Foundry Square – Not Out of The Woods Yet

 Posted by on January 20, 2012
Jan 202012
 
Howard at First Street
Foundry Square
SOMA
 Not Out of the Woods Yet by Richard Deacon
2003

In 2003 Kenneth Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote:

“Deacon’s “Not Out Of The Woods Yet” (2003) nests muscularly in a tight spot behind columns at the entrance to 500 Howard St., on the intersection’s northwest corner.

The Bay Area has so far seen Deacon’s work in depth only once, in the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s 1987 show “A Quiet Revolution: British Sculpture Since 1965.”

Much of his sculpture turns on matters such as when an enclosure must count as an object or as architecture. He makes viewers sense connections between physical feelings and inner dispositions to use certain words in describing them.

“Not Out Of The Woods Yet,” fabricated on commission, strikes the hurried glance as a network of stocky aluminum struts. But try to describe it in detail and it becomes a puzzle frustrating to eye and mind alike.

Six identical elements make up the work, all composed of fat, gleaming hexagonal metal beams. Their surfaces wink with an embossed tread-plate pattern.

The silvery aluminum draws light into the canopied space, which lies in shadow at least half the day.

The sculpture’s three bottom elements–one upright, two upended–notch together as if leaning to accommodate one another.

Three more, inverted, sit above, making the upper half a mirror image of the lower.

Where each bottom element rests on the ground, its footprint is an irregular nine-sided polygon, for which we have no ready name.

End-on, one of these structures at ground level resembles a simplified steam locomotive cowcatcher.

The top perimeter of each one plots the same eccentric figure, in the same orientation, enclosing a smaller or larger area. Thick, sloping struts connect top and bottom perimeters.

No strut springs from a corner, apparently upsetting an expectation one did not know one had, making the whole structure strangely hard to comprehend.

These simple facts prove startlingly difficult to sort out, though only their own complexity conceals them.

Deacon’s piece passes a crucial test of public sculpture: One leaves it curious to know how hard it will be to hold in memory and how easy to grasp when next seen”

Richard Deacon was born in Bangor, Wales and educated at Plymouth College. He then studied at the Somerset College of Art in Taunton, St Martin’s School of Art in London and the Royal College of Art, also in London. He left the Royal College in 1977, and went on to study part time at the Chelsea School of Art. His work is breathtaking and broad, visit his website, while a tad difficult to maneuver through it will give you a bigger picture of his work.

SOMA – Foundry Square

 Posted by on January 19, 2012
Jan 192012
 
Howard at First Street
Foundry Square
SOMA
Untitled by Joel Shapiro
1996-1999
In 2003 Kenneth Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote:

“Shapiro’s renown rests on his having turned the vocabulary of minimal sculpture back toward figuration about 30 years ago. He took square wood beams, favorite forms of his older contemporary Carl Andre, and made structures of them that could be read as stick figures. Shapiro then abbreviated and exaggerated his work’s figural qualities so that they come and go depending on the viewer’s position and on his determination to see them. Built-in aspects of “bad fit”–apparent right angles that turn out to be oblique, slight off-square rotations–read expressively from one viewpoint, and willfully abstract from another. Large scale has defeated Shapiro on occasion, making his work look like small ideas inflated rather than like products of enlarged thinking. Standing 24 feet high, the Foundry Square piece is an unusually good example. Its plaza setting touches off an apt association to the work of Alberto Giacometti, for whom urban crossings symbolized the modern world’s banishment of humanity from all common spaces. Much of Shapiro’s best sculpture updates the drama of emotional versus physical distance central to Giacometti’s mature work. As the public focal point of a corporate work environment, the Shapiro also monumentalizes the perilous balancing act that sums up so many employees’ experiences of office politics”

 

Joel Shapiro grew up in Sunnyside, Queens, New York. When he was twenty two he lived in India for two years while in the Peace Corps. He received a B.A. in 1964 and an M.A. in 1969 from New York University.  He lives with his artist wife, Ellen Phelan, in New York City.

SOMA – Time Signature

 Posted by on January 18, 2012
Jan 182012
 
Howard at First Street
Foundry Square
SOMA
 Time Signature
Richard Deutsch

*Richard Deutsch has several sculptures around San Francisco.  This piece has it’s own video on Richard’s website, and I highly recommend that you go and view it.  The film is a work of art unto itself, and I could not do justice to the process that you are shown, but I will try to summarize the intent of the piece.

