Network_Performance
Vast and Undetectable
By Jo-Anne Green
January 27, 2012

The Wall Street Journal - Ideas Market
Bacteria Ponder the Heavens
By Rebecca Horne
January 26, 2012

Wired - Underwire
Microbial Academy of Sciences Turns Cyanobacteria Into Cosmonauts
By Scott Thill
January 19,2012

Content Precedes
Vast and Undetectable
By Ejedras
January 23, 2012

ArtBusiness.com
SF Arts Commission
By AB
January 20,2012

Scientific American
Cyanobacteria to Solve the Theory of Everything
By Glenden Mellow
February 9, 2012

For Immediate Release:
DOUBLEtruck Magazine exhibition comes to San Francisco City Hall

Seeing Double
The Best of DOUBLEtruck Magazine
Public Reception: Wednesday, February 8, 5:30 – 7:30pm

(San Francisco, CA) The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery’s Art at City Hall program presents Seeing Double – The Best of DOUBLEtruck Magazine, a travelling exhibition organized by KONA Gallery and Photojournalism Center (San Clemente, CA).  Seeing Double offers a chance to view a selection of over sixty of the best photographs featured in the first five years of the award winning quarterly magazine DOUBLEtruck. The exhibition is a virtual time capsule of some of the most memorable moments in recent history captured by world-renowned photojournalists.

Seeing Double is curated by Scott McKeirnen, publisher of DOUBLEtruck, director of KONA Gallery and Photojournalism Center, and the founder of ZUMA Press, the largest picture agency and wire service in the world run by a photojournalist. Launched in 2004, "DOUBLEtruck is a unique magazine that's dedicated to big pictures. It was inspired by the photojournalism renaissance in 2003, when major magazines around the globe ran amazing picture content of the Iraq conflict over numerous two-page spreads," says Mc Kiernan. "Each image featured in the magazine tells the story as only a strong single image can. DOUBLEtruck aims to promote and inspire outstanding photojournalism. With in-your-face images printed across two pages, DOUBLEtruck is the ultimate showcase for high-impact photography of important world issues. http://www.doubletruckmagazine.com/

What is a doubletruck? doubletruck: n. An ad or editorial project that covers two facing pages. The term originates from the days when heavy forms for newspaper pages, largely filled with lead type, were rolled around the composing room floor on heavy carts called trucks. Two pages for one project meant a double truck. (The Detroit Free Press)

Exhibition Dates: February 8 – May 18, 2012
Exhibition Location: Ground Floor of City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl.
Viewing Hours: Monday – Friday, 8am – 8pm, Free
Press Contact: Meg Shiffler, SFAC Gallery Director
e: meg.shiffler@sfgov.org, t: 415.252.2568

Press Preview: by appointment, photos available upon request

About the KONA Gallery and Photojournalism Center
http://www.thekonagallery.com/
The KONA Gallery is a space dedicated to the presentation and discourse of photojournalism. The vision of The KONA Gallery has been to expose a broad audience to moving historical moments through the lens of acclaimed photographers. The gallery also acts as a think-tank for industry professionals, emergent photographers and the interested public.

About San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
www.sfartscommission.org/gallery
Located in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center, the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery makes contemporary art accessible to broad audiences through curated exhibitions that both reflect our regional diversity and position Bay Area visual art production within an international contemporary art landscape. By commissioning new works, collaborating with arts and community organizations and supporting artist’s projects, the SFAC Gallery’s programs provide new and challenging opportunities for contemporary art to engage with a civic dialogue.

The SFAC Gallery was founded in 1970 and is the exhibitions program of the San Francisco Arts Commission, the arts agency of the City and County of San Francisco

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The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery presents

Vast and Undetectable

January 20 – April 14, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, January 20, 6 – 8pm

SAN FRANCISCO, November 22, 2011 The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery is pleased to present, Vast and Undetectable, curated by Aimee Le Duc featuring work by; Luca Antonucci, Reenie Charrière, Jonathon Keats, Phil Ross, Daniel Small, Heather Sparks and Gail Wight. The artists in Vast and Undetectable are creating works that confront space that is either so small or so large that we cannot see or even conceive of the space in conventional way. The work runs the gamut from the most microscopic existence to the vastest reaches of space and time. We have to invent systems and vernaculars (from physics to astronomy to science fiction to visual art) to be able to articulate details about these spaces. The artists in the show, from Jonathon Keat’s founding a Microbial Academy of Sciences for cyanobacteria to Heather Sparks’ lenticular photograph of pixelated scans of her own skin, are establishing systems dedicated to measuring and positing what these spaces look like, how they behave and how they affect our daily lives. Additionally the artists strive to comprehend how time passes within these spaces and how objects move within them.

