Solo Exhibition: Carlos and Jason Sanchez (Photographers) May 16, 2009

San Francisco, CA: Catharine Clark Gallery announces two upcoming, concurrent solo exhibitions: new photographic works by Canadian-based artists Carlos and Jason Sanchez and a net art work, mementomori, by Bay Area artist Ken Goldberg. The exhibition dates are May 16 – June 21, 2009. The artists will be present at the opening reception on Saturday, May 16 from 1–3pm. Prior to the reception, the gallery will host a panel discussion, Collecting the Uncollectable, from 12–1pm. Panelists include Rudolf Frieling, Richard Rinehart, Ken Goldberg and Theo Armour, and will be moderated by Catharine Clark.

For their second showing at Catharine Clark Gallery, Carlos and Jason Sanchez will present a survey of work from the past seven years represented by twelve, large scale photographic works. Their images are rich with beguiling color or cool with a startlingly absence of it. They are either intensely orchestrated, psychological compositions that read as fragments from larger cinematic narratives or are seemingly more detached, spontaneous arrangements. Hours of labored control over sets, props, furniture, color, lighting and their subjects, often friends and family, are all part of the elaborate process by which the Brothers create each photograph. Working in the tradition of photographers such as Gregory Crewdson and Jeff Wall, and influenced by the cinematic, psychological drama characteristic of film directors Stanley Kubrick and PT Anderson, the Brothers appear to render images that read as if they were mid-story in the telling of a dark tale and that touch on themes the Brothers cull from life, news stories, suburbia, family, and religion. No matter the specific subject, an uncanny disquiet weaves a characteristic thread through the non-linear narrative style of their larger body of work. Almost as a follow up piece to Hurried Child, a 2007 image that evokes the child beauty queen, Jon Benet Ramsey, is the photo titled John Mark Karr that pictures the eponymous, self-confessed murderer of Jon Benet Ramsey whose DNA test failed to implicate him in the murder.

Carlos and Jason Sanchez began collaborating in 2001 after having received a grant from the Du Maurier Arts Council. A second grant from the organization enabled them to conclude their studies at Concordia University in Montreal in 2003 and pursue photography full time. The Sanchez brothers have an international exhibition career and their work is represented in the collections of several museums including the Montreal Museum of fine Arts, Montreal, Canada, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas, and the Canadian Museum of Contemporary Photography, Ottawa, Canada. Their photographs were first presented in a group exhibition at Catharine Clark Gallery in the winter of 2007. This is their first solo exhibit with the gallery.

In the gallery’s media room Ken Goldberg will present mementomori, a net artwork that Goldberg originally conceived in 1997 and that has been running continuously since its inception. Working in the tradition of the Earthwork artists such as Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer, Goldberg also collaborates with the earth in mementomori. He engages the earth as a living medium by working with the minute movements of the Hayward Fault as they are detected by a seismograph. In other words, Goldberg created a program that converts the motion of the fault into digital signals that are transmitted continuously and in live time via the internet to a minimalist display—viewable either on a computer monitor or as a projection. In response to the frenzy of the internet, this meditative work addresses issues of chance, human fragility, and geological endurance. The conceptual underpinnings of mementomori have taken three forms to date. In addition to being an internet art work, it is also interpreted as a sculptural/installation for the ICC Biennial. In this configuration the motion of the earth was transduced into sound and piped into the structure. The sound changed based on the activity of the earth. In a third iteration of the work, Goldberg developed another version of the earthwork to commemorate the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake. Ballet Mori engaged the motion on the fault as the “conductor” for the dance. In Ballet Mori San Francisco Ballet’s then Principal Dancer, Muriel Maffre, responded to the sound of the earth’s movements in an improvisational performance.

In 2008, the internet version of the work, mementomori, was acquired by a private collector, and to our knowledge the sale of the work is the first of an internet-based artwork to a private collector where the public is still provided unfettered access to the work on-line—access inherent to the works conception and yet would typically preclude the possibility of being sold. Given the unique nature of the acquisition, we felt it important to showcase mementomori and provide a forum for discussing how an artwork that is not readily comodifiable was sold in a unique arrangement devised by the private collector, Goldberg, and the gallery. In light of this ground breaking acquisition, the gallery has invited the collector, Theo Armour, to join the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Curator of Media Arts, Rudolf Frieling, Berkeley Art Museum’s Digital and Media Director and Adjunct Curator, Richard Rinehart, and Ken Goldberg to discuss the particular issues pertaining to the collection of internet art at the private and institutional level. Coincidentally the SFMOMA has recently committed to building a collection of net art and has recently announced that they have acquired and are maintaining two net art works. The panel will kick off the opening of both exhibitions. It is free, and open to the public.

After receiving a dual degree in engineering and business at the University of Pennsylvania, Goldberg earned his PhD in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. Goldberg is an artist and professor of engineering at UC Berkeley. In his artwork he uses his extensive background in computers and engineering to overturn stereotypes of dehumanization and the impersonal often given to the field of technology. His art installations, such as the Telegarden, have been exhibited internationally at venues such as the Whitney Biennial, the Pompidou Center and Venice Biennale. Goldberg co-authored The Tribe, an award-winning Sundance film with his wife Tiffany Shlain. Goldberg serves as Director of the Berkeley Center for New Media and is Founding Director of UC Berkeley's Art, Technology, and Culture lecture series. He is represented by the Catharine Clark Gallery where he has been exhibiting since 1998.

Gallery hours to change: In response to the increasing demand for the gallery to keep later hours, we are now open Tuesday through Saturday until 6pm. The gallery opens to the public each day at 12pm, and staff is present at the gallery beginning at 9:30am. Appointments to view any exhibition prior or after public hours are welcome. Additionally the gallery regularly participates in the San Francisco Art Dealers Association’s First Thursday extended hours gallery walk on the first Thursday of each month, from 6–8pm.

About Catharine Clark Gallery: Established in 1991, Catharine Clark Gallery presents the work of contemporary artists. A wide range of media is represented in the gallery program with an emphasis on content driven work that challenges both the traditional use of materials and formal aesthetics. It is the first San Francisco gallery with a dedicated media and video room. Exhibitions are hosted on a 4–6 week schedule and generally feature one or two solo artist exhibitions, in addition to video and viewing room installations. The gallery also regularly participates in national and international art fairs in Miami, New York, London, and Brussels, among other cities. Housed in a former 1920s farming equipment warehouse, redesigned by Los Angeles-based architectural designer Tim Campbell in 2007, the gallery is situated among numerous arts-related landmark buildings in San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Neighborhood; it is adjacent to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), the Museum of the African Diaspora (MOAD), and is housed on the ground floor of the same historical building as SF Camerawork. For more information, please visit www.cclarkgallery.com or email [email protected]. Visit cclarkgallery.blogspot.com for up-to-date information about exhibitions and reviews.

Official Website: www.cclarkgallery.com