Concrete Action is a video program by emerging San Francisco-based visual artists that focuses on a psychological video compilation about the politics of representation, absence, voyeurism, quotidian aspects of life, and visual artifacts of urban identity. Featured videos include Alexis Courtney ‘s video that reverses the gaze in a voyeuristic manner as a way to actualize the desire for companionship. This video by Emily Gorman video analyzes the relationship between artist and camera, this exchange marks a volatile and dominating gesture manifested as a physical violence towards the camera. Smith Smith’s work is in advance of the May 1st general strike, Untitled (Concrete Action) is a motivational piece meant to inspire action through gestures associated with resistance. In “Seeing God” Sean Kennedy analyzes the cult of personality and also addresses the exchange of shelter for spiritual persuasion.

Bios:

Piotr Bujak is a mixed media artist and visual activist, born in Bedzin, Poland, currently residing in San Francisco within the Fulbright Fellowship. He works mainly with video and video installations investigating how moving image may contribute to understanding the origins of violence and identity and how visual culture reshapes the way abovementioned are being perceived in the era of mass media omnipresence. His art practice often refers to minimalism and could be framed as a very formal and abstract storytelling.

Alexis Courtney is a multi-disciplinary artist exploring issues of absence, voyeurism and companionship in both photographic and video formats. Her work draws heavy influence from personal experiences growing up on the east coast. She currently lives in San Francisco, CA where she is a candidate for a Master of Fine Arts from the San Francisco Art Institute in 2013, she received her BFA from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2006.

Francesca Du Brock is a multimedia artist originally from Alaska who has lived and worked throughout the United States and South America. Her work ranges from painting to drawing, video, sound, etc., and explores concepts related to exile, homeland, displacement, and memory. She holds a B.A. in Art History from Bowdoin College and is currently pursuing an M.F.A. at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Emily Gorman analyzes the concept of identity, and the body in space through the lens of pop culture. Working primarily in video, her influence is rooted in a purely retro aesthetic paired with a new translation of contemporary issues. Emily manipulates the relationship of artist and studio through use of minimal materials, in-camera editing, and an isolation of the individual. The romantic view of the studio is juxtaposed with an erratic range of interactions with the camera. The idea of performance for camera is criticized through a sometimes passive, sometimes violent back-and-forth between artist and material (camera). Materials are sparse (post-it flags, a 40-Oz. of malt liquor), and denote a specific reference or current symbol. Placed with only figure, and environment, these materials become central to the essential gesture occurring in the work.

Henry Gunderson’s art practice is a digestive process like that of a stomach. The stomach playing a key role in the creative process of ingestion, digestion, and excretion creates work existing as a left over byproduct and physical evidence of thought in various forms of visual artifacts. He was born in San Francisco, CA holds a BFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute

Jx Marie LaGrange is a New Modernist and a Romantic living and working in San Francisco. She is a Propagandist, producing photographs, prints, and transmissions for the benefit of times to come. Jx Marie is in Love with Love, Beauty, and Rock n’ Roll and is completely shameless about it.

Eli McNally works in many mediums, including installation, print, video, performance and drawing. Most of his video art consist of amature videos from youtube that include moments of awkwardness, sadness, or isolation of people attempting to control time. Eli is a freshman at SFAI.

Smith Smith is a video and performance artist hailing from the Washington D.C. area. Since moving to San Francisco in 2009 their work has addressed themes ranging from sexuality and gender identity, to internet pop culture and Metal subculture. By using their own body, Smith is able to address identity, gender stereotypes, and the politics of representation that transcends the autobiographical nature of the work. Smith has shown at The OffCenter, Queens Nails, and at the San Francisco Art Institute where they will be receiving their BFA in New Genres this May.

Javid Soriano is a filmmaker interested in recording the quotidian aspects of life. His documentaries can be seen as meditations on weather, dreams and styles of dwelling in urban and wildlife settings. He is currently an MFA Film candidate at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Linsey Wallace is an installation artist exploring the notion of multi-sensory and experiential art as a lens with which to frame the spirit of a moment.
Participating in the colorful trash avant-garde of her native Providence RI and referencing power-object archetypes from her background in African art history, Linsey transforms consumer detritus into enchanted plastic environments. She holds a BFA in Sculpture from Maine College of Art and is an MFA candidate at San Francisco Art Institute. Linsey has worked in New York, Providence, Boston, Maine, Melbourne, Nigeria and California. She currently lives and works in San Francisco, CA.

Zack Wilkie is interested in creating psychological video installations that attempt to deconstruct and demistify the digital process of art-making. In his most recent projects he has been working in a backwards manner in order to strive towards something as he calls “more intimate and more human”. He is currently an undergraduate student at the San Francisco Art Institute.

