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Jancar Jones Gallery

June 4 - July 4, 2010

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965 Mission Suite 120 San Francisco, CA 94103
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Combo
Opening Friday, June 4th, 6-9pm The Jancar Jones Gallery is pleased to announce an exhibit of the work of San Francisco-based artist David Berezin titled Combo. Through an exploration of stock images and cultural practices, Berezin combines signs to ultimately critique the ways in which “pop meaning” can be understood. In a previous series of photographs, he recreates canonical still lifes from art history, built with images from the Internet and stock photography. Where the vanitas still lifes of the 17th century that he references were symbolically rich, his still lifes do not carry the same specific meaning. Instead, his interest in the work comes from its construction: historical images with precise meanings are recreated with collaged low-resolution images that are free and available through a Google image search. As a result, the original meaning of the composition is disrupted, through the interpretation of the contemporary replacement imagery. In a new series of still lifes, which will be included in Combo, Berezin removes the historical referent, instead focusing on narrative content. Using a precise combination of contemporary signifiers, he builds an image which could evoke the residue of a theatrical plot. Given movie-like titles, he emphasizes the predictable nature of Hollywood narrativity and how embedded it has become in American vernacular, while simultaneously confusing this read through the deliberate use of incongruous yet stereotypical symbols. Using a similar gesture, Berezin will also construct an installation of bedroom posters and ephemera. In the same way the arranged items in the still lifes connote a narrative, the bedroom posters function as a highly legible building block to a peculiar personal identity; allowing for an extremely fast read, there is no confusion as to what a FREE TIBET poster means in a bedroom. In spite of the often easy read, Berezin obscures the signifiers with which he works, again drawing attention to the language of popular culture that often is taken for granted or over looked due its over saturation or over use. David Berezin received his BFA from the California College of the Arts, San Francisco. The exhibit will coincide with a small edition release of "You know, we have a lot of friends, but there's something about Mary", a collaborative book project by David Berezin and Harsh Patel. Gallery hours: Thursday – Saturday, noon – 6pm and by appointment.