El Mac Singapore from Viet Nam The World Tour on Vimeo.
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JEREMY FISH INTERPRETED BY RICO DENIRO SHOT BY ESTEVAN ORIOL
Opens Saturday, January 8th, 2011 at FIFTY24SF Gallery
Herbert Baglione at Lazarides - Found Super 8 Footage
Watch the super 8 footage of Herbert Baglione working on a wall at Lazarides Gallery.
Herbert Baglione - Lazarides Gallery from Upper Playground on Vimeo.
FIFTY24SF 2011 Gallery Lineup: Rico Deniro, INSA, KMNDZ, Escif, San, and Stussy/Stecyk/Adler
We are getting excited for 2011.
January: Rico Deniro
February: INSA
March: Shawn Stussy/C.R. Stecyk/ Thomas Adler group curated show
April-May: KMNDZ
June- July: Escif and SAN
Rico Deniro at FIFTY24 SF: January 2011
Artist Rico Deniro is the first gallery show at FIFTY24SF in San Francisco for us in 2011. The exhibition, Native Expatriots, is the first solo showing of Deniro’s wood-masks, handmade with master woodworkers in Mexico. More details to come. Photos by Estevan Oriol.
Art of the Anonymous
Photographs from unknown photographers have lined the walls of museums, been sold off at fine-art auctions for thousands and can be found collecting dust / old sunlight in alleys behind houses or in between the pages of a used book.
The appeal of a found-photograph is virtually universal- it appeals to the mysterious parts of our psyche, the voyeuristic and the imaginative. The snapshot aesthetic popularized by MoMA director of photography John Szarkowski and photographers Eggleston, Parr, Freidlander, Arbus and Winogrand in the mid-sixties relates immediately to these images for they are themselves “snapshots.” The main difference being that with found images, an artist’s name is stripped from the work- there is no resume / reputation for the image to fall on.
These images, then, are just that – images – taken by anonymous persons from the dawn of photography to its current state.
The first found-photograph I came across was in the pages of an Edna St. Vincent Millay book that I’d found in the street in San Francisco. The image was of a woman’s face staring directly into the camera of a photo-booth. Long an admirer of Millay, I soon found myself associating her work with this face- a photograph I imagine a woman or man used as a placeholder or bookmark. I remember inventing stories for that image, sifting through junk at several stores in order to find more images, more photographs.
Recently, whilst sifting through the detritus of a junk shop, I came across a photo-album several inches thick which chronicled in images the immigration of several generations of a family’s journey from Mexico into the United States. The pages begin in the ’40s, prints from the recently released “square-brownie” Kodak camera filling up the space in black and white; on other pages scattered collages of cyanotypes, photo-booth images caked in chemicals and small thin rectangular prints popularized at the time in the albumen process of different shades of brown and black. As each page is turned, the history not only of the family, but of photography is revealed casually, nonchalantly. The pages go from black and white to color- small square prints changing over the years to the now common 5 X 7 print taken on a point-and-shoot camera. Several scattered studio “star-shots” popular in the mid-nineties amongst adolescents and images printed on computer paper cut out and glued haphazardly occupy the last remaining pages of the album as an addendum- those images being the ones that have most deteriorated.
With digital photography proliferating rapidly- cameras miniature enough that they fit into pockets, cameras on phones and options obliterated / streamlined to the point where even a child can operate them- it makes one wonder what artifacts / documents will be left for one to find – if any – from this age or the future and in what form they will be.
The tangibility of a memory is what I used to characterize a photograph as. Now, it seems that the alleys of the future are those of the internet- abandoned web-sites or blogs that catalogue found images.
Here is a collection of the many-thousand photographs that I have acquired and accrued through my hoarding, collecting and archiving of strangers’ items.
- Jason Jaworski San Francisco, CA 2010
Kenta Torri at FIFTY24MX Gallery
Mexico City-based but Japanese born Kenta Torri is showing at FIFTY24MX Gallery with a solo show called Saiyuki Punk. The show inspired by the ancient Chinese story “Journey to the West” (the same that inspired Dragon Ball) in which the main character, the Monkey King, travels to the west to rescue some manuscripts. In this journey the characters fight in spiritual battles to reach illumination. Kenta reinterprets the story mixing traditional iconography with a contemporary punk aesthetics.
FIFTY24MX presents MiniMart and a new mural by Ericailcane
FIFTY24MX has curated an awesome collective show with original artwork and limited edition prints from more than 20 international and local artists – including Alex Pardee, Charles Glaubitz, Sam Flores, Rene Almanza, Saner and many more. The show opened last weekend and will be open until Sunday 19th Dec.
The location is a beautiful art noveau mansion in la Roma district, the young, bursting neighborhood of DF . Current FIFTY24SF artist, Ericailcane, made an amazing mural in the entrance and during the week there’s been several events: art documentaries projections, music concerts, multimedia art and lots of parties, tequila and wine. Tons of images of the work below, but to check the entire show, images and the catalogue. CLICK TO SEE THE REST
More Photo's from Herbert Baglione's "Ashes of our Time"
Other artists in this group show at Winterlong Gallerie in Niort, France include Guillaume Antzenberger, Samuel François, Renaud Combes.
