Opening reception takes place on March 6th from 6-9pm at Adobe Books. Admission is Free.
Adobe Books & Arts Cooperative is located at 3130 24th St, San Francisco
The Paule Anglim Archive Room at 500 Capp Street is excited to collaborate with independent curator Kate Ortega on Carnival, an exhibition taking place at Adobe Books, highlighting the city and streets of San Francisco as a muse.
Carnival is a survey of Bay Area artists exploring what it means to live as working artists in the city in this current moment through celebrations and examinations of the urban environment, documentation of daily life, found objects, and street culture. It’s a love-letter to San Francisco, its history, and cultural impact through the lens of its streets, neighborhoods, and cityscapes.
Throughout his career, David Ireland created art playing with the form and material of found objects and as well as art that was responsive to the Mission neighborhood he lived in. Ireland transformed everyday maintenance actions into ritualistic art performances, enacting street sweeping and sidewalk repairs outside of 500 Capp Street. Ortega’s curation of works in Ireland’s collection pays homage to the San Francisco streets that helped shape Ireland’s conceptual and material lens.
The exhibition borrows its name from the eponymous Natalie Merchant song, a single inspired by her own experiences of living in New York City for the first time and the thrills and emotions felt when she was a young artist discovering the complexities of an urban environment. Carnival was originally released on Merchant’s seminal debut Tigerlily (1995).
The opening reception takes place on March 6th from 6-9pm at Adobe Books. Showcasing three exciting voices in Bay Area punk and experimental music, there will be live performances by Art Deco, mandoorhandhookcardoor, and Sonia Espiritu. Alex Muñoz, who performs experimental sound and spoken word performances as Art Deco, and Sonia Espiritu are visual artists featured in Carnival. Mandoorhandhookcardoor is a thrilling one-man noise project known for his synth experimentations and out-of-this-world drumming.
Kate Ortega (She/Her, They/Them) is an emerging independent curator, public art historian, punk historian, and artist based in San Francisco, California. Her practice as a curator and cultural practitioner concerns narratives of queer cultural history and community, countercultural movements, and popular/alternative music and how such narratives can change how we approach both art historical research and curation as well public history and community engagement. Her work as an art historian is fueled by a desire to envision a more diverse, inter-disciplinary history of contemporary art shaped by music, performance, community action, counter culture movements, and pop culture. Ortega is an alumnus of the University of San Francisco’s Museum Studies graduate program and has been able to work with FAMSF, The Nevada Museum of Art, The Lilley Museum of Art, Fort Mason Center for Art and Culture, KADIST, and the San Francisco Public Library in her time as a student. She has curated for the University of Nevada, Reno’s McNamara Gallery, the Holland Project, the San Francisco Public Library, the San Francisco History Center, and the Sierra Arts Foundation. As a DIY gallerist, Ortega runs Water Closet Gallery, a gallery space in Vistacion Valley focused on highlighting experimental work by Bay Area artists and creatives- operating completely out of a bathroom. Water Closet Gallery is located within the DIY venue Bric-a-Brac.
Included Works:
David Ireland, Everything You Always Wanted to Know About 65 Capp, 1984, Mixed media sculpture
David Ireland, Tower, 1986, phonebooks, wood, metal
David Ireland, Concrete Sundae, 1999, sundae, glass, and concrete
David Ireland, Untitled, N.D., Jar and concrete and dirt torpedoes
David Ireland, Passaic Pour, 1983, box and concrete
David Ireland, Untitled, N.D., paint can and concrete
David Ireland, Untitled, N.D., jar, metal and twine
Photographs of Ireland Repairing the Sidewalk taken by Tom Marioni, 1975
Logo for Safeway, 1972, lithograph
Print of Scheme #2, M.O.C.A. LA (Debris from Demolished Building), 1988, ink on paper
Print of Scheme #3, M.O.C.A. LA (Dirt from 500 Capp w/Green Doors), 1988, ink on paper