Abstract: BAY AREA NOW 4 YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA JULY 16-NOVEMBER 6, 2005 BAY AREA NOW 4 SAN FRANCISCO: YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 132 PP./$25.00 (SB) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA) is unique in the San Francisco Area in that it is truly multidisciplinary and experimental, while maintaining a high enough profile to expose downtown audiences to art and artists that they might not otherwise encounter. This year YBCA presents the fourth edition of its signature exhibition Bay Area Now. Since its inception in 1997, the triennial event has evolved into a yearlong festival that celebrates contemporary art of various forms, including performances, film/video screenings, and visual arts exhibitions. The trick with an arts festival such as this is not only to cull the new and notable from the Area's diverse, creative landscape but also to make sense of it. The visual arts component alone is ambitious in its scope. The curators scoured the Area to find work by both emerging and more established artists representing the wide range of media, approaches, and perspectives that the region has to offer. As Kenneth J. Foster, YBCA's executive director, acknowledges in the exhibition's catalog, this can be a messy and maddening endeavor. Indeed, at times the sheer breadth of material on view makes it difficult to see commonalities and convergences. Nonetheless, a few important questions about consumer culture, western mythology, the significance of historical moments, and regionalism versus global identity rise to the surface. There is also a striking common concern among artists in the show relating to notions of community. The fact that so much of the work on view acknowledges, either directly or indirectly, the interconnectedness of artist and viewer, individuals and groups, and museums and audiences is perhaps not surprising given YBCA's commitment to community engagement. Still, the curators seem to have identified a common thread among artists in the region, even in spite of the tremendous variety of art production in the area. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] The communal spirit of the exhibition is immediately evident in YBCA's upstairs galleries, which showcase interactive, collaborative projects. The most arresting of these is Cyclops (2005), an installation of photographs submitted by the creators of Hamburger Eyes Photo Magazine, which seeks to the continuing story of life on earth. Hung from floor to ceiling on two of the gallery's walls, the mostly black-and-white photographs are aggressive in both presentation and subject matter. They document porn shoots, street fights, transvestites, and wrestling matches. The story they tell is at times bawdy, crass, and raw, but even if you don't like what you see, it is difficult to take your eyes off the spectacle. The photographs, most dating from 2003 to 2005 with some submissions from the 1960s and 1970s, were taken by the magazine's founders (brothers Ray and Dave Potes and Stefan Simikich) as well as photographers from around the world. As such, the photographs tell a collective story--one that is clearly shaped by editors who seek gritty and unflinching pictures. Most of the works featured in the exhibition's upstairs galleries engage the public more gently, taking interactive approaches to communal artmaking. For instance, in the live installation piece Untitled (2005) by Margaret Tedesco, the artist sits in a miniature screening room and narrates feature-length films to visitors on Thursday evenings and Sunday afternoons. Kate Pocrass's Mundane Journeys (2005), a bus tour of San Francisco, presses visitors to consider and share the small details of sites that they would normally ignore. If you miss the bus, you can pick up a map that includes the artist's mundane commentary and explore the city on your own. …
Publication Year: 2005
Publication Date: 2005-11-01
Language: en
Type: article
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