Shotgun Review

Everyday Miracles - extended, phase 2

Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:17:50 -0800

Everyday Miracles - is an extended curated exhibition by Hou Hanru, taken from a previous concept for the Chinese Pavilion at the 2007 Venice Biennale. Presented in three cycles (the first two at the San Francisco Art Institute and the third at REDCAT), Everyday Miracles seeks to expand upon dialogues about feminism in Asia and the emergence of the "extraordinary" in art and the everyday. Attempting to negotiate and transcend social and political realities in China, India, Korea, Pakistan, the Philippines and Taiwan. The exhibition features work by Hamra Abbas, Ringo Bunoan, Chen Hui-Chiao, Shilpa Gupta, Kan Xuan, Minouk Lim and Jewyo Rhii. I was able to witness phase 2 at the Walter and McBean Gallery in SFAI, as well as listen to the conversation on the panel discussion with Hamra Abbas, Ringo Bunoan, and Chen Hui-chiao at the Lecture Hall at SFAI, Chesnut st. campus. The different phases, translators, extended versions and expanded spaces of exhibition, seem to symbolize the pursuit to traverse a whole new continent unexplored. The concept of feminism in Asia is not as singular as it seems, Three countries - Pakistan, the Philippines and China all have different perpectives and points of interest. Yet the participatory aspect of the artist' works seem to break boundaries between audience and viewpoint-of-the-artist. To somehow feel the stiletto's of discreet-planned-chance, tearing down the alphabets of tradition that Pakistani Artist' Hamra Abbas planted in the sterile floors of a museum. Or feel the weight of wooden pallets mounted to form a bridge by Philippine born Ringo Bunoan. And to be able to feel the wonderment of discovering a bed covered with rhapsodic orange bubbles which was each pierced by Taiwan Artist Chen Hui-chiao, one by one, by a needle, and woven to form this orange elastic bubble blanket. There too is conflicting emotions present in trying to absorb the vulgar sexuality of mythological creatures presented in the contemporary sculpted fiber glass pieces of Abbas, or the grand scale OR lack of found objects present in Ringo Bunoan's collaborative pieces, nor the tedious abrasive process in curating open exhibitions just like how Chen directs her alternative space IT Park in Taipei. It is all too much to absorb in a single format, and it feels like the world is turning as we speak. While a dialog is taking place, concepts of gender binaries are changing/forming and re-creating. In this essence, the curatorial format is an excellent success. Ideas are continuously forming, encompassing geography, and, cannot really be contained in a single frame, there needs to be extensions, multiple phases and continuous dialog. Can it all be simplified? Yes it can be. By traversing the dichotomies represented by our time and history - By giving spaces, lengthening, extending. The only way to understand alternative visions that counter the terms of modernization and globalization is to provide room - participate, expand the dialogue, and, most of all, listen. Everyday Miracles is on view at the SFAI Walter and Mcbean Galleries from October 1 to January 30, 2010 and at REDCAT in Los Angeles from Nov 22 to Jan 17, 2010

Luke Butler: Captain!

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:00:00 -0800

Chekov II, 2009; acrylic on canvas; 16 x 19 in. Courtesy of Silverman Gallery, San Francisco. Luke Butler's exhibition at Silverman Gallery is as exclamatory as its title. A composite of his Enterprise (2008-09) and Leaders of Men (2009) series, Butler's "Captain!" explores the tropes of TV and media representations of masculinity. Walt Whitman's "O Captain! My Captain!" drew on the poetic device of the heroic couplet to memorialize President Lincoln and perhaps accustom the American imagination to a more erotic power relationship. Similarly, Butler's paintings and collages are profoundly accessible even while they awaken a provocative empathy. Still frames from Star Trek and Starsky & Hutch from the Enterprise series are culled for moments of anguish, terror, or vulnerability. Butler painted a particularly poignant scene of Spock cradling the head of Captain Kirk, isolating the couple on a muted gray background that calls to mind the galactic Wild West of the USS Enterprise or the middle gray of the television screen. The sexual thrust of these paintings are accentuated in the Leaders of Men collages, where the contemplative heads of American Cold War presidents are cropped to bodies found in retro gay pornography--think of a scantily clad Richard Nixon, prepping for a shave. Butler succeeds in revealing the sensitive underpinnings of some of our most testosterone-fueled narratives. He may have titled the exhibition as homage to the yelps of the crew, the bisexuality of Walt Whitman, or a pointed political accusation, but Captain! embraces all of these interpretations with straightforward dexterity. Luke Butler: "Captain!" is on view at Silverman Gallery in San Francisco through October 17, 2009.