$6-10 sliding scale donation,
no one refused for lack of funds

Thursday, Apr 12 2012 8:00 PM

8pm Miles Ake/Omer Gal
reel-to-reel players & records cast in wood glue
9pm NF Radio (a combination of French Radio and NF Orchest)
Angela Hsu – violin, etc.
A.C. Way – voice, electronics, etc.
Bruce Anderson – guitar, etc.
Jim Kaiser – wheel, reel, etc.

Thursday, Apr 19 2012 8:00 PM

Guest Curation by Josh Allen
Batterie and Brutality
Roberto Dehaven/Mike Guarino, and then Josh Allen/Andy Dillard

Thursday, Apr 26 2012 8:00 PM

8pm UEM (Urban Electronic Music)
William C. Harrington & Andy Sykora instruments, electronics, found objects, voice, gongs, miscellaneous percussion
9pm “Twinkie” – collaborative audio_visual soundart
5 musicians, amplified hostess cakes, 37 images, narration
Paul Roth/Dwight Eschliman, Mike Lockwood, Aaron Wolf, Sam Minaie

PUBLIC NOTICE:

Dear Tenderloin National Forest Populace,

At the request of Congress and USDA, the U.S Forest Service has been tasked to develop an inventory of existing forest land, closing public access to certain forests and prioritizing infrastructure upgrade at other facilities. Due to previous under funding and urban forest potential, we are pleased to announce that the Tenderloin National Forest has been selected for infrastructure improvements and the creation of a field station.

Field stations vary in size from a few urban acres to thousands of acres spread across a remote landscape. Station facilities might range from trail networks to state-of-the-art laboratories. Whatever form individual field stations may take, they all share the same commitment to advancing our understanding of the Earth by supporting research, teaching, and public education. [OBFS: Organization of Biological Field Stations]

For the month of April, The U.S Forest Service has contracted, hyphae design lab, an oakland based environmental engineering firm, to be deployed on the forest. Dedicated to the expansion of the Tenderloin National Forest, a system of research and analysis tactics will record responses from the community and test potential outcomes. Rangers will hold daily drop-in idea hours where anyone can share stories, struggles, and suggestions through the lens of future urban prospects. Tasks are listed below.

Survey: Documentation of the facilities and utilities to catalogue the number of man-made and available natural resources.

Infrastructural Upgrade: Due to funding cuts, the assistance of local residents and volunteers is needed to bring the Forest to code.

Sanitation: Hyphae will also hold public toilet discussion and create mock-up rooms to bring light of the heightened need for restroom facilities in the district.

Exploration: Investigation into National Forest expansion will propose strategic acquisitions by cataloguing opportunities and constraints.

Institutionalize: Development of National Forest standard protocols, testing and training future park rangers to oversee the greater forest.

SCHEDULE:

Daily Drop-In: stop in for Q & A with the Field Station Staff April weekdays from 10:00am to 6:00pm

Public Toilet Workshop: share and test your ideas with community, artists, and engineers Thursday, April 12th from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

National Forest Field Station Brainstorm: join the planning team to map further expansion

Thursday, April 26th from 7:00 pm to 9:00 pm

Tenderloin National Forest Field Station Workday Party:

volunteer your time and energy, then gather for around the pizza oven for congruous conversation Saturday, April 28th from 9:00 am to 9:00 pm

Field Station Opening: First Thursday showcase Thursday, May 3rd from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm

(Hours: Daily 12-5, closed Mondays)

Closing Reception: Saturday April 7, 7-10pm.
The Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market Street, San Francisco, CA.
Gallery Hours Wednesday-Saturday 12-5.

SCOTT WALLACE- AUTHOR OF THE UNCONQUERED
Scott Wallace is a writer, photographer, and broadcast journalist who has covered national and international affairs for the past three decades. He gained an early reputation for exclusive reporting from the battlefronts of El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Panama in the 1980s, where he filed for CBS News Radio, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Newsweek, the Independent (UK) and Guardian (UK).
Drawn to stories involving conflict over land, resources, and ideology, Wallace brings the full range of his writing and reportorial talents to bear in The Unconquered, his account of an epic journey into the deepest Amazon wilderness to track an uncontacted indigenous tribe. Part memoir, part travel tale, and part philosophical meditation, Wallace’s book brings to life a hidden world of darkness and danger, together with an unforgettable cast of Conradian characters.
Scott has also has authored two cover stories for National Geographic about the Amazon, and his writings about war, revolution, international organized crime, and vanishing cultures have appeared in Harper’s, Grand Street, National Geographic Adventure, National Geographic Traveler, Smithsonian, the Village Voice, and Sports Afield, among many others. More information: http://scottwallace.com/unconquered/
ADRIANE COLBURN- ARTIST
San Francisco based artist, Adriane Colburn has spent the past several years traveling on expeditions with scientists who study climate change in remote terrains, such as the Arctic and the Amazon. Adriane’s recent work consists of large-scale installations (comprised of layers of hand cut paper, digital prints, video and projected light) that investigate the complex relationships between human infrastructure, earth systems, technology and the natural world. These works, derived from scientific data, images and video, look at how mapping is used to investigate fragile and inaccessible ecosystems along the edges of the Earth’s last vestiges of wilderness. More information: www.adrianecolburn.com ]]> http://www.luggagestoregallery.org/2012/03/artist-talk-w-adriane-colburn-special-guests/feed/ 0 http://www.luggagestoregallery.org/2012/03/adriane-colburns-of-darkness/ http://www.luggagestoregallery.org/2012/03/adriane-colburns-of-darkness/#comments Thu, 08 Mar 2012 00:38:37 +0000 Yarrow Slaps http://www.luggagestoregallery.org/?p=2465 MORE INFO →]]>

