SUSTAINED DECAY

ANDY VOGT & JOSHUA CHURCHILL
Sustained Decay
an Installation in the Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
Curated by Devon Bella

Exhibition dates: July 16 – August 16, 2009

For the exhibition, Sustained Decay, artists Andy Vogt and Joshua Churchill intervene in the upcoming renovation and recent expansion of the Adobe Books Backroom Gallery. Renewal comes to a momentary halt, where both Vogt and Churchill reflect on the site's architecture and environment, sustaining the tension between progress and decay. Their respective practices have been integrated directly into the gallery space and its emerging boundaries, evoking an understanding of the time and history the Backroom Gallery continues to endure.

Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
3166 16th Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 864-3936

Churchill and Vogt in the Backroom by Kenneth Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle

Sustained Decay - Andy Vogt & Joshua Churchill by Gareth Spor of Taide & Design Magazine

A Requiem, A Dream (Part One) by Eric Heiman on the SFMoMA Openspace blog
A Requiem, A Dream (Part Two) by Eric Heiman on the SFMoMA Openspace blog

ANDY VOGT & JOSHUA CHURCHILL

ANDY VOGT & JOSHUA CHURCHILL
Sustained Decay
an Installation in the Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
Curated by Devon Bella

Exhibition dates: July 16 – August 16, 2009
Opening reception in participation with the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival
Friday, July 17, 7:00-10:00 PM

Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
3166 16th Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 864-3936

Adobe Books Backroom Gallery announces many exciting transformations and upcoming events at Adobe Books, including the very recent expansion of the Backroom Gallery.

Join us on Friday, July 17, 2009 as Adobe Books in collaboration with the Mission Creek Music and Arts Festival present...

Sustained Decay, an installation by Andy Vogt and Joshua Churchill in the Backroom Gallery

For the exhibition, Sustained Decay, artists Andy Vogt and Joshua Churchill intervene in the upcoming renovation and recent expansion of the Adobe Books Backroom Gallery. Renewal comes to a momentary halt, where both Vogt and Churchill reflect on the site's architecture and environment, sustaining the tension between progress and decay. Their respective practices have been integrated directly into the gallery space and its emerging boundaries, evoking an understanding of the time and history the Backroom Gallery continues to endure.


Subversive Cursive, readings by Leigh Gallagher, Chaim Bertman, and Gravity Goldberg and Music by Jessica Pratt at 8:00PM

SFWEEKLY Review by Hiya Swanhuyser

$1 Sidewalk Book Sale

Art by Kyle Knobel

Vietnamese sandwiches by Le Banh Mi at 1PM

Please stand by

...while the Backroom Gallery experiences reconstruction. In the meantime, please visit us during one of our upcoming events!

Sidewalk Sale at Adobe Books
Saturday, July 11, 11am-5pm
Inventory priced as low as $1

Store-wide Sale
Everything in store 25% off
July 11 - July 31, 2009


ADOBE BOOKS and MISSION CREEK MUSIC FESTIVAL PRESENT...

Friday, July 17, 2009

An installation in the Backroom Gallery
Andy Vogt and Joshua Churchill
Opening Reception 7-10pm

Subversive Cursive
Readings by Leigh Gallagher, Chaim Bertman, and Gravity Goldberg
Music by Jessica Pratt
8:00pm

Friday, July 24, 2009
Softserve
Shimomitsu

8:00pm - 9:30pm

Softserve www.myspace.com/softservespecial
SHIMOMITSU www.myspace.com/shimomitsu

First Exposures Zine Release Party

Adobe Books Backroom Gallery is pleased to support SF Camerawork's First Exposures, the mentoring program that provides free weekly photography classes for under-served youth.

This Spring the students of First Exposures explored the world of alternative publishing and visual storytelling by creating their own 'zines. Join us to celebrate and view the 25 different original 'zines on display.

Friday, June 5, 2009
5:00 - 7:00 PM

http://www.sfcamerawork.org/education/first_exposures/index.php

Calling all Friends of Adobe Books!

On Monday, June 1st Adobe Books will be cleaning up the store from 8am to 8pm. The store is seeking a few willing and able friends to help clean, sort, organize, pack, unload, recycle, and throw-out. Lunch and snacks will be provided.

If you're interested in helping out please email Devon at adobebooksbackroom@gmail.com and let us know what your availability is that day.

Upcoming: Griffin McPartland

Easy on the I's
Griffin McPartland
Opening reception on Thursday, 30 April 2009 7 - 10pm
with live performance by Coconut

Oakland-based artist Griffin McPartland has been curating, publishing, and making art in the Bay Area since 1992. As half of the publishing team of the celebrated Hot and Cold project zine, Griffin has shown at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco; The Luggage Store Gallery, San Francisco, Lump Gallery, North Carolina, and Cell Project Space, London.

