Events this Weekend at the San Francisco Art Institute

Gregg Chadwick
Speed of Life Study
33"x20" monotype 2005
From the San Francisco Art Institute Art Auction

The annual San Francisco Art Institute Art Auction will be held Saturday, April 2, at SomArts, 934 Brannan St., in San Francisco.

Works donated by such artists as Marcel Dzama, Jay DeFeo, Lynda Benglis,Gregg Chadwick, Imogen Cunningham, David Ireland, Annie Leibovitz, Larry Thomas, and Charles Hobson will be offered to the highest bidder. The range in value is expected to be $150 to $15,000 for the works. In addition to paintings, works on paper, photographs, and sculpture, other items to be auctioned include art-related travel tours, restaurant gift certificates, and fine wines.

The reception and silent auction begin at 5:00 P.M., and the live auction commences at 7:00 P.M. The auctioneer is Malcolm Barber, from Bonhams & Butterfields. SKYY Vodka will sponsor the open bar. Co-chairs of the event are Nicole Fife and Will Wick (Art Auction Committee) and Carol Baker and Linda Fairchild (Art Advisory Committee). The Art Auction benefits the Scholarship Fund at the Art Institute. Tickets are $85 in advance and $100 at the door. For more information and to reserve tickets, contact SFAI Events at 415-749-4569

The following galleries have contributed artwork to the auction to date:

Aurobora Press, Andrea Schwartz Gallery, Bobbie Greenfield Gallery, Braunstein/Quay Gallery, Catharine Clark Gallery, Charles Campbell Gallery, Crown Point Press, Dolby Chadwick Gallery, Fraenkel Gallery, Gallery Paule Anglim, Hackett Freedman Gallery, Haines Gallery, John Berggruen Gallery, K Kimpton Contemporary Art, Marcel Sitcoske Gallery, Linda Fairchild Contemporary Art, Paulson Press, Richard Levy Gallery, Stephen Wirtz Gallery, Toomey Tourell Gallery, Traywick Contemporary, Trillium Press

And at the Institute this Friday:



Grand Opening of The Offices of the Anti-Advertising Agency
Friday (this Friday) April 1, 2005 5:30-7:30
McBean Project Space at the San Francisco Art Institute
800 Chestnut St. San Francisco, Ca

Mission Statement from the Anti-Advertising Website:

Outdoor advertising has become unavoidable. Traditional billboards and transit shelters have cleared the way for more pervasive methods such as wrapped vehicles, sides of buildings, electronic signs, kiosks, taxis, posters, sides of buses, and more. In urban areas commercial content is placed in our sight and into our consciousness every moment we are in public space. Over time, this domination of the surroundings has become the "natural" state. Through long-term commercial saturation, it has become implicitly understood by the public that advertising has the right to own, occupy and control every inch of available space. The steady normalization of invasive advertising dulls the public's perception of their surroundings, re-enforcing a general attitude of powerlessness toward creativity and change, thus a cycle develops enabling advertisers to slowly and consistently increase the saturation of advertising with little or no public outcry.


The Anti-Advertising Agency co-opts the tools and structures used by the advertising and public relations industries. Our work calls into question the purpose and affects of advertising in public space. Through constructive parody and gentle humor our Agency's campaigns will ask passers by to critically consider the role and strategies of today's marketing media as well as alternatives for the public arena. Our work will de-normalize "out-of-home" advertising and increase awareness of the public's power to contribute to a more democratically-based outdoor environment.


Our work may result in traditional advertising formats - signs, posters, postcards, and stickers - or more conventional artistic formats - performance, installation, artists books - or some combination of the two.


Art