The Luggage Store Gallery is honored to present a solo exhibition of new work by Adriane Colburn: a mixed media installation “Of Darkness”  will open on Friday, February 3^rd and run til March 10, 2012. Opening Reception is Friady, February 3 from  6-9pm. (Gallery hours:  Wed-Saturday 12-5pm and by appointment)

For the past several years, Colburn has traveled with scientists who study climate change in remote terrains, such as Antartica and the Amazon. This exhibition has evolved from those expeditions.

Of Darkness combines drawings, sculpture, video, photographs and large scale cut paper in an installation that looks at the tension and complex beauty born out of the collision of wilderness and human industry.

Through a snarl of meticulously cut color-mapped images, reflected surfaces and weighty sculptures, Colburn juxtaposes the patterns of the material world with the exuberant foliage of the jungle. She explores how difficult and remote terrains are viewed through the lenses of technology such as photographs, remote sensing, and 3-d models.

The works in Of Darkness, embrace abstraction through their attempt to depict the complex and unwieldy, becoming part map, part science fiction, and part psychedelic jungle.

Adriane Colburn is an artist based in San Francisco, CA, Athens, Georgia and Vermont. She has exhibited her work throughout the US and internationally, at venues such as The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Artsterium in the Republic of Georgia, Parsons, New School in New York and at the Royal Academy of Art in London. To support her work, she has participated in expeditions to remote parts of the planet- traveling to the Andes and Amazon with Cape Farewell in 2009, to the Arctic Ocean on scientific research expeditions and most recently sailing from Barbados to French Guyana on a research vessel. She has been an artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Macdowell Colony, the Kala Institute and The Blue Mountain Center. She is currently teaching at the University of Georgia, Athens. She has recently participated in expeditions to remote parts of the planet- traveling on an Arctic seafloor mapping expedition with the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping in 2008 and to the Andes and Amazon with Cape Farewell in 2009 and to the Arctic an For more information visit::  www.adrianecolburn.com

Review by Kenneth Baker SF Chrnonicle with this link:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/03/09/DDBB1NGG56.DTL

“…Ever dedicated, committed, placing artistry ahead of commerciality, doing what she feels she needs to do regardless of how it may or may not play to the public– these are reasons why I respect and admire not only her art, but also everything she stands for. Worth a visit…” Allen Bamber from Art Business for more of the article go to http://www.artbusiness.com/1open/020312.html 

From March 1 – 8, the Luggage Store Gallery’s Projection Space is proud to commemorate International Women’s Day (IWD), by presenting a range of pieces calling attention to the work of women from all over the world. From social justice organizations to female media artists, this program is an amalgamation of many powerful and diverse voices from the women’s movement.

International Women’s Day recognizes the growing solidarity amongst all people by highlighting the numerous challenges and achievements of gender equality across the globe, from political leadership roles to personal empowerment. The IWD program features informative pieces by the Global Fund For Women, Kronos and Nato and includes media work from Fatema Abdoolcarim, Adriane Colburn, Taraneh Hemami, and Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.

Juxtaposed within the landscape of this informative program, exist four creative pieces representative of issues that concern all human beings around the world. Abdoolcarim’s core practice is an examination of cultural practices and their attempt to suppress the female capacity. “The Great Hidden Sea of What I Don’t Believe”, investigates tensions between repulsion and pleasure as a way to look at the battle between agency and suppression. Colburn’s video relating to her current exhibit at the Luggage Store Gallery, is a study of climate change within the remote jungles of the Amazon and it’s impact worldwide.  In ”MOST WANTED”, Hemami investigates the nature of perception, recognition and representation while examining the construction of the image of the new enemy. A series of faceless portraits of the most wanted terrorists analyzes the many ways in which stereotypical perceptions of people are created while pondering the relationship between image and identity.  Mail Order Brides/M.O.B. examines feminism in a morbidly humorous way with the hilarious “Mail Order Bride of Frankenstein”. The video is set in a Neo-Gothic Church and shot in high camp style; this pseudo-silent karaoke video takes you on a ride of the trials and tribulation of the most typical male’s impulse to “buy” love.

