Artist-altered Bicycles Featured in “ArtBike” Exhibit and Auction at the 2012 San Francisco Fine Art Fair
Artist-altered Bicycles Featured in “ArtBike” Exhibit and Auction at the 2012 San Francisco Fine Art Fair
SF Fine Art Fair, Largest Arts Fair on the West Coast, May 16–20 at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center
4 May 2012 – San Francisco, CA: Since the Stone Age, humans have been fascinated with their wheels. This age-old fascination will be on full display at the 2012 San Francisco Fine Art Fair with a special exhibition and auction of artist-altered bicycles called “ArtBike,” to be unveiled on opening night, May 16. The third annual San Francisco Fine Art Fair takes place May 16-20, 2012, at Fort Mason’s Festival Pavilion (www.sffineartfair.com).
Described as “a poetic collaboration of artists, businesses, and the community working in concert towards a rewarding, valuable and entertaining experience,” by project manager Seb Hamamjian of Hamamjian Modern, “ArtBike” has pulled together artists, galleries, Rob Forbes’ Public Bikes, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and the San Francisco Fine Art Fair for this innovative project. The sculptural bicycles on display will be auctioned during the fair, with proceeds to benefit the educational programs of the SF Bicycle Coalition.
The bikes, displayed in a circle on pedestals, will be unveiled on opening night by members of Verasphere’s drag queens led by David Faulk and Michael Johnstone. The exhibition and auction will run throughout the fair and end on Sunday, May 20, at 3pm.
“ArtBike” participating artists include Ken Kalman (George Krevsky Gallery, San Francisco); Gino Miles (Ten472 Contemporary Art, Nevada City); Michael Osborne (Hamamjian Modern, San Francisco); Gustavo Ramos Rivera collaborating with Kathryn Kain (Westbrook Gallery, Carmel); Klari Reis (Cynthia Corbett Gallery, UK); Moe Thomas (McLoughlin Gallery, San Francisco); and Cyrus Tilton (Vessel Gallery, Oakland).
Among the bikes on display is Ken Kalman’s winged “Chariot of Fire,” which refers to mythological messenger gods (Hermes, Mercury, the Thunderbird, and Ezekiel), who “rode like the wind.”
Klari Reis’s “Pedestal Bike” is a deconstruction embedded in a colorful multi-layer pedestal, with the manufactured object displayed as art and the base as her sculptural creation, an approach that plays with the definition of what is on exhibition. Reis’s unique method of pigmenting and painting with viscous epoxy polymer defines her immediately recognizable style.
Cyrus Tilton’s “Fossil Fuel” draws from the artist’s interests in anatomy and natural history, applied to forms found in the bicycle. “I see many similarities between the anatomy of a bicycle and that of an animal,” says Tilton, who was born and raised in the Alaskan wilderness northeast of Anchorage. Central to Tilton’s works are concepts of respect for nature, and questioning humanity’s relationship to nature and one another.
THE SAN FRANCISCO FINE ART FAIR
An unprecedented number of leading museums, arts and cultural organizations from throughout California and other regions have joined the third annual San Francisco Fine Art Fair. This year’s cultural partners include the San Francisco Arts Commission, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Marin Museum of Contemporary Art, Modesto Art Museum, Napa Valley Museum, San Jose Tech Museum, Museum of Monterey, The Oakland Museum of California, Sonoma Valley Museum of Art, and the Chinese Historical Society, among others from California and the Southwest. Presented in Fort Mason’s lavish 50,000 square foot Festival Pavilion overlooking San Francisco Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge, the fair will feature more than 90 galleries exhibiting 5,000+ works of art from over 400 artists.
The San Francisco Fine Art Fair will be held at San Francisco’s Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion (Marina Boulevard @ Buchanan Street), May 16 through May 20: Wednesday, May 16, 5:30pm – 9:30pm; Thursday, May 17, 11am – 7pm; Friday, May 18, 11am – 7pm; Saturday, May 19, 11am-7pm; Sunday, May 20, 11am-6pm. Individual tickets are $25 for one day; $40 for all four days. Preview on May 16, tickets are $125 for 5:30pm — 7pm and $75 for 7pm – 9:30pm; which includes a four day pass to the Fair. www.sffineartfair.com. Facebook: www.facebook.com/SFFineArtFair ; Twitter: twitter.com/SFFineArtFaira