Project Descriptions

Luca Antonucci, The New Nothing
The New Nothing is a series of embossed prints of star clusters and other significant astronomical events are stripped of the empirical data of color or depth that renders them remarkable. The prints are displayed with the metal plates that were used to print them in an attempt to open up a dialogue between the representation of these images and the data itself.

Luca Antonucci and Daniel, Small Frist Light
Recently, the Hubble Ultra Deep Field imaging system unveiled the deepest portrait of the visible universe ever achieved by humankind that reveals the first light from 13.5 billion years ago. The exposure lasted for eleven and a half days and is as far back as any human eye has seen to the origins of the universe. Luca Antonucci and Daniel Small deconstructed  color-coded maps created from the Hubble data using a CMYK screen printing process resulting in five prints, one for each of the color channels, and one for the composited image.

Reenie Charrière, Floe
Floe is a site-specific installation located in the SFAC Gallery window installation site at 155 Grove Street. Using plastic, detritus and various materials of mass production, Floe is an investigation that focuses on the juxtapositions of natural and synthetic matter all around us. These juxtapositions are revealed through their placement within the installation, creating rhizomatic structures that question how inorganic material moves organically or vice versa.

Jonathon Keats, CELESTIAL OBSERVATORIES FOR CYANOBACTERIA
Jonathon Keats provides bacteria with the resources to undertake basic research into the nature of the universe - and potentially to develop a viable theory of everything - by founding a Microbial Academy of Sciences. The Academy will provide research colonies of cyanobacteria with telescope access. Rows of petri dishes filled with brackish water - teeming with cyanobacteria - will be set up atop a flat screen monitor laid flat on its back. The monitor will glow with images of the cosmos provided by the Hubble Telescope.

Phil Ross, Leviathans
Leviathans is a video depicting the slime-mold Physarum polycephalum. The slime-mold though diminutive in size, is able to travel relatively large distances in a short period of time while searching for food. This is due to the way its body pulses and moves, which can be imagined as a harmonically rippling jellyfish like thing, propelling itself along on oscillating waves of its own body. In moving, the slime-mold computes the physical world, and resolves analog problems in a way that is incomplete and messy while also being highly efficient and fast. Leviathans’ images were originally captured at SymbioticA in 2007. Editing by Marcella Faustini. Scott Arford created and produced the soundtrack.

Heather Sparks, Within My Nature, breakdown, between the lines
Within My Nature is a kaleidoscopic video piece, originated with scans of Heather Sparks’ skin, which were then digitally manipulated into candy-colored fabrege-esque landscapes, and animated into a rippling, undulating movement, reminiscent of atomic test patterns. breakdown shows a transparent color-field breakdown of the human form in a 6" x 6" book composed of transparent gels of color- each representing a colored pixel from a scan of the artists' skin.

between the lines is a Lenticular print on a 24" x 60" lightbox of lines of color extracted from pixels from a scanned image of the Sparks’ skin.  As viewers pass by, the colors will change and vibrate.

Gail Wight, Ground Plane
Ground Plane is a series of ultrachrome prints in which the images are constructed from hundreds of exact-scale photographs of squirrel, marmot, snake, frog, and other animal bones, with no repeats within each image. Borrowed from the Hadly Lab collection at Stanford University, these bones are one to ten thousand years old. These finished images became a way for Wight to think about deep time and the earth's crust as a crowded record of that time, a conduit of information about the past, and the space upon which we draw our present lives.

Media contacts:
Aimee Le Duc: 415.554.6080 or aimee.leduc@sfgov.org
Meg Shiffler, 415.252.2568 or meg.shiffler@sfgov.org
Photographs available upon request.

Exhibition Locations and Artists:

SFAC Main Gallery
401 Van Ness Avenue (at McAllister), San Francisco, CA 94102
415.554.6080
Gallery Hours: Wednesday – Saturday, 12 – 5pm
Artists: Luca Antonucci, Jonathon Keats, Phil Ross, Daniel Small, Heather Sparks, Gail Wight

SFAC Gallery Window Installation Site
155 Grove Street, San Francisco, CA  94102
Gallery Hours: Viewable 24/7
Artist: Reenie Charrière

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About the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
Located in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center, the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery makes contemporary art accessible to broad audiences through curated exhibitions that both reflect our regional diversity and position Bay Area visual art production within an international contemporary art landscape. By commissioning new works, collaborating with arts and community organizations and supporting artist’s projects, the SFAC Gallery’s programs provide new and challenging opportunities for contemporary art to engage with a civic dialogue. The SFAC Gallery was founded in 1970 and is the exhibitions program of the San Francisco Arts Commission, the arts agency of the City and County of San Francisco.

