Wondrous Strange at SFMOMA Artist's Gallery

"Wondrous Strange," an exhibition inspired by the sixteenth century's cabinets of curiosities, opened July 22 at the SFMOMA Artist's Gallery at Fort Mason.

The show will run until August 28, when a closing event in honor of Goethe's birthday will be held from 2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

A set of pictures from the opening, which included a burlesque performance, a punk band, and an audience of costumed time travelers, can be found at Donald Farnsworth's MobileMe Gallery.

Below, a preview of the full set featuring Donald and Era Farnsworth, Maria Medua, and other gallery-goers:







More pictures from "Wondrous Strange"

More art from Donald Farnsworth at Magnolia Editions

Selected reviews, photos, and appearances of Chuck Close tapestries

Chuck Close - Self Portrait/Five Part, 2009. Jacquard tapestry, 79 x 232 inches, Edition of 6
The Chuck Close tapestry editions published by Magnolia Editions have intrigued reporters, bloggers, art writers, and gallery-goers for several years now.

Since the publication of Philip Glass State I in 2005, Close's epic textile portraits have been pictured and discussed everywhere from magazines like W and TIME to blogs about opera and photography.

Magnolia has recently added a page to the Chuck Close section of its website with a selection of links to online press about the studio's publications by Close.

From podcasts to show reviews by both highbrow critics and amateur art aficionados, this selection offers a wide range of thoughtful responses to the Chuck Close tapestries, as well as some great photography (this flickr set, for example, or these images by Ralph Barrera).

Check out the links here:
Chuck Close - Articles, reviews, and photos

Review: Clare Rojas at MOCFA

Clare Rojas, installation view, 2010, at the Museum of Craft and Folk Art. Image: Visual Art Source
Cherie Louise Turner at Visual Art Source reviews Clare Rojas's show at San Francisco's Museum of Craft and Folk Art, noting of one piece that Rojas worked with Magnolia Editions to fabricate:

One high point of the exhibition is a huge “wall quilt” made up of numerous geometric panels, each painted one color, and arranged in a way that recalls childhood parquetry block designs...

The exhibition is up until September 12, 2010. For more information please check the MOCFA website.

Review: Raymond Saunders at Stephen Wirtz Gallery

Raymond Saunders, Untitled, 2009-10; mixed media on wood, 54 1/2 x 32 3/4 inches
Mark van Proyen of Northern California art blog Square Cylinder offers this review of Raymond Saunders's latest show, "Beauty as Empathy," at Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco.

His review singles out a work (pictured above) which includes elements printed at Magnolia Editions:

This is the most consistent and subtle exhibition of Saunders’ work that we have seen in a while. All of the works contained therein are recent and untitled, but I cannot help but point to one that is a clear throwback to an earlier work and perhaps also a harbinger of things to come. I refer to a work that features the image of another work that Saunders made in 1972, a high-resolution reproduction of a piece titled Jack Johnson, which is well-known because it adorns the cover of Richard Powell’s 1997 book, Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century. It has been convincingly reprinted on a sheet of wood and subsequently painted and collaged upon in such a way so as to completely confuse the difference between the made and the manufactured, showing that technological images can be subjected to improvisatory impulses.

Read the full review at Square Cylinder

More work by Raymond Saunders from Magnolia Editions

William T. Wiley's "Mr Sillyhead" series

William Wiley - Mr Sillyhead Attacked by Abstraction #2, 2009
Acrylic inkjet with watercolor and mixed media, 26 x 20 in.
Magnolia Editions is pleased to announce a new suite of unique mixed-media prints by William T. Wiley combining photogravure, ink, watercolor, and pastel.

For the full story of the eponymous Mr Sillyhead character, please see this press release.

More work by William Wiley from Magnolia Editions

Enrique Chagoya at Galeria de la Raza

Enrique Chagoya - Liberty, 2006
Jacquard tapestry, 72 x 74 in. Edition of 8
"YTREBIL," a survey of prints, paintings, and codices by Enrique Chagoya, will be on view at Galeria de la Raza from July 10 to August 28, 2010.

An opening reception will be held this Saturday, July 10 at 7:30 pm.

For more information about the show, please visit Galeria de la Raza.

More work by Enrique Chagoya from Magnolia Editions

Donald Farnsworth at SFMOMA Artist's Gallery

Donald Farnsworth - Antiquarian Library Triptych, 2005
Jacquard tapestry, 62 x 158 in.
Donald Farnsworth's Antiquarian Library Triptych, a trompe-l'oeil tapestry edition pictured above, is included in "Wondrous Strange: A Twenty-first Century Cabinet of Curiosities," an upcoming exhibition at the SFMOMA Artist's Gallery.

"Wondrous Strange" takes its inspiration from the sixteenth century's cabinets of curiosities. These precursors to today's museums were encyclopedic collections of specimens from the natural world as well as man-made artifacts; they served as educational resources for artists and natural philosophers of the early modern period in western Europe.

The exhibition explores themes such as evolutionary biology and history, progress and decadence, and the carnal and the intellectual. The artists involved adopt a range of styles that pre-date twentieth-century modernism and mine the early modern period for sources of wonder.

(text above courtesy of SFMOMA website)

SFMOMA Artist's Gallery at Fort Mason
July 22 - August 28, 2010

Opening reception
Thursday, July 22, 2010
5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Closing event in honor of Goethe's birthday
August 28, 2010
2:00 p.m. - 4:00 p.m.

Deborah Oropallo at di Rosa Preserve

Deborah Oropallo - Drill Team, 2009
Deborah Oropallo's "POMP" is on view at di Rosa Preserve's Gatehouse Gallery from June 26 through September 18, 2010.

The "POMP" show combines works from Oropallo's two most recent series, "Guise" and "Wild Wild West", which use digitally layered images to consider themes of adornment, pageantry, and costume.

Several works in the show were printed at Magnolia Editions and the "POMP" catalog includes an essay and interview by Magnolia's Nick Stone.

The Gatehouse Gallery is open Wednesday through Friday, 9:30 am to 3 pm. For more information please check the di Rosa Preserve website.

More Deborah Oropallo work from Magnolia Editions