Two exhibitions
dal 3/9/2008 al 10/10/2008
Segnalato da
3/9/2008
Two exhibitions
Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco
Matthias Hoch - Joseph Park
The Rena Bransten Gallery (77 Geary Street at Grant, San Francisco, CA 94108) will
present a selection of photographs by German artist Matthias Hoch and paintings by
Seattle-based artist Joseph Park.
In his fourth exhibition at the Rena Bransten Gallery, German photographer Matthias
Hoch introduces new European cities that serve as his sounding board as he searches
for clarity in a world that continues to race toward the future, becoming bigger,
faster and more incomprehensible. Focusing mainly on the city of Almere,
Netherlands, Hoch presents a strong visual metaphor of 'place' versus 'space'; he
explores the great divide between man-made landscape and the natural world. Without
visually consuming his locations, Hoch employs a visual architectural vocabulary
that captures the state of the urban contemporary landscape, guaranteeing to leave
the viewer with more questions about the future than when they began.
Hoch was born in 1958 in Radebeul near Dresden, Germany. His work will be included
in the forthcoming touring exhibition Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures,
starting at Broad Contemporary Art Museum at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,
and traveling to Germanische Nationalmuseum, Nürnberg, and Deutsche Historisches
Museum, Berlin in 2009. He currently lives and works in Leipzig.
"Leave it on the Dance Floor" is a term among tango dancers describing the lesson
they must learn to leave the passion between partners on the dance floor and to move
on. It is also the theme of Joseph Park's new still life paintings in which he
challenges himself to not only master painting rigid visual effects such as sheen
and reflection, facets and refraction, and digital manipulation, but also to link
each work by exploring in the new painting something learned in or inspired by the
old one. The swirling brown strokes that mimicked a rich wood grain on the hard
surface of a table-vice in one picture led to a painting of intricate brown tree
branches with smooth metallic limbs in another. Park's paintings show us the
intense relationship between process and content - a "partnership" that is difficult
to leave behind, but what he takes to the next "relationship" extends and enriches
his vision of the dance.
Mr. Park was born in Ottawa, Canada; graduated with a BA from Cornish College of the
Arts and with a MFA from the California Institute of the Arts. He currently lives
and works in Seattle.
Reception: Thursday, September 4, 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.
Rena Bransten Gallery
77 Geary Street - San Francisco
Gallery hours are Tuesdays through Fridays - 10:30 to 5:30 and Saturdays 11 to 5.
Free admission