Good things in threes: New S.F. galleries bloom — San Francisco Chronicle (2017)
The weekend in January that saw two big art fairs and a spate of new exhibitions across the Bay Area also left us with something more permanent: Three new gallery spaces opened in San Francisco over three days, Jan. 12-14.
Charles Desmarais — February 3, 2017
Kazuo Shiraga, Chisonsei Isshika, 1960. Oil on canvas, 130 x 162 centimeters. Courtesy of Ever Gold [Projects].
A gallery matures: Ever Gold [Projects], in the Minnesota Street Project, has hit its stride with recent exhibitions that are as catchy as ever, yet even smarter and more intense visually than in the past. Late last year, “Mark Flood: Paintings From the War for Social Justice” was an environmental collage of sorts, with pictures and signs mounted on an openwork barrier down the middle of the space as well as on the walls.
Looking back, the text works now seem to have anticipated the protest signs that today make up so much of our visual environment. Only less specific, more surreal. “Burn the Which” was my favorite — who knew nihilists had slogans?
Through March 18, Ever Gold presents, side by side, mid-20th century works by the Japanese artist Kazuo Shiraga and new work by Los Angeles-based Kour Pour. Both are abstractionists, but they get there by very different means. Shiraga (1924-2008) physically attacked his canvases in the hyper-expressionist manner of Osaka’s Gutai group, of which he was a part. Pour prints his canvases — up to 7 feet high — from large woodblocks. Both are apparently drawn to the color red.
Pour’s art smolders with a heat you can feel at a distance; Shiraga’s explodes in your face.
Kour Pour, Neotectonic Map Tokyo, 2016. Block printing ink on canvas, 78.75 x 60 inches. Courtesy of Ever Gold [Projects].
The above text is excerpted from the full article, available on the San Francisco Chronicle website.
