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13/9/2012

Temporary Structures

San Francisco Art Institute - SFAI, San Francisco

Curated by Glen Helfand and Cydney Payton

Participating Artists
Pawel Althamer, Roberto Behar & Rosario Marquardt, David Gissen, Amy M. Ho, Paul Kos, Roy McMakin, Christian Nagler & Azin Seraj, Ben Peterson, Michael Robinson, Jonathan Runcio, Mungo Thomson, and Together We Can Defeat Capitalism

The San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI), one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious contemporary art institutions, is proud to present the interdisciplinary exhibition Temporary Structures, featuring over a dozen acclaimed international and Bay Area artists. Co-curated by Glen Helfand and Cydney M. Payton, this major group exhibition includes architecture, installation, video, film, illustration, and performance art.

Temporary Structures is on view in SFAI's Walter and McBean Galleries from September 14–December 15, 2012, and is free and open to the public. An opening reception will be held Friday, September 14 from 6:00-9:00 pm. Join SFAI for wine and appetizers; enjoy a special climbing performance as part of a Paul Kos installation; and meet several of the exhibiting artists, including David Gissen, Amy M. Ho, Paul Kos, Christian Nagler and Azin Seraj Ben Peterson, Jonathan Runcio, and Together We Can Defeat Capitalism.

Taking root in the exciting possibilities of impermanence and inspired by San Francisco’s colorful history of World’s Fairs, the exhibition includes works—many of them site-specific—concerned with architectural aspirations, follies, and momentary acts of cultural transformation. These works explore aesthetic, political, and social ideals, ranging from the rise of consumer culture to 19th-century French uprisings to the recent Occupy movement, and help bring new meaning and understanding to the past and present.

The broad allure of World’s Fairs, and their use of temporary pavilions in the service of now-questionable views of internationalism and entertainment, is a key element of the exhibition. San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts, designed as a gateway for the exhibition halls of the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, today serves as a “permanent” landmark, owning to the retrofitting of its original wood and burlap-fiber bones. The Palace represents a growing collection of temporary-in-design, yet lasting, structures around the world, including those captured in the works by exhibition artists David Gissen and Michael Robinson, as well as in Jacques Tati’s 1967 film Playtime, which will be screened in conjunction with the exhibition.

With their late modernist architecture and long history of hosting impermanent exhibitions, SFAI’s Walter and McBean Galleries are also central to the artwork in Temporary Structures. Revealed for the exhibition is a 1985 wall work by Paul Kos that has been interned under sheet rock for over a decade. Also remembered is David Ireland’s stunning pour of concrete down the galleries’ signature staircase in 1987, a kind of lava flow descending. Amy M. Ho’s video projects have a similar focus on the galleries’ staircase, imposing imagined possibilities and uses on the space. Jonathan Runcio’s newly commissioned piece points to additions to and subtractions from the building since its “completion” 40 years ago. Some elements of the galleries have even been shifted—the entrance reworked, the skylights opened, a wall removed, new structures built—to make transparent the adaptability of fixed space and renew engagement with the perhaps-familiar place.

Yet another visual subtext for Temporary Structures takes hold in late modernism. The iconic utopian capital city Brasilia (and politically failed UNESCO World Heritage Site) is prominent in works by featured Polish artist Pawel Althamer and collaborative architects Roberto Behar & Rosario Marquardt. Althamer’s video Brazil chronicles the journey of space travelers who have returned to earth to wander the futuristic architectural landscapes of Brasilia. Behar & Marquardt’s site-specific commission dialogues with the architecture of the Walter and McBean Galleries, transforming the entrance into a fantasy that echoes the architectural forms found in the urban plan for Brasilia. While not a direct reference to Brasilia, Ben Peterson’s epic drawing Ships Wake (2011) shares in the whimsical and haunting nature of imagined communities, cobbling together from unlikely elements of a shantytown and cruise liner.

About the Curators
Glen Helfand is a visiting faculty member in SFAI’s History and Theory of Contemporary Art program. His writing, concentrating on contemporary art and culture, appears in Artforum and numerous other publications, and he has curated exhibitions for the de Young Museum, San Jose Museum, Mills College Art Museum, and Dust Gallery in Las Vegas.
Cydney M. Payton is former CEO and Chief Curator for the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver. She holds an MA in Curatorial Practice, Concentrating on the History and Theory of Architecture, from California College of the Arts.

About the Walter and McBean Galleries
The Walter and McBean Galleries on SFAI’s 800 Chestnut Street campus house exhibitions, workshops, and other alternative and experimental avenues for presenting work by international contemporary artists. All SFAI’s public programs and exhibitions are FREE and open to the public. They are supported, in part, by the Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.