He mentions that they wanted to use a light colored metal for the reflective properties and to interact with the glass.  The area that the sculpture is in is called Foundry Square.  The owner, Peter Donahue, opened the foundry in 1851.  Crucibles, a vital part of metal pouring, were the shapes that inspired Deutsch.  He was further inspired by music and was setting a tempo for a musical composition, attempting some sort of lyrical movement.

 

Restaurant Row – Maori Column

 Posted by on January 15, 2012
Jan 152012
 
50 Third Street
Ducca Restaurant Courtyard
Westin Hotel
Museum Row

This piece is titled Maori Column and is by Alan Shepp.  It was done in 1985.

Shepp, along with his artist wife, lives in Napa California.  He has a BFA from the Cleveland Institute of Art, and an MFA from the University of Washington.

He is a multimedia artist who creates large scale sculpture and public art.

There is not a lot of information out there, either about this artist or this piece, but his website has some really gorgeous work on it.

Isamu Noguchi on Museum Row

 Posted by on January 14, 2012
Jan 142012
 
50 Third Street
Ducca Restaurant Walkway
Museum Row
 Fat Dancer
 Rain Mountain
Figure Emerging

These three figures are by Isamu Noguchi. Noguchi ranks up there as one of my all time favorite sculptors, but I must admit, this is not my favorite medium for him.

(November 17, 1904 – December 30, 1988) Isamu Noguchi was a prominent Japanese American artist and landscape architect whose artistic career spanned six decades, from the 1920s onward. Known for his sculpture and public works, Noguchi also designed stage sets for various Martha Graham productions, and several mass-produced lamps and furniture pieces, some of which are still manufactured and sold.

In 1947, Noguchi began a collaboration with the Herman Miller company, when he joined with George Nelson, Paul László and Charles Eames to produce a catalog containing what is often considered to be the most influential body of modern furniture ever produced, including the iconic Noguchi table which remains in production today. His work lives on around the world and at the Noguchi Museum in New York City.

The Noguchi Table

Paper Lamps by Noguchi

Museum Row – Stream of Vessels

 Posted by on January 13, 2012
Jan 132012
 
50 Third Street
Ducca Restaurant Walkway
Museum Row

 

These are in the walkway between Ducca Restaurant and the Contemporary Jewish Museum.  They are titled Stream of Vessels, done in 1997 by David Nash of charred oak.

David Nash  is a British sculptor based in Blaenau Ffestiniog.  He is known for works in wood and shaping living trees. His large wood sculptures are sometimes carved or partially burned to produce blackening. His main tools for these sculptures are a chainsaw and axe to carve the wood and a blowtorch to char the wood.

He attended Brighton College from 1959 to 1963, then Kingston College of Art from 1963 to 1967 and the Chelsea School of Art as a postgraduate from 1969 to 1970.

Museum Row – Les Funambules

 Posted by on January 12, 2012
Jan 122012
 
50 Third Street
Ducca Restaurant walkway
Museum Row

Attached to the Westin Hotel is Ducca Restaurant.  They have an open walkway between 3rd street and the Jewish Museum.  In that walkway is seating and dining.  Throughout that area is art.

This piece is “Les Funambules” by Charles Ginnever, done in Bronze in 1991.

Ginnever is an American sculptor. He was born in San Mateo, California, in 1931. In 1957, he received his BA from the San Francisco Art Institute and received his MFA from Cornell University in 1959. He started working with canvas and steel scraps painted with bright patterns. The movement toward Minimalism saw the use of color fade and he focused on steel shapes consisting of triangles and trapezoids that cause his work to change shape as the viewer moves around it.

Yerba Buena Gardens – Deep Gradient/Suspect Terrain

 Posted by on January 9, 2012
Jan 092012
 
Yerba Buena Center
San Francisco
 Deep Gradient/Suspect Terrain
(Seasons of the Sea ‘Adrift)
John Roloff
with NGA Industries and Wes-Co Industries
1993
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The accompanying plaque says:
This glass ship is an art work that refers to the natural and geological history of California.  Sediment gathered from the ocean floor four miles off the coast of San Francisco was placed inside in 1993.  This sediment contains diverse mineral and organic matter extracted from the landscape by the rivers that flow to the sea through the Golden Gate.  The greenhouse environment of the ship interacts subtly with these materials producing ongoing natural cycles of growth, decay and rebirth.
John Roloff is a visual artist who works conceptually with site, process and natural systems.  He is known primarily for his outdoor kiln/furnace projects done from the late 1970’s to the early 1990’s as well as other large-scale environmental and gallery installations investigating geologic and natural phenomena.  Based on a background in science, his work engages poetic and site-specific relationships between material, concept and performance in the domains of geology, ecology, architecture, ceramics, industry and mining, metabolic systems and history.  He studied geology at UC Davis, Davis, CA with Professor Eldridge Moores and others during the formative days of plate tectonics in the mid-1960’s.  Subsequently, he studied art with Bob Arneson and William T. Wiley also at UC Davis in the late 1960’s.    He is currently Chair of the Sculpture/Ceramics Department at the San Francisco Art Institute.
You can find the a history of Yerba Buena Gardens at Untapped Cities.

