SFist Tonight - First Thursday

It's the first Thursday of the month, the official "wine and cheese chaser" day to descend on downtown art galleries and people watch.

A couple of highlights of tonight's receptions:
ARTworkSF (49 Geary St., 2nd Floor) presents (sub) text: coded and deconstructedlanguage, curated by Matt McKinley and featuring three Bay Area artists, Maggie Malloy, Eric Bohr,and Judith Miller. In paintings and mixed media works, the artists demonstrate how each non-verbally communicates both message and meaning--the deconstructed words and phrases of Eric Bohr, the coded messages of Maggie Malloy, most of which speak to abuse/loss of human values in a global humanitarian context (e.g. Rwandan genocide), and the cryptic cyphers of Judith Miller, meant to stimulate thought and engage the imagination in order to help people "see a new world" if they open themselves up to the experience of viewing the work. (5:30 - 7:30pm)

Across Market St, at SF Camerawork (657 Mission, 2nd Floor at 3rd St) it's Traces of life on the thin film of longing, an exhibition of work by Jem Cohen [Chain - chain stores and their environs], Jenni Olson [The Joy of Life - about Golden Gate Bridge suicides], and Natalie Zimmerman [Islands - alienated LA acting aspirants juxtaposed with LA landscape shots] that considers the photographic in relation to film and video. Each piece is composed entirely of lengthy still shots; rendering an approach reminiscent of the photo essay. (5pm)

While simultaneously besotted and embarrassed by our coverage on broadcast news, there are other ways we (and all of you) can get on TV, like Access SF, Cable Channel 29. The SF Public Access channel is having a benefit fundraiser tonight at Cafe Du Nord (2170 Market St. at Sanchez) presented by Infotainment Posse, A Fine Mess Review featuring opera, satire, video and rock and roll. (9pm)