Bay Area Arts

The Last Week of "Pilgrimage" at Shooting Gallery SF! Closes June 7th, 2014.

boar_1 Hello hello!  First off : "Pilgrimage" is up for ONE MORE WEEK!  Until this Saturday June 7th!  So if you haven't seen it go check it out.  I have been so wrapped up in life since the show opened that I haven't had a chance to sit down and be in touch with you all, my apologies.  I went to LA this past weekend to begin connecting and to see some old NYC friends that I work with and have known for some time, that are doing great things.  The future is shaping up nicely!  I am grateful for this life of mine for sure, and LA and I have some things to look forward to.

 

Charting Future past

So about three weeks ago we saw the opening of my solo show "Pilgrimage" at San Francisco's famous Shooting Gallery on Geary street.  The opening was a success, and we have been fortunate enough to get some amazing press from it all!  Press including my friend and awesome writer Goldmine Sachs over at Impose Magazine did a really fun interview with me, as did one of my favorite people Tracy Jones at the Microscopic Giant, the awesome and uber talented Lale' Shafaghi at Juxtapoz Magazine gave a great preview piece, Zach Tutor and his widely loved Supersonic Electronic blog gave us some support a Fecal Face round table interview will be coming out this week, and lastly Kimberly Chun from 96 Hours did a really awesome interview with me that came out in print as well as online in 96 Hours.

Left Wall middle

The response has been unbelievable, the opening was awesome, and I have been getting tons of inquiries and new conversations have blossomed out of it.  Really proud of this one!  I still have some photos to process and get from Shooting Gallery of some of the work but the majority of it is viewable in the PILGRIMAGE Section of the Portfolio on this site, as well as on the Shooting Gallery SF site (Where you can also find information on sales and purchasing).

Floater

 

So amidst all of the things that life brings, amidst the non stop flow of energy and thoughts and experiences, I am very very happy that this show was realized with Shooting Gallery.  The space was simply perfect for it, the people there were a pleasure to work with, and this exhibition truly did embody a "Pilgrimage" for myself.  The events that took place in its initial conceptualization, the journey I went through with life, love, pain, joy, progress, and time during its execution, and the final result have all brought me to a new place within myself and my relationship with all things around me.

Bucky

A true sense of balance, fulfillment, acceptance and the yearning to continue seeking, to strive on and continue moving forward, has really overcome me.  I am having really beautiful visions in my meditations, I happened upon a Koyasan temple at random in LA (Buddhist Twilight Zone Sounds haha), and my eyes are very open as is my being. I am excited to embark on everything from here on out.  The past four years of making art in the Bay Area have really helped to shape my path and to bring me to center with an open mind and a watchful eye to see where my next guide may be.  Fecal Face Gallery solo is in the Fall, and then who knows, who knows where I will go.  Maybe LA, maybe back to NC, maybe NYC for a reunion with my home.  But the one thing I can take away from this experience is this, I am doing exactly what I was put on this earth and in this universe in this form to do, and I am overwhelmingly grateful for the path I am on.  John Felix Arnold III 06/02/2014

resonance Left

 

BAck to front view

 

Saturday, May 10th, Pilgrimage @ Shooting Gallery SF

Motocycle close up straight on headset I am beside my self.  It has been about a years worth of a journey.  Hot off of the heels of the "Excorrigia : The Scourge" Solo show at Superchief in NYC I just had with Superchief, I present to you the other side.  The opposite side of existence and the journey forward.  I present "Pilgrimage" at the uber famous San Francisco staple, Shooting Gallery!  I have partnered with Paxton Gate on this amazing show.

Motocycle 3 quarter left side close

They have supplied me with bones, skulls, and really awesome news, they have officially procured a taxidermy warthog that will be part of the central sculptural installation piece of the show! We are already getting all sorts of press for the show, including an awesome interview piece from Sjimon Gompers at Impose Magazine, Tracy Jones at The Microscopic Giant, and the show is in print as part of the hot picks of the week in the SFWeekly as well as on their website.

Charting Future Past

The opening is going to be killer, there are other openings in the White Walls/Shooting Gallery complex the same night that are all going to be incredible.  Here are some images of work to look forward to seeing in person in the show.  I am in the home stretch and tomorrow will see the final realization of a lot of hard work and love for what I do.

Findings- The Harbinger

POUM

Invite the Glow

 

 

LeQuivive Gallery & Groundscore Collective Present...

