Maria Antelman, Tamar Halpern
July 5 - August 8, 2008
Opening reception: Saturday, June 5, 6-9pm
In 395 Valencia Street
The Jack Hanley Gallery, San Francisco is pleased to present a group exhibition of artists Maria Antelman and Tamar Halpern in 395 Valencia and, in the 389 Valencia space, an exhibition of the work of Michelle Blade.
Maria Antelman creates videos that combine her own photographs with found soundtracks and closedcaption type texts in which, disparate socio-visual sources come together to reveal a fictional aspect of reality. “These realities offer fertile and diverse cultural eco systems, rich in visual and textual matter, which proliferates each in its own community and cultural niche.” In her video New Horizons, which will be projected onto the gallery wall, she superimposes a question and answer session with a cryogenics “salesman”, with video and sound recorded at a rodeo, resulting in an eerie study on mortality.
Tamar Halpern uses juxtaposition and layering in her work as well, however, in her case, it becomes more literal. In creating her large scale photographs, she takes a number of steps away from the initial visual source through a series of digital processes. She modifies her computer-generated compositions until a small print is made, which is subsequently re-photographed and then scanned to create the final print. “Through the accumulation of these layered - yet highly distinct – processes and procedures, Halpern’s works seem to elude, or negate, any easy aesthetic assimilation: the resultant ‘images’ seemingly suspended in a state of flux.”
Maria Antelman was born in Athens, Greece in 1971 and studied Art History in Madrid, Spain. She lives and works in San Francisco and New York City.
Tamar Halpern lives and works in New York where received an MFA from Columbia University. Her work was recently shown in a solo exhibition at White Columns, New York.