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Catharine Clark Gallery

June 14 - July 13, 2008

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248 Utah Street
 San Francisco, CA 94103
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Speaking to the Unspeakable
Catharine Clark Gallery announces two upcoming summer group exhibitions 14 June – 12 July 2008. In the Minna Street Gallery Speaking to the Unspeakable includes photographic and video works by Josh Azzarella, a collaborative drawing by Sandow Birk and Elyse Pignolet, and sculptural works by Stephen J. Shanabrook. In the Mission Street Gallery The Audacity of Hope features two new installations by Walter Robinson and Travis Somerville, along with sculpture by Ray Beldner. A special presentation of Elyse Pignolet’s drawings will be presented in the Viewing Room. An opening reception for the artists is Saturday, June 14, 3 – 5pm. Both summer group exhibitions investigate the uncertainty of the current political climate and, in various ways, search for optimism in the approaching 2008 presidential election. Speaking to the Unspeakable delves directly into some of the most salient, and perhaps disturbing, concerns reflected in the daily news. Stephen J. Shanabrook’s On the Road to Heaven the Highway to Hell, a forton plaster cast depicting the upper body of a decimated suicide bomber, reflects on the strength of a fundamentalist belief system so invested in political change that sacrificing one’s life for the cause is intrinsic to success and heroism. Disturbingly, the plaster figure demonstrates the ambiguity of human form and posits comparisons to any soldier, fighting any war—illustrating what author Joseph Heller referred to in Catch-22 as Snowden’s secret: man is matter and when irreparably wounded his convictions disburse as easily as his personage. Furthering the questions surrounding belief systems, Sandow Birk and Elyse Pignolet have collaborated on a large diagrammatic architectural rendering based on the "99 most perfect names of God" from the Haddith, the second most important book of Islam, after the Koran. The result is a large ink on paper work that draws from traditional calligraphic displays of the 99 names combined with contemporary imagery that aptly addresses an ideology considered so sacred by it proponents that to speak of god, or create a likeness of god, is to commit an irrevocably severe transgression absolved only with death. Using digital technology in photography and video, Josh Azzarella revises iconic disaster imagery from popular media to present his own unique brand of revisionist optimism. In Untitled #23 (''Lynndied''), the infamous photograph of humiliation and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison has been digitally cleansed of incriminating evidence, undoing the scapegoat Lynndie’s dehumanizing treatment of prisoners. Another such work Untitled #16 (Lorraine Motel) revisits the scene of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination and eliminates all evidence of loss. Each of Azzarella’s five photographs and two videos in this exhibition, selected from a larger ongoing series, attempts to consider how things might have looked had we, as a society, managed to avoid these profound moments of inexplicable tragedy. Though it is impossible to truly eradicate these historic moments, the work allows for contemplation of what might have been and the peculiar domino-effect of romanticism and hopefulness that ensues from the opportunity to re-imagine the world today. The second group exhibition, The Audacity of Hope, features work by Ray Beldner, Walter Robinson, and Travis Somerville and draws on a similar climate of romanticism and hopefulness by investigating the persona of John F. Kennedy and the lost promise of his presidential platform as it relates to the upcoming election and the candidacy of Barack Obama. Ray Beldner presents a new series of wall plaques that employ readily available internet translation software, such as Altavista’s Babelfish, to reinterpret the language of Kennedy’s most influential speeches. Travis Somerville and Walter Robinson will both create installations from found objects and drawings that investigate Kennedy’s lasting legacy in our collective social conscious. Biographic information for all of these artists is available upon request.