SAN FRANCISCO TRIBAL & TEXTILE ARTS SHOW DEBUTS TWO SPECIAL EXHIBTIONS AT FORT MASON CENTER IN FEBRUARY 2009
Conversing with Culture: Paintings and Drawings by Jose Bedia & Indigenous Drawings: Works by Self-taught artists from Non-Western Cultures Curated by Cavin-Morris Gallery\
OPENING NIGHT GALA BENEFITS THE DE YOUNG MUSEUM
(San Francisco – August 2008) The 23rd Annual San Francisco Tribal & Textile Arts Show returns to the historic Fort Mason Center February 13-15, 2009. The San Francisco Tribal & Textile Arts Show is considered the best Tribal Art shows in the world. Each year this anticipated event brings together an impressive array of sculptures, accessories and antiques from South East Asia, the Oceanic Islands, the Middle East, Central and South America, Africa, the Cook and Solomon Islands, Polynesia, and Indonesia. The quality and breadth of the pieces on display appeal to both avid collectors of the arts and the arts-curious. The opening night benefit—a gala for the de Young Museum’s Art of Africa, Oceania and the Americas and the Textiles galleries--marks the beginning of the San Francisco’s winter social scene.
The 2009 San Francisco Tribal & Textile Arts Show showcases an elite roster of the world’s most respected Tribal & Textile arts dealers. Top European dealers including: Kevin Conru, Didier Claes, Wayne Heathcote and Patrick Mestdagh of Belgium; John Giltsoff of Spain and Charles Wesley Hourde of France, are placed alongside seminal American galleries such as Michael Hamson, Joseph Gerena, Gail Martin and Brant Mackley of the United States among others. More than 100 internationally renowned art dealers/galleries, each specializing in museum quality, pre 1940's tribal, textile and folk art will display their most collectable and prized pieces. Due to the rareness of each of the pieces on display, collectors from around the world, and top museum professionals attend the Tribal & Textile Show to complete and research their collections.
Recently, new collectors have been drawn to the Tribal & Textile Show to develop art investment collections. The very nature of the Tribal & Textile buying world almost ensures that the pieces increase in value through time because authentic pieces are in such short supply. The ever-growing demand for what is becoming a‘disappearing art’ has created a demand for particular pieces and collections. As the modern world becomes smaller, fewer and fewer of the people living within tribal communities are continuing their traditional art forms. The San Francisco Tribal & Textile Show is a nexus for these arts to converge.
An opening night preview gala for the exhibition will be held on Thursday, February 12, 2008 from 6:00pm-9:00pm. and will benefit the galleries for Art of Africa, Oceania and the Americas and the Textiles galleries in the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. To purchase tickets, or to obtain more information about the gala, please call (415) 750-7656. This will be the first opportunity to view and purchase from the show as well as the Conversing with Culture and Indigenous Drawing exhibitions.
The 2009 show will feature two special exhibitions curated by Randall Morris of New York’s noted Cavin-Morris Gallery. The exhibitions titled Conversing with Culture: Paintings and Drawings by Jose Bedia and Indigenous Drawing: Works by Self-taught artists from Non-Western Cultures juxtapose the paintings and drawings of acclaimed Cuban artist Jose Bedia with the works on paper and canvas of self-taught artists from different cultures across the globe.