SWOON AND UPPER PLAYGROUND RELEASE: THE ‘WALKI’ PRINT FOR THE KONBIT SHELTER PROJECT
New York based artist, Swoon, has teamed with us at Upper Playground, to release the limited edition Walki print - 100% of the proceeds from the print will go towards support of The Konbit Shelter Project.
The Konbit Shelter Project was created with the idea that a group of artists, engineers, architects and builders could pool their individual knowledge, resources and time to make a lasting difference in post-earthquake Haiti. Konbit Shelter is a rebuilding initiative, which uses dome-style structures and the super-adobe technique of earth bag architecture to create sustainable, inexpensive and dependable housing for the people of Haiti. While the structures are extremely resistant to natural disasters, they also have the major benefit of being comprised of 90% earth and requiring no specialized scaffolding and understructure to build – making it a viable option for the people of Haiti to continue building on their own once they learn the method.
At the center of this project has been NYC-based Swoon, whose intricate wheat-pastes and paper-cutouts have been seen on the walls of countless cities and galleries. While humanitarian architecture and street-based art that Swoon is known for appear to be vastly different mediums, the concepts behind them remain the same to her: “To bring things of beauty to people where they are, where they need it. To turn up where you are not expected to be, and to make everything out of love.”
During the summer of 2010, the team behind The Konbit Shelter Project traveled to the village of Bigones, Haiti with the goal of educating and employing the local residents while constructing a community center using this technique. Now, the team will be returning again on December 21st to begin construction on single family homes, and the sale ofSwoon’s Walki print will immediately go towards funding the construction of these homes.
The efforts of the individuals involved in The Konbit Shelter Project are an amazing example of people doing everything in their power to give back. While we who make up the general public don’t always have the time and resources to do incredible things like this on our own, it’s important that we support those who take it upon themselves to do what we can not – which is the idea behind the sale of Swoon’s Walki print.
The Walki print itself is an immediately touching portrait by Swoon of a boy named Walki who lives in the village of Bigones and spent time with the Konbit Shelter team at the community center building site this last summer. The print is made of a three-layer screenprint on handmade Indian jute paper measuring 13″ x 21″ and is limited at an edition of 300 – all proceeds from the sale will go towards support of the Konbit Shelter Project.
The print will only be on sale for a limited time until January 1st and is priced affordably at $125 so that as many people as possible can be involved with this unique project. The print is available exclusively online at the Upper Playground Web Store.
HERBERT BAGLIONE AT WINTERLONG GALERIE
Fresh photos from Winterlong Galerie in Niort, France of Herbert Baglione's new show.
KMNDZ on Creative Spaces
New El Mac Mural in Mexico
Past exhibiting artist and our good friend Mac, just painted this mural in Campeche, Mexico for the Seres Queridos project. Mac painted Manuel Lee Chang, known locally as "el Chino"(despite the fact that he's of Korean descent) with his Guacamaya (Macaw).
I thought this would be an interesting and important image to paint because it shows a blending of cultures. Anybody familiar with me or my work may have realized that this is an important theme for me. The Asian community in Mexico is not really that visible, and I thought it would be interesting to show Manuel with his Guacamaya, as these birds are very representative of that region. The photo at the end is from when Manuel, his bird, and his family came to see me goodbye at the airport, which I really appreciated.
Bruce Bacca Pop- Up Church Opening in the Pop-Up Gallery
Minimart from FIFTY24MX
Scott Caan, Jimmy Fallon, The Roots and Estevan Oriol
Saw Jimmy Fallon Friday night and FIFTY24SF past exhibiting photographer, Estevan Oriol got mentions by actor and photographer, Scott Caan about his portrait of Dennis Hopper, and a nod of approval from The Roots.
FIFTY24SF AND IMAGINARY FOUNDATION PRESENT “THE UNDIVIDED MIND”
The latest in our series of pop-up shops and experiences on Fillmore street is an installation by the good folks at Imaginary Foundation. The installation endeavors to fuse the aesthetic beauty of art and science in order to create a synthesis of mind, one which is as much rational as it is fantastic. Think of this undivided mind as a prototype of human possibility—an evolutionary signal of convergence, harmony, and accelerated progress.
The installation will open this Friday, November 19th at 248 Fillmore Street with a reception running from 7:30pm – 12midnight. Admission is free. Refreshments will be provided. And wine will be hosted by William White Wines. We’ll have more details over the next few days, but for more details check out the invite and RSVP.
Ericailcane in Bolinas
Opening Night photos from Ericailcane's "We Were Living in the Woods"
photos courtesy of Patrick Kawahara
Ericailcane's Printmaking photos
The prints have arrived and Ericailcane has shared with us some photos of them in the works. 7 different very low edition (editions of 4-20) prints will be available tonight at the opening and online tomorrow. A look at the process: