Sight School presents
AS IS: POP & STUFFHOOD
Closing reception for Irrational Exuberance (Asst. Colors) art exhibition and dialog featuring Glen Helfand and Ginger Wolfe-Suarez
Moderated by Patricia Maloney
Saturday, June 12
2-4 pm

An open dialogue agitating notions about artists’ shops, pop art, complicity and metaphors

Glen Helfand is a freelance writer, critic, curator and teacher. His writing on art, culture, design and technology, often concentrating on works by Bay Area artists, has appeared in Artforum, Art on Paper, Salon, SFGate, Wired, San Francisco Bay Guardian, and many other publications.

Patricia Maloney is a curator and writer living and working in Berkeley, CA. In addition to her role as Editor-in-Chief for Art Practical, she works with the alternative exhibition space Ampersand International Arts, is a contributing writer to Artforum.com and a frequent commentator on the weekly contemporary art podcast Bad at Sports.

Ginger Wolfe-Suarez is an emerging sculptor, writer, and theorist whose work has used a combination of sculpture, ephemeral events, text, and performance to negotiate shifting concepts of memory–both historical, personal, imagined, and desired.

In conjunction with the closing reception for Irrational Exuberance (Asst. Colors), on view May 14 – June 12, 2010, Wed-Sat, noon-5pm and by appointment.

Sight School
5651 San Pablo Ave (at Stanford Ave)
Oakland, CA

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In preparation for the dialog, I’ve compiled a list of artists’ shops. One of my favorites:

Allan Ruppersburg, Als Cafe, 1969 Installation, 1913 West Sixth Street, Los Angeles, CA. Source: Air de Paris website, Artists, Allan Ruppersberg, Kunsthalle Dusseldorf page

Al’s Cafe, a diner re-imagined by Allan Ruppersberg in the 1960s in LA.

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To give thanks where they’re due: I first approached Michelle to do a show because I was so inspired after visiting a series of “feral events” programmed by Kim Anno and friends in empty storefronts in Berkeley. The sense of potential that incredible, urgent art experiences could happen here was an irresistible, welcome alternative to the deference given to San Francisco/commercial galleries.

Thanks to Kim for the leadership and inspiration, Josh Churchill for the invitation, and Justin Limoges, Brian Barreto, Dana Hemenway, Suzanne Husky, Amanda Curreri and Michael Yap for the support, without whom Irrational Exuberance (Asst. Colors) would not have been possible.