{"id":1087,"date":"2010-04-01T14:22:19","date_gmt":"2010-04-01T22:22:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/?p=1087"},"modified":"2010-04-03T20:10:28","modified_gmt":"2010-04-04T04:10:28","slug":"where-do-i-go-from-here","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/2010\/04\/01\/where-do-i-go-from-here-1087\/","title":{"rendered":"Where do I go from here?"},"content":{"rendered":"

“Where do I go from here?” Work by Mark Wagner, Clayton Thiel, and Salane C Schultz, at <\/strong>FLOAT<\/strong><\/a>.\u00a0March 20th –\u00a0April 24th.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1992 I visited Virtual World, a gaming immersion center in nearby Walnut Creek.\u00a0Hot on the release of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s novel “The Difference Engine,” steampunk was just starting to catch on as a subculture. The lounge at the entrance to Virtual World was designed to resemble an expat bar in colonial India (or was it Mars?), the decor replete with potted ferns and ceiling fans. Following a debriefing, we were led into the gaming area, where each pilot stepped into their own mechanized warrior. I’m a bit claustrophobic, but once the door closed, rather than feeling trapped, you felt\u00a0immersed in a new, virtual reality, while\u00a0on your HUD new found allies and enemies lumbered across\u00a0this fresh vista. You\u00a0were cut off from the outside world but completely in touch with this other dimension.<\/p>\n

Walking into FLOAT, which bills itself as an “urban art spa,” I flashed back to Virtual World. It is\u00a0not only\u00a0an art gallery,\u00a0but a flotation center as well. They offer “Restricted Environmental Stimulation Therapy” (R.E.S.T.)–which provides a much better acronym than “Flotation And Relaxation Therapy”–in what is commonly referred to as a sensory-deprivation tank. And after a briefing on what to expect from their experience, clients are similarly led from the gallery’s lounge to where the flotation tank awaits behind a curtain.<\/p>\n

“Where do I go from here?,” work by Mark Wagner, Clayton Thiel, and Salane C Schultz, is guest curated by\u00a0art publicist\u00a0Nancy Vicknair. The gallery’s website broadly describes the exhibit: “Three artists explore the next dimension through magic, mythology, symbolism and story telling.”<\/p>\n

This is\u00a0the first show in sixteen years for Alameda-based artist Wagner, who made news in 2008 when\u00a0his nonprofit “Re-Enchanting the World through Art” organized the world record-setting chalk drawing in Alameda’s former naval air station. “Where do I go from here?” includes some of Wagner’s older work, including “Creation of Language” (1992) with the strong Native American imagery for which he is well known, as well as\u00a0“The Nature of Technology” (2003) which humorously shows African animals depicted as bipeds posing for a camera, as indicated by the focusing circle at the center of the print.<\/p>\n

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"Horned Goddess" (detail), "Green Man Medicine" (detail), and "The Art of War" by Mark Wagner<\/p><\/div>\n

Wagner’s newer pieces are complex, beautiful, and fearsome. The trio of signed, numbered, digital prints–“Horned Goddess,” “Green Man Medicine,” and “The Art of War” (2010)–all appear to be warriors, there to protect or heal us. The theme of fierce but beneficent figures continues with his new\u00a0paintings “Sentinel of Time” and “The Soul Gatherer.” The latter, a 32×44 oil and mixed media on board, was among the pricier works in the exhibit, and fetched $3200.<\/p>\n

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"Tree House I Never Got to Build," "Raven Head," and "Totem Figure w\/Toys" by Clayton Thiel<\/p><\/div>\n

Mark Wagner has collaborated previously with Clayton Thiel and their styles and mythologies mix easily. According to\u00a0Thiel’s statement, “Once imbuing his heads and figures with more obvious narrative elements, often composed of symbolic objects or story-telling hints to be interpreted, his sculptures now ask only to be examined for themselves.\u201d However, his work in this show is not only beautiful and intriguing, but also has a strong narrative quality.\u00a0One cannot help but wonder\u00a0what story they are telling.<\/p>\n

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Salane C Schultz with her "Sideways Girl"<\/p><\/div>\n

The paintings of Salane C Schultz\u00a0are playful, a quality exhibited by the artist herself. Schultz is also a musician–she’s\u00a0Miss May in the tongue-in-cheek 2010\u00a0West Coast Accordion Babes Pin-Up Calendar–and she anthropomorphizes music\u00a0into figures\u00a0reminiscent of Kokopelli, the Native American fertility deity who also represents the spirit of music. With their silhouettes and intertwined loops,\u00a0the subjects populating the mythology of her two-dimensional universe\u00a0also call to mind\u00a0Keith Haring.<\/p>\n

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"The Concertina Player" and "Man in Museum" by Salane C Schultz<\/p><\/div>\n

FLOAT is located at 1091 Calcot Place, Unit #116, Oakland CA, 94606. (510) 535-1702. Open 7 days a week, 10 am to 10 pm by appointment.<\/p>\n

Michael Singman-Aste
\nPostdiluvian Photo<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Where do I go from here?” Work by Mark Wagner, Clayton Thiel, and Salane C Schultz, at FLOAT.\u00a0March 20th –\u00a0April 24th. In 1992 I visited Virtual World, a gaming immersion center in nearby Walnut Creek.\u00a0Hot on the release of William Gibson and Bruce Sterling’s novel “The Difference Engine,” steampunk was just starting to catch on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[23,4],"tags":[112,110,119,111,114,64,113],"class_list":["post-1087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artists","category-raves","tag-clayton-thiel","tag-float-gallery","tag-keith-haring","tag-mark-wagner","tag-nancy-vicknair","tag-oakland","tag-salane-c-schultz"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pPxQO-hx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1087"}],"version-history":[{"count":55,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1208,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1087\/revisions\/1208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postdiluvianphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}