Art Picks, April 2011

Posted on April 6, 2011 – 7:36 PM | by OldManFoster

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The Real-Fake
Sacramento University Library Gallery
March 31-May 28
Reception: April 6, 5 – 8PM
Lecture: Claudia Hart, Kadema 145; April 14 4:30 – 5:45PM

This group show features an international roster of artists exploring what curators Rachel Clarke and Claudia Hart call ‘artificial XYZ space,’ or, in short, virtual reality. Using filmmaking special effects, video game technology and other digital tools these 18 artists/teams have created three dimensional-seeming objects, figures and environments – art that only appears to exist in solid form. The Real-Fake posits that 3D computer art may become the post-photography medium of the early 21st century – an interesting idea given that digital 3D artists will be shackled only by the limits of their creativity.  The Real-Fake is part of CSUS’ Festival of the Arts.

California State University, 6000 J Street

The Velocity of Ideas
Gay Outlaw
Center For Contemporary Art Sacramento
April 5 – May 15
Reception: April 9, 6-9PM

Around the turn of the century there was a short-lived attempt to create an annual international art event in the Bay Area modeled on successful Miami, London and other art fairs. The San Francisco International Art Fair had hundreds of vendor spaces, each filled with art brought by galleries, museums or individual artists.  Fresh out of art school, I eagerly paid my $15 entry fee and spent six or so hours looking at art from all over the world.   There was plenty to see, and lots to think about, but in the end I discovered only two or three ‘new’ artists whose work really stuck with me.  One of them was San Francisco artist Gay Outlaw.

Outlaw’s work, then as now, is centrally concerned with geometric explorations of negative space.  Holes permeate solids until the solids seem barely there; the voids of the holes themselves might then be cast into solids, transforming the void into mass. Mix in a liberal dose of materials-exploration and you have an idea of Outlaw’s tasteful brand of conceptual sculpture.  Highly polished and rigorously intellectual, Outlaw’s sculpture shares some similarities with the work of a few Bay Area artists including Lucy Puls and CSUS professor Robert Orbal – I won’t be surprised if this style is someday labeled a ‘school.’

1519 19th Street
Hours: Tues-Sun, Noon – 5PM

SHORT LIST:

Cybernetic
Gene Oldfield and Friends
Axis Gallery
April 2 – May 1

Taking its title from Norbert Wiener’s seminal 1948 book on the subject, Cybernetics: or Control and Communication in the Animal and the Machine, the work in Gene Oldfield’s exhibit will be inspired by gadgetry, information theory, computer language and oh so many other aspects of the intersection of math and science.  Leave it to Oldfield and his compatriots to make it all fun.

1517 19^th Street

Curious Incidents Revealed (Almost Lifelike)
Gary Dinnen & Dutch Falconi
Sacramento Temporary Contemporary
April 7 – May 6

A show of paintings and ceramics by two alumni of the Stucco Factory artists’ collective, Gary Dinnen and Dutch Falconi.  Both are longtime veterans of Sac’s creative scene: Dinnen is a familiar ceramicist; Falconi is best known for his role as bandleader of the Twisted Orchestra.

1616 Del Paso Boulevard

Tags: Axis Gallery, Center for Contemporary Art Sacramento, Claudia Hart, Dutch Falconi, Gary Dinnen, Gay Outlaw, Gene oldfield, Rachel Clarke, Sacramento Temporary Contemporary, Sacramento University Library Gallery, stucco factory, The Real-Fake