After a weekend spent eating Girl Scout cookies and watching It Takes A Thief reruns, we're ready for something a little more intellectually active, like the art shows we've listed below.
Lisa Dent Gallery (660 Mission Street, 4th Floor)
Hank Willis Thomas
March 3rd – April 8th, Wednesdays through Saturdays 12-6
In his second solo exhibition in San Francisco Willis Thomas presents “Unbranded: Reflections in Black by Corporate America,” a follow up to his 2004 series entitled “Branded.” In this new series, Willis Thomas utilizes print advertisements to discuss themes of history, class and the way these ideas are interpreted within the marketplace. Removing all traces of the corporate logo and text from original magazine advertisements, the artist exposes a visual language that was once embedded in the image. With these profound yet sometimes absurd portraits Willis Thomas questions the prolonged stereotypes of African American life, the advertisers intentions, and the willingness of the public to accept these images.
Image: Things that make you go 'hmmm?, by Hank Willis Thomas
Have an visual arts show you'd like to see included in this column? Send it our way!
Pro Arts Gallery (550 Second Street, Oakland)
Still Present Pasts
March 8 – April 16, Tuesdays - Saturdays, 12-6 and Sundays 12-5
An exhibition of art, video, photographs, inter-active installations and oral histories inspired by the first public testimonies about the Korean War from Korean American survivors and their families.
Varnish Fine Art (77 Natoma)
Rapid Eye Movement
February 28th to April 15th, 2006
A group show of paintings, featuring Attaboy, Sean Christopher, Dave Chung, Chris Mars, Kevin Peterson and KRK Ryden. Dedicated to edgy toys, cartoon-y views of reality, mongrelized pop culture, and grotesque expressionism, these 6 artists specialize in tapping into and then manifesting their childhood and adolescent selves into work that is sometimes epitomized by smoking bunnies and three-legged girls, or more often by depictions of gleeful rebellion.
Creativity Explored 3245 16th Street
Vessels
March 9- April 27, Mondays through Fridays 10 to 3, Saturdays 1 to 6.
Artists with developmental disabilities from San Francisco¹s Creativity Explored think outside the box with "Vessels," an exhibition of handmade containers for the home. Form and function take center stage in this show, part of a popular and highly anticipated annual tradition at the gallery of presenting functional artwork. Everything from bowls to vases to lunchboxes and even an animal carrier will be on display and available for purchase. Artist Steven Gin has created a set of toolboxes covered in his signature low rider car paintings. And Eric Boysaw contributes a mosaic dragon that can be used as a planter. Anne Yamasaki contributes an enormous urn bristling with an army of toy soldiers and an occasional duck.
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