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2291 3rd St.
June 5 - July 11, 2015Info
2291 3rd Street San Francisco, 94107 Google Map »Reception
June 5, 2015 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Ajit Chauhan, knock, knock, knock, 2015, spray enamel, typewriter ink, pencil on paper, 8 1/4 x 11 3/4 in.
Presented by MINNESOTA STREET PROJECT for our inaugural project, 2291 3rd St. presents Concrete Is Not Always Hard an exhibition of recent works on paper by San Francisco-based artist Ajit Chauhan. The show will run from June 5 through July 11, 2015.
The exhibition takes its name from A. Barbara Pilon's seminal 1972 book on concrete poetry, in which she asks, "Have you ever thought of writing a poem using only a letter, a word, distortions of words, nonsense words, or no words at all? Have you ever thought of using the space around words to help the reader understand the idea you are trying to communicate?" Taking these questions as a cue, Chauhan uses a typewriter to investigate the visual or plastic potential of language. Chauhan's typewriter drawings use the repetition of single letters to form a sequence of fields. His interest in elementary gestures, led him to work within language in plastic terms, starting from its distinct units. In the words of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari "Writing has nothing to do with signifying. It has to do with surveying, mapping…"
Chauhan has exhibited his work at the Saatchi Gallery in London, the UC Davis Museum, the Grimm Museum in Berlin, White Columns NY, the SONS Museum in Kruishoutem, Belgium, the Berkeley Art Museum, the DeYoung Museum, The Asian Art Museum, the Jack Hanley Gallery, New York & San Francisco, Annarumma Gallery in Naples, Italy, SVIT in Prague, Czech Republic, the Apartment in Vancouver, BC and others.
OPENING RECEPTION AND READINGS At the opening reception on Friday, June 5th at 7:00 pm, Norma Cole, Frances Richard, Cedar Sigo and Kevin Killian will read from their poetry. ABOUT 2291 3rd St. 2291 3rd St. is the temporary headquarters of the Minnesota Street Project in San Francisco. It will host rotating exhibits featuring Bay Area artists while the Minnesota Street Project's permanent location for housing commercial galleries is under construction. That location, at 1275 Minnesota Street, will open in March of 2016.
ABOUT MINNESOTA STREET PROJECT Located in San Francisco's historic Dogpatch neighborhood, Minnesota Street Project offers a new model for affordable and economically sustainable spaces for art galleries, artists and related nonprofits. While construction of the first building -- a 35,000 square foot warehouse at 1275 Minnesota Street -- is underway, Minnesota Street Project will present ongoing visual arts programming at temporary spaces around the city. For more information, visit minnesotastreetproject.com