SOMA – 1AM

 Posted by on January 6, 2012
Jan 062012
 
1 AM Gallery
SOMA
Howard and Sixth Street
1 AM Gallery always has murals done on their wall to celebrate their newest art installation inside.  The installation this month is “When We Were Kids”.  The background to this is lettering, but I thought the cartoon characters were worth a shout out.
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Here is the overall mural taken from across the street.
1 AM Gallery has been in this website many times before. Check out their work around town.  Please also note – that 1:AM uses this wall as a teaching experience so the murals change all the time.

Fish Mural on Langton

 Posted by on January 2, 2012
Jan 022012
 
SOMA
Langton Street
Between Folsom and Howard

This lovely mural was done to hopefully stop the graffiti that had been occurring on the door.  The artist is Deborah Yoon and according website she is a self taught multimedia artist who considers both San Francisco and New York home. She works primarily with pen, sumi-e, paint, and has experimented with steel. Deborah received a bachelors of Fine Art and Art History at New York University.

As you can see by the comments the owner of the house saw this post.  I asked him for some further information and here is what he had to say “The house is a residential live/work space, “Langton Labs”, where a dozen or so folks live together and use our big common space to build art and technology projects, host events, and so on.

Our friend Deborah painted the mural a few months ago and it is quite lovely. It was indeed on top of some ugly tagging, though we’d been meaning to do SOMETHING there for a while.”

SOMA – Tuloy po Kayo

 Posted by on December 24, 2011
Dec 242011
 
SOMA
Filipino Education Center
824 Harrison Street

Tuloy po Kayo, is Filipino for “welcome.” The mural was designed by internationally-acclaimed muralist Cece Carpio, and painted with Miguel Bounce Perez and other volunteer artists, the mural represents the Filipino community’s shared experiences, history, and culture.

To prepare for this mural, Carpio led an arts workshop with Bessie Carmichael students, ( the elementary school in the neighborhood) where the children created drawings on themes of self-identity, family, and community. Using the children’s input as her guide, Carpio led a community meeting at the Bayanihan Center  (neighboring Filipino Center) to gather more feedback and flesh out ideas. Once a final sketch was in hand, community members came back once more – this time, to paint their mural on the wall with a celebratory paint day.

The final work includes several layers of meaning. In the center, a “balangay” (boat) and “araw” (sun) convey the significance of the Filipino peoples’ ancient sea faring ways and the overseas journey of immigration to the US. Cleverly, the poles of the balangay form a star-shape – when viewed with the two star-shaped parol lanterns at each end of the mural, the stars and sun evoke the Filipino flag. The parol lanterns themselves are important symbols of light and blessings, evoking holiday traditions widely celebrated among Filipinos. In SOMA, the annual Parol Festival brings thousands to Jessie Square each December. Against a foreground of waves and a background of sky, the mural includes many children and family groups, playing traditional games or strolling down city streets. Throughout, the composition creates links between San Francisco’s busy city life and memories of Filipino landscapes.

Miguel Perez received a BFA in Communication Design at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn and currently works as a freelance designer and muralist. He is co-founder of Pueblo Nuevo Gallery, a community art space in Berkeley, California.

This is how Cece describes herself on her own website.  From the islands of the Philippines to the streets of Brooklyn, Cece Carpio paints people and places on the edges of survival. Using acrylic, ink, aerosol and installations, her work tells stories of immigration, ancestry, resistance and resilience. She documents evolving traditions by combining folkloric forms, bold portraits and natural elements with urban art techniques.  She has produced and exhibited work in the Philippines, Fiji Islands, Cuba, Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Italy, Norway and throughout the United States. She can often be found collaborating with her crew, Trust Your Struggle, teaching, and traveling around the world in pursuit of the perfect wall.

