"Is the truth really what's important, or is it the coloration of this background?" - Gavin MacFadyen, Director of the Centre for Investigative Journalism, from Goldin+Senneby's documentary Looking for Headless In a lecture delivered last year at UC Berkeley entitled "The Misadventures of Critical Thinking," philosopher Jacques Rancière proclaimed that there is nothing to be seen behind the curtain of appearances; there is no truth that will be revealed through the process of critique. Instead, there is only what we see and the logic that governs its visibility. Using Martha Rosler's photomontage Cleaning the Drapes, from her series Bringing the... Read More

Within various artistic traditions, dreams have been touted both as sources of divine inspiration and as reflections of the latent drives of the unconscious mind. In these scenarios, the artist takes center stage as part of an attempt to decipher the dream's revelatory or diagnostic message through the construction of a private symbolic language. Spread across two galleries, Dream On! the fifth annual juried exhibition at Mission 17, brings together a diverse group of works that treat dreams less as a way of connecting to the divine or plumbing the inner depths of the individual psyche, and more as a... Read More

From the curatorial statement: "Social interaction has become an integral part of contemporary art practice. ... In this show we hope to raise questions concerning the social dynamics in artwork and call new attention to the antisocial as both a defining feature of modern life, and a locus for social change."... Read More

"The Taoist sage Chuang Tzu once dreamed he had turned into a butterfly. When he awoke, he couldn't help but wonder whether it was he, who had dreamed of becoming a butterfly, or the butterfly, who had dreamed of becoming Chuang Tzu."... Read More

Entering Misson 17 gallery is mazelike, first a coded door, up a freight elevator, down a red brick wall hallway then a short wait for an attendant to let me in. The experience of access was in sharp contrast to my tour an hour earlier at the 49 Geary art complex where everything is quite obvious.... Read More

Jonathon Tellier and I worked together in the past when he did his own brand of hilarious "market research" for the Anti-Advertising Agency. Knowing his dry sense of humor and appreciation of the absurd, I couldn't help but look forward to seeing him stretch out in a solo show at Mission 17.... Read More

In the middle—offset toward the west facing windows—of the small, but mostly empty, Mission 17 gallery is a shinny-new, black and chrome, unquestionably beautifully made, two-headed bicycle.... Read More