2nd Look - Luke Butler: Captain!

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:50:00 -0800

Hammer Films, 2009; acrylic on canvas; 16 x 12 in. When classic campy entertainment is rendered in paint, the remediation restores some of the earnestness to the original enterprise. Thus, Captain Kirk is once again an empathetic hero--casting off the pop cultural taint of William Shatner's long career--in the canvasses on display in Luke Butler's exhibition "Captain!" at Silverman Gallery. The compositions, lifted from still frames from Star Trek episodes, seek to invest the sci-fi drama with the iconic power of a pictorial tableau. Lurking across the gallery are collages of vintage gay erotica spliced with the heads of mid-century American political leaders such as Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Gerald Ford. The leaders freshly toned and highly endowed bodies are charming, frolicking in natural landscapes and swimming with seals. The collages are illusionist, flirting with photographic compositions in the manner of John Heartfield's pamphlet covers. Where Heartfield focused his critique on the politics of Weimar Germany, Butler dives into the cultural dissonances stirring in the United States period of high modernism, before the counterculture overflowed into mainstream American life. These fetishized depictions of Captain Kirk and Lyndon Johnson critique the construction of masculinity and power. Unfortunately, the insights into gender politics gleaned from the work seem almost as historical as their source materials. The highlights of the exhibition are paintings of title sequences from B-movies. The formalities of the title graphics, complete with production credits, expose the industrial methods of production that produced such lowbrow delights. For a moment, films that have been relegated to the camp of the past become new contemporary ideas. Luke Butler: "Captain!" is on view at Silverman Gallery in San Francisco through October 17, 2009.

Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lightning Fields

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:40:00 -0800

Lightening Field 131, 2009; silver gelatin print. © Hiroshi Sugimoto, courtesy Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco. As a conceptual photographer often heavily invested in his process, Hiroshi Sugimoto has always been interested in photography's ability to capture light as well as the medium's capacity to frame and objectify its subject. In his current show, "Lightning Fields," Sugimoto references the history of photography by pursuing two distinct projects related to William Henry Fox Talbot--inventor of the photographic negative. The first part is Sugimoto's literal and meticulous reprinting of two of Talbot's botanical photograms while the second is inspired by the pioneer's explorations with electricity. In Lightning Fields, Sugimoto plays with the tenuousness of positive and negative by purposefully incorporating electrical charges as part of the photographic process. Without a camera, Sugimoto applies a Van de Graaff 400,000-volt generator to his large negatives to create photogram-like records of transitory sparks and static electricity. The Van de Graaff, originally designed for particle acceleration, is most recognizable as the ubiquitous science museum display that when touched causes one's hair to stand on end. Unlike the museum exhibit, the high voltage supplied by Sugimoto's Van de Graaff is extremely dangerous. This heightened sense of corporeal harm is reinforced by static electricity's capacity to "scar" and--to a traditional photographer--ruin large format negatives upon removal from the camera. By essentially establishing a micro-environment in the dark room akin to the conditions of an electrical storm, Sugimoto creates lush large-scale black and white prints that resemble botanical and biological images, landscapes, high-power microscopic magnifications, and lightning itself. This richly layered process creates works that, in the tradition of Talbot before him, elegantly blur the boundary between science and photography. "Hiroshi Sugimoto: Lightning Fields" is on view at Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco through October 31, 2009.

Elín Hansdóttir

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:30:00 -0800

PATH, 2008; installation; dimensions variable. Courtesy of i8 gallery, Reykjavík and Maribel Lopez Gallery, Berlin. Photo: diephotodesigner.de. Elín Hansdóttir's architectural interventions intend to alter our engagement with space and recalibrate optical experience. Her 2008 installation PATH cut off all functional areas of a Berlin gallery, filling it with a frenetic corridor. The gallery door opened directly onto a dimly lit hallway that zigzagged at severe angles while shafts of light--seeming to emanate subconsciously--punctuated the space's shadows. Hansdóttir addressed this and other topics when she recently spoke at Marin's Headlands Center for the Arts, describing how a visitor entered and exited this single pathway through the same door, without ever realizing they turned around. The artist painted a similar corridor blindingly white for a 2005 installation in a rural Icelandic house, thwarting visitors with uneven steps and awkward corners. She recalled that the openness of the venue and the challenge of the structure itself provoked vandalism and aggression from children playing within the space. Wary that her installations can look overly designed, the artist admitted that there was potential for this vandalism to distract from their visual affect. Yet, by testing the space, the children learned its bizarre construction and marked their whereabouts, showing how such surreal visions can motivate the internalization of new systems. In this vein, Hansdóttir's work largely attempts to dissolves a Cartesian notion of perspective and forces the viewer to experience vision outside the apex of the image. Elín Hansdóttir is in residence at the Headlands Center for the Arts in Sausalito during Fall 2009.