*other videos from:
Kronos and Xplane http://www.kronos.com
NATO:  NATO promotes the role of women in peace and security:  http://www.nato.int

For more information about International Women’s Day go to http://www.internationalwomensday.com/

The Global Fund for Women

The Global Fund for Women plays a leading role in advancing women’s rights by making grants that support and strengthen women’s groups around the world. GFW mobilizes and redistributes resources that enable women to develop creative solutions to local, regional, and transnational challenges. GFW brings grantees and donors together in an international network that promotes women’s action for social change, equality, peace, and justice worldwide. http://www.globalfundforwomen.org/

Fatema Abdoolcarim
Fatema Abdoolcarim is a Hong Kong born Indian-Pakistani artist whose work lies in the interstices of fantasy and memory. Through photographs, videos and installation work, she ventures in to deeply visceral terrain. At the core of Fatema’s work is an examination of cultural practices and their attempt to suppress the female capacity. In The Great Hidden Sea of What I Don’t Yet Believe, she investigates tensions between repulsion and pleasure as a way to look at the battle between agency and suppression. She positions the image of honeybees, a metaphor of the perfection of the female system, alongside jarring, almost obsessive, actions of the body. These repetitive processes in the work are a reflection of the internal struggle of being trapped in tradition.
Fatema received a BA in Fine Arts from The University of Pennsylvania in 2008, and moved from Barcelona in September of last year to pursue an MFA in Fine Arts at California College of the Arts. http://fatemaabdoolcarim.com/home.html

Adriane Colburn
Adriane Colburn is an artist based in San Francisco, CA, Athens, Georgia and Vermont. She has exhibited her work throughout the US and internationally, at venues such as The Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, Artsterium in the Republic of Georgia, Parsons, New School in New York and at the Royal Academy of Art in London. To support her work, she has participated in expeditions to remote parts of the planet- traveling to the Andes and Amazon with Cape Farewell in 2009, to the Arctic Ocean on scientific research expeditions and most recently sailing from Barbados to French Guyana on a research vessel. She has been an artist in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts, the Macdowell Colony, the Kala Institute and The Blue Mountain Center. She is currently teaching at the University of Georgia, Athens. She has recently participated in expeditions to remote parts of the planet- traveling on an Arctic seafloor mapping expedition with the Center for Coastal and Ocean Mapping in 2008 and to the Andes and Amazon with Cape Farewell in 2009 and to the Arctic an For more information visit: http://www.adrianecolburn.com

Taraneh Hemami
Taraneh Hemami was raised in Tehran, Iran, and lives in San Francisco. In her work, she engages diverse strategies including installation and media productions as well as collective and participatory projects to explore themes of displacement, preservation and representation. Examining the careful crafting of images as propaganda for power and political gain, Taraneh’s handcrafted reproductions of historical archives serve to commemorate events, places and people, while commenting on tools of manipulation and persuasion used across nations and histories. Her sources vary from fuzzy images of international terrorists downloaded from an U.S. governmental site for an examination of perception and stereotyping in the Most Wanted series to a collection of banned books and propaganda of the Iranian underground movement that describe the Iranian revolution in the Theory of Survival project. Taraneh’s conceptually driven works shift in material and presentation from shimmering shattered glass prayer rugs to a laser-cut wool carpet map of the city of Tehran. http://taranehhemami.com

Mail Order Brides/M.O.B.
For over a decade, Eliza “Neneng” Barrios, Reanne “Immaculata” Estrada and Jenifer “Baby” Wofford have worked collaboratively as Mail Order Brides/M.O.B., a trio of Filipina American artists engaged in an ongoing collaborative investigation of culture, race and gender.
M.O.B. “hits” have included public art projects for the San Francisco Arts Commission’s Market Street Art in Transit posters and the McColl Center Mobile Art Project, as well as performance works for Oakland’s Lunar New Year Parade  and “Museum Pieces” at SF’s DeYoung Museum.  M.O.B. has shown at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Triton Museum of Art, Lizabeth Oliveria Gallery and The Luggage Store. Their film/video works have screened at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, the International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival, the Mix Festival and the International Film Festival in Detroit. They are committed to making the world a more delicious and harmonious place.
http://wofflehouse.com/mob/
http://elizabarrios.com/collaboration/mail-order-bridesmob–information/