 

SOMA – Victor Reyes

 Posted by on December 23, 2011
Dec 232011
 
SOMA
1420 Harrison Street

This magnificent and show stopping mural is by Victor Reyes.

Reyes has been painting since the early 90s, and has shown extensively around the world in cities and countries such as Bosnia, Germany, Switzerland, Taipei, Japan, and Miami. Reyes is inspired by his peers, including a community of new California artists “The Seventh Letter,” who play an integral role in the development and motivation for his body of work.  Reyes, who has no formal art training, moved to San Francisco in 1998 and took a variety of jobs for rent money – he’s a freelance illustrator now.

The article “Man of Letters on a Mission” was the cover story for the San Francisco Chronicle, and is a fascinating read.

 

 

SOMA – Youth Art Project

 Posted by on December 22, 2011
Dec 222011
 
SOMA
501 Minna Street at 6th

 

 

 

This set of small mosaic murals are part of the ArtSpan’s South of Market Youth and Public Art Project.

Lead artist, Johanna Poethig who has been in this site numerous times is director for the Inner City Public Art Projects for Youth, a program of San Francisco’s South of Market Cultural Center and Artspan. They have completed a body of ceramic public art works installed throughout downtown San Francisco

These are a result of the Stop, Look, Listen to Me program which operates on $32,000 from the city’s Neighborhood Beautification Fund, and has the support of the Art Commission and private benefactors.

SOMA – Mac Dre

 Posted by on December 21, 2011
Dec 212011
 
SOMA
Langton Street
This Mural has been painted over (6/2012)

Mac Dre was a rapper, born in Oakland, lived in Vallejo, convicted of conspiracy to commit robbery and killed by a bullet from a passing car in Kansas City.  His bio on Wikipedia is really rather interesting.  If you are interested in his music style this is fascinating reading as well.

The artists on this mural are ICP Crew (Inner City Phame).  “The first graffiti I saw when I was a kid growing up in the Mission was the Chicano writing on our walls,” says Twick, ICP veteran and original member of the group of close-knit friends, founded by Il Charo (then named Jes 446) back in 1988. “We called it Cholo writing, because that’s what it was. The walls decorated the names of the gang members of the neighborhood.”

“I fell in love with the art form right away and wanted to duplicate what the writers in New York were doing,” Twick recalls. Along the way Twick found a mentor in Antie 67, who introduced to him the values and elements of hip-hop culture – from the craft of lettering to break dancing and emceeing. It was an apprenticeship. Like many other kids, Twick felt pulled into an exciting and creative underground world, one that for the most part, kept him out of the real trouble. “I didn’t choose my destiny my destiny chose me,” he says.

“Soon enough more and more crews popped up, a unique Bay Area style developed and an ever-evolving ICP made a name for itself on the walls across the city. “We dubbed the style we do Phunk,” Twick explains, “meaning, knowing the foundation of a letter and creating from that: stretching it here and there, adding connections – some arrows and a few bends in the right places with a shadow or a 3d.” Funkified calligraphy is readable, unlike widlstyle, which has helped ICP garner a large audience of appreciators and street notoriety.”

The quotes above are from a May 2010 article in the Bay Guardian.

SOMA – One Tree

 Posted by on December 20, 2011
Dec 202011
 
SOMA
10th and Bryant

This mural is by Rigo.  This piece was done in 1996.  Rigo has been in this website many times before.  He was born and raised on the Portuguese island of Madeira. He later established himself as an artist in San Francisco, earning a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 1991 and an MFA from Stanford University in 1997. From 1984-2002, Rigo used the last two digits of the current year as part of his name, finally settling upon “23” in 2003.

SOMA’s Fun Creatures

 Posted by on December 19, 2011
Dec 192011
 
354 5th Street

This work is by Sirron Norris. Born in Cleveland, Ohio he graduated from the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, eventually settling down in San Francisco in 1997. Sirron worked as a production artist in the video game industry while he perfected his skill set as a fine artist.  In 1999, Sirron quickly gained notoriety from his first showing at The Luggage Store.

Sirron was the recipient of the prestigious Wattis Artist in Residence from the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in 2002.  It was during that residency that he coined the term “Cartoon Literalism” as a description of his work.  The term emphasizes the use of cartoons as a vehicle to express life.

His rather extensive body of work, and a complete bio can be found on his website.