Hot & Cold: The End is Here

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:20:00 -0800

Jay Nelson. The Good Bye Ranch, 2007-09; graphite on paper; 60 x 88 in. The relationship between an exhibition and its catalog is always a tenuous one. Much of the art is distorted in the translation to a new medium. Similar to the metamorphosis of literature into film, new insights are gained at the expense of the raw experience of the original artwork. "Hot & Cold: The End is Here," a group show at Baer Ridgway Exhibitions inverts this flow, curating a live exhibition based on the local art zine Hot & Cold. Developed by Chris Duncan and Griffin McPartland, Hot & Cold has always been a terminal project, counting down 10 issues to its final Issue #1, the nexus for this exhibition. Flipping through the pages of an issue of Hot & Cold is uniquely compelling. It has no standard structure. Each copy is a hand-bound assemblage of media from silkscreen to appliqué to photocopies, often in conjunction with time-based media such as vinyl or performance. Duncan and McPartland's editorial approach is essentially as a Fluxus piece; its meaning to be evoked by experiencing the cocktail of media in one fluid exchange. The installation at Baer Ridgway is derived from this playfulness. Drawing from an A-list of artists with Bay Area roots, including Amy Franceschini, Mads Lynnerup, and Brion Nuda Rosch, the exhibition is deftly curated. Most notable are Jay Nelson's supple drawing The Good Bye Ranch (2007-09), and Tammy Ray Carland's erotically underplayed photograph Hers and Hers. Yet despite all this quality artwork, something is inevitably lost in translation. The personal experience of navigating the zine, which is at the root of Hot & Cold's success, slips away into din of another group show. "Hot & Cold: The End is Here" will be on view at Baer Ridgway Exhibitions in San Francisco through October 17, 2009.

2nd Look - Hot and Cold: The End is Here

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:10:00 -0800

Chris Duncan & Griffin McPartland. Hot and Cold Issue #1, 2009; mixed media. Hot & Cold co-creators Chris Duncan and Griffin McPartland explain the zine's concept as such: "usually zines go downhill the longer they are produced, so we plan(ned) to do the opposite by starting with issue ten and get better and better as we count down to one." Seven years on, that day has arrived. Issue #1 is their most ambitious project to date, its launch coinciding with a show at Baer Ridgeway. In the exhibition's poster, protest signs declaring "The End is Here" echo the more political artworks in the show. Pieces by Michael Arcega, Ryan Wallace, Reed Anderson, and Mads Lynnerup speak to the great heights of excess and recession we have recently witnessed. As a counterpoint, Michelle Blade's watercolor homage to poet Ranier Maria Rilke offers inspiration to look inward and keep creating, even through hard times. As one of Rilke's letters reminds us, "Art too is just a way of living..." The final Hot & Cold project takes this idea to heart. A map by Ribbons producer David Wilson inserted in the zine led viewers out of the gallery space and to a well-hidden grove in the Richmond hills. There, Wilson and conspirators constructed a massive fort out of twigs and brush. Swings, ditches, and mild interventions were inserted into the landscape where the public was invited to play, potluck, and enjoy live music on a recent Sunday.

MEMORIAL FORT
by lamesake

Memorial Fort video courtesy of Adam Cimino. In the end, Hot & Cold is about creating a community of makers. With the art world rapidly globalizing, far-flung artists are able to form bonds and influence one another through various webs of interaction. I thank the creators of Hot & Cold for seven years of keeping these points of connection authentic and varied. "Hot & Cold: The End is Here" will be on view at Baer Ridgway Exhibitions in San Francisco through October 17, 2009. Art Practical Issue 1 will include a full-length version of this review.