In his first solo show at Adobe Books and the Backroom Gallery, McPartland uses balloons as a vehicle of communication. Collected through day to day observations, McPartland's writings
transform pop culture, mundane human occurrences and social trends into a satirical language. Fleeting thoughts are given residence in a series of balloons creating a visual banter between the artist and the observer.

Upcoming shows include Glen Horowitz, North Hampton, New York and Bear Ridgeway Exhibitions, San Francisco.

Curated by Maggie Otero

30 April to 30 May, 2009
Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
Everyday 11am to midnight

Works from The Mask of Civilization

Garth Thompson-Vieira
through April 25th
Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
everyday 11am to midnight

Images Courtesy of ArtBusiness.com
www.artbusiness.com

THANK YOU!

Dear Friends of Adobe Books,

On behalf of Andrew McKinley, the staff of Adobe Books and myself, thank you for supporting Adobe Books' 20th Anniversary Auction. Everyone's participation was fundamentally an investment in Adobe Books for the future and we sincerely appreciate the help to guarantee the continuation of the store's role in the community. The event was a success and would not have been possible without all of the artists, install crew, auctioneers, volunteers and friends of the store.

With some of the funds raised we hope to clean up the store, make some repairs to the shop and gallery, and strengthen our ability to support artists, musicians and writers. In fact, we hope to incorporate more artist projects in the store such as limited edition bookmarks and making a shelf dedicated to books chosen by local artists and friends of the store.

Special thanks to Tartine, BiRite Grocery, Dori Latman, Four Barrel, Le Banh Mi and the lovely staff at SoEx. Thank you to Brianna and the very special volunteers who helped make the night a success!

Sincerely,
Devon Bella, Curator
Adobe Books Backroom Gallery

Adobe Books 20th Anniversary Art Auction

Adobe Books 20th Anniversary Art Auction
Saturday, March 28, 2009
at Southern Exposure 14th Street gallery
417 14th Street at Valencia
San Francisco, CA 94103
3:00 - 8:00 pm
One day only
Free Admission
Online Preview (in progress):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/adobebooksauction09

Participating artists include Airyka Rockefeller, Ajit Chauhan, Alena Rudolph, Alicia McCarthy, Alissa Anderson, Amy Jo Diaz, Andrew Schoultz, Barry McGee, Brion Nuda Rosch, Bryson Gill, Chris Baird, Chris Corales, Chris Duncan, Christine Shields, Clare Rojas, Colter Jacobsen, Dave King, Dave Schubert, Devendra Banhart, Emily Prince, Future Farmers: Amy Franceschini & Michael Swaine, Jay Nelson, Jeff Canham, Jennie Smith, Joe Byrnes, Johanna St Clair, John Dwyer, Joshua Churchill, Jovi Schnell, Kal Spelletich, Kathryn Spence, Klea McKenna, Kyle Field, Kyle Knobel, Kyle Ranson, Leslie Shows, Liz Walsh, Matt Furie, Matt Gonzalez, Misa Inaoka, Naoki Onodera, Nathan Stapley, Orion Shepherd, Rachel Corry, Rachel Kaye, Ryan Coffey, Ryder Cooley, Sahar Khoury, Scott Williams, Shaun O'Dell, Sonya Derman, Tara Foley
Will Yackulic, Yukako Ezoe Onodera

Silent auction ends at 6pm
Live auction from 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Cash, check, Visa/MC accepted

Vietnamese sandwiches by Le Bahn Mi at 5:30pm
The Café by Dori Latman serving coffee and tea all day

Special Thanks to Southern Exposure, BiRite Grocery, Gregory Lind, and Triple Base Gallery for their support.

Check back for updates...

Garth Thompson-Vieira

The Mask of Civilization
Sutures Schisms and Decay

New work by Garth Thompson-Vieira

Steeped in the visual language of anarchist ideologies and the barbaric sound of the macabre, Garth Thompson-Vieira’s new work transforms the Backroom Gallery into a repository of nightmarish scenes from over 30 works of collage. Articulated by automatist techniques, Thompson-Vieira’s practice extracts representational forms from the cut-outs from early 20th-century French illustration books and the grisly patterns of overpainting. Military battalions transform into pillars of war, lurid portraits ooze with terror, and as a result, the haunting imagery reveals what lies beneath the mask of civilization.

Garth Thompson-Vieira is a 2005 graduate at the San Francisco Art Institute and currently lives and works in New York. Adobe Books is proud to present The Mask of Civilization: Sutures, Schisms and Decay as the body of work calls attention to the unseen surrenders of progress and innovation as well as the store’s own veiled mutations and traces of decay.

