Thinkers about photography sometimes work on the problem of whether a photograph is experienced in the way it was intended by the image maker. In some contexts, a mismatch is deemed a failure, but in others it is simply another dimension of experience in communications. The image may have what we often call "its own life" independently of the imagist, with no presumed value judgement of being good or bad. But implicit in viewing is that there will be a reaction to what is see

Imagination is an operational mental ability. We know that mental functions rely on other deeper factors, mainly an intact biological organization. But imagination isn’t like hunger; it is like breathing. In practice, the ability to imagine has no essential requirement other than to pretend -- to pretend that something IS, CAN BE, DOES or CAN DO.  It carries no requirement for proving feasibility or plausibility. And outside of some need to influence a relationship between se

Six Takeaways from a Sextet Gray Loft Gallery  stands out usually due to the artistry of its top-tier show layouts One navigates a Gray Loft show multiple times because of the many conversations owner Jan Watten creates among the works on display. But for those who move quickly this week (Saturday 11/8 ) , the gallery features an important departure: a show both chosen and hung by the six participating artists themselves. This is a group of women who have been working togethe

Most of the time, there is a practical reason why cameras would be preferrable to a pencil or a computer: creating a visual record. Records exceed the notion of "documents" in that a record is always attached to a concern about something specific, not just a view of it. And it is that concern that feels disrespected by the notion that a visualization of some event or condition thought to be relevant might not be reliable as a source of their real-world facts. We go through t

Artificial Intelligence works on some things that are so fundamental to creating information artifacts that in some ways it represents the only thing other than the internet that matured the true importance of digital computing. Anything that an electron can provoke can be presented through the brute effectiveness of an on/off switch, and computers can manage that at microscopic levels at the speed of light. Visualization, then, is simply a matter of how hard the computer can

Six separate takes on a controversial new film — not from a film critic but from a photographer who considers various aspects of how we view pictures and the medium. The new documentary The Stringer, released Nov. 28 on Netflix, refutes more than 50 years of celebrating Nick Út’s authorship of the iconic “ Napalm Girl ”  photograph from the coverage of the Vietnam War. Since the film saw its first public showing at Sundance, passions pro and con have been running very high ab

SF MOMA Fall 2025 Source: https://www.sfmoma.org/exhibition/fortuna-and-the-immortality-garden-machine/ The word conjure   neatly...

Pete’s Story Say the name “Escovedo” in Oakland, and right away there’s a chance that music starts playing in your head. It features...

The Gray Loft Annual Color Show, 2025 Some colors pop, some shout. Purple? Purple wells up. Perhaps quickly like a stain, or slowly like...

At Gray Loft Gallery, Oakland What’s In A Name? The title of this show, Beyond the Frame, immediately gets us asking questions. Is the...

Photographer Steve Molnar knows quite a bit about places that most people wouldn't call their usual habitat. But through his pictures,...

By any reasonable measures, Bill Weber is one of the Bay Area’s most established artists, celebrated repeatedly over many years and...

Judson King Smith at Transmission Gallery August 1 through September 14   I got to Judson King Smith’s current show the day before  his...

Gray Loft Gallery, August 2024 (Note: see the terrific thumbnail gallery of artworks in this show at grayloftgallery.com while reading...

Jamie Treacy at Gearbox Gallery April - May 2024 Gearbox Gallery stands street level in a West Oakland building two stories tall. It has...

Gray Loft Gallery, Oakland March - April 2024 In a part of the U.S. where diversity is one of the most prominent social features, the...

Scientists are fond of surprising children with the news that nothing in reality is colored, but instead has color when excited by light....

TRACING PASSAGES Until November 11th, Oakland’s Gray Loft Gallery boasts a genre -bending trio of artists whose works erase the presumed...

The demand for creativity as a staple of business operations has never been more broadly intense. So we assume that it is somehow in...

Why does someone make art, and why do they make it the way they do? Even though we want the answers, that question is too big and...