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Right Window is pleased to present Lares and Penates: The Household Gods of East Berlin by Steven Seidenberg. Join us for the opening reception on Wednesday, September 11, from 6-10 pm. The exhibit is free and open to the public for viewing through September 30, 2013. Right Window’s exhibitions are visible from the street; the gallery is open on Saturdays from 12-4 and by appointment.
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From the artist:
Devised to allow the easy clearing of debris from roof and balcony drainage pipes, the cast-iron fittings imaged in this exhibition have largely disappeared—replaced by plastic and aluminum plates throughout the East Berlin neighborhoods where they were once prevalent. Each totemic grimace of these decaying visages intimates the history—and character of the Soviet era apartment blocks to which they are attached, both in growing state of disrepair and character of ornament unwittingly or illegally affixed. Some glare in eager anger at apathetic passersby, while others seem to hibernate in droll anticipation of an end that can’t come soon enough, but all declare a transit into utter dissolution otherwise unheralded by the denizens they’ve spent the last half century surveying. I seek in turn to witness and portend as witness the stages on the path towards the event horizon of complete elision, a performative decadence that transforms the commonplace of objects in abeyance into testament and sculptural abstraction.
In Roman religious practice, Lares and Penates were the deities of the household and domestic life. Lares were ancestral spirits to which everyday prayers and offerings were made, kept in the family shrine. Every family had its own Lar familiaris, beseeched to ensure familial health and longevity. Penates were the spirits of the pantry, taken out during meal times to preserve the family wealth and keep its members fed.
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Steven Seidenberg is an artist living and working in San Francisco. Seidenberg’s work captures materials that are endangered in the urban landscape—whether through their impermanence, ethereality, threat of replacement, or redevelopment—documenting objects and structures while offering a nuanced reading of a moment in the life of the object. In some cases his reinterpretation is enhanced through repetition of form, in others, he focuses on small bits of paint, splashes and splatters, or trash pressed into crevices, highlighting unlikely groupings of texture, color, and function. He exposes the enduring qualities of his subjects, simultaneously recording the impact of natural and human action on their fragile form through shifts of depth of field and scale. Seidenberg is also a writer and editor. His prose work, Itch, will be published this fall by RAW ArT Press. He coedits the poetry journal pallaksch. pallaksch.
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Founded in August 2007, Right Window is an exhibition space collectively run by a group of artists, writers, and curators located in the Mission District of San Francisco, California.
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Media opportunities
Interview with artist Steven Seidenberg
High-resolution images available upon request
Event information:
Lares and Penates: The Household Gods of East Berlin
New work by Steven Seidenberg
Opening reception – September 11, 2013, 6-10 pm
On view through September 30, 2013
Open Saturdays from 12-4 and by appointment
@Right Window (www.rightwindow.com)
992 Valencia Street in San Francisco, California