Music performance by SHREDDING at 9:00pm

Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
Opening Reception on Thursday, 26 March, 2009 8:00-10:00pm
Exhibition dates 26 March - 25 April, 2009

Upcoming Music at Adobe Books

Music at Adobe Books on Friday, 20 March
Hélène Renaut, Chloe Makes Music, and The Woodlands 8:00pm

Orion Shepherd in SFWeekly

I Was a Green Beret

Exhibition of new work by Orion Shepherd
19 February - 21 March, 2009

Opening Reception 19 February, 7 - 10pm
Music by Dimples and Golden West Service

I Was a Green Beret draws attention to the book world around us and painstakingly coaxes it into being through the miniature style of painting. Orion Shepherd’s paintings are an achievement of trompe l’oeil and the portrayal of dimension, yet his greatest output is the depiction of the 60s era at the peak of popular imagination. While his current study of books and magazines condense the cover onto the page, they also capture the magnitude and complexity of the media culture from which they originate.

Showing for the first time at Adobe Books, Orion Shepherd creates a focal point for the fascination and compulsion of the United States Army Special Forces and the clandestine operations of the Green Beret. Functioning as a provocation of the Green Beret, the exhibition pairs the dramatic device with other print media saturations through a pastiche of book cover designs. As a result, Shepherd’s new body of work not only rekindles the history the codex and its decorative uses, but more significantly, reveals miniaturization as both a mode of virtuosity and haunting social process of identity formation as demonstrated by the Orwellian dystopia in 1984, the guiding hand of National Geographic and The Right Stuff’s ethos of patriotism.

Orion Shepherd was born in 1984 and grew up in Martinez, California. He received his Bachelor degree in Fine Arts from California College of the Arts (CCA) in 2006. Shepherd currently lives and works in San Francisco. Adobe Books is pleased to present Orion Shepherd's solo exhibition alongside the gallery's history of showcasing local emerging artists. I Was a Green Beret is especially exciting for Adobe Books as many of its own paperbacks inspired Shepherd's new body of work.

Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
3166 16th St. San Francisco, CA 94103
11am - midnight everyday

$free

Music at Adobe Books

boyz IV men
religious girls
tuesday, february 24, 2009
8:30 pm
$free

adobe books
3166 16th Street
san francisco, ca 94103

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Sam McPheeters, George Chen, Deana Uribe

An evening of readings and stand up comedy
Friday, February 20th, 2009
8-10 pm
$5 donation, all ages

Adobe Books
3166 16th Street
San Francisco, CA 94103

Sam McPheeters was born in Ohio in 1969, and raised in upstate New York. He is the former lead singer of Born Against and Wrangler Brutes, a founding member of Men's Recovery Project and the owner of the now defunct Vermiform Records. He lives in California with his wife, Tara, and their eleven cats.

George Chen is a freelance writer and musician based in Oakland. Music projects include Chen Santa Maria, KIT, 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, and running the record label Zum. He has performed "stand up" "comedy" about "five" times, all since seeing the terrible, terrible "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull".

Deana Uribe is a poet, comedian, and student from Los Angeles California. She has performed stand up comedy twice, the first time at the Playhouse 7 Laemmle Theater in Pasadena and the second time at the Horsecow Gallery in West Sacramento. Her perfomances consits of elaborate long stories dashed with Satanic-stoner references. She lives in Felton, in the Santa Cruz mountains.

Upcoming: Orion Shepherd

exhibition in february
check back for details and announcement

Music at Adobe Books

unicorn basement
MC/VL
wednesday
21 january 2009
8pm
*free

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

bonnie banks in the COUNCIL OF THE ERRTH
super failures of the errth
featuring corpsemop colosi
ion clappers
music by
VSLS
Head Boggle
Bullshit Detector
incindental music by
Bonnie Banks Council / Errth selection.

thursday
22 january 2009
7-10pm
*free

Ex Libris

Opening reception at the twentieth hour with musical entertainment on
Wednesday, 14 January 2009

A formation out of the chaos and the clutter of Adobe Books, Ex Libris is an exhibition of books selected by a group of local artists, writers and creative thinkers. Beginning on the fourteenth of January, the Backroom Gallery transforms into a library as a glimpse into the literary influences on local creative and critical inquiry.

Participants include Courtney Fink, Vincent Fecteau, Colter Jacobsen, Julian Myers, Emily Prince, Jeannene Przyblyski, Kyle Ranson, Evan Rehill, Brion Nuda Rosch, Michael Swaine, Margaret Tedesco, and Meredith Tromble

Adobe Books Backroom Gallery
3166 16th Street
San Francisco, CA 94103
t: (415) 864-3936
e: adobebooksbackroom@gmail.com