Embed In Bed by Steuart Pittman

This month, I am choosing to highlight some shows that aren't necessarily a part of an Oakland art walk opening event. In these picks, there will be no Midtown art walk, no Uptown Art Murmur and no open studios in Jingletown. Sometimes, an event can overshadow the art it means to evangelize. Considering that and the practice of many local galleries to schedule separate artist receptions on "off days" like Sunday or not when an art walk is happening - perhaps in an effort to attract collectors scared off by crowds - I have chosen three worthy art events that exist on their own, not necessarily in conjunction with anything. With such heady times, one of Oakland's most distinguished and prominent galleries is closing this month even as a new one seems to opens every month, sometimes it is better to think of the smaller picture before you step back and take it all in.

NOWHERE/ANYWHERE: A solo exhibition of new work by Steuart Pittman
Blankspace
6608 San Pablo Avenue
blankspacegallery.com/
Art Murmur Reception: Friday, March 5, 7 p.m.– 10 p.m. 
Special show and gallery closing tea reception: March 14, 3 p.m. - 6 p.m. 

A show and gallery closing reception?! Yes, you read that right. Blankspace, easily one of the top art spaces in Oakland, based on critical reception and show attendance, is ending its run on its own terms, a rare exception in a city dotted with shuttered spaces. Kerri Johnson and Jason Byers, talented artists in their own right, opened Blankspace to provide a gallery for work that's often site-specific and conceptual, while also serving to help emerging artists and craftspeople sell their affordable works in the gallery and its attached shop.

One site-specific installation by Pete Nelson featured a drinking fountain that poured out moonshine made from candy corn in an effective and evocative satirical meditation on the crossroads of faith and addiction. Other shows gave an early spotlight to talents like Misako Inaoka and Case Simmons.

This month, the gallery features a new a series of oil and acrylic painting from recent Mills College MFA grad Steuart Pittman. In a culture that is practically defined by its own excess, it seems reasonable that artists would adopt a counteractive visual language. Influenced by abstract painters and working toward a sort of post-minimalism deeply informed by Josef Albers' color theories, the work displays heavy brush strokes done in a meticulous manner with titles that leaven the emotional weight of the piece because that have been clearly informed by someone raised on Looney Tunes, or possibly a follower of Marcel Duchamp.

As Kerri Johnson says, "...the surfaces aren't perfect and the shapes aren't perfect - there is a sort of whimsicality. Steuart's work embodies a thoughtful playfulness Jason and I have been attracted to with the artists we have worked with.  I mean one of the pieces is entitled Slanderous Bastard!"

The show is well worth seeing, and you'll have a couple of great opportunities this Friday and Sunday, which will feature a show and gallery closing reception. Tea will be provided. I recommend you come on out to help provide some good company. Blankspace will be missed. Check back next week here at The Oakbook for an exclusive in-depth interview with Blankspace's Kerri Johnson on the gallery and her many future projects.

Time(Lapse): An exhibition featuring photography, video, and installation by Drone Dungeon, Katja Mater, Kim Miskowicz, and Liena Vayzman
Krowswork Gallery
480 23rd Street - side entrance
krowswork.com/timelapse.html
Opening reception: Saturday, March 20, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

I rarely feature the same gallery two months in a row as I try to make an effort to spread the spotlight around to as many deserving art spaces as possible. Last month, I reviewed Krowswork's last show, Mirror Made Me. That show and the one preceding it were uncommonly strong. Galleries usually have shaky starts. Not this one. Gallerist Jasmine Moorhead's experience, strong eye, and aesthetic sensibility have shown through and I augur this show will continue this nascent space's exceptional run.

In keeping with the gallery's specialization in photographic and conceptual art, this month features photography, video, and installation by Drone Dungeon, Katja Mater, Kim Miskowicz, and Liena Vayzman that recall the experiments 130 years ago of photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge. His early work playing with notions of time and motion figure prominently here. Liena Vayzman's The Lemon Tree project (shown below) looks particularly promising. In ten photos, the harsh, fragile, raw, transitory beauty of decay is seen through lemons, in various states of rot.



As Ms. Moorhead makes clear, "...these artists, like their 19th-century predecessor, are very much in step with the psychic demands of their time, which today require that information be processed faster, that natural cycles previously thought untouchable be understood as manipulable by man and his technology, that linear narrative be treated as suspect, and that uncertainty, not clarity, rule the day."  
 
The Albany Bulb - a documentary
- World premiere screening
St.Alban's Episcopal Church
1501 Washington Ave, Albany CA
Screening: Saturday, March 20, 8 p.m.
 
The Albany Bulb still stubbornly remains a mecca for outsider art made by local artists of varying degrees of sanity, some of whom are homeless denizens of the bulbous tip of the small East Bay town of Albany.
 

For more on the screening of this documentary, visit rekzkarz.blogspot.com/2010/01/screening-driver-other-films-in-march.html