Hello, my good friends at LeQuivive, Groundscore and Faultline have put together a Kickstarter project that is really important and relevant for Oakland right now.  As a proud resident and member of the Oakland Artist Community we all need your help in making this project come through and get off the ground!!! Please, please, please donate what you can to this great cause so that we can see the visual dialogue that exits in Oakland become one of the worlds most profound community voices!  This can inspire change everywhere! Donate!  Much Love to Michael, Dave, Lauren, Ernest, and all the homies that are working hard on this!  Please click on the link below to go directly to the Urban Renewal Kickstart Video link and donate. photo-main

 

 

"Found in Darkness" @ Book & Job Gallery : Friday Nov. 9 : 2012

Christopher Burch and I descended on the new Book & Job Gallery on Wednesday, November 7th to begin our install of our Fall 2012 two man show "Found in Darkness".  Exploring our own personal mythologies that comprise the focus of our work we embarked on this show in August of this year. Examining respective narrative architectures and linear framework, we began creating installations that reflect real environments within our imaginary worlds, both dealing with different reflections of contemporary issues of social problems, race, the environment, and a proposed future of humanity in our own tales.

We were able to create a conversation through our mixed media forays that not only blended and melded together well in the space but also pushed one another's practice to a new level of intricacy.  Chris dealing with his modern day reinterpretation of the Br'er Rabbit Folk Mythos and myself dealing with all the legends and myths of the world of "Unstoppable Tomorrow" that I have created, we embraced the Book & Job Gallery with energy, drive, thought, and a sense of community and challenge.  Our drawings and paintings spoke well with one another as our installation works tied the environment together into a dialogue of two strong minded individuals exploring their own tangible realities in this world together through imagination and practice.

Guy Culver also helped organize a wonderful show of musical talent.  Chris Danko of Religious Girls performed an awesome piano solo.  Then Guy Culver and his drummer Ringo performed their punk influenced, electronic, synth heavy, hard hitting electro fuck fest of beats, noise, and beautiful screamo moments of chaos as Laughters.

Carson Lancaster, the man behind Book & Job Gallery, did a great job of orchestrating the evening and the install and was a pleasure to work with as well!!! I recommend working with him to any other artist that may be interested in contacting Book & Job.  All in all it has been a great experience.  Thanks again to Chris for inviting me to be a part of Book & Job and creating yet another killer show with me. -Felix

"Christopher Burch 'Somethings ..are (In) the Way of Things'" @ The Luggage Store Annex/ Tenderloin National Forest : SF : CA

Opening Reception Friday February 24th 7-10 pm and Saturday February 25th 4-6PM  The Luggage Store Annex/ Tenderloin National Forest : 509 Ellis St. SF : CA

Tonight is going to be pretty epic as I gather my spirits and do one last thing before leaving the Bay Area for two weeks.  A show that I have been waiting to see for years is happening here in San Francisco tonight.  Christopher Burch, long time friend, peer, and straight up amazing artist and personality, whom is coming to NYC to show with myself in a week, has a groundbreaking opening tonight here in San Francisco.  The culmination of two months in the Tenderloin National Forest Artist in Residence Program will be presented at the Luggage Store Annex with dance performances, and other festivities tonight and tomorrow night.  I am very fortunate to be heading back to the east coast later tonight and not have to miss this amazing happening.  Burch's art is a testament to the intellect, skill, creativity, craft, compassion, and inspiring nature of a historically explosive line of artists here in the Bay Area and I recommend to anyone that has not been following his work to begin doing so now.

Tenderloin National Forest Luggage Store Annex

Christopher Burch “Somethings ..are (In) the Way of Things”

Christopher Burch’s visual works  combine drawing, painting, flocked damask wallpaper, hand painted silver serving trays, and sculpture to create a haughntinlgy surreal full scale site specific installations. The results are conflating landscapes in which historical, socio-economic and political forces that have shaped and continue to shape American racial geographies, teeter on the edge of madness.Something in the Way of Things, written by Amiri Baraka in 2008, is a disturbingly subtle and dark social commentary probing an existential crisis within the African American experience due to the inability to fully synthesize historical and contemporary racial tensions and realties .  Memory and testimony (ultimately language itself) become metaphors for seeing or the inability to see. Baraka exposes, that the borders between visibility (to see, to articulate ones experiences) and invisibility (to not see, to not be able to articulate ones experiences) are at times schizophrenic.

Burch’s project  for the TNF A.I.R residency is entitled “Somethings ..are (In) the Way of Things”. During the months of January 2012 and February 2012 Burch will build a full scale, on site,  installatioon/environment re-interpreting Amiris Baraka’s poem “Something in the Way of Things.”

Accompanying the installation of work within the Luggage Store Annex,  the residency will also incorporate  literary performances and dance pieces held in the Tenderloin National Forest itself. These performances and recitals will address various personal interpretations of the poem “Something In the Way of Things.”

(Hours: Daily 12-5, closed Mondays)

 

"The Love of All Above" Photo ReCap!