 

20th and Bryant Streets
San Francisco

November 2014 update – The garage on 5th street has been painted over – it now has just a remnant of Norris’ work and looks like this…
DSC_4627

SOMA – Large Pieces of Marble

 Posted by on December 12, 2011
Dec 122011
 
631 Folsom Street
SOMA

These giant pieces of carrara marble are by Richard Deutsch are titled Frammenti.  Deutsch has been in this site before and I recommend you visit his website.  He is a very accomplished artist with work all over the world.

This piece is titled Fragmented.  The day I was there the fountain was not running, but Deutsch’s website has some really gorgeous photos of the fountain while it is working.

 

SOMA – Annular Eclipse

 Posted by on December 10, 2011
Dec 102011
 
SOMA
560 Mission Street
Annular Eclipse
George Rickey
George Rickey (1907 -2002)  built his career combining fundamental elements of nature and physics in the creation of his sculpture. His works include a broad vocabulary of geometric shapes and multiple devices for moving the elements in his sculpture, such as gimbals, pendulums and rotors.  Ricky constantly experimented with mechanical systems, but as he wrote in 1991, the drama in his sculpture “is in the movement, not the structure.  The means must disappear.”
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While I am beginning to find kinetic sculptures over done in the modern landscape, I love the parklet that this one sits in.  The Landscape Architect on this project was Christian Lemon while at the firm Hart Howerton.
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SOMA – Waterwall

 Posted by on December 9, 2011
Dec 092011
 
SOMA
100 First Street
2nd Floor
Scattered across downtown San Francisco are almost seventy semi-secret spaces, privately owned but open to the public. Subject to the fine print of a little-known pact between the city and business, these POPOS (Privately Owned Public Open Spaces) allow alluring vistas of San Francisco and access to its intimate interiors.  This little gem is up a flight of exterior stairs off Mission Street.
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This black granite and glass piece is titled Waterwall by John Luebtow.  Over the past 30 years, John Luebtow has become one of the most respected names in contemporary glass sculpture. He holds a BA from California Lutheran College, and two distinct MFAs from UCLA (one in ceramics and one in glass).
Luebtow has devoted much of his career to teaching in Los Angeles.  His website shows off his amazing work.
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This area is really rather lovely, there is a delicatessen on the plaza level, should you wish to stop in for a nice outdoor lunch, there are also public restrooms available, last time I looked.

Ghost Busters in SOMA

 Posted by on October 19, 2011
Oct 192011
 
SOMA
8th and Bryant

This fun mural is essentially the Simpson’s gang in Ghostbusters clothing.  While it is not signed, according  Live Soma the artist did have permission, even if he wouldn’t give his name.

This says Diet, I am sure a message to the Stay Puft monster.
The artist did tell Jeremy that he was influenced by Dean Fraser of Springfield Punx, whose work is really very fun and very, very good.

Lango in the Mission and SOMA

 Posted by on October 11, 2011
Oct 112011
 
SOMA – San Francisco
Mary at Howard Streets
This piece was done by Lango, a tattoo artist here in San Francisco.  I have tried to contact him to ask him about this mural, but according to a friend of his I met the other day he is extremely shy.  I respect that, and figure his work speaks for him, it is really spectacular.
T
This is on the Howard side of the building.
This is also by Lango.  It was commissioned by an auto repair shop.  I had fun chatting with the guys who own the shop.  They were rather fond of their piece of art work.  This is at 4 Shotwell at 14th Street.
Lango at 22nd at Folsom

San Francisco’s Muni Stops

 Posted by on September 29, 2011
Sep 292011
 

Cable cars have been synonymous with San Francisco since the 1800’s.  We correct people all the time in the vernacular of cable car versus trolly, but, we have trolly lines too.  Our muni system is just that.  Muni covers much of the city, and many people that visit our town ride the vintage trolly cars along the embarcadero.  For twenty years the muni system sought to expand its line from 4th and King streets (one block from our baseball park) along 3rd street to Candlestick park.  It finally accomplished this feat.  Originally envisioned as a simple rail line with minimal stations and platforms it grew into a more elaborate system with raised platforms and dedicated roadway.

Street lighting along the entire corridor

During it’s conception the S.F. Arts commission selected a team of ten artists to participate in the project.  Rather than have the art designed and sited independent at the end of the planning and design, the artists were brought in early on to give their input.  As a result of this collaboration, several artists became involved in developing concepts for the corridor as well as for individual sites.

The station marquee pole is a primary element of the canopy.
A beacon at the top flashes to announce an oncoming train.