About the San Francisco Arts Commission

The San Francisco Arts Commission is the City agency that champions the arts in San Francisco. We believe that a creative cultural environment is essential to the City’s well-being. Our programs integrate the arts into all aspects of City life. The Commission was established by charter in 1932 (Charter sections 5.103 and 16.106).

The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery presents

SHIFT

Elizabeth Axtman, David Huffman and Travis Somerville

Three projects constructing a new dialogue about race in America.

September 16 – December 10, 2011

Opening Reception: Friday, September 16, 6 – 8pm

SAN FRANCISCO, September 6, 2011. The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery is pleased to present, SHIFT, an exhibition of newly commissioned solo projects by three Bay Area artists who, through their work confront the concept of race in America: Elizabeth Axtman, David Huffman and Travis Somerville.

SHIFT pushes the public to think about our changing demographics and what role race plays in our post-millennial American circumstance. The SHIFT artists, of whom two are mixed race and one is white, are creating works that are extremely disparate from each other in terms of aesthetics. However, each attempts to illuminate the present by thrusting the past (recent and not so recent) and its varied legacies of prejudice, hate and denial into today and the future. SHIFT - shifting demographics, shifting forms of activism, shifting critical theory, shifting contemporary art practices...

An exhibition catalog is being published with contributions by Ishmael Reed, Derek Murray. Dr. Kym Pinder, Enrique Chagoya, W. Kamau Patton and Post Brothers.

Meg Shiffler, SFAC Gallery Director and SHIFT curator, says, “We’re not living in a post-race world, however things are changing. According to the 2010 Census 2.9% of Americans claim to be more than one race, which is up 32% from 2000. We are fast becoming a nation of mixed race individuals, which broadens the dialogue about racial identity and politics immensely. The artists in this exhibition, each in their own way, present new insights and perspectives that implicate a living history and call for discourse around radical redefinition.”

Established Bay Area painter, David Huffman, takes on the SFAC Main Gallery with his first multi-media exhibition. A centerpiece of Out of Bounds will be a pyramid made out of 635 basketballs, which, at the end of the exhibition, will be deconstructed and donated to local charities. Elizabeth Axtman, an artist deeply interested in forgiveness, has created a video, The Love Renegade #308: I Love You Keith Bardwell (Phase 1), that responds to a 2009 incident in which Bardwell, a former Louisiana Justice of the Peace, refused to marry a mixed race couple. Her video, featuring interviews with mixed race couples and the children of mixed race couples will be screened at various locations throughout San Francisco. Travis Somerville’s new installation, Places I’ve Never Been, takes over our Grove Street installation space, and highlights six historical moments in San Francisco when various populations have risen up in protest.

The SFAC Gallery will host a public programs series ranging from lectures to performances in conjunction with this exhibition. For more information visit: www.sfartscommission.org/gallery

SHIFT is funded by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Walter & Elise Haas Fund.

Exhibition Locations and Artists:

Elizabeth Axtman
The Love Renegade #308: I Love You Keith Bardwell (Phase 1)
Off-site & Online Video Project

Screening information: www.sfartscommission.org/gallery

(Participating venues include: Mission Cultural Center, SOMArts, Bayview Opera House, African American Arts & Culture Complex, Museum of the African Diaspora and the SF Public Library.)

David Huffman
Out of Bounds
Main Gallery, 401 Van Ness St.
Wednesday - Saturday, Noon-5pm

(This installation is sponsored by Sports Basement, who donated 635 basketballs that will be donated to SF Parks & Recreation facilities after the exhibition is over.)

Travis Somerville
Places I've Never Been
Window Installation Site, 155 Grove St.
Viewable: 24/7

Media contacts:

Meg Shiffler, 415.252.2568 or meg.shiffler@sfgov.org

Aimee Le Duc: 415.554.6080 or aimee.leduc@sfgov.org

Photographs available upon request.

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About the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
Located in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center, the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery makes contemporary art accessible to broad audiences through curated exhibitions that both reflect our regional diversity and position Bay Area visual art production within an international contemporary art landscape. By commissioning new works, collaborating with arts and community organizations and supporting artist’s projects, the SFAC Gallery’s programs provide new and challenging opportunities for contemporary art to engage with a civic dialogue. The SFAC Gallery was founded in 1970 and is the exhibitions program of the San Francisco Arts Commission, the arts agency of the City and County of San Francisco.

