Conversation 6: Jason Hanasik & Berndnaut Smilde

Curator. San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries: Main Gallery. February - April 2013

Conversations is in an ongoing series of two-person exhibitions that explore the relationship between an artist from the Bay Area and an artist from another point on the globe. The intent of this series is two-fold: on an intimate level it allows for a closer look at the production of two individual artists, while it also informs an expansive perspective of how artists from our region relate to an international contemporary art dialogue.

Jason Hanasik’s installation centers on the recent loss of his family’s home to foreclosure. At its heart is a home video of Hanasik as a child exploring the site where their future house was to be built, a space charged with hope and anticipation. The video is framed within a structure evoking the skeleton of a house and is surrounded by projections of the site. The experience of losing the home, combined with other challenges in 2010, profoundly reshapes the artist’s understanding of home, permanence, and mortality.

Amsterdam-based Berndnaut Smilde continues his exploration of clouds as sculptural phenomena. Fascinated by Dutch seascapes, he recreates ephemeral rain clouds inside interior spaces. For this exhibition, he presents documentation of one of these installations as wallpaper, alongside works from his series Until Askeaton, which juxtaposes Askeaton, Scotland with Askeaton, Wisconsin through manipulated Google Earth imagery. Together, the two artists probe the intersection of memory, place, and impermanent forms.

Note:The SFAC Main Gallery will be closed from May 2013 to June 2015 due to seismic retrofitting. When the doors again, we will occupy a new 4000-sq-ft gallery with expanded exhibition, programing and office space.