As summer comes into full swing, galleries have begun presenting group exhibitions that showcase the best of this year’s line-up, sneak peeks of upcoming solo shows, and guest–curated programs. A group of students in San Francisco are given the opportunity to work alongside established photographer Catherine Wagner in a show that is a culmination of each young artist’s careful study of figurative and abstract notions of art, and its relationship to the individual and collective experience. In Hong Kong, a selection of works exhibited last year by Contemporary artists, including Jun Ahn (Korean, b.1981), Melanie Comber (British, b.1970), Grillo Demo (Argentine), James Gordon (Scottish, b.1948), and Jason Sims (Australian) are shown together in a retrospective-style exhibition.
Luminous will be on view from July 18 to August 24 at 49 Geary Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA.
In San Francisco, acclaimed artist Catherine Wagner (American, b.1953) has curated a conceptual exhibition by a group of budding artists from Mills College that explores the absence of color using a range of mediums, including photography, found objects, and multimedia installation. Luminous brings to mind Wagner’s solo exhibition, trans/literate, at Stephen Wirtz Gallery earlier this year, which showcased a series of photographs of Braille texts of literary masterpieces. The diptych prints of books such as Herman Melville’s, Moby Dick (2011–2012) and Miguel de Cervantes’, Don Quixote (2011–2012), served as examples of a conscientious study of culture, order, and visual representation. Like Wagner, the six students take part in a cognitive investigation of the natural and the artificial in terms of how the two concepts influence art processes and everyday life. Sandra Ono’s sculptural forms are constructed out of synthetic materials like sandwich bags, yet appear organic, resembling an energy source; while Andrew Witrak’s photograph shows a fabricated artist’s monograph in white that suggests a personal concern with the fine art field. The color white is used by each artist as a means to an end, whether it is to discover the correlation between man and his environment or to trigger the viewer’s reception to shifting levels of light and dimension.
Sandra Ono, Engrams (detail), 2013, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, San Francisco, California
Signal 888, Summer Show will be on view from July 18 to August 25 at 222 Hollywood Road, Hong Kong, China.
For their annual summer salon show, The Cat Street Gallery brings together works by artists who have previously exhibited with the gallery, as well as a handful of pieces from new artists as a preview for future exhibitions. Highlights from the show include emerging photographer Jun Ahn’s, Self Portrait, in which the artist has photographed herself on the verge of falling from a high rise building, devoid of any sense of fear, with just a hint of motion in her long tresses to suggest the next move. Light artist Jason Sims captures his audience’s attention with geometric light installations that project bold colors and simulate different stages of depth. Unlike artists such as Chul Hyun Ahn (Korean, b.1971) and Robert Irwin (American, b.1928), who primarily use fluorescent lights in their installations, Sims’ uses LED lights to produce intensely saturated colors.
Jason Sims, Transfer, The Cat Street Gallery, Hong Kong, China
Browse gallery openings by city to see where art can be found in your town!
Los Angeles, CA
Barry Le Va: Large Scale Collages: 1985–1991 at Marc Selwyn Fine Art
July 18–August 17, 2013
6222 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 101, Los Angeles, CA 90048
New York, NY
Paper Plus One at Von Lintel Gallery
July 18–August 23, 2013
520 West 23rd Street, Ground Floor, New York, NY 10011
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
Tania Marmolejo: Delicious Torment at Lyle O. Reitzel
July 18–August 18, 2013
Torre Piantini Suite 1 & 2 A, Gustavo Mejia Ricart, Esq. Abraham Lincoln, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic