a glance back
it’s been 14 years and 200 shows – guess i’m feeling nostalgic… we failed to photograph most of our early exhibitions, but here are some fun images.
shahzia sikander, “beyond surfaces.” this was the spring of 1997. it was the fifth show i did in my first gallery — in the space on federal street – upstairs from capp street project. it was shahzia’s first solo show. she painted two murals on the walls:
there were about a dozen small framed paintings on either tea-stained paper or a heavy paper she’d coated with a pink-ish clay — a reference to paintings made on dung plastered walls in villages in pakistan and india.
and there was an installation of about 100 drawings in acrylic on yellow tracing paper. in each of them, she experimented with some basic themes, repeating and transmuting the imagery until it evolved into the iconography that has been the basis for her visual vocabulary ever since. they were layered and pinned with long “specimen” pins, directly to the walls. they fluttered a little bit in the drafts people created as they walked by.
we sold them for $200 each.
a mural peter wegner painted in my office in 1998. the wall behind me was “philosophical gray” the wall my desk faced was “commerce.”
alfredo jaar “it is difficult” in february of 2000. this was shortly after we moved into the space on clementina. it was our second show with alfredo. the first (which i can’t find any photographs of) was in january of 1997 (our fourth show).
marco maggi’s first (of five) solo shows — “From Freezer to Microwave” — in 2001:
and his second show — “BITnik” – in 2003 — for which he blanketed the gallery in white paper:
a seemingly empty universe, dense with inaccessible information…
deafening white noise…
to be continued…
I met Ben McLaughlin at Art London tonight.
My husband and I, longtime London residents who own quite a bit of Ben’s work, now live most of the time in the Bay Area (Tiburon).
Ben tells me he is to have a show with you in mid-May.
Could you put us on your mailing list, please? We would love to come to see the show, and perhaps invite others who have admired Ben’s work on our walls for years.
Thank you!!
Tawna Farmer
36 Old Landing Rd
Tiburon CA 94920
415-789-0215
PS: What a revelation to find out that you had a show of Shazia Sikander’s work…about the time I was sending fruitless emails to Pakistan etc, looking for some of her work!!! Eventually we met her in NY a few years ago…a vibrant and interesting artist!
Gosh…this is a little nostalgic. I could kick myself now thinking that there are no photos of those early shows. Ugh!! The Shahzia mural looks fantastic, I’d forgotten about that. Any who’s that young guy in your office??