"The Love of All Above" @ Queens Nails Projects in San Francisco's Mission District on February 4th was awesome!!!  Everyone had a great time, we generated some amazing press, even Alfonso & Monique from Cosio-Delaunay and Ali Lain from the San Francisco Bay Area Guardian came through to check it out! Kimberly Chun from the Chronicle even gave us a shout out two days before the show in print.  It was amazing.  the performances were unforgettable and people kept popping up all night long to say hello and participate in the show.  So with that in mind here are the awesome photos of the night, with performers Kool Kid Kreyola, Him Downstairs, Daylight Curfew, and all of our friends and peers in the scene.  Can't wait to do it again with Christopher Burch, Ninjasonik, and Ken South Rock in New York in two weeks at Littlefield!!! Check out the slide show below.

[slideshow]

More Press from Art Larking for "The Love of All Above" Feb 4th with Daylight Curfew

So I was contacting by a really awesome person from Art Larking, a super sick art and culture blog, to do an interview really out of the blue.  They have featured Old Crow before whom I have worked with extensively and I was truly honored to be considered for an interview.  I have gotten some really amazing feedback on the interview and I had the most amazing time answering the questions and have since been getting to know Rae who interviewed me, online facebook and she is exceptionally refreshing and rad.  Much thanks to Rae Rubio and everyone at Art Larking for their amazing support and genuine interest in what I am doing, they really made me dig deep.  Click on the image below to link straight to the interview.  Rae you Rock!

 

Small Corrections, Info, and Time Changes to "The Love of All Above" @ Queens Nails : Sat.Feb 4th : SF : CA

Due to a miscommunication within the Queens Nails curatorial scheduling pool, some slight changes have been made to the event.  The Event posting beneath has all of the correct changes and also the correct flyer has been included.

PRESS EVENT LISTING BRIEF

Queens Nails Projects "The Love of All Above" Saturday, February 4th 2012 4pm-10:30pm 3191 Mission St., San Francisco, CA, 94110

“The Love of All Above” is one part solo art show, one part performance showcase, and one part audience participatory ritual ceremony to show gratitude for the lives we live and the struggles we have endured.

John Felix Arnold III, from the days of Babylon Falling and who who brought you Past From the Blast with Japanther last March at Kitsch will be teaming up with a new team of amazing performers and collaborators consisting of Daylight Curfew ( Cassettes Won't Listen, Bisc 1, Grimace, and Turnbull Green), Kool Kid Kreyola, and Him Downstairs, to bring you the newest installment in his long running series ofexhibitions and experiences know as "Unstoppable Tomorrow : The World of Future Antiquity". According to Arnold the series aims to bring you the feeling of "walking inside of a giant graphic novel where Arnold is the documentarian and scribe, and the performers are his musical cohorts, collaborators, and ritual leaders in this post apocalyptic future world."

Arnold will be presenting new mixed media painting works, relics, and a new installation piece that will act as an altar and stage for the performers to use as a vehicle to showcase their talents and bring the audience together in one huge ceremonial experience inside of Arnold's realized environment. The performer list is indeed epic and the performers will have CD's and more available. Arnold will also have a limited edition zine for the "Love of All Above" as well.

Show Opens Saturday February 4th 2012. 4-6pm Artist reception with complimentary refreshments and h'ordeuvres 6pm-10:30pm Live Performances The Art Work will be moved on February 6th to Art Now SF (3075 17th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110) and will be on view by appointment only until February 21st.

For viewing appointments please contact John Felix Arnold III at 917 543 5261 or email at felixthethird@gmail.com

Press Release and Media Contact Information please contact felixthethird@gmail.com

“The Love of All Above” : Feb 4th @ Queens Nails Projects : SF : CA

Queens Nails Projects : 3191 Mission St. SF, CA, 94110

Saturday Feb. 4th Artist Reception 6-8pm/ Performances 8pm-12am

"It is coming up quickly and steadily, much like the dawn of a new day.  Bay Area artist and personality John Felix Arnold III has his first official show of 2012 opening on Saturday February 4th and runs until February 21st.  He will be exhibiting a solo array of mixed media paintings and a new installation piece (the namesake of the show) that will act as an altar piece as well as a stage and vehicle for a night of live performances fromDaylight Curfew ( a crew all residing in California but all originally from New York City consisting of Cassettes Won’t Listen, Bisco Smith, Grizzly Grimace, and Turnbull Green),Kool Kid Kreyola, and a new husband and wife vocal duo named Him Downstairs.  The Love of All Above is a continuation of Arnold’s “Unstoppable Tomorrow : The World of Future Antiquity” series and promises to be an unforgettable experience to kick off 2012.  More info will be posted as it draws near.  Here is the official show flyer as well as a link to the press release.  Please contact felixthethird@gmail.com for media contact."

Please Click on the Link Below for  downloadable Press Release.

The Love of All Above PRESS RELEASE 2012

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