About the San Francisco Arts Commission

The San Francisco Arts Commission is the City agency that champions the arts in San Francisco. We believe that a creative cultural environment is essential to the City’s well-being. Our programs integrate the arts into all aspects of City life. The Commission was established by charter in 1932 (Charter sections 5.103 and 16.106).

SAN FRANCISCO ARTS COMMISSION GALLERY ANNOUNCES

PASSPORT 2011

3rd Annual DIY Art Collecting Event Comes to the Castro

Featuring Easily Walkable Route, Original Artwork by LGBT Icons Dan Nicoletta, Michelle Tea, Margaret Tedesco and many more.
With an After Party at Q Bar!

Media Contacts:

Meg Shiffler: 415.252.2568; meg.shiffler@sfgov.org

Aimee LeDuc: 415.554.6020; aimee.leduc@sfgov.org

Photos available upon request

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

San Francisco, CA - The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery (SFAC Gallery) will host its signature Passport event in the Castro District this year on Sunday, October 23, 2011. Celebrating a whole new lineup of Bay Area artists and cultural luminaries —including Chris Duncan, Margaret Tedesco, Dan Nicoletta, and Michelle Tea, among others—Passport 2011 invites the public to create a limited-edition artist’s book by collecting original, artist-designed stamps in a customized “passport” notebook.

From noon to 4 pm, hundreds of ‘do-it-yourself’ art collectors will take to the streets, following a designated, three square block route to collect the stamps from the artists themselves! While discovering some of the brightest spots in the Castro participants can enjoy the people and small businesses that define the neighborhood’s unique cultural character.

Passports are available for purchase online or at the SFAC Gallery for $25. Proceeds from Passport 2011 benefit SFAC Gallery’s exhibition and public programming, dedicated to supporting San Francisco artists and bringing challenging contemporary art to the city.

This annual fundraising event takes place in a different neighborhood each year, and has quickly become a tradition in the Bay Area arts scene. Passport offers art enthusiasts an affordable, hands-on art-collecting experience while celebrating local artists and the vibrant communities that support them. It also serves as a fresh alternative to standard fundraising models.

“We’re thrilled Passport has been received so well and is building momentum each year,” says SFAC Gallery Director Meg Shiffler. “It’s not just about the artists but the fabric of the city that inspires their work. Unlike the standard art auction benefit, Passport offers art patrons a more intimate, personal encounter with the artists they admire and want to support.”

Passport artists, such as 2010 contributor Sean McFarland, also appreciate this new twist of the traditional model for arts fundraising. “Passport is the only event of its kind in the city,” notes McFarland. “Rather than anonymously donating an artwork to an auction, you meet your collector face to face—lots of collectors in this case—and in a relaxed, everyday environment. It’s a great way to build exposure. And it’s great fun, too.”

History of Passport

In its inaugural year, Passport 2009 took place in the Mission District, arguably the heart of the local art scene, with stamps created by Libby Black, Michelle Blade, Lisa Congdon, Maria Forde, Colter Jacobsen, Veronica De Jesus, Sean McFarland, Barry McGee, Tucker Nichols, Maria Porges, Clare Rojas, Andrew Schoultz and Marci Washington and a diverse range of neighborhood supporters that served as lively stamping locations, including Needles & Pens, Bombay Ice Cream Company, Paxton Gate and Casa Sanchez.

In 2010, Passport took Hayes Valley by storm, with artist contributions from Timothy Cummings, Richard Diebenkorn (courtesy of the estate), Jamaica Dyer, Ana Teresa Fernandez, Suzanne Husky, Jason Jägel, Ruth Laskey, Paul Madonna, Nigel Poor, Ricardo Richey, Lordy Rodriguez, Jovi Schnell, Travis Somerville, Deth P. Sun, Weston Teruya, and Lindsey White. Small business and organizations in the area such as local bag-designer Timbuk2, AgeSong assisted-living home, the African American Art Culture Complex, and clothing designer Lemon Twist—who outfitted a drill team to parade along stamping route—were integral to the event’s success.

Passport 2011

This year’s event in the Castro will offer participants the opportunity to collect stamps by 12 emerging and established Bay Area artists, including Tiffany Bozic, Elisheva Biernoff, Monica Canilo, Jaime Cortez, Chris Duncan, James Gobel, Pablo Guardiola, Dan Nicoletta, Alison Pebworth, Michelle Pred, Michelle Tea, Margaret Tedesco, and Jennifer Wofford.  Favorite Castro outposts such as Café Flore, Unionmade, Cliff’s Variety Store, Castro Theater, the Human Rights Campaign Action Center, and many more will host stamping locations, each bringing their unique energy to the mix and continuing the community spirit of this newest San Francisco tradition.