The design effort lasted about a year and included three community workshops and nine neighborhood workshops.  The result was unifying elements in the design.  These include the trackway paving, station elements, including crosswalks, ticketing, shelters, windscreens and signage, street lighting and color scheme.  They also included unique elements that included, plantings, art elements and special streetscape elements.

Three of the stations have site specific art.  The first of these is stop number one at Fourth and King Streets.

The station marquee represents the spokes of a train wheel, and spins with the wind.
 These are just two of the many names of historic train companies that are etched in the platform pavement.
To top it all off, there are tracks running across the canopy.

St. Regis Hotel

 Posted by on September 20, 2011
Sep 202011
 
SOMA
St. Regis Hotel
3rd and Mission Streets

This is by Raymond Saunders, an American artist born1934 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He lives and works in Oakland, California and is currently a professor of Painting at California College of the Arts, in Oakland.

I found this description from a press release put out by the St. Regis:

“The southeast façade of the historic Williams Building has been enhanced with an art glass transcription of a work on canvas by Oakland artist Raymond Saunders. An internationally acclaimed artist, Saunders is known for mixed-media paintings that are layered with fragmentary impressions and imbued with whimsy or satire.

The re-creation in glass of Saunders’ painting graces the Williams Building façade with a vibrant and striking work of art. Measuring 36’x36’, the artwork is visible along the Third Street corridor. The painting’s bold colors, abstract forms and strong composition celebrate its prestigious location in the Yerba Buena Arts District and its proximity to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

The method of transcribing the painting into glass involved numerous techniques, including fusing, etching, painting and casting. A variety of colored and optical glasses, including dichroic glass, were laminated onto the panels and project a vibrant kaleidoscope of colors during the day. At night the artwork appears as a jewel in the night sky, a welcoming beacon in the San Francisco’s world-renowned skyline.”

For those that are curious dichroic glass is glass containing multiple micro-layers of metals or oxides. The main characteristic of dichroic glass is that it has a particular transmitted color and a completely different reflected color, as certain wavelengths of light either pass through or are reflected. This causes an array of color to be displayed. The colors shift depending on the angle of view.

This is a gorgeous piece that does look like a painted pane of glass.  You can’t miss it as third street is a major artery into downtown.

SOMA – Man With Flame

 Posted by on September 17, 2011
Sep 172011
 
SOMA
Convention Plaza
3rd Street Between Howard and Folsom
Man With Flame by Stephen de Staebler

This little walk way offers a wonderful respite from the hectic goings on inside Moscone Center. There are lots of tables and chairs, wonderful public art, and a Starbuck’s if you are so inclined.

I have copied the following directly from his New York Times Obituary.

Stephen De Staebler, a sculptor whose fractured, dislocated human figures gave a modern voice and a sense of mystery to traditional realist forms, died on May 13 at his home in Berkeley, Calif. He was 78.

The cause was complications of cancer, Jill Ringler, his studio archivist, said.

Mr. De Staebler found his medium when he met the pioneering ceramist Peter Voulkos at the University of California in the late 1950s. Impressed by the expressive possibilities of clay, he began making landscape-like floor works.

In the late 1970s he began coaxing distressed, disjointed humanoid forms from large, vertical clay columns. Colored with powdered oxides and fired in a kiln, they presented potent images of broken, struggling humanity.

“We are all wounded survivors, alive but devastated selves, fragmented, isolated – the condition of modern man,” he recently told Timothy A. Burgard, a curator at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, who is organizing a De Staebler retrospective. “Art tries to restructure reality so that we can live with the suffering.”

Stephen Lucas De Staebler was born on March 24, 1933, in St. Louis. While working toward a bachelor’s degree in religion at Princeton, he made art on the side and spent a summer at Black Mountain College studying painting with Ben Shahn and Robert Motherwell.

After receiving his bachelor’s degree in 1954, he served with the Army in West Germany. He enrolled at Berkeley intending to teach art in the public schools but, after receiving his teaching credentials, earned a master’s degree in art in 1961.

He exhibited widely, particularly in the Bay Area, where he taught for many years at the San Francisco Art Institute and San Francisco State University.

In 1988 Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, Calif., organized the traveling exhibition “Stephen De Staebler: The Figure.” Reviewing the show at the Neuberger Museum of Art at the State University of New York, Purchase, Michael Brenson, in The New York Times, noted the enigmatic, disjointed nature of Mr. De Staebler’s art.

