Recently the San Francisco Chronicle ran a host of puffy
lifestyle articles to showcase its new version of Herb Caen’s beloved
fishwrap. A whole week on the fog (in literature, in movies, in
mixology), however, seemed excessively self-congratulatory — even
for SF’s anxious navel-gazers. Really, folks, the “Best Place on Earth”
is not so bad; stop protesting so much. Astonishing natural beauty, a
diverse mix of races and cultures, an innovative/creative spirit, and a
live-and-let-live attitude — what’s not to like? Get over
yourselves.The spirit of place is in no way the theme of This
Town, now at Eclectix Gallery, much less boosterism, but
the show does provide a snapshot, albeit subjective, of the locale and
its denizens. The region is depicted in Don Albonico’s architectural
photos; Alicia DeBrincat’s oil still life; Larry Jones’ humorous,
mysterious photos; Eric Joyner’s street scene oils; Joanna Kate’s
watercolor of foliage and pavement; Boris Koordrin’s panoramic but
deliberately anti-“scenic” oil and acrylic, with houses, trees, bridge,
and mountains and sky depicted as overlapping planes, like stage flats;
John Seabury’s satiric silkscreen depiction of the nightly San Pablo
flesh parade; Strephon Taylor’s oil of a drive-in burger joint near the
Grand Lake Theater; and Katherine Westerhout’s digital photos of
abandoned industrial buildings. Pride of place goes to Paul Graf’s
relief sculpture, You’ve Been Framed,” with its matrix of
half-excavated “Noirville” fossils: lottery tokens, insects, guns,
Legos, saw blades, keys, and tiny anonymous human figures — along
with what appears to be a Maltese Falcon statuette. Bay Area people are
portrayed in Crystal Morey’s elegantly eccentric ceramic nude figures;
Strephon Taylor’s dark, congested fantasy acrylic paintings of Anton
Lavey, founder of the Church of Satan in San Francisco, playing the
organ surrounded by pet lion and snake, and in a Hell’s Angels bar
scene imagined by, say, Hunter S. Thompson and Ivan Albright; Cynthia
Tom’s feminist-surrealist acrylic about floating uprooted and rootless;
and Peter Tonningsen’s black-and-white photos of a refined art lady,
Latino cowboys, a bike messenger, and a bare-chested rocker. Also
showing: Tonningsen’s Flotsam & Jetsam, scans of
objects scavenged from the beach and sorted by color or function into
3×3 tic-tac-toe arrays: nostalgia meets conceptualism. Both shows run
through August 16 at Eclectix (10082 San Pablo Ave., El Cerrito).
Eclectix.com or 510-364-7261
Local Angle
Twenty-five artists do This Town.