Purchasing Passports

Passports will be available in early September and may be purchased in advance for $25 on site at the SFAC Gallery or online at http://sfacgpassport2011.eventbrite.com/ (surcharge applies). On the day of the event, passports may be purchased at Passport 2011 “home base” at Eureka Valley Library. Only official Passport 2011 booklets will be eligible to receive stamps. For $125, collectors may purchase a Concierge Passport; gallery staff will collect all the stamps and mail it to their home. Only 25 Concierge Passports will be available, so early purchase is suggested. For information about the event, the public may visit www.sfartscommission.org/gallery, the Passport 2011 Facebook page http://on.fb.me/SFACPassport2011 or call 415.554.6080.

Passport 2011 is organized by the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery. Proceeds from the event go toward the SFAC Gallery’s Programming Fund, which supports artist honoraria and exhibition costs.

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CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Passport Booth at the Castro Street Fair
Sunday October 2, 11 – 6pm

Stop by the SFAC Gallery Passport 2011 booth. You can buy a Passport, pick up information about the event and much more. We wil have some surprises for everyone who stops by so come on down!

Passport 2011 Stamping Day

Sunday, October 23, noon–4 p.m.

Pick up a map at home-base or find it online and begin a quest to collect artist stamps at various locations in the Castro District, San Francisco. Visit favorite neighborhood spots or discover new ones while creating a limited-edition artist’s book.

Participating artists include Tiffany Bozic, Elisheva Biernoff, Monica Canilo, Jaime Cortez, Chris Duncan, James Gobel, Pablo Guardiola, Dan Nicoletta, Alison Pebworth, Michelle Pred, Michelle Tea, Margaret Tedesco, and Jennifer Wofford.  Participating neighborhood businesses include Café Flore, Unionmade, Cliff’s Variety Store, Castro Theater, the Human Rights Campaign Action Center, and many more

The Passport 2011 After Party Beer Bust

Sunday, October 23, 4-7pm The Q BAR 456 Castro Street (btwn 17^th and 18^th Street)

Join us at the Q Bar for an After Party, Passport Style. Admission is free! $10 gets you all you can drink beer with all proceeds going to the SFAC Gallery artist fund. There will also be a cash bar, raffles, prizes a photo booth run by artist Sean McFarland, a live performance by the sensational Honey Mahogany and music by SF Bay Guardian Best DJ, two years running, DJNuxx

Information and Passport Purchase

Passports are $25. They will be available starting in early September at locations including the SFAC Gallery, Eventbrite, and the Castro Street fair booth

Passports may be purchased the of the event, at Passport 2011 home-base between noon and 4pm. During that time, participants can stop by to pick up a map, purchase a passport, or make it your start point to meet up with family or friends.

San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery

401 Van Ness Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94102

t: 415.554.6080 f:415.554.6093

www.sfartscommission.org/gallery

About San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery Located in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center, the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery makes contemporary art accessible to broad audiences through curated exhibitions that both reflect our regional diversity and position Bay Area visual art production within an international contemporary art landscape. By commissioning new works, collaborating with arts and community organizations and supporting artist’s projects, the SFAC Gallery’s programs provide new and challenging opportunities for contemporary art to engage with a civic dialogue. The SFAC Gallery was founded in 1970 and is the exhibitions program of the San Francisco Arts Commission, the arts agency of the City and County of San Francisco.

The San Francisco Arts Commission is the City agency that champions the arts in San Francisco. We believe that a creative cultural environment is essential to the City’s well-being. Our programs integrate the arts into all aspects of City life. The Commission was established by charter in 1932 (Charter sections 5.103 and 16.106).

For Immediate Release
Press Contact: Aimee Le Duc, SFAC Gallery Manager
e: aimee.leduc@sfgov.org, t: 415.554.6080
Photos available upon request

The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery presents

As We Live It
An exhibition by participants of San Francisco Behavioral Health System presented in partnership with San Francisco Study Center.

Opening reception: Wednesday, June 8, 2011 5:30-7:30
Exhibition dates: June 8 – September 9, 2011
Location: SF City Hall, ground floor, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, San Francisco, CA
Hours: Monday – Friday, 8 am – 8 pm

The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery (SFAC Gallery) and the San Francisco Study Center are proud to present As We Live It, a juried exhibition at historic San Francisco City Hall featuring works created by participants of San Francisco’s Community Behavioral Health Services. The selected artists are  among thousands of San Francisco residents who access the City’s multiple programs of assistance for anything from temporary counseling to places to live, and who receive substance abuse and mental health treatment.

