The Disagreeable Object

Virginia Overton
February 3 – April 29, 2017

View Gallery

The Disagreeable Object, takes its title from Alberto Giacometti’s surrealist sculpture, The Disagreeable Object, 1931. A defying sculptural attempt against artistic categorization, poised between movement and rest, between art and non-art, The Disagreeable Object is a rebellious and humorously unappealing object. Its vulgar shape is embodied in a form that may be disturbingly incomprehensible, but nevertheless sculpturally perfect.

During a lecture given at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1987, David Ireland alluded to his own similar sculptural concerns, comparing his work with that of Giacometti’s sculpture and he asked, “How does one develop a form that evades categorization?” Ireland’s inquiry prompted him to further develop an artistic process that engaged with non-traditional materials and situated work in unusual artistic contexts.

“The exhibition,” as co-curator Diego Villalobos says, “hinges on alternative definitions of “good taste,” situating sculpture in the realm of attitude, beyond its material constraints.” Notes co-curator Bob Linder: “The exhibition uses Giacometti’s surrealist sculpture as a point of conversation between specific David Ireland artworks from The 500 Capp Street Foundation’s collection and features a quintessential Ireland sculpture, on loan from SFMOMA, A Decade Document, Withcomet, Andcomet, Andstool, 1980-1990.” The cabinet engages in a tongue-in-cheek way with Joseph Beuys’ ideas of social sculpture and the dematerialization of the art object. This and other artworks featured in The Disagreeable Object exhibition relate to objects we recognize or desire, but which have been abstracted both psychologically and formally; the works are humorous, strange, and meant to challenge our idea of traditional sculpture.

The Disagreeable Object; installation views; photo: Johnna Arnold, 2017. © The 500 Capp Street Foundation

Organic Logic

Howard Fried, John Roloff, Mark Thompson
February 4 – March 18, 2017

Organic Logic: Howard Fried, John Roloff, Mark Thompson, the inaugural project in The Garage, takes its point of departure from John Roloff’s concept of “organic logic.” Roloff first arrived at the phrase preparing for a 1996 talk in Germany, encompassing the work of fellow Bay Area artists Howard Fried and Mark Thompson.

Roloff described organic logic as an intrinsic feature of certain Bay Area artistic practices in particular, an approach that “embraces complex, systemic, intuitive and process-oriented aesthetics and methodologies.” He further investigated this idea through guest co-editing, with critical theorist Mark Bartlett, the Fall/Winter 2000, “Organic Logic” issue of New Observations, a contemporary arts journal. From the base of Fried and Thompson’s artist sections, the expanded scope of the publication highlighted an array of local contributors across disciplines: visual and performing arts, earth sciences, and open source technology, foregrounding the role of artists’ research, writing, diagrammatic studies, and conversation.

Guest organized by Tanya Zimbardo, Organic Logic will feature key, but rarely seen pieces associated with the artists’ performance or event-based installations from the 1970s and 1980s including: Fried’s early public and private actions with multiple participants, Roloff’s outdoor site-generated kiln projects, and Thompson’s relational work with honeybees in the urban environment. Through their distinct approaches, Fried, Roloff and Thompson metaphorically address communication systems and investigated materials in relation to site.

Three evenings of Organic Logic artist-focused public programs such as talks will bring several of those contributors together – Amy Balkin, Sharon Daniel, Bernie Lubell, Jim Melchert, Stephanie Syjuco, Pamela Z, among others.

Artist Talk

Jim Melchert, John Roloff, and Stephanie Syjuco
Thursday, February 16, 2017

The first in a series of three programs in conjunction with our inaugural exhibition in The Garage. This conversation between artists Jim Melchert, John Roloff and Stephanie Syjuco, centers on expanded definitions of ceramics. They share their perspectives on the intersections between ceramics, site, performance, and audience participation in the Bay Area.

Artist Talk

Amy Balkin, Sharon Daniel and Fieldworks Collaborative (Trena Noval and Ann Wettrich)
Thursday, March 2, 2017

Amy Balkin is an artist whose work involves land and the geopolitical relationships that frame it. Sharon Daniel is a media artist who produces interactive and participatory documentaries focused on issues of social, economic, environmental and criminal justice. Fieldworks Collaborative was founded in 2012 by artists/researchers Trena Noval and Ann Wettrich to invent new approaches to creative inquiry and collaborative systems that explore the world we live in.

Artist Talk and Sound Presentation

Terry Berlier, Bernie Lubell, and Pamela Z
Thursday, March 16, 2017

Using a variety of materials, from cut wood, to custom electronic devices, to analog record players and their own bodies, the artists contest the performative and visceral aspects of sound and how it changes the way we view and perceive the world around us.

Terry Berlier is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is often kinetic, interactive and/or sound based and addresses themes of the environment and queer practice. Bernie Lubell makes interactive wood machines that visually construct the process of thought. Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video.

Nightwalks

Isabel Nuñode Buen
April 8 – May 20, 2017

Isabel Nuño de Buen creates sculptural installations resembling architectural models that are largely horizontal, expansive, and fragmentary. These three-dimensional constructions—which the artist refers to as constellations—stem from a complex layering process. Each level operates within its own internal logic; the overall forms are comprised of new material, introduced and contextualized with moments and parts from previous installations. This open form allows the work to amass a rich formal language that intertwines the malleable and structural qualities inherent in drawing and architecture. Nuño de Buen works with a variety of media and materials, including plaster, paper maché, drawing, steel and paint.

For Nightwalks, Nuño de Buen begins by drawing with chalk directly onto the garage floor, creating a fragmented pattern based on her evening explorations around the streets of Hannover, Germany, in search of cardboard materials.

The cardboard is cut, layered and sanded resulting in large modular columns. These modules, created in the artist’s studio and assembled onsite, are built according to their own inner set of rules, which condition the organizational structure of their building. The works’ inherent potentiality for change and re-order allows for multiple configurations, prioritizing the process over the end result. Specifically arranged and placed on top of the drawing, the structures mediate the spatial relations imposed by the drawing, allowing the viewer in determining a sense of place, while creating an obstacle that responds to and plays off of the architecture of The Garage.

Isabel Nuño de Buen (Mexico City, 1985) earned her diploma in Fine Arts at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig, Germany, in 2013, where she also completed the Meisterschüler program in 2014. She has received various grants and awards, including the Grant for Young Creators FONCA (2015-16), Mexico, the Grant for International Studies FONCA – CONACYT (2013-14) (MX) and the Jahresstipendium Niedersachsen (2015) (GE). She currently lives and works in Hannover, Germany as a resident at the Villa Minimo as part of a grant from the Kunstverein Hannover (2017-18). Recent exhibitions include: Creación en Movimiento, Capilla del Arte, Puebla (MX), 2016; scala polis, taut, axis mundi (Constellation 1.2), Kurimanzutto (MX), 2015; Bricologie, Villa Arson, Nizza (FR), 2015.