Anna Conti and I saw a lot of art the day we went to the San Francisco galleries. In fact we saw so much art I’m kind of in a fog about it all. I have some postcards — and no notes or photos after Catharine Clark Gallery — so herein I will wing it. I remember we stopped in Gregory Lind Gallery. The man behind the desk was notable for being uniquely (in my experience) testy. But the show “Sometimes It Takes Ice to Cut Ice” with gouache drawings by Will Yackulic was very nice. Little ice cubes in what appear to be hand-made graph paper-type arrays, some of them referring to landscapes and others more abstract. Above is “Interior as Familiar to Some as Unknown by Others.” There are a lot of words and letters in various typefaces in the work and Conti wondered about that. I remember the gallerist gave us an answer to the question — the artist uses a typewriter and a letterpress. He wasn’t too thrilled with the question though.
Here’s Yackulic’s “Black Ice.” The show’s over now. I want to say the work’s obsessive, hand-made, forlorn aspect reminded me of what’s being made by many young artists. And while Yackulic’s aesthetic not at all the same, I want to put him in a show called “Lost, Oh, Lost,” together with work by Jennifer MacDonald and Jonathan Berger.
Speaking of lost, here’s where I get lost in space. I don’t have a clue what building we were in when we encountered these giant Viola Frey ceramic ladies. But they were such a delight to find and so perfectly placed in the hallway I just had to take a picture. See bigger.
We saw a show of 1970’s drawings and paintings by Joan Brown at Paule Anglim Gallery. That show’s up to Aug. 27 and I see that next up at Anglim is Louise Bourgeois. Sorry I’m going to miss that.
Brown’s works all had a fashion sensibility to them. I hadn’t realized that before. Shoes, clothes, cigarettes, fashionable posture — it all adds up to something a little Austin Powers on the Bay. For more about Brown check out this website.
Meyerovich Gallery had some great Richard Serra intaglio etchings. They curved this way and that and had textures like an asphalt road (Ask me about asphalt – my street just got repaved). They’re absolutely great.
Paired with Serra’s asphalt arcs were some Andy Warhol truck screenprints from the 1980s. A match made in heaven. I just about laughed out loud. Maybe I did?
George Krevsky Gallery had a show of Raphael Soyer prints and paintings. Soyer has a PAFA connection, which I guess I knew, and which the gallery attendant was happy to explain to us when she learned I was visiting from Philly. The museum-quality show was very good and is up til Sept. 10. The work looked WPA-ish and threw you right back to those days when men wore hats and stood in lines for bread and work. Those lines exist today. I see people queued up at soup kitchens on Arch St. behind the Convention Center and elsewhere. And I’ve heard of the random pickup points in cities across the country where undocumented immigrants sign up for day labor, no questions asked. Who’s documenting it?
Now for some SF ambiance
I said goodbye to Anna and met Steve and Stella and we headed back to the car for the trip back to Pacific Grove. Here’s something I thought was fun. A Wells Fargo bank near a sign that says Post. (Maybe Post St.). Wells Fargo? Post? It seemed to go together nicely in my mind. See bigger.
I brake for oddball signage. And while I’ve seen many signs for ped-xing or deer xing or even pig-xing, I’d never before seen one for senior-xing. See bigger.
I like the little SF Police three-wheeler creeping up on us. See bigger.
One thing about driving to or from San Francisco is that you notice all the low-lying cloud action. The clouds seem frisky and playful in the way that they hug the ground and play hide and seek behind signs. See bigger.
OK. That’s it for California and me. I was so fortunate to have met Anna Conti, a blogger who lives thousands of miles away and who is a real sweetie. That’s the fourth out of town blogger I’ve met in the real world after knowing them first as writers and/or writers and artists. (The others are Tyler Green, Mark Barry, Martin Bromirski). Pretty great group. Pretty nice folks.