As We Live It celebrates the vast and deep talents of artists who use their visual art practice as one form of articulating their identities in a way that words cannot.

The call for submissions was distributed to art therapists and staff of the city’s Community Behavioral Health Services organizations. We received almost 100 submissions from participants of 18 different organizations. The jury then selected 33 artists, giving five the honor of becoming a featured artist: Rene Avalos, Kami Cheatem, Annamar, Jeff Roysdon and John Wotipka. As part of As We Live It, SF Study Center staff member, Heidi Swillinger interviewed the featured artists and excerpts are presented next to the artists’ work.

Jurors: M. Roy Crew, program director, Office of Self Help; Aimee Le Duc, gallery manager, SFAC Gallery; Geoffrey Link, executive director, San Francisco Study Center; and Heidi Swillinger, advertising and special projects, San Francisco Study Center.

Featured Artists: Rene Avalos, Kami Cheatem, Anamar, Jeff Roysdon and John Wotipka

Artists: Donald Becerra, Charles Blackwell, Tim Cavey, Phillip Cha, Daniel Conant, Will Dempsey, Harry Driggs, Maria Enrique-Leach, Mehrin Ganjeizadeh, Ronald Goodman, Ethyl Hayes, Raisa K., Michael King, Lucky Lee, Amelia Lewis, Bill Malcolm, Richard McIzzie, Robert Miklos, Phillip Pena, Cipriano Perez, John Rhodes, James Scoville, Marjorie Shiffer, Bill Snook, Ron Takeuchi, Taeafa Togia, Doris Yen, Raymond Young

Partnering Organizations: San Francisco Study Center and Central City Hospitality House, Central City Older Adults Mental Health Clinic, Chinatown/North Beach Mental Health Services, Citywide and Community Focus Center, Creativity Explored, Family Service Agency – Older Adult Day Support, Hyde Street Community Services, Janet Pomeroy Center, Mission ACT DPH Mental Health, Mission Mental Health, Office of Self Help, RAMS Inc., San Francisco Department of Public Health, SOMA Mental Health Services.

The 2011 exhibition season is supported by the following donors; Paule Anglim, the Graue Foundation, Cheryl Haines, Barbara J. Herbert, Jill S. Manton, Anthony Meier, Joanne K. Vidinsky, Dede Wilsey and Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund.

About San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
Located in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center, the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery makes contemporary art accessible to broad audiences through curated exhibitions that both reflect our regional diversity and position Bay Area visual art production within an international contemporary art landscape. By commissioning new works, collaborating with arts and community organizations and supporting artist’s projects, the SFAC Gallery’s programs provide new and challenging opportunities for contemporary art to engage with a civic dialogue.

The SFAC Gallery was founded in 1970 and is the exhibitions program of the San Francisco Arts Commission, the arts agency of the City and County of San Francisco

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The New York Times
Trading a Gun Scope For a Wide-Angle Lens
By Reyhan Harmanci
Jan. 28, 2011

Feature of Bay Area local, James Lee, a former Marine rifleman who embedded with Afghan troops.
Produced by the Bay Citizen for The New York Times

The Examiner
‘Afghanistan in 4 Frames’ captures humanity under the gun
By: Lauren Gallagher
Feb. 7, 2011

Overview of City Hall exhibition.

San Francisco Bay Guardian
Not forgotten
By Matt Sussman
Feb. 15, 2011

The SF Arts Commission Gallery's "Afghanistan in 4 Frames" brings together images from a quartet of photographers.

For more recent press on Lynsey Addario:

Aperture Magazine

New York Times 2010: The Year in Pictures

For more recent press on Teru Kuwayama:

Knights Garage: Re-Engineering Journalism at Stanford

Pri's The World

Media Contact:
Meg Shiffler, Director, San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
Tel: 415/554-6080 Email: meg.shiffler@sfgov.org

PRESS PREVIEW FOR EXHIBITION OF 80 PHOTOGRAPHS ABOUT THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN AT SF CITY HALL

Join the exhibition curator and local exhibiting artist and former US Marine, James Lee,for a preview of the exhibition.