Events
In addition to the art featured in the Walter and McBean Galleries, Temporary Structures includes a series of events, performances, artist talks, and films.

salon
Guerrilla Café
Together We Can Defeat Capitalism (TWCDC)
Saturday, September 22
12:00-5:00 PM
In front of Walter and McBean Galleries
Drink tea and eat cake while you partake in political dialogue. Revisiting the format of its 2000 “Guerrilla Tea Room,” TWCDC's Guerrilla Café offers free refreshments and an environment that encourages students and passers-by to discuss the upcoming election and radical thought of all sorts.

exercise session
Market Fitness: Derivatives (Register!)
Christian Nagler
Tuesday, September 25
7:30-9:00 PM
SFAI Café
Instructor, artist and writer Christian Nagler brings together two seemingly distant topics of conversation in popular culture: the demystification of the financial system and the importance of individual exercise routines. Get your sweat on in this session exploring derivatives.

film screening
I Am Cuba (Soy Cuba)
Mikhail Kalatozov
Monday, October 1
7:30 PM
Lecture Hall
Director Mikhail Kalatozov's 1964 cinematic masterpiece was intended as propaganda in support of the Cuban revolution as it transitioned from Batista to Castro. Watch the film today to better understand the utopian idealism of the communist era.

artist talk
Mungo Thomson (Register!)
Monday, October 8
7:30 PM
Lecture Hall
In this Visiting Artist and Scholar and Temporary Structures lecture, artist Mungo Thomson talks about his humorous, conceptually driven work. Discover first-hand how he artfully riffs on art-world figures, pop culture, science, and mysticism, and don't miss his Yoga Brick Wall (Black) installation in the Walter and McBean Galleries.

salon
Guerrilla Café
Together We Can Defeat Capitalism (TWCDC)
Wednesday, October 10
12:00-5:00 PM
In front of Walter and McBean Galleries
Drink tea and eat cake while you partake in political dialogue. Revisiting the format of its 2000 “Guerrilla Tea Room,” TWCDC's Guerrilla Café offers free refreshments and an environment that encourages students and passers-by to discuss the upcoming election and radical thought of all sorts.

film screening
Playtime
Jacques Tati
Monday, October 15
7:30 PM
Lecture Hall
In Temporary Structures, director Jacques Tati's 1967 film Playtime serves as a tone-setting device, an ephemeral world that exists forever in cinematic space. Join us for this screening of Tati's choreographed critique on modernism.

exercise class
Market Fitness: Foreign Exchange (Register!)
Christian Nagler
Tuesday, October 16
7:30-9:00 PM
SFAI Café
Instructor, artist and writer Christian Nagler brings together two seemingly distant topics of conversation in popular culture: the demystification of the financial system and the importance of individual exercise routines. Get your sweat on in this session on foreign exchange.

artist talk
Michael Robinson
Monday, October 29
7:30 PM
Lecture Hall
As part of both the Visiting Artist and Scholars lecture series and Temporary Structures exhibition, film and video artist Michael Robinson shares his work exploring the joys and dangers of mediated experience. View his film Victory Over the Sun (2007) about past World's Fairs in the Walter and McBean Galleries and come listen to him talk about his work.

film screening
Urs Fischer documentary
Iwan Schumacher
Monday, November 19
7:30-9:00 PM
Lecture Hall
Directed by Iwan Schumacher, this 2010 documentary on artist Urs Fischer is structured around an approaching pinnacle of the artist’s career: a one-man exhibition at the New Museum, New York, in 2009. Join us for the film’s West Coast premiere.

exercise session
Market Fitness: Commodities (Register!)
Christian Nagler
Tuesday, November 20
7:30-9:00 PM
SFAI Café
Instructor, artist and writer Christian Nagler brings together two seemingly distant topics of conversation in popular culture: the demystification of the financial system and the importance of individual exercise routines. Get your sweat on in this session exploring commodities.

lecture
Jeff Gunderson
Wednesday, November 28
12:00 PM
Lecture Hall
Learn about the temporary structures of SFAI's past. Long-time librarian and resident historian Jeff Gunderson shares stories, images, and other documentary material.

The exhibition and its associated events are all free and open to the public. Space is limited, and for some events advance registration is recommended.

SFAI's exhibitions and public programs are made possible in part by the Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.

Press Contact:
Lauren Dresnick
ldresnick@sfai.edu
415.749.4508

Opening Reception: Friday, September 14 6:00-9:00 PM.
Walter and McBean Galleries Join us for wine and appetizers at the opening reception of Temporary Structures. Enjoy a special climbing performance as part of Paul Kos's installation. And meet several of the exhibiting artists, including David Gissen, Amy M. Ho, Paul Kos, Christian Nagler and Azin Seraj Ben Peterson, Jonathan Runcio, and Together We Can Defeat Capitalism.

Wilfredo Prieto: Friday, September 14, 2012 - 4:30pm
Lecture Hall
Free and open to the public

UPDATE: Due to visa issues, Wilfredo Prieto is unable to make his scheduled talk. Tony Labat, SFAI's Director of MFA Programs, will instead discuss the political status of artists in Cuba, and the global issues that artists face in creating and presenting work across borders. Prieto's lecture will be re-scheduled for later in the semester. Please check the website for updates.

About the Lecture
In More with Less, Cuban-born artist Wilfredo Prieto will describe how he creates powerful art with minimal gestures, often starting with mundane objects and stripping away elements, or constructing intentionally underwhelming situations. His previous projects have included a library of 5,000 books with blank pages; an installation of national flags on flagpoles with the colors reduced to grayscale; and a potted plant watered with single drips from a water tanker and mobile generator.

San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut Street - San Francisco, CA
Tuesday through Saturday, 11:00 am–6:00 pm
Closed Thanksgiving Day
Free admission

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