“In his human comedy, wholeness has no meaning,” he wrote. “His men and women — when it is clear that they are men or women — seem like pieces of a puzzle without a key.” By this time, Mr. De Staebler had begun working in bronze as well as clay.

“Matter and Spirit: Stephen De Staebler,” his retrospective, is scheduled to open at the de Young Museum in San Francisco in January 2012.

Mr. De Staebler;s first wife, the former Dona Curley, died in 1996. He is survived by his wife Danae Mattes; a daughter, Arianne, of Berkeley; and two sons, Jordan, of Oakland, Calif., and David, of Bishop, Calif.

“The human figure is the most loaded of all forms because we live in one,” Mr. De Staebler told Mr. Burgard, the curator. “The figure obsesses not just artists, but human beings. It’s our prison. It’s what gives us life and gives us death.”

This piece was removed during the Moscone Center’s remodeling and as of March 2019 has not been returned, the SFAC has not stated where it will go.

SOMA – Venus with Rope

 Posted by on September 15, 2011
Sep 152011
 
SOMA
Convention Plaza
3rd Street Between Howard and Folsom
“Venus with Rope”
Jim Dine
1986
Jim Dine has shown up in this site before.  In 1962 Dine’s work was included, along with Roy Lichtenstein, Andy Warhol, Robert Dowd, Phillip Hefferton, Joe Goode, Edward Ruscha, and Wayne Thiebaud, in the historically important and ground-breaking New Painting of Common Objects, curated by Walter Hopps at the Norton Simon Museum. This exhibition is historically considered one of the first “Pop Art” exhibitions in America. These painters started a movement, in a time of social unrest, which shocked America and the Art world and changed modern Art forever, “Pop Art”.
Dine’s attention turned to sculptural work in the early 1980s when he created sculptures based on the sculpture Venus de Milo.
Donated to the City by the Developer of Convention Plaza Office Complex.

Soma – Pneumatic Dreamer

 Posted by on September 14, 2011
Sep 142011
 
SOMA
W Hotel
3rd and Howard Streets
Pneumatic Dreamer
Michael Stutz
Stutz studied painting at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and York Street College of Art in Belfast, Ireland.  He began his career in San Francisco, supporting himself designing merchandise displays for Macy’s.   His commitment to public art grew out of work he did in New Orleans, designing and building large scale papier mache figures for the city’s Mardi Gras parades.  Later he began using recycled materials to create sculptures that have been shown throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
 Pneumatic Dreamer is Stutz’s first work in bronze, and initially, he considered having the piece cast. He consulted a foundry but learned the cost would be “astronomical.” Instead he had it fabricated of annealed bronze strips intricately woven and then welded together at Matt Gil’s Studio, which specializes in doing fabrication work for San Francisco area artists.
The sculpture was specifically designed for installation on the fourth floor terrace of the hotel, overlooking the street below. Stutz points out that the figure, the gender of which is intentionally ambiguous, “could be going into a dream state, or arising from it” and that it illustrates “a very private moment in a very public space.” In keeping with that idea, the piece is literally a woven shell, in which, Stutz says, “the inside is outside, and the outside is inside.”
Pneumatic Dreamer is lit from both the inside and the front, emphasizing the woven lattice aspect of the design. Its bronze patina will weather to a greenish-blue shade in about a decade.
The sculpture was funded by Starwood Hotels in keeping with the SF Redevelopment Agency One Percent for Art Program.

Keith Haring

 Posted by on September 13, 2011
Sep 132011
 
SOMA
Moscone Center
Corner of Howard and 3rd Streets

This piece has become iconic in the city.  It is viewed by anyone that is heading into the Moscone Convention Center.

Keith Haring is controversial on his best days. Which is sad because he was a truly gifted artist who was passionate about facing up to discrimination of all types, and gave of himself freely to charitable work, children’s issues and causes he felt powerful about.

The first time he had a showing at SFMOMA, this was the sign that stood outside:

IMPORTANT PARENTAL ADVISORY:Some of these exhibitions contain artwork of a sexually explicit nature that is not appropriate for children and that some people may find offensive. We recommend that children have restricted access.

He became a household name through his New York subway art, depicting the essence of the figures above.  Born in 1958 he died of AIDS in 1990.  He established a foundation before his death that holds tight reins on his work and makes sure profits go to AIDS awareness and education.  His full biography can be read here (text only).