Dennis Gallagher: Forms & Shapes

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 14:00:00 -0800

Forms & Shapes, installation view, 2009. All works untitled, various dates; left wall: charcoal on paper; right wall and floor: ceramic. Courtesy of Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco. Bay Area sculptor Dennis Gallagher's posthumous survey exhibition, "Forms & Shapes," presents a comprehensive range of work--from massive stacked ceramic sculptures, to smaller maquettes and assemblages, plates, and drawings. Given that the 57-year-old artist tragically passed away earlier this year, the instance of five large, vertical sculptures all produced in 2009 is a testament to his protean creativity. The exhibition is punctuated by the inclusion of earlier work, which hints at his development from abstract and monochromatic (mostly white) sculptures through the more complex, representational, and often functional work of recent years. The drawings--especially the bold, black-line series from 1991--are to be understood equally as working sketches and powerful explorations of abstraction. Gallagher, like many artists, early on adapted a select range of forms into his sculptural vocabulary, putting them through their paces often in defiance of gravity and, indeed, interpretation. And yet almost in spite of themselves, the works evoke a wealth of references, from classical motifs such as the Three Graces and the shafts of Ionic columns, to Constructivist assemblages of Merzbau-like ambition, and Brutalist architecture. Even at their most menacing, however, a measure of humanity runs throughout the obviously handmade irregularity of their forms and surfaces, pitted, scarred and roughly glazed as they are. The gallery's somewhat theatrical lighting lends gravitas to the staging of what, when viewed as a totality, could ultimately be understood as totems to the memory of failed modernist Utopias. Dennis Gallagher: "Forms & Shapes" is on view at Rena Bransten Gallery in San Francisco through October 10, 2009.

Nathan Redwood: On A Neck

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:50:00 -0800

Untitled #1, 2009; acrylic on paper. Courtesy of Electric Works, San Francisco. Although the paintings in "On A Neck" are stylistically those of Nathan Redwood, he has made some questionable departures from his earlier work. The artist's new indulgence in portraiture seems a logical step in terms of his subject matter. However, his abstracted figures do not translate when left without a background context. When I last saw Redwood's work at Electric Works, I was quite taken with his large, narrative, yet surreal, paintings. They had not only a great presence in the space, but were also extremely fun. In this show, there is very little imagination in the work, and Redwood's particular style can at times be overwhelming to its detriment. These newer, much smaller works have the same sense of quickness and palette without the intricacies for which he is known. His figures are sometimes slightly abstracted, at other times completely. Yet without backgrounds in which to ground them, most float haphazardly within swirling colors. The gallery separated paintings on canvas from those on paper, which was a well-considered move--the framed works on paper are much stronger. This may have to do with their execution. Even though the subjects are shared with those of the rest of the show, the five pieces together form a more coherent narrative. Four of the group are untitled, which might seem important since the titles for Redwood's work are nearly always simple. But with these more abstract portraits, his non-titles render the work uneventful. Nathan Redwood: On A Neck is on view at Electric Works Gallery in San Francisco through November 7, 2009.

Brian Ulrich: Dark Stores

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:40:00 -0800

Richland Mall, 2009; archival pigment print. Courtesy of Robert Koch Gallery, San Francisco. Brian Ulrich began photographing abandoned shopping malls, stores, and big box retailers in the wake of the 2001 World Trade Center attacks, an uncertain time when the government called on Americans to resume their normal patterns of consumption. Outside of the obvious timeliness of Ulrich's show and current platitudes about American consumerism, "Dark Stores" is a collection of beautifully uncanny images that ruminate upon the structure and occasional failure of retail architecture. In his photographs, interiors of abandoned stores sit void of merchandise, with exteriors equally as desolate. Even with a store's signage removed, the franchises' identities are still apparent in the ghostly and patinated outlines of absent logos and familiar lettering. Moreover, the homogenous and iconic architecture which brands big box retailers also serves as a conspicuous reminder of their financial failures. In his most successful images, the context is ambiguous--the store could be closed for the day, rather than permanently. While Target (2009), Ulrich's image of the store's exterior with a cast-off shopping cart, is perhaps too convenient, he shows sophisticated restraint in Richland Mall, where the building and parking lot stand starkly and quietly amid a snowy landscape. The wholesale abandonment of modern architecture itself is particularly unsettling in these photos, as it disrupts our notions about the very permanence of the form. Operating at their deepest level, Ulrich's photographs of abandoned retailers are uncanny reminders that within a few short miles, there is probably an identical store teeming with shoppers. "Brain Ulrich: Dark Stores" is on view at Robert Koch Gallery in San Francisco through October 31, 2009

