mountains and molehills at Adobe Books

Press for Untitled Landscapes (California)

"The paradoxes of representation get writ small in landscape imagery: The unframeable framed, a frozen moment betokening time's passage, whereas only shifting shadows can inscribe it.

Sean McFarland has this and much else nailed in his one-wall show of minuscule landscapes in Adobe Books Backroom Gallery."

Kenneth Baker for the SF Chronicle

(click here for full article)

Sean McFarland

Sean McFarland
Untitled Landscapes (California)
Exhibition dates: August 20 - September 19, 2010.
**Opening Reception: Saturday, August 21, 7-9pm

The Adobe Books Backroom Gallery is pleased to present a new installation by artist Sean McFarland. A fourth-generation Californian, McFarland calls up the history of Western landscape painting with a grid of hundreds of miniature landscapes, covering an entire wall of the gallery. Yet the perceived preciousness of these scenes is deceiving. What appear to be hundreds of tiny landscape paintings are actually photographs painstakingly mounted and coated with wax. He has stated that his images of the landscape are, in fact, "pictures of us;" alterations we make to the landscape reflect changes within us. Untitled Landscapes (California) is an investigation into California's unique landscape and an elegiac collection of images that attempt to hold onto wilderness and vanishing open spaces. McFarland's images of roadside landscaping and pocket parks reflect on his desire, though futile, to make beloved souvenirs of these rare places.

An artist-made booklet in an edition of 50 will be available for sale at the reception and throughout the run of the show. Stay tuned for upcoming events that will accompany this exhibition.

Curated by Katie Hood Morgan

Sean McFarland's work is in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art Library, the Oakland Museum of California, the University of California, Davis, and Humboldt State University. He is the recipient of the 2009 Baum Award for Emerging American Photographers, the 2009 Kala Fellowship from the Kala Institute and the 2009 John Gutmann Fellowship Award. Visit daily-polaroids.blogspot.com.
For inquiries, please contact Katie (adobebooksbackroom@gmail.com)





Support for this project is generously provided by Southern Exposure's Alternative Grant Program.

Reading Conventions; A City Reader

In residence at Adobe Books Parlor (storefront windows): August 14 - September 19, 2010

Reading Conventions is an emerging publication and distribution project curated and edited by Julie Cloutier based on the sidewalk and intended for the pedestrian only. From August 14 to September 19, 2010 the Adobe Books Parlor will serve as an annex and research site for the launch of Julie Cloutier's publishing endeavors where she and Reading Conventions contributors will collect data from the 16th Street sidewalk in front of the Adobe Bookshop and dispatch reader materials for the first edition of Reading Conventions; A City Reader.

The project focuses on the scale of the neighborhood with altered observations, short essays, city mappings, facade studies, conversations, stories, data, letters, diagrams, and collages by local artists and residents of San Francisco. The printed pamphlets are free to the public and will be delivered into public environments on one day in the month of October through various modes of insertions with hopes for new relationships formed between the pedestrian and the city.

Support this project on kickstarter.

Upcoming: Sean McFarland

Untitled Landscapes (California)
Sean McFarland solo exhibition
Exhibition dates: August 20- September 19, 2010.
*Opening reception: Saturday, August 21, 7-9pm

Kyle Ranson: Portraits exhibition is an Art Practical Pick!

Adobe Books Backroom Gallery featured on Bad at Sports

Bad at Sports' correspondent, Brian Andrews and Art Practical's editor, Patricia Maloney interview Adobe Books' proprietor, Andrew McKinley and the Backroom Gallery's director and curator, Devon Bella. Listen to the interview on the weekly contemporary art podcast or read the transcript on Art Practical.