# # # #

For Immediate Release: Sister City Exhibition Exchange
2011 Sister City Biennial: San Francisco & Sydney

Presented by the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery and CarriageWorks (Sydney)

Locations and Dates:
San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
Exhibition Dates: April 28 - July 2, 2011
Opening Reception: April 28, 7 - 9pm. Free and open to the public
Contact: Meg Shiffler, Gallery Director, meg.shiffler@sfgov.org, 415.252.2568

CarriageWorks, Sydney

Exhibition Dates: August 4 - September 3, 2011
Opening Reception: August 4, 6 – 9pm, Free and open to the public.
Contact: Jamie Dawson, Executive Producer, jamie.d@carriageworks.com.au

(San Francisco, CA) The San Francisco Arts Commission (SFAC) Gallery and CarriageWorks (Sydney, AU) present the inaugural 2011 Sister City Biennial. Every two years the SFAC Gallery, San Francisco’s municipal contemporary art gallery, will partner with an arts institution in one of our Sister Cities around the globe. The collaborative efforts will result in a visual art exhibition in each location, featuring some of the best and brightest artists each city has to offer.

Luis R. Cancel, San Francisco’s Director of Cultural Affairs states, “The Arts Commission is thrilled to inaugurate an international platform for San Francisco’s artists, while sparking cross-cultural dialogue about art and its intersection with urban planning and policy making. Working with the support of the Mayor’s Office of Protocol and our global Consulate Offices, we believe that this new exhibition series will provoke citywide interest in finding out more about San Francisco’s Sister Cities. The Sister City Biennial will also introduce San Franciscans to emerging talent from around the world.”

For the 2011 Sister City Biennial the SFAC Gallery has partnered with the dynamic, Sydney-based, multi-disciplinary art center CarriageWorks. For our inaugural Biennial exhibition, Urbanition, the curators tasked the selected artists to create works addressed to the Mayors of San Francisco and Sydney that propose visionary solutions to make each city more humane, green and livable. The artists’ proposals range in subject matter from improving immigrant rights to commuting by jetpack, and from revamping the Sutro Baths to making BART a more human-centric system! The exhibitions will feature the proposals, (which will be presented in a wide variety of media including video, sculpture, drawing and performance), and a catalog which will be handed to officials from each City government. Educational programs, free and open to the public, will play a substantial role in both cities.

Co-curated by Meg Shiffler and Justine Topfer

San Francisco Artists:
Amy Balkin
Sergio De La Torre
Rebar

Sydney Artists:
Chris Fox
Makeshift
Josephine Starrs & Leon Cmielewski

About San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery

Located in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center, the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery makes contemporary art accessible to broad audiences through curated exhibitions that both reflect our regional diversity and position Bay Area visual art production within an international contemporary art landscape. By commissioning new works, collaborating with arts and community organizations and supporting artist’s projects, the SFAC Gallery’s programs provide new and challenging opportunities for contemporary art to engage with a civic dialogue.

The SFAC Gallery was founded in 1970 and is the exhibitions program of the San Francisco Arts Commission, the arts agency of the City and County of San Francisco

About CarraigeWorks (www.carriageworks.com.au/)

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For Immediate Release: Photography Exhibition at San Francisco City Hall

Afghanistan in Four Frames
Four Embedded Photojournalists Take Aim at the War
Public Reception: Wednesday, February 9, 5:30 – 7:30pm
Exhibition Dates: February 9 – May 13, 2011

(San Francisco, CA) The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery’s Art at City Hall is pleased to present Afghanistan in Four Frames. This groundbreaking and timely exhibition features works by four photojournalists who have embedded with various military units/forces in Afghanistan over the past five years.

Gallery Director and exhibition curator Meg Shiffler states, “Afghanistan in Four Frames continues the SFAC Gallery’s commitment to creating exhibitions at SF City Hall that illuminate international concerns. The remarkable photojournalists in this exhibition share unique perspectives that bring us closer to understanding the varied human conditions of war in Afghanistan.”

In early 2010 James Lee, a San Francisco based photographer/ writer and Marine Corps veteran, traveled alongside Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) near the border of Pakistan. His resulting photo essay, Counter-Narratives, sensitively depicts the human costs of protracted conflict and a ground-level perspective of ANSF operations far from any US military presence. Another Bay Area photojournalist, Eros Hoagland, has embedded with US troops several times, and twice with a British unit. His high contrast black and white photographs in Siege Perilous distinctly portray the stark tension between the western military presence and the local landscape and the people of Afghanistan in the Korengal Valley and Helmand Province. In Women at War, Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Lynsey Addario, based in Delhi, depicts what life is like for female US military personnel deployed to Afghanistan. Her essay illustrates women soldiers training and patrolling just like their male counterpoints, but due to religious customs, the women also perform duties that put them in the unique position of direct contact with civilian women and children. New York based Teru Kuwayama has been shooting in Afghanistan and its surrounding areas for nine years, both embedded with the US military and on his own. Using his low-tech Holga and Leica film cameras, Teru has remained focused on telling both the story of the war, and the lives it affects – both civilian and military. His images have a timeless, dreamlike quality; an aesthetic that distances the viewer from a typically crisp photojournalistic perspective, instead providing an intimate, emotional, and perhaps poetic view of the devastating effects of war.

