As we announced on the site the other day, Spanish street and fine artists, San and Escif, have been traveling with Upper Playground all around the West Coast, painting along the way, finding inspiration, and building a body of work that will be on display at our San Francisco gallery, FIFTY24SF, starting on June 30, 2011. They just sent us two images of a piece they finished in Death Valley, California.

Below, you can read our general announcement about the show, and a few words from both Escif and San about what the show will comprise of, and what their thinking is on the Upper Playground “See You in Croatan” road tour.

“We were taught in elementary school that the first settlements in North America failed; the colonists disappeared, leaving behind them only the cryptic message “Gone to Croatan”. The very first colony in the New World chose to renounce its contract with the Empire and go over to the Wild Men. They dropped out. They became ‘Indians,’ ‘went native,’ opted for chaos over the appalling miseries of serfing for the plutocrats and intellectuals of London” – TAZ, Hakim Bey

SAN FRANCISCO, CA [6.13.11] — FIFTY24SF Gallery presents “See you in Croatan” a road show by San & Escif opening on June 30th, 2011.

“See you in Croatan” is an experimental research project which will cross the lives and experiences of two friends in a random road trip across the west coast of the United States. As far away as possible from doctrines, imperialisms and linear reasoning. Searching for beauty in errors and fortuitous tools. Working with intuition and hazard; trying to light relations, transitions and processes; working with research as the way itself; understanding chaos as an ideal space for creation.

From Escif:

I’ve spent a few days thinking about the project, and about the way we are approaching it. The idea of generating a third language seems like it’s not working very well, at least not in a practical way. Certainly it is a path that should become stronger during the journey, but so far it has seemed to be more of an impediment than the correct path. We already knew that teamwork is very complex, but I think it is a lot harder when the roles on the team are not well established. Because then the fight between the two egos grow to see who is the one directing the movie (I´m thinking out loud) and its something that gets more complex when the two directors (you and I) have such different ways of working.

From San:

I completely understand what you say. I think we have to be practical, although we both like to navigate riskier terrain than we normally would on our own. Team work is hard, and even more so when obsessive perfectionists like us work together, each with our own story, but it is what it is. When I made the two drawings that I sent you, I always thought that what I was doing was twisting my work a little bit to get closer to a new “skin”, not so much trying to invent a third language. I think that´s exactly where the focus of the expo should be, in making an effort to get out of our safe zone and dig into something a little less personal, but using our powers, of course…

San and Escif’s Road Show blog: http://elterceroencuestion.blogspot.com/