The Free Gallery by Free Utopian Projects at Pro Arts Imagine your hoarder great aunt’s attic. Now add some color and get rid of the spiderwebs. Next add Christmas-hued plaid suitcases, a sombrero, a cootie-catcher or two, and you almost have “The Free Gallery” now open at Pro Arts. Almost. Read More…
Settle into the cushioned pews at Krowswork Gallery and Suzy Poling’s video, “Humans and Stones,” will hypnotize you — not in a trippy-stoner kind of way but toward a more subdued spirituality. The screen seems to enlarge as you watch and begin to feel the surroundings fill with the vortex Read More…
How to describe the comportment of the Israeli men in Kehinde Wiley’s portraits? Heads are tilted back and cocked to the side, jaws are tense. Stately and supercilious? Yes, but also guarded and defiant. “The head must be proud, proud,” Wiley says in an accompanying video, coaching a model. Rappers Read More…
The pancakes and the booze were only background goodies compared to the diverse and vivid artwork showcased by more than 100 local Bay Area artists this Friday and Saturday at San Francisco’s Gallery and Bar 4N5. Read More…
“WaterLand” is centered on Bay Area-based photographer Donna Wan. Wan, who grew up in Taiwan and New York, was interested in the relationship between people and water, and her photographs explore this connection. Read More…
At “Process Portrait,” a group show now at Firehouse North Gallery on Shattuck, the cavernous front window holds Hannah Lee Hoffman’s piece titled, “How is everything even connected?” It’s like entering a refuge but also stepping onstage. You move, draw and play with her belongings — sewn-together wisps of memories Read More…
Loakal, a pop-up shop and gallery in Jack London Square in Oakland, lured people in with its eye-catching, locally produced merchandise and, on a chilly Oakland First Friday night with the voice of a young Michael Jackson. “Won’t you please let me back in your heart?” the young leader of Read More…
The smartphone has democratized art, making it possible for any user to point-and-shoot and mimic the professional craft of photography. With a touch of a button, the foam on a cappuccino, imbued with a dramatically nostalgic tint, can now be shared with the world in a range once unheard of Read More…
1. “Histoire Noir” at Mercury 20 Gallery Though the discipline of history may seem fact-driven, emotion and imagination merge with historical renditions of Oakland and Europe in “Histoire Noir,” a two-part show opening at Mercury 20 Gallery. Artist Jody Medich takes the stories of her relatives living on the border Read More…
The first “moment of silence” on the radio was in 1919 for victims of World War I. But even a mere moment of so-called nothingness was so alarming that many people thought they had an apocalyptic takeover on their hands, or at least a malfunctioning radio. There is a sort Read More…