Michael Arcega: Conceptual view of installation for The Collaspe – fabric, tent poles, plastic, video, and architectural detritus 2009
San Francisco-based artist Michael Arcega’s eagerly anticipated second solo exhibition at Marx & Zavattero will present a multi-dimensional installation that explores a meditative post-apocalyptic atmosphere. On the heels of several important exhibitions throughout the country and abroad, and the completion of his MFA at Stanford University this past Spring, Arcega draws from a wealth of artistic investigations — many of which wryly deal with episodes of power, tragedy, human folly, and recently, the possibilities of renewal.
Arcega is widely known for his sense of humor in which wordplay and materials take on multiple meanings that affect a variety of responses and understandings. The new work in The Collaspe will feature sculptures based on tent architecture and reclaimed architectural components that become devastated sites. “Survivalist and bunker mentality has been pushed to the front of our consciousness with cultural products like Survivorman, Man Versus Wild, The Colony, 28 Days Later, The Road, The Inconvenient Truth, Battlestar Galactica and so on,” says Arcega, “and has helped to foster this new body of work, which explores issues regarding the ongoing fear of instant global annihilation with a long, drawn-out survival.”
Arcega meticulously rescues discarded and blemished wood banisters by adding architectural sites into their devastated areas. They are then arranged into a forest-like floor installation alongside a tent structure, which will house a moody projection of mist and random acts of decay and violence. By featuring support structures found inside a home opposite an imagined and somewhat surreal recreational campsite, Arcega dramatizes the conflict between permanence and transitory modes of survival. In reclaiming these discarded objects, and adding to their broken spaces, Arcega poignantly fosters a sense of renewal and the possibility of rebuilding. Hints of Hurricane Katrina, the recent devastating floods in his homeland of Manila, and earthquakes and tsunamis in Oceania echo here as well.
Arcega’s rare ability to examine, critique, and unsettle the concept of power and survival with a swashbuckling sense of humor and compassion promises to yield a poignant exhibition.
Arcega received his MFA from Stanford University in 2009, and a BFA in Interdisciplinary Studies at the San Francisco Art Institute in 1998. The artist lives and works in San Francisco.
Destructured (detail) 43.5” x 3” x 3” reclaimed architectural feature, bass wood, and enamel 2009
MICHAEL ARCEGA: THE COLLASPE
Exhibition Dates: October 24 – December 5, 2009
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 24 from 5:00 – 7:30 PM
*** 15% of all sales of Arcega’s work during the run of the exhibition will be donated to Philippine Typhoon relief ***
77 Geary Street, 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94108
T: 415.627.9111
Gallery Hours: Tu – F: 10:30am – 5:30pm; Sa 11am – 5pm
Press release and images provided by the gallery.
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Tags: art, contemporary art, exhibitions, san francisco
