Title: Reconciling America: Miraculous Encounters with the Mundane
Dates: January 18 - March 15, 2008
Location: The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery (main gallery), 401 Van Ness Ave., SF, CA
Co-curated with Dana Hemenway, Joyce Grimm and Zefrey Throwell
Artists: JD Beltran & Sebastien Bachar, Dina Danish, Jennifer Durban, Richard Haley, Lyn Marie Kirby, Ellen Lake, Brendan Lott, Paul Mullins, Tucker Nichols, Julia Page and Zefrey Throwell.
The American archetype is rooted somewhere in anthems, slogans and amendments – yet under this big blanket where do the lives of average Americans fit in? Americans are born into the world and rush to grow up - all the while attempting to make sense of their lives through direct encounters and an ever-expanding glut of mediated experiences of the world. In our quest to understand and to be understood, new technologies have made it easier to record observations and create personal histories. This is evident in the countless home movies, scrapbooks, blogs and personal web pages created by average Americans. Alternatively, the history of art practice is deeply rooted in creating individual systems for understanding and documenting. Reconciling America reflects the varied strategies each selected artist employs when confronting their surroundings. Exhibited works range from painting to video to installation and actively demonstrate how the artists grapple with, or attempt to reconcile their relationships with America.
Established local filmmaker Lynn Marie Kirby’s documentary 34/400 (Standardized) Screen Tests features video portraits of adolescent boys and Jennifer Durban’s audio work, I Met my Dad on Friendster each frame and archive two fleeting yet pivotal transitions in life. While the passages reflected in these works are about intimate relationships to others, Richard Haley’s work is preoccupied with his relationship to nature, which is demonstrated in a panic-inducing video featuring the artist attempting to sink his handmade boat in time with the setting sun.
Dina Danish, a current CCA graduate student from Cairo, presents All My Life I Had to Fit Cheese on Toast; a video work that demonstrates a desire to understand what being an American means and how it is filtered and then translated through her personal experiences. Paul Mullins and Julia Page, both now residents of metropolitan areas, occupy their work with images of rural, or small town life. Mullins paints details that remain prominent in his memories of his youth in West Virginia, and Page pulls images from rural town newspapers that depict a new tradition of celebrating a child’s first hunting kill. Context and personal histories help us understand that what is indeed mundane in one location may read as sensational or quaint in another.
In order to understand contemporary identities and public perceptions the following artists look at the methods in which they are constructed. In her documentary video series featuring Bay Area residents, Ellen Lake focuses on the personalities and idiosyncratic behaviors of people who define themselves in relation to their obsessive collections – ranging from female action figures to rubber band balls to french fries. Local conceptual artist Brendan Lott examines the global implications of an identity created on the Internet. His project links Lime Wire images of American teenagers with master painters in China. JD Beltran documents her son Sebastien Bachar and how he interacts with the architecture of his world. Sebastian too uses the descriptive language of photography to document his four year old perspective.
In order to understand contemporary identities and public perceptions the following artists look at the methods in which they are constructed. In her documentary video series featuring Bay Area residents, Ellen Lake focuses on the personalities and idiosyncratic behaviors of people who define themselves in relation to their obsessive collections – ranging from female action figures to rubber band balls to french fries. Local conceptual artist Brendan Lott examines the global implications of an identity created on the Internet. His project links Lime Wire images of American teenagers with master painters in China. JD Beltran documents her son Sebastien Bachar and how he interacts with the architecture of his world. Sebastian too uses the descriptive language of photography to document his four year old perspective.
SPECIAL PROGRAM
About Frank Prattle Zefrey
Zefrey Throwell creates a radio forum for artists and arts professionals to discuss current trends and issues in art practice in front of a live audience. For this special edition of Frank Prattle Throwell will also feature civic luminaries as well as two special out-of-town guests - Adam Kleinman from the Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, and Sam Gould of the Portland, Oregon collective Red76. How to Listen In All interviews will take place at the SFAC Gallery located at 401 Van Ness, across from City Hall and are open and free to the public. Currently the most updated recordings can be found on the Frank Prattle website or they are available below. In addition, recorded interviews will be broadcast on San Francisco’s KPOO, 89.5 FM, and on New York-based WPS1.org Art Radio, a program of P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center.
Frank Prattle at the SFAC Gallery
Guest List : JD Beltran, Catharine Clark, Anne Colvin, Chris Cobb, Susanne Cockrell, Kate Eilertsen, Courtney Fink, Kenneth Foster, Matt Gonzalez, Sam Gould, Charles Guice, Hou Hanru, Jens Hoffmann, Colter Jacobsen, Mark Johnson, Lynn Marie Kirby, Adam Kleinman, Jill Miller, Ross Mirkarimi, Julio Cesar Morales, Paul Mullins, Julian Myers, Tucker Nichols, Renny Pritikin, Dina Pugh, Ted Purves, Jennifer Rissler, Jocelyn Saidenberg, Gary Sangster, Leslie Shows, Jessica Silverman, Margaret Tedesco, Liz Thomas, Anuradha Vikram, Dominic Willsdon
