 Andy Vogt: Lath Dispersion, 2006 salvaged wood, 48 x 12 inches West Coast Windows Paul Allan, Brian Barneclo, Ryan Boyle, Charlie Callahan, Chris Corales, Crust & Dirt, Veronica DeJesus, Chris Duncan, Tara Foley, Robert Gutierrez, Eleanor Harwood, Colter Jacobsen, Jason Jagel, Xylor Jane, Patricia Kelly, Jeff Manson, Mars-1, Alicia McCarthy, Sean McFarland, Barry McGee, Jay Nelson, Hilary Pecis, Kyle Ranson, Clare Rojas, Brion Nuda Rosch, Jovi Schnell, Sarah Smith, Sara Thustra, Andy Vogt, Paul Wackers, Mary Elizabeth Yarbrough The psycho-geography of San Francisco leads one to a cubist-like mindset. From the hills to the valleys, the little city's landscape allows for subconscious challenges of fixed points of view, and the comprehension of the existence of multiple simultaneous perspectives. A short drive in any direction will take you to lush forests, vast deserts or mountain ranges. Each artist's response to his or her rich surroundings is personal and unique. The internal landscape, the external landscape, the landscape of experience, the future landscape, the object as landscape ... the artist as a window one can gaze at all these landscapes through. Our relationship to the land, our larger body, reflects what we are paying attention to. This is "West Coast Windows". This is a collection of art from the S. F. Bay Area that celebrates the world around us and invites you to look more closely at yours. The San Francisco Bay Area is located on the far western edge of the North American continent, but it is uniquely also situated on the far eastern edge of the Pacific tectonic plate. The resulting overlapping of these two energies creates a bubble or, if it were described in sacred geometry terms, a small "vesica pisces." The Pacific plate is one of our planet's main sources of expansion and the inhabitants of this area embody this potential for change in many ways. From politics to gender, the Bay Area has been a home to radical thinking, community based actions and freedom of expression. With an ocean of water on one side and an ocean of culture on the other, this metaphorical island seems to be one of the remaining testing grounds for utopian ways in an America that has fallen to vice. This country's initial potential for harmonious community transformed into manifest destiny, and our nation is still caught in the karmic wake of genocide and theft that scorched its way east to west. Looking at the last 200 years, the greatest artists to emerge from our culture are the corporate conglomerates. Their media teams paint vivid pictures of the landscape, where techniques like the Gallup Poll have replaced perspective in terms of conceptualizing space and defining landscape. Evocative moral lessons, once labored over in site-specific frescos, are now transmitted through the television, which serves as the altar where all receive communion and instructions on how to behave. The Green Evolution, which has been taking place in San Francisco for decades, operates on a much smaller and humbler scale. Art and community point back to nature for lessons to be learned by self. I always try to get a window seat on airplanes. The oval portal crops the vast landscape into temporary compositions of curves, colors, depth, and pattern. Looking at my hands I notice the mountain ridges in my fingertips. This is body of earth I fly over, and like every living organism there are channels of energy hidden below. The surface shifts and grows too slowly for most of us to experience in one lifetime, but there are several coordinates where the awareness of change is heightened. The work in this show reflects a moment in time of looking at our ever-changing surroundings. A glimpse before it's gone. Curated by Oliver Halsman Rosenberg. Exhibition: June 2 - July 22, 2006 Gallery hours: Wed-Sat 11 am - 6 pm (Summer gallery hours), and by appointment Samson Projects 450 Harrison Avenue Storefront 63 USA-Boston, MA 02118 Telephone +1 617 357 7177 Fax +1 617 357 5559 Email samson@samsonprojects.com www.samsonprojects.com |
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