the
cabinet
A web-based publication critically engaging with the exhibitions at 500 Capp Street through essays, writings, and dialogues.
March 12, 2026
Everything’s a rock
by Amanda Nudelman
Annie Albagli would tell you that before you were born, you were a rock. That even the ocean, whose vast nutrient-rich waters are considered the great originator of life on Earth, was born from rocks. My father-in-law, a geologist by training, would agree. His most simple way of describing the world, perhaps unsurprisingly, is “Everything’s a rock.” .[…]
May 23, 2023
The Earth Touching Buddha: The Moment of Enlightenment for David Ireland
By Kelly Velasco
“If I had a prior vision, in Burma it all became a reality, and for me this trip really started there…There is some magic here and it can only be explained by some history of Devotion.”1 This is an excerpt from a letter David Ireland wrote to a friend while on his trip to South […]
November 5, 2020
Got Five Minutes?
by Foxy
Calling all David Ireland neighbors, colleagues, students, collaborators, family, and friends! This month marks 45 years since “The punch press was dragged away,” and David Ireland purchased his house at 500 Capp Street. On November 5, 1975, accordion maker and previous owner Paul Greub dragged his punch press out the front door, leaving a gouge […]
September 15, 2020
There is a Terrible Heaviness of Life in all Things Animate and Inanimate
By Bells Howard
The average person will look at a work of art for 27.2 seconds.1 In this moment, what will they see, what do they think, what can they know? Let’s take a longer moment to look at a particular work of the artist David Ireland: a concrete painting from A Portion of: From the Year of Doing the […]
January 5, 2026
memory Pieces
by Glen Helfand
Experiencing Catherine Wagner’s Blue Reverie project at 500 Capp is a memory trigger. Not only because David Ireland’s house is a place that is so full of history and memories burnished into the surface of the shimmering walls. There are the cracks of use and the patina of age within a transparent seal, and now […]
January 15, 2021
The Center of a Present Action
By Steven Loscutoff
The average person will look at a work of art for 27.2 seconds.1 In this moment, what will they see, what do they think, what can they know? Let’s take a longer moment to look at a particular work of the artist David Ireland: a concrete painting from A Portion of: From the Year of Doing the […]
September 15, 2020
Interpreting The House as it Lives
By Camile e. Messerley
The average person will look at a work of art for 27.2 seconds.1 In this moment, what will they see, what do they think, what can they know? Let’s take a longer moment to look at a particular work of the artist David Ireland: a concrete painting from A Portion of: From the Year of Doing the […]
September 15, 2020
A Palate Cleanser from the Outside World
By Sam Claude Carmel
The Accordion Room at The David Ireland House is a working hybrid. It preserves the past in marks and evidence of prior inhabitants, while also making space for new projects, installations, and perspectives. I’m dreaming of a space like this room as I have been living under quarantine as a result of Covid-19. I’ve learned […]
November 1, 2023
Lesdi Goussen Robleto in Conversation with Tony Labat: Reflecting on the 1980s and the Legacy of Artspace
By Lesdi Goussen Robleto
This interview is adapted from a longer conversation that took place over the span of an hour. L: To commemorate 500 Capp Street’s Annual Auction, I want to take the opportunity to center your work as a critical interlocutor in the Bay Area conceptual art movement, alongside the legacy of Anne MacDonald. I’m interested to […]
July 22, 2021
A State of Touching II
By Bells Howard
“It’s a state of touching the surrounding energy and I shudder.” Clarice Lispector, Agua Viva, 1973. To experience an object as art while aware of its memory, is to intensely experience it. There are places full of objects that touch, and, in return, fill you with the desire to touch back. There is a physical […]
September 15, 2020
Institutional Green: Materialized, Sensorialized
By Justin R. Nagle
The average person will look at a work of art for 27.2 seconds.1 In this moment, what will they see, what do they think, what can they know? Let’s take a longer moment to look at a particular work of the artist David Ireland: a concrete painting from A Portion of: From the Year of Doing the […]
September 15, 2020
Returning Full Circle
by William Moncayo
Reflections on the exhibition “There is no such thing as a perfect circle” by Felipe Dulzaides “Draw a line everyday,” exclaimed 500 Capp Street Foundation board member Jane Reed. She brought this to our attention as an exercise of creativity in our artistic practice during recent shelter in place orders due to COVID-19. A simple […]