Bryson Gill

Chi Birmingham

Casey Watson

Isaac Lin

Jay Nelson

Kyle Mock

Peter Scherrer

Rachel Kaye

Park Life’s first show of 2009, Drawing Club, presents a group of artists that met and formed a tight-knit community while studying at California College of Arts and Crafts, now California College of the Arts (CCA).

The year was 2004, San Francisco, California. In the Mission District on Sunday mornings, Bryson Gill, Chi Birmingham, Casey Watson, Isaac Lin, Jay Nelson, Kyle Mock, Peter Scherrer and Rachel Kaye would gather in a sun drenched living room. They gathered for a day of doodling and collaborating on each others drawings. Pencils, pens, paper, brushes and other various drawing materials were sprawled out on the floor. No one was the sole author of a specific work, nothing was precious, and no work was for sale.  Drawing would last all day with bouts of conversation, jokes and often focused silence. People brought books, movies and music to share as inspiration. This was a budding time for these young artists.  In the evening,  often there would be a potluck style feast to recoup, reflect and unwind from the day.  Much like the drawings that were made, the dinner would parallel the ideas of collaborating and sharing.  Sometimes amounting to over 30 works during the session, drawings would be laid out on the floor and wall.  Narratives, connections, and comments would be made while pointing at one piece or another.

1. “Oranges and Sardines,” Hammer Museum

Returning SFMOMA curator Gary Garrels’ current “conversations on abstract painting” exhibition in Los Angeles is one of the most satisfying, artist-friendly shows ever.

2. Philippe Vergne, lecture at San Francisco Art Institute

The recently-appointed director of the Dia Art Foundation offered incisive, inspirational, and witty takes on the melancholic state of the arts.

3. Speed Racer: The IMAX Experience (Andy and Larry Wachowski, USA, 2008)

This color-drenched amusement park ride of a movie lacks coherence and features the world’s most irritating child actor, but two-plus hours of nonstop electric rainbow CGI at IMAX scale turns eye-tickling into an endurance sport.

4. Seven Days in the Art World, by Sarah Thornton (Norton, 256 pages, $24.95)

As economies tank everywhere, there is no better time to get Thornton’s insider view of art fairs, auctions, art schools, and the like — it already seems like glam art history. Plus it’s great fodder for art opening chitchat.

5. Brendan Lott, at SF Art Commission Gallery and San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art

Lott’s paintings — farmed out to painting towns in China and based on appropriated culturally revealing Flickr images of American teens — provided a remarkably concise picture of globalization.

6. Fritz Haeg, lecture at SFMOMA

Though the notion of garden-as-participatory-eco-artwork is beginning to seem rote, Haeg, a key figure in this movement, convinced skeptics with his self-aware and pleasurable take on social sculpture.

7. You Don’t Mess with the Zohan (Dennis Dugan, USA, 2008)

Adam Sandler’s crude, sure, but in this under-appreciated lark he joyfully takes on Arab-Palestinian conflict, the joys of intergenerational sex, the mall-ization of Manhattan, and vintage Paul Mitchell unisex cuts.

8. Park Life and Electric Works

These two relatively new gallery-bookstore entities, Park Life in the Richmond District and Electric Works in SoMa, have made good art seem accessible — in the collector sense — to everyone. If you can’t afford the originals or prints (Electric Works makes ‘em), then you can buy into the highly selective inventory of art books at either place.

9. Love Songs (Christophe Honoré, France 2007)

This down-tempo spin on Jean-Luc Godard’s 1961’s A Woman Is a Woman and Jacques Demy’s 1964 The Umbrellas of Cherbourg restored my faith in French cinema, not to mention musical melancholy.

10. “Josephine Taylor: Bomb Landscape,” Catherine Clark Gallery

Taylor first made a splash with delicately rendered, almost wispy epics of extreme family dysfunction and abuse. Her latest show is startling in its visual darkness and more dreamlike but still frightening surrealistic imagery.

New Projects

We are excited to annouce two new addtions to our on going print project.

Ian Johnson, “Eric Dolphy” 2008
Archival Ultrachrome print
Ed. 25
8”x14”
$75
(thanks to Jordan Kurland for the art loan)

Paul Wackers, “Hourglass” 2008
Archival Ultrachrome print
Ed. 25
15”x18”
$175

These will be available in one week. Reserve one now by emailing us.

Three new shirts by Tucker Nichols, Chris Ballantyne and Ana Teresa Fernandez should be available in the next coming weeks. Check our “New Items” section in our webstore for availability. In fact you should check out the webstore anyways. We have added a bunch of new items. One stand out is the marble soda can designed by local artist Agelio Batle.

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Upcoming Show

Kyle Mock, the recent CCA grad and represented artist of the great Triple Base Gallery will be quest curating out next art exhibiton. Artists include.

Casey Watson
Bryson Gill
Isaac Lin
Jay Nelson
Chi Birmingham
Rachel Kaye
Peter Scherrer
and of course Mr Kyle Mock himself.

We are also extending our store hours..

We’ll be open 10 am to 9 pm Fri/sat..11 am to 8 pm the other days.

email jamie@parklifestore.com

Glen Helfand wrote about the show in art forum recently. Review

These paintings are owned by Griff Williams, the owner of Gallery 16/Urban Digital Color who was a personal friend of Margarets.

Please contact Vanessa @ Gallery 16 with any info. Vanessa@gallery16.com

Sad.

Johanna St. Clair, Sean McFarland,

Paul Wackers & a garden installation by Dan Carlson

All 4 artists in this show have great work. I want the Wackers diptych on paper.

Show Runs

Sept. 27th - Oct. 31st

- New Paul Schiek book.

-  New Tauba Auerbach book, 50/50.

-  New Leslie Shows book.

-  New Hank Willis Thomas book.

- Signed copies of Mail Order Monsters.

Taylor Mckimens
Misaki Kawai
Kathy Grayson
Carly Haffner
Don Porcella
Matt Leines
Ben Jones

Opening Reception - Friday
October 24th

Park Life presents FUNHOUSE, a group exhibition exploring the work of 7 emerging artists that work primarily in figuration.

Artist portrayal of the figure has varied from generation to generation, with each new generation establishing its own fresh voice. This group of artists leans heavily on pop culture, comics, bright colors, grotesque humor, low-fi representation and unapologetic irony. Each artist in this exhibition has created a unique vision to animate the narrative that follows.

This group of New York based artists will be showing new works that include paintings, drawings and sculpture.