Counterproof: The Other Side of Print

Counterproof: The Other Side of Print

Incline Gallery

April 13^th – May 11^th

Opening Reception: Friday, April 13^th, 6-9 pm, press opening at 5 pm

766 Valencia St. | San Francisco, CA 94110

Incline Gallery is delighted to present Counterproof: The Other Side of Print, organized by Guest Curator John Zarobell.  The exhibition opens on Friday, April 13^th, from 6-9 pm, and will remain on view through Sunday, May 20^th.  Featuring a diverse group of artists working in a number of media, Counterproof will explore new avenues in contemporary printmaking. By juxtaposing divergent approaches, the exhibition simultaneously celebrates and deconstructs the very notion of printmaking itself.

Printmaking has never been more vital, or more central to the practices of contemporary art.  While we are accustomed to think of prints as ink and pulp, Counterproof suggests that printmaking could be perceived as the practice of injecting the multiple and the matrix into the broader domain of contemporary practice.  Printmaking extends beyond the press to light, to space, to action.  The works on view here show just a few ways that artists have repurposed time-honored print techniques (whether intentionally or not) to produce works of vivid imagination and extended conceptual reach. To project light through a medium, to run a porcelain plate through a press, to sew stencils together to generate a form from negative space—all of these methods owe debts to print even as they redefine the form.  Print is not only a technique but a modality, a means of encountering and mediating the world. An edition could be an image, or a sculpture, but it could also suggest an experience or an event, a means of making something recur, over and again.

Counterproof will feature works by artists Elisheva Biernoff, Adam Feibelman, The Great Tortilla Conspiracy, David Linger, and Imin Yeh. Elisheva Biernoff appears courtesy of Eli Ridgway Gallery.  Her work, which was recently featured there, as well as at the Kala Art Institute, and the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, explores reverie, imagination, make-believe, and fantasy and she will be represented here with her installation, Out the Window. Adam Feibelman’s work has recently been shown at Guerrero Gallery, White Walls Gallery, 111 Minna Gallery, and Rowan Morrison Gallery. For Counterproof, he will show a group of sewn stencils/paper relief sculptures, which play with notions of space and light, and whimsically subvert forces of modernity. The Great Tortilla Conspiracy, “The World’s Most Dangerous Tortilla Art Collective” is a group of artists who have realized interventions around the topic of print and food from the DeYoung Museum to SOMArts Cultural Center to Occupy Oakland. The members Art Hazelwood, Jos Sances, Rene Yañez and Rio Yañez all have independent careers that include printmaking in various formats as well. They will stage a performance at the opening, traces of which will remain in the gallery for the run of the show.  David Linger has exhibited recently at Meridian Gallery, The Bellevue Museum of Art, Cabrillo Gallery, and the Braunstein/Quay Gallery. His work explores ephemerality through fleeting visual phenomena and he will be represented by a group of porcelain plates that incorporate images and texts. Imin Yeh has been engaged in a variety of provocations at exhibition venues around the Bay Area that have taken many forms, including an installation for Renegade Humor (currently on view at the San Jose Museum of Art) that visually deconstructs reductive and racist stereotypes. She has also shown recently as part of  Shadowshop at SFMOMA and at Southern Exposure Gallery and at Incline Yeh will present a paper installation.

Incline Gallery is dedicated to furthering the careers of emerging Bay Area artists.  The gallery is located at 766 Valencia St. (between 18^th St. and 19^th St.) in the Mission.  It is open on Thursdays and Fridays from 5:00- 8:00 pm, Saturdays and Sundays from 1:00- 6:00 pm, and by appointment.  A limited-edition poster by Imin Yeh will be available for purchase at the opening reception.