Now on Artist Presentations

This year's photography exhibit at San Francisco's Pier 24 - "Here" - is now available for viewing. Pier 24 is the largest gallery space entirely devoted to photography that I've ever seen. There are perhaps 20 separate rooms or alcoves, often featuring a single photographer. Nothing is for sale. There are no wall tags or other identifying text on the walls - simply the photographs, though a gallery guide with the names of the photographers featured in each room is available from the reception desk. It's quite an unusual viewing experience and forces one to think about the photography. "Here" is billed as an exhibition of Bay Area photographers and features images of San Francisco and the Bay Area (among others) by 34 photographers. I visited soon after the exhibit opened and at the time the exhibition catalog was not available. My expectation was to see a number of well-known San Francisco photographers represented such as Ansel Adams, Imogen Cunningham, Minor White, Pirkle Jones, Don Worth, etc. Instead, the exhibit leans more toward contemporary photographers - large, color photographs of empty rooms, landscapes (Misrach's Oakland fire and Golden Gate images), documentary photography (Goldberg's street kids) - not really my thing. Overall, I didn't feel that this exhibit had the depth of last year's showing of the Fisher's photography collection. My feelings may be influenced in part by how overwhelmed I was on my first visit to this magical space. Wandering the exhibition, however, I was pleased to stumble upon some real treasures on view - Muybridge and Mark Klett's panoramas of San Francisco (then and now), Ruth Bernhard and Edward Weston's nudes, and Sugimoto's time-exposures of local theater interiors. There are others I'm sure and I will make a point of getting back to see them again sometime this year. Admission to Pier 24 is free but you must make a reservation in advance through their website: www.pier24.org. There are three times available (10am, 1pm and 3pm) Monday through Thursday. Reservations are limited to a maximum of 20 visitors at any given time to ensure a contemplative environment. (Just two of us had the entire space to ourselves when I visited in May.) I returned in December and spent more time enjoying Stackpole's photographs documenting the building of the Bay Bridge. Also, I liked the night photos (nocturnes) of suburban houses by Henry Wessell (B&W) and Todd Hido (color) - both working on these images in the 1990's. I also found myself more closely viewing Jim Goldberg's street photography (many polaroids and enlarged proof sheet images). All-in-all, another fine exhibition in an amazing space. I look forward to whatever Pier 24 comes up with in 2012! If you've not been to Pier 24, I highly recommend visiting - it's quite an experience. "Here" has been extended and is on view through January 31, 2012. Click on my photo to return to my SMArt Page Home, or www.rskidmore.com to go to my website home page.