Twenty galleries in two hours

By Spencer Young

"First Thursday” is, you guessed it, the first Thursday of every month, but it’s also an open house art event where 30-plus galleries, mostly concentrated in downtown SF, invite you to look and hopefully buy their art things from around 5:30 to 7:30 p.m.

But, what if -- like me -- you struggle making decisions that involve seemingly endless options and finite resources (time, money, stomach space)? If at restaurants you get overwhelmed by the menu's dimensions, eventually narrow it down to the french toast and panini, but linger between the combinations tirelessly? You can choose at random, allowing chance to dictate your indecisiveness, or, you give in, exercising volition. Neither option, however, will erase the pangs of what was left out — what if the wild arugula salad would have been the one?

Oh the anguish of living in a liberal democracy! How does one make a decision and avoid the anxiety of absence? The answer: suicide. Not the act, but the drink. Filling a 64 ounce mug from every soda pop spout from Hawaiian Punch to Mountain Dew reconciles the dilemma at hand, because everything is chosen and nothing left out. Sure, the result tastes like shit, but at least you've experienced all there was to experience, albeit all at once.

This was my logic for "First Thursday." There was just one problem: given that there's over 30 participating galleries and only a two-hour window, that leaves less than four minutes per gallery, excluding commute time. Impossible.

The next best alternative? Hit the most concentrated area: 49 Geary St. With five floors and 20 galleries, two hours allow five minutes per gallery and 20 minutes in the hallways and stairs. Most galleries get boring after mere seconds anyways, so five minutes is plenty of time to drink a glass of wine, do a quick perusal, snap some photos, and jot down some impressions. In order to avoid another decision, these shotgun summaries are limited to 49 words each, constrained, like each gallery's space, by the building. In order of viewing, here are 20 extremely hasty reviews of the 49 Geary St. galleries:

1. Bekris Gallery: "Common Ground" (continues through Nov. 21) www.bekrisgallery.com

Importantly dressed buyer-types regaling each other of trips to Africa and chanting, “Oh, how do you do?” “How do you do.” Broom-like statues of African subjects, and lively colored paintings with tricky ciphers fill the room. General, by William Kentridge, is the most attractive piece in the place.

General by William Kentridge. All photos by Spencer Young.

2. George Lawson Gallery: Clem Crosby, Tad Wiley, Transfocus (continues through Oct. 3) www.rfprfp.com

Eerily empty compared to Bekris Gallery. Clem Crosby: crude, ugly, drippy oil paintings seemingly painted with fingers, fists, and libidinal angst. Tad Wiley: solemn, yet inviting graphic arts balanced-shape paintings on paper. Transfocus: haunting photos of the abstract, awash in yummy colors. Uhh… where is the wine?

Art by Tad Wiley

3. Micaëla Gallery: Marvin Liposky (continues through Oct. 31) www.micaela.com www.micaela.com

Candy corn meets skulls meets seashells meets cochlea. Fragile and precious glass structures that flirt with tie-dye color motifs. “Oooooh, they have hearts on them!,” exclaims a young Art Academy student. “Wow,” says another. I wonder what would happen if I were to accidentally break one of these?

Art by Marvin Lipofsky

4. Fifty Crows: Ed Kashi, Art Wolfe, International League of Conversation Photographers, Judith Fox, Mimi Chakarova, Darcy Padilla, Stephanie Sinclair www.fiftycrows.org

Thank god! I was starting to worry 49 Geary was a death trap of serious and sober galleries. At last, a glass of wine (red), some unpretentious artwork, and a buoyant group of chipper conversationalists. Stunning, yet humble display of documentary photographs: everything from overtly political to playfully hedonistic.

Art by Ed Kashi

5. Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art: Alika Cooper: "A Cool Wave" (continues through Oct. 17) www.wolfecontemporary.com

A swank space despite the extreme minimalism via the cement slabs. It must be the jazz swaying from the stereo that’s giving this otherwise cold cave a dab of color because it surely isn’t the somber art that's scattered about the walls like pages torn out of teen magazines.

Art by Alika Cooper

6. Robert Tat Gallery: Charles Gatewood: "Celebrity!" (continues through Oct. 31) www.roberttat.com

Rockstars! Literary and literal ones: Dylan, Burroughs, Brion Gysin, a young Santana, Al Green, and a disastrously dressed Rod Stewart. This space feels less like a gallery than the back room of an old, yet sophisticated bookstore. Dylan’s cheeky mug is played out. Where’s the used pulp fiction section?

Photos by Charles Gatewood

7. Corden | Potts Gallery: Jeri Eisenberg: "A Soujourn in Seasons" (continues through Oct. 17) www.cordenpottsgallery.com

“Excuse me! No photos, please!,” blurts this gallery’s attendant as I attempt to snap a photo of Eisenberg’s blurry leaves. Apparently my camera threatens the “essence” of these already vapid-looking nature pieces. She later apologized, inviting me to touch a sample of the “kozo paper.” Thanks lady, feels great.

8. Stephen Wirtz Gallery: Deborah Oropallo: "Wild Wild West Show" (continues through Oct. 31) www.wirtzgallery.com

Hardwood floors and a lovely view of the city. Works include digitally enabled paintings of ethereal cowgirls: the girls are missing but semblances of their figures remain in sexy garb. The back room has sad photos of youth and kitty sculptures. Clearly a sober space catering to serious buyers.

