ARTIST TALK: The Walls Are Closing In: The Archive, Family Narratives, and Image-Making in Uncertain Times April 10, 2013

SFAC Galleries Hosts an Artist Talk Featuring
Jason Hanasik in conversation with Tammy Rae Carland and Abner Nolan

Presented in conjunction with Conversation 6: Jason Hanasik and Berndnaut Smilde

WHAT: Join us for a conversation with three Bay Area artists whose works touch upon such themes as the formation of identity, the shaping of collective and personal histories, and the relationships between images and lived experiences. This event was designed to broaden the dialogue around the artistic production of SFAC Galleries’ exhibiting artist Jason Hanasik. Hanasik’s installation, we always thought the walls would protects us but suddenly we realized they were as weak as our frames centers around a home video of his family, with Hanasik as a child, walking around the beautiful site where their future home will be built. The video is sited within a structure resembling the frame of a house surrounded by projections of the actual site. The work confronts the loss of home and family while providing a point of entry into how still and video images create and detract from our most intimate memories. Tammy Rae Carland also explores domestic interiors, portraiture and personal memory in her poignant and sophisticated photography and video work. Abner Nolan uses found images and his own photography to make vernacular work that plays on the premise that we still believe what we see in pictures and yet, how fictitious narratives influence those images. Using Jason Hanasik’s installation and overall practice as the center of this conversation, the panel will discuss images and image making as it relates to our personal experiences.
Conversation 6: Jason Hanasik and Berndnaut Smilde is on view through April 27, 2013 at the SFAC Main Gallery at 401 Van Ness, open Wednesday – Saturday, noon – 5 p.m. Conversations is an ongoing series that features a substantive body of work by a local artist alongside works by an artist based on another point on the globe.

WHEN: Wednesday, April 10, 6:30 – 8 p.m.
WHERE: Veterans Building, 401 Van Ness Avenue (@ McAllister) Room 110B
Reception in the SFAC Main Gallery to follow.
COST: Free and open to the public
RSVP Required. Space is limited. Please RSVP to Meg.Shiffler@sfgov.org by April 5.
INFORMATION: sfartscommission.org/gallery

ABOUT THE PANELISTS

Jason Hanasik has an MFA from California College of the Arts in San Francisco, CA and a BFA Summa Cum Laude from the State University of New York at Purchase. Hanasik works in a variety of media including photography, film and installation. His work has been exhibited widely and published in various journals and publications. He currently advises students in the graduate program in Fine Arts at California College of the Arts and creates videos for Gap and Gap Inc. As a lecturer, Hanasik has delivered talks on his work and other artist's artistic practice at SFMoMA and various colleges and universities nationwide. In 2009, Hanasik was shortlisted for the Aperture Portfolio Prize and in 2011, the Magenta Foundation selected him as one of the US winners for their Flash Forward Emerging Artist Exchange. In late 2012, the Smithsonian named Hanasik's piece Sharrod (Turn/Twirl) a finalist in the National Portrait Gallery's 2012 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition. His video will be on display at the Smithsonian from March 2013-February 2014.

Tammy Rae Carland received her MFA from UC Irvine, her BA from The Evergreen State College in Olympia Washington and attended the Whitney Independent Study Program. She is an Associate Professor at the California College of the Arts where she also Chairs the Photography Program. She is represented by Silverman Gallery in San Francisco and primarily works with photography, experimental video and small run publications. Her work has been screened and exhibited in galleries and museums internationally including New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Berlin and Sydney. Her photographs have been published in numerous books including The Passionate Camera; Queer Bodies of Desire and Lesbian Art in America. She has received reviews of her work in numerous publications including: The New York Times, Big, The Los Angeles Times, Spin, Details, Out and The Village Voice. In the 1990’s Carland independently produced a series of influential fanzines, including I (heart) Amy Carter. She has collaborated on the record art of some seminal underground music releases for the bands Bikini Kill, The Fakes and The Butchies. From 1997-2005 she co-ran Mr. Lady Records and Videos, an independent record label and video art distribution company that was dedicated to the production and distribution of queer and feminist culture.

Abner Nolan is a San Francisco-based artist and educator. His work has been included in exhibitions at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, the Nelson Gallery at UC Davis and SF Camerawork. In 2006, Nolan produced a series of posters for the San Francisco Arts Commission's Art on Market Street program, and a monograph of his work was published in 2012 by TBW Books. Nolan is currently an adjunct professor in the photography program at the California College of the Arts.

This event is made possible through the generous support of donors to the SFAC Galleries’ Programming Fund.

Official Website: http://www.sfartscommission.org/gallery/2013/artist-talk-the-walls-are-closing-in-the-archive-family-narratives-and-image-making-in-uncertain-times/