Ian McDonald: Today and Others

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:30:00 -0800

"Today and Others," installation view, 2009. Courtesy of Queen's Nails Projects, San Francisco. Ian McDonald's exhibition at Queen's Nails Projects comprises fourteen handmade objects in five enigmatic groupings that flout distinctions between design, museum, and gallery displays. Evincing a simpler approach than his previous work, McDonald's tussle with the production mechanisms of capitalism seems to have morphed from emulation to rejection. Glossy mould works have given way to thrown, sculpted and crafted pieces, simple drip glazes in neutral tones, and more recognizably functional objects: lamps, storage urns, and benches. The work's detail resides in such unexpected places as the glass marbles atop lids of ceramic jars or buried in the back wall, a flash of lilac burnishing the leg of a redwood bench, or the curious circular object glazed and covered in gold leaf. As with McDonald's previous installations, most of the (untitled) pieces are arranged on pedestals, and in this incarnation further framed by plaques or benches. Although the highlighted objects are indisputably the focus, they are distanced from their functionality through the artist's co-opting of conventional hierarchies reserved for the presentation of items of value. McDonald's insistence that no integral worth resides in the conceptual, formal, or functional properties of objects is perhaps best summed up by the penny pressed into the surface of a ceramic ball--the copper piece's inclusion in a system (whether monetary or artistic) assigns it symbolic value, rather than the coin's true worth as 97.5 percent zinc. The analogy with art is as inescapable as McDonald's pointed refutation of the economics of excess, his work ultimately suggesting that today need not be like all the others. Ian McDonald: "Today and Others" is on view at Queen's Nails Projects in San Francisco through October 3, 2009.

Mitzi Pederson: I'll Start Again

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:20:00 -0800

Untitled, 2009; wood, sand, and string. Courtesy of Ratio 3, San Francisco. All of Mitzi Pederson's work in "I'll Start Again" is untitled, and walking throughout the main space of her show at Ratio 3, it is hard to distinguish if each piece should be viewed individually or if the artist is more interested in creating something of a gesamtkunstwerk. Utilizing such common materials as wood, paper, and string, the very floor of the gallery plays to Pederson's advantage. The tension she captures with the string and wood sculptures, each hanging somewhat precariously upon the walls, is striking. Unlike previous wood and string pieces that were generally larger and louder, these smaller works pack a much stronger punch. A few resourcefully negotiate the architecture of the gallery itself, either by wrapping around the corner of a wall or disappearing and reemerging behind exposed pipe. Largely dealing with the idea of tension, and how materials succumb to new ways of utilization, Pederson devises small and rather simple investigations that still manage to captivate the viewer. In one such work, Pederson sprayed sand onto a very thin piece of wood, which she then bent, and hung over string, creating an arching form. The gesture of the arch, the tension in the string, and the sparkle of the sand combine to create an ethereal affect. Unfortunately, in contrast to this strong showing in the main gallery, the back room of Ratio 3 leaves much to be desired, with only a large, scattered wall sculpture, another floor sculpture, and a few mixed media works on paper. Altogether, these pieces felt plain compared to the humbly impressive acrobatics of the gallery's main space. Mitzi Pederson: "I'll Start Again" is on view at Ratio 3 in San Francisco through October 24, 2009

2nd Look - Mitzi Pederson: I'll Start Again

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:10:00 -0800

. "I'll Start Again," installation view, 2009. Courtesy of Ratio 3, San Francisco. Quotidian materials similar to those that have appeared throughout Mitzi Pederson's oeuvre dominate the work in this show. The works exhibit a unified sensibility, but are at times disjointed--succeeding only in fits and starts. The strongest pieces are the wall sculptures in the main space. In two of them, long sections of lathe are pulled into graceful arcs against nails by threads anchored to rectangular pieces of plywood. Another elegant work consists of a multi-stranded rectangle of thread stretched between four nails, over which a ribbon-like section of sand-coated wood-veneer has been draped like a towel. Constructed simply from wood, nails, and thread, these objects are playful like the work of Richard Tuttle and profound like the work of Fred Sandback. The rest of the work in the show is less satisfying. The plywood and metal floor sculptures that sit leadenly on Ratio 3's deteriorated wooden floor echo the space's plank and plywood rawness, but lack oomph. The torqued door-skin sculptures that are displayed behind them exude more dynamism, but feel like maquettes rather than finished pieces. The smaller adjoining back room offers a strong series of small painted works on paper and a couple of interesting wall sculptures, but feels like a different exhibit by the same artist. Having thoroughly enjoyed Pederson's strong outing at UCLA's Hammer Museum earlier this year, I had high hopes for this solo show and so was a bit underwhelmed. Still, the poetry of its best moments makes this show well worth a visit. Mitzi Pederson: "I'll Start Again" is on view at Ratio 3, San Francisco through October 24, 2009