Art by Deborah Orapello

9. Fraenkel Gallery: Hiroshi Sugimoto: "Lightning Fields" (continues through Oct. 31) www.fraenkelgallery.com

Here's another stiff gallery without wine. A man asks the Morrissey look-alike gallery attendant about the process Sugimoto uses, and he replies, “I don’t know, he’s secretive about it.” The real treat is Idras Khan’s Thus Spake Zarathustra…after Friedrich Nietzsche, an overlapped text piece that dominates the back room.

Art by Idris Khan

10. A440 Gallery: www.a440gallery.com

Small and sweaty. Every square-inch of this closet-of-a-gallery is being utilized. Folk and outsider art by mostly dead artists including silly squiggly line drawings, wooden statues performing hilariously exaggerated sex acts, and paneled illustrations of the effects of drinking to both appearance and liver. And wine at last. Yes!

Erotic sculpture by unknown artist

11. Jack Fischer Gallery: Heiko Müller: "Stay Awake" (continues through Oct. 31) www.jackfischergallery.com

A homeless-looking drunk man is causing a stir by excitedly reminiscing on 60’s psychedelia and the energy of that bygone era. Waltzing around with a wine stain down the front of his cheap suit, he nearly convinces others he's a legit art connoisseur. Nice pencil drawings up in here.

Art at Jack Fischer Gallery

12. Altman Siegel: Charley Harper (continues through Oct. 31) www.altmansiegel.com

Some excellent graphic arts prints: simple shapes, symbolically safe and…Oh! I hear my favorite drunk art patron out in the hallway; he’s strolling up and down with a friend under his arm and entertaining with colorful anecdotes of yore while uptight onlookers whisper with suspicion. Things are getting interesting.

Art by Charley Harper

13. Toomey-Tourell Gallery: Jimi Gleason: "Rough Around The Edges" (continues through Oct. 31) www.toomey-tourell.com

Artwork looks like the background page of a brilliantly illustrated children’s book. I can almost make out a unicorn hiding beneath the paint. A rambunctious crowd is filling up this small gallery. Little doggies and children abound; it’s a family affair with light laughter aplenty. I'll have another glass.

Art by Jimi Gleason

14. Scott Nichols Gallery: Johan Hagemeyer: "A Pictorial Interpretation" (continues through Nov. 3) www.scottnicholsgallery.com

Did I go through the wrong door? Is this someone’s private study? There’s nobody here save for the lady at a desk thumbing through a Rolodex, and me, tip-toeing around slightly tipsy. It’s so quiet that I’m afraid she can hear me looking at the prosaic postcard art.

Art at Scott Nichols Gallery

15. Art Exchange Gallery www.artnet.com/gallery/111991/art-exchange-gallery.html

Not a gallery that does exhibitions, but a space that simply re-sales art. The walls are cluttered with a miscellaneous mélange of middlebrow, and no one sticks around for longer than a look-see. The old couple running the place charm as they shout to other across the room.

Art at Art Exchange

16. Steven Wolf Fine Arts:
Ryan Boyle, Bessma Khalaf, Jo Babcock, Nicholas Knight (Continues through ??) www.stevenwolffinearts.com

Yes! Vibrant, noisy crowd including the evening’s best-dressed -- a man in his
early ‘40s unapologetically sporting neon-green spandex, a wallpaper-patterned blazer, and Hello Kitty backpack. Show includes: pomo photography, peepholes, bass clarinet performance, vintage objects, distractingly boring promotion of a movie, and liberal portions of delicious white wine.

Art at Steven Wolf Fine Arts

17. Haines Gallery: Adou:
"Samalada," Julia Oschatz: "Odd One Out" (continues through Oct. 17) href="http://www.hainesgallery.com/"target="_blank">www.hainesgallery.com/

Whoa. Feeling drunk. These seriously sad and sadly serious photos should not be viewed while intoxicated. Maybe that’s why they're putting out glasses of water? Oschatz’s videos in the back room, however, perfectly compliment my current slippery state by removing the “form” from “performance,” leaving… “perance?” Uhh. I’m confused.

Art by Adou

18.
Gregory Lind Gallery: Anders Ruhwald: "Almost Nothing," Aaron Parazete: "Air
Drop" www.gregorylindgallery.com

Minimalism meets Easter eggs meets antagonistic patterns of anxiety…Look! It’s Hello Kitty man. “Hello,” Hello Kitty man. He smiles at me. His color combo is giving the paintings serious competition. The white cylinder thingy on the floor with legs looks like a cat scratch pole. Kitty, go scratch!

Art by Anders Ruhwald

19. Elins Eagles - Smith
Gallery: Gustavo Ramos Rivera: "Paintings and Works on Paper" (continues through
Oct. 31) www.eesgallery.com

There are loads of brilliantly colored objects here. Other folks are noticeably drunk; they’re voraciously chatting and flirting and ignoring what’s hanging on the walls. It makes sense; the paintings are disorienting,turning my stomach if I stare too long. A few bloodthirsty cougars are on the prowl. Meow!

Art at Elins Eagles-Smith

20. Brian Gross Fine Art:
Freddy Chandra: "Listening Sequence" (continues through Oct. 31) www.briangrossfineart.com

Glass. Gradients. Grids. Clean and rational. Pretty and perfect. “Don’t ever go to Ikea on Saturdays,” warns a haughty woman to an uninterested listener in shaky heels. You’re so right lady, this stuff reminds me of Ikea too! If you ever need your Swedish design fix on a Saturday…

Art by Freddy Chandra

Post a comment