Event

Slots & Strides: Explorations of the CubePost an Event »

Togonon Gallery

December 2 - January 16, 2011

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http://www.togonongallery.com/
(415) 398-5572

77 Geary Street Second Floor San Francisco, CA 94108

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Slots & Strides: Explorations of the Cube

Opening Reception: Saturday, December 4, 3- 5 p.m. Memorial to commemorate the anniversary of the artist’ death in November, 2009. The Togonon Gallery is honored to present Slots and Strides: Explorations of the Cube. The exhibition features sculptural works sketches and proposals from one of America’s foremost mid-century artists and Bay Area native, Peter Forakis. The show is a memorial exhibition on the occasion of the one-year anniversary of the artist’s death. San Francisco Chronicle Art Critic Kenneth Baker credits Forakis as the "originator of geometry-based sculpture from the 60s”. The works assembled at the Togonon evidence a gifted 50-year career commencing with his seminal works from the 1960’s as a co-founder of the Park Place Gallery (1963-67) with his investigation of Euclidian based geometry and 4- dimensional theories. Slots and Strides displays actual pieces as well as unrealized dreams for large scale public art never exhibited before. With this overview we can see connections which have previously eluded viewers of Forakis’ works: relationships between cubes, hypercubes, tetrahedrons, and rhomboids, as well as shape shifting constructions which challenge the viewer’s preconceptions of temporal and special boundaries. In addition there are pieces from his Stride series (mid to late 1980’s), which resemble virtual DNA molecules. Forakis was a master of conventional welding techniques but in the 1970’s he experimented with his “slots” technique which examined geometry in large scale pieces that did not require welding, relying instead on gravity and the weight of the material for his masterworks. This was a pivotal time in his career. Forakis’ works are in such collections as the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Oakland Museum, the Berkeley Art Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Denver Museum, and the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN and in numerous private collections. The Togonon Gallery represents the estate of the artist and with this show continues to highlight established, mid-career, and emerging artists primarily from the Bay Area. Gallery closed for year-end break from Dec 24- Jan 3.