Location: Ground Floor of City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Pl.
Viewing Hours: Monday – Friday, 8am – 8pm, Free
Public Program: Curtor-Led Walk Thru and Artist Lecture
Date: March 10
Times and Locations: 6:30 – 7:15, Exhibition walk thru with Curator, Meg Shiffler and Artist, James Lee, at San Francisco City Hall.
7:15 – 8pm, Artist Lecture with James Lee at the SFAC Main Gallery, 401 Van Ness in the Veterans Building.

Description: James Lee lectures on his work and life as a photojournalist, writer and US Marine Corps Veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

RSVP: by March 7 to aimee.leduc@sfgov.org
Press Contact: Meg Shiffler, SFAC Gallery Director
e: meg.shiffler@sfgov.org, t: 415.252.2568

Press Preview: by appointment, photos available upon request

Artist’s Bios…

Based in San Francisco, James Lee has carried cameras while conducting research in the Middle East and South Asia. He is a graduate student of the Department of International Relations at San Francisco State University and a US Marine Corps Veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom. His field work focuses on guerrilla warfare, mobile cellular technology and computer mediated practices of representation. His photographs of Afghanistan have also been featured on salon.com and exhibited at The Museum of Ventura County.
http://www.sfsu.edu/~sfsumag/archive/fall_10/afghanistan.html

Lynsey Addario is an American photojournalist based in New Delhi, India, where she photographs for The New York Times, National Geographic, and Time Magazine. Lynsey began photographing professionally in 1996 with no professional photographic training or studies, and started photographing conflict and humanitarian issues in 2000, when she traveled to Afghanistan under Taliban rule to document life and oppression under the Taliban. She has since covered conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, Darfur, and Congo, and shoots features across the Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. Lynsey has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the MacArthur Fellowship, or 'Genius Grant' 2009; she was part of the NYT team to win the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting, for her photographs in Talibanistan, Sept 7, 2008.  In 2010 Lynsey was named one of 20 women on Oprah Winfrey's Power List, 2010, for her photoessay Power of Bearing Witness. Addario won the Getty Images Grant for Editorial photography in 2008 for her work in Darfur, where she photographed for six consecutive years. http://www.lynseyaddario.com

Eros Hoagland, a Bay Area based photojournalist, began working in 1993 covering the aftermath of El Salvador's civil war. He has since worked in countries stained by violence and unrest across the globe including Iraq, Haiti, Eritrea and Colombia. As well as documenting the political climate and social impact of conflict, Eros looks for an emotional narrative when approaching reportage projects. He also works on travel, and adventure sport stories as well as business and lifestyle pieces. His regularly shoots for the New York Times, and his work has appeared in Time, Newsweek, Frontline, Fortune, Forbes, People and Esquire among others. http://www.eroshoagland.com/

Teru Kuwayama is a photographer who has spent most of the past decade reporting on conflict and humanitarian crisis. He has reported in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir and Iraq - traveling both independently and as an embedded reporter with military forces. His photographs have appeared in publications including Time, Newsweek, Outside and National Geographic. Kuwayama is the co-founder of Lightstalkers.org, a Web-based network of media, military, aid and development personnel serving more than 40,000 members. In 2010 he was a John S. Knight Fellow at Stanford University, and as a result has developed the revolutionary web reporting initiative Basetrack, linking Marines with life at home through multi-media interaction and broad-based participation.
http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/21/covering-marines-at-war-through-facebook/?emc=eta1
http://terukuwayama.com/

About San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
Located in the heart of San Francisco’s Civic Center, the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery makes contemporary art accessible to broad audiences through curated exhibitions that both reflect our regional diversity and position Bay Area visual art production within an international contemporary art landscape. By commissioning new works, collaborating with arts and community organizations and supporting artist’s projects, the SFAC Gallery’s programs provide new and challenging opportunities for contemporary art to engage with a civic dialogue.

The SFAC Gallery was founded in 1970 and is the exhibitions program of the San Francisco Arts Commission, the arts agency of the City and County of San Francisco.