The pieces are painted steel. It is untitled, but is often referred to as Three Dancing Figures. The piece, originally done in 1989 was purchased and installed by the city in 2001 with art enrichment funds generated by the expansion of the Moscone Convention Center. The purchase came on the heels of a successful 1998 retrospective of Haring’s work at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Thanks to a $65,00 grant from the Haring Foundation the piece had a full restoration in 2012.

During another retrospective of Haring at the DeYoung (November 2014 – Februay 2015)  The guest curator Dieter Buchart, summed up Haring very nicely in his statement ” “Haring understood that art was for everybody—he fought for the individual and against dictatorship, racism and capitalism. He was no utopian, but he had a dream that ‘nothing is an end, because it always can be the basis for something new and different.”.

At the DeYoung exhibit a film titled The Universe of Keith Haring by filmmaker Christina Clausen runs in the Koret Auditorium, and is worth the time to view.  It was filmed in 2008 using archival film from Haring’s lifetime.

 

 

 

SOMA – Spider Pelt

 Posted by on September 12, 2011
Sep 122011
 
SOMA
Convention Center
3rd and Clementina
Artist Dustin Shuler, who calls himself an “urban hunter of cars” created this work in 1985. Titled “Spider Pelt,” it is a mounted sculpture of a “skinned” red fiat spider.
The Los Angeles artist has built his artistic career, on hunting cars, skinning them of their sheet metal exteriors, and arranging them into thin, flat compositions he calls “pelts. “Spider Pelt”  created from a 1971 red fiat spider -was commissioned by the Arts Commission for the Moscone Parking Garage.
The piece weighs 150-pounds. “Spider Pelt is on the garage’s south wall, where it is readily visible to Third Street drivers entering the downtown area.  The metal sections are connected by lengths of stainless steel cable, which gives the work its pelt-like flexibility while preventing it from flapping. The Plexiglas windows have been replaced with Lexan, a stronger material with UV protective coating. The cabling hangs on 77 fasteners attached to the garage wall.

Victoria Manalo Draves Park

 Posted by on September 11, 2011
Sep 112011
 
SOMA
Folsom Street Between 6th and 7th
Victoria Manalo Draves Park

How many times do we walk by something every day, and forget that, yes it is art. These fence panels are on a park with a fascinating history.

Victoria “Vicki” Manalo Draves (December 31, 1924 – April 11, 2010) was an Olympic diver who won gold medals for the United States in both platform and springboard diving in the 1948 Summer Olympics in London. She was born in San Francisco. Born to a Filipino father and an English mother that met and married in San Francisco. She couldn’t afford to take swimming lessons until she was 10 years old and took summer swimming lessons from the Red Cross, paying five cents admission to a pool in the Mission district.

This 2-acre park is located between Folsom and Harrison Streets, and Columbia Square, and Sherman Avenue, and adjacent to the Bessie Carmichael Elementary School. In 1996, Mayor Brown and the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to allow for a series of property transfers between each agency to construct a new neighborhood park in the South of Market Area. In February 1997, the Board of Supervisors approved an exchange and lease agreement between the City and SFUSD to purchase the Bessie Carmichael School site for a new city park.

Bessie Carmichael school had been a very sad sight. It opened as a temporary school in 1954. Temporary trailers served as classrooms and they surrounded a blacktop area. It was very, very bleak, and lasted in that state for 52 years. The new school is modern, light and airy, and far more conducive to learning. 1 out of 5 students at Bessie Carmichael live in transitional housing: a shelter, residential hotel, or an over-crowded living condition. It was time the kids got a nice place to attend school.

The park is also a wonderful spot for children to come and play.

The panels are aluminum.  The were commissioned by the SF Arts Commission for the Park and Recreation Department in the 2006-2007 budget for $60,000.

The artist is Irene Pijoan (1953-2004) Born in Switzerland, she received her MFA from the University of California, Davis.  She was a professor at the San Francisco Arts Institute.

The creatures are of air and the sea and were dedicated to the artists daughter Emiko Pijoan Nagasawa.

SOMA 1:AM Gallery

 Posted by on September 5, 2011
Sep 052011
 
South of Market
1 AM Gallery
Folsom and 6th Street
1 AM Gallery has been in this site before.  Their new exhibition is entitled Dark Mater.  What I love about the gallery is that they always do graffiti/murals regarding the current exhibit on the side of their building.
I love the concept of just using black and white for this.
The exhibit explores the darker side of the human psyche. Gathering the voices of eight emerging contemporary artists working across mediums, the aim is to examine and confront the mysterious and sometimes sinister side of human nature.
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