Narangkar Glover: It's Gonna Be Awesome

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 13:00:00 -0800

The Other Side of This Life, 2008; oil on canvas; 50 x 72 in. With assured brushwork and equally deft needlework, Narangkar Glover has made a group of canvases that feature a homemade concrete skateboarding bowl located in her own Oakland backyard. This extraordinary structure, fondly referred to by those who know it as 'the pond,' is painted in real life a color that can only be described as swimming pool blue (an homage, perhaps, to the oft-practiced appropriation of empty pools as places to skate). Glover depicts tranquil scenes bathed in bright California sunshine. Three of the six large works in the main gallery include a single male figure seen against the blue of the bowl, its bright yellow rim, empty, pale skies, and swaths of rapidly brushed shrubbery. The remaining three are pure landscapes: plein air in the 'hood, lemon trees and jasmine accented by occasional spirals of razor wire visible above a board and chain-link fence. In one of these nature/culture studies, Glover has primarily embroidered the image in wool instead of painting it. Below a single, stylized tree and flowering oxalis, a bold, slightly drippy stroke of yellow paint has been laid over a needlework version of the skating structure's rim. The conjunction of a craft traditionally associated with women with big, typically male, painterly gestures frames this body of Glover's work as a whole, suggesting a feminist reading of those quiet figures posed against the blue and green of garden and water. Narangkar Glover: "It's Gonna Be Awesome," is on view at Blankspace Gallery in Oakland through October 11, 2009.

Aaron Parazette: Air Drop and Anders Ruhwald: Almost Nothing

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:50:00 -0800

Aaron Parazette. Color Key 6, 2009; acrylic on linen. This two-person show featuring brightly hued, hard-edged geometric paintings and rough-hewn monochromatic sculptures, is tied together by the artists' use of a post-minimalist vocabulary and a focus on craft. Aaron Parazette's abstract geometric paintings on shaped canvases recall those of Ellsworth Kelly and Robert Mangold, albeit with a highly keyed-up palette and on a more intimate scale. Like these artists, Parazette's works are self-contained worlds. Planes of colors, arranged in grids or concentric circles, are cropped by the edges of the unusually shaped supports. They are often continued on contiguous canvases, as if these diptychs or triptychs were removed from some larger whole. In Color Key 6 (2009), arcs of pink, orange, and white cover two oval-shaped canvases, which meet directly at the center of a hot pink circle, spilling across both canvases. Two thin green lines--one dark and one light--limn each color band, accentuating the optical effect. These paintings work best when they reflect a thoughtful balance between color, shape and support, while incorporating a subtle nod to historical precedents. Contrary to the energetic paintings in Parazette's "Air Drop" show, the exhibition of Anders Ruhwald's monochromatic ceramic sculptures is appropriately called "Almost Nothing." Ruhwald has pared down his works to the basics of texture and form, stressing the primacy of the material. Like Robert Ryman's paintings, his use of white serves to focus our attention on his heavily worked surfaces. Also like Ryman, his marks are devoid of gesture. Unlike his minimalist predecessors however, his abstract forms are almost familiar to us (a tree stump, a vase), but are altered in ways that makes them unsettling, and somewhat comedic. They hover somewhere between minimalist ciphers and common objects. "What would this material do, if left to its own devices?" they seem to be asking. While some fashion themselves into crude variations of common forms, others simply struggle to be of some use: Marked, a three-legged object that mimics and marks a corner, Allting, which juts out of the wall near the ceiling and resembles a pipe, or Mono (3 in itself) (all works 2009), a rectangular slab placed on the wall like a blank canvas. While these works can be seen as almost nothing, what makes them most interesting is when they aspire to be almost something. Aaron Parazette: "Air Drop" and Anders Ruhwald: "Almost Nothing" are on view Gregory Lind Gallery in San Francisco through October 24, 2009.