning an issue on one or more levels.

Some visitors may accuse Waterston of morbidity or disrespect for including the plaster death mask of young Leland. But the object paradoxically reanimates a representational literalism that to us seems artistically bankrupt. Perhaps postmodernism's ironic and embittered treatment of representation in art disguises unarticulated fears of its magic.

Waterston has designed his own woodblock-printed black-on-brown wallpaper, incorporating butterflies and an owl motif based on a taxidermied owl in the Stanford family collection. Like a spreading stain, some 3,000 synthetic black morphos butterflies adorn the ceiling above a circular padded bench.

Yielding to the cushioned bench's implicit invitation to sit and contemplate Leland Jr.'s exemplary death proves surprisingly hard to do.

Placing his own plainly anachronistic oil paintings in this environment must have given Waterston pause. For years, his paintings have evoked something of the strange unease that comes of recognizing oneself as a conscious organism. The setting of "Splendid Grief" heightens the paintings' reminiscence of the Victorian vogue for seances and belief in the individual's spirit as "ectoplasm" that might extrude itself from the body and even survive it.

Such notions lay closer to the historical origins of abstract painting in Europe than the Constructivist tradition acknowledges.

On an unpapered wall, Waterston has scattered family memorabilia, including contemporary and posthumous portraits of the deceased Leland Jr. He has interspersed these in the salon-style hanging with his own watercolors and ink drawings of motifs, invented and borrowed, evoking omens of death and dreams of its transcendence.

Waterston's Haines Gallery show in San Francisco contains new paintings and works on paper suffused with moods and aesthetic effects similar to those he orchestrates in "Splendid Grief." His mastery of fluid media is apparent in both shows, particularly in the haunting watercolors at Stanford and in grand paintings on panel at Haines, such as "Assumption" (2008).

We see too seldom the alignment of artistic difficulty with difficult issues and feelings that Waterston achieves in these concurrent shows. People who genuinely enter into them will not soon forget them.

Gallery 16 | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

2009-03-29T20:08:00.001-07:00

Gallery 16 | KQED Public Media for Northern CA

Posted using ShareThis

Bruno Fazzolari Cold Turkey at Gallery 16

2009-03-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

Gallery 16 is pleased to announce Cold Turkey, an exhibition of new work by Bruno Fazzolari.

Bruno Fazzolari's work reflects a keen interest in the uncanny, humorous and awkward features of vernacular and popular expression. His cross disciplinary practice has included sculpture, sound, performance and painting. Between 2004 and 2008 he produced Six Realms, a very large and diverse body of brush and ink drawings. The project explores and explodes the formal intersection of mark-making, gesture, abstraction and illusion through the conceits and tropes of comics, horror movies and graphic art. A selection of these drawings appeared in a book published by Feature, Inc. in 2007.

Cold Turkey will present a selection from Six Realms as well as several recent paintings.

He has shown with Feature, Inc., Gallery Paule Anglim, and Michael Kohn Gallery, and has been included in shows at the M.H. De Young Museum and the Katonah Museum of Art. His work has received attention in Artforum, Art in America, the New Yorker, Art Papers, the San Francisco Chronicle and the New York Times. In 2001 he received a grant from the Art Council (now Artadia) in support of his studio practice.

He earned an MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1996 after graduating from U.C. Berkeley's Comparative Literature department with a focus on critical studies, French and Ancient Greek.

For additional information please contact Vanessa Blaikie at 415.626.7495 or vanessa@gallery16.com.

Futurefarmers Victory Garden 2008+ in the news!

2009-03-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

Marcia Tanner has written a synopsis of Futurefarmers Victory Garden project in the March issue of Art Ltd. The article can be viewed here:
http://www.artltdmag.com/index.php?subaction=showfull&id=1236297661&archive=&start_from=&ucat=28&

The article about the project in TIME magazine can be viewed here:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1826271,00.html

Amy Franceschini's book Victory Gardens 2007+ published by
Gallery 16 Editions can be purchased here:
http://www.gallery16.com/index.php?page=books

Amy Franceschini's Futurefarmers at Contemporary Museum Baltimore!

2009-03-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

Gallery 16 is pleased to announce Amy Franceschini's Futurefarmers solo show at the Contemporary Museum Baltimore March 26- August 2009. Congrats Amy!!

This Spring, the Contemporary Museum is proud to present Futurefarmers’ new project, The Reverse Ark: In the Wake, an exhibition that is part art installation, part community project, part learning platform developed around the concept of an “ark” as a site for preserving, exploring, and learning.

For the occasion of The Reverse Ark, the Contemporary will become stage for thought and action–a learning journey. An inventory of recycled materials will inhabit the gallery. Taken out of the waste stream, these limited resources will be the material from which a living laboratory will emerge – a vessel for inquiry and improvisation including workshops, lectures, video screenings and frameworks for reflection. Together we will build The Reverse Ark.

In the tradition of free schools, The Reverse Ark will invite us all to be students and teachers alike within a place of shared inquiry. Individuals must generate their own most vital questions and program their own education – an education that aims at generality rather than specialization.

With limited resources we will build together
We are all pupils
Let's dialate our senses and calibrate our knowledge
to be cast widely
awakening the tools of a public
The search and journey from peer to pier,
in the wake of history and the currents of future
discoveries we will ignite a learning curve
out to sea
come see!

Elliot Anderson "Equivalents"

2009-02-13T20:34:00.000-08:00

"The true mystery of the world is the visible, not the invisible."

Oscar Wilde

March will find a new body of work by Elliot Anderson at Gallery 16. “Equivalents.” is a new series of images that follows the direction set by Anderson’s “Averaged Landscapes,” shown at the deYoung Museum in 2007.

In this new work, Anderson questions the modernist notions set forth by Alfred Stieglitz in his seminal 1921 “Equivalents” series. By emphasizing abstract fields of light and clouds, Stieglitz evoked equivalents of subjective thoughts and emotions. Andy Grundberg said “The Equivalents" remain photography's most radical demonstration of faith in the existence of a reality behind and beyond that offered by the world of appearances.”

Anderson uses the Internet, the current repository for all digital snapshots, as his source material. “Inspired by Stieglitz’ work I began collecting snapshots of clouds and skies gathered from the web-searches on the Internet. Using software I designed I averaged together a selection of these images." Averaging is an algorithmic process that merges a series of images into one, creating a final image that is a composite of all those submitted to the software. Elliot's version of the Equivalents recast the meaning from the lone artists search for reality beyond appearances, to everyones search for it. His web searches use each anonymous photographers images to merge with the next creating a singular work from hundreds of sources. Anderson uses the formal subject of the sky, as Stieglitz did, but upsets the modernist vocabulary to grapple with the nature of Stieglitz's presumptions. By exploiting the increasingly communal aspects of technology, Anderson uses a modernist form to a conceptual end.

Another influence on this work is the aesthetic of the sky from Hudson River School paintings. The Hudson River School was a loosely affiliated group of 19th century painters who lived and worked in the Hudson River Valley in upstate New York. These artists were the first to truly represent the American Landscape. The vocabulary of their work included luminous and at time ominous skies through which they sought to evoke an emotional response to an idealized American wilderness.”

Rex Ray: I'm Done!

2009-02-13T15:34:00.000-08:00

On the evening of February 12th, we held an opening to congratulate Rex Ray on his upcoming solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. Visitors to Gallery 16 were treated to a special treat as Rex used the opportunity to complete paintings for the MCA in the gallery! Folks were able to witness the process Rex has developed to compose his unrelenting abstractions. He layers hand painted papers and cuts the biomorphic shapes freehand with an xacto blade. Most artists would balk at the idea of producing work in such a public setting, not Rex. He was relaxed conversational and gave the crowd a lesson in the power of saying yes! A video of the evening is below.

Rex Ray at Museum of Contemporary Art Denver

Curated by Cydney Payton

For Rex Ray, the joy of making and viewing art is his continuing motivation. Drawing inspiration from his acknowledged influences—the Arts and Crafts Movement, Abstract Expressionism, organic and hard-edged abstraction, pattern and textile design, and Op Art—Ray playfully combines these formalist concepts with decorators’ tips gleaned from lowbrow publications and sources of popular culture in his pursuit to create beautiful things. Gracefully bridging the gap between fine and applied art, he distinguishes himself in each realm.

As a fine artist, Rex Ray works in a wide range of media, including painting, collage, print works, and photography. His collages grew out of the simple pleasure of cutting shapes from magazine pages, assembling and gluing them to paper to create visually pleasing works that have since developed into sophisticated resin-covered panels. In his large-scale canvas paintings, like the one on view at MCA DENVER, he conceives abstracted landscapes from biomorphic shapes and distinct color combinations as a fresh adaptation of an aesthetic that sympathizes with twentieth-century Modernism.

Ray’s work exudes beauty with a subversive edge that stems from an attitude grounded in alternative subculture. He was an early admirer of punk and new wave music. Music holds a special place in his life. A former record store employee and devoted collector, he has worked with leading contemporary musicians, contributing designs for many album covers and concert posters for artists such as Radiohead, Björk, Nine Inch Nails, Deee-Lite, and David Bowie.

Rex Ray was born in Germany in 1956. He lives and works in San Francisco’s Mission District. Before moving to California in 1981, he was a longtime resident of Colorado Springs and he still maintains his connection to Colorado. In 1988, he received a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute, CA. His paintings, collages, and designs have been widely exhibited at galleries and museums, including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, CA, San Jose Museum of Modern Art, CA, and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA. He is an accomplished graphic designer with a client list that includes Apple, Sony Music, and The New Museum of Contemporary Art, New York, NY.

Rex Ray: It's finished when I'm done!

2009-01-30T15:24:00.000-08:00

For anyone who has followed Rex Ray's career and has been curious as to how these inspired abstractions are created, come watch him do it!

Rex is preparing for a solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver, which opens in March. He is currently in the studio finishing the artwork to be presented in the MCA show, including the largest painting of his career, an epic 9 x 25 foot canvas.

Gallery 16 has always been a place were artwork is not only exhibited, but created. Equal parts studio and gallery. So, in this spirit we asked Rex to finish the work for the MCA show at Gallery 16. We will host a very special event Thursday, February 12, 6-9 pm where guests will be able to enjoy music and cocktails and watch Rex work on the final stages of the 9x25 foot painting throughout the evening. Please RSVP to be part of this unique opportunity. vanessa@gallery16.com.

Presidential Inauguration

2009-01-28T21:20:00.001-08:00

Griff and his oldest son Keelan (13) traveled to Washington D.C. to be part of the inauguration of President Obama. It was one of the first times Griff has been back in D.C. since his father, Pat Williams, retired from Congress. Despite the massive crowds, the mood was exhilarating, supportive and thankful to be witness to a historic moment.

2009-01-28T21:07:00.000-08:00

The security lines began queuing up at 5 am in 27 degree temperature. Keelan is pictured outside the Rayburn House Office Building preparing for the 5 hour wait.

Darren Waterston's The Flowering

2009-01-28T20:31:00.000-08:00

Gallery 16 is thrilled to present the culmination of a year's work. Since early 2007, Gallery 16 has worked with San Francisco artist Darren Waterston, to produce The Flowering (The Fourfold Sense), a portfolio of thirteen original prints by Waterston, with original texts by writer and literary critic Tyrus Miller. The beautiful compositions employ traditional and contemporary print forms including relief printing, letterpress and digital pigment printing, as well as hand coloring by the artist. The title of the portfolio, The Flowering, alludes to the Fioretti, (The Little Flowers), a medieval anthology of stories about Saint Francis of Assisi and his followers, which emphasizes the fantastic, the miraculous, and the sensational aspects of the saint's life. The portfolio of prints and letterpress broadsides by Tyrus Miller feature vividly sensuous descriptions of Franciscan ordeals and miraculous cures.

In addition to the portfolio, five new original prints are presented. Each print is 40.5" x 28.5" and published in a signed and numbered edition of 20.

Waterston's paintings, watercolors and murals have been exhibited internationally and are included in many permanent collections, such as the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the UCLA Hammer Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Berkeley Art Museum, as well as the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

The complete portfolio can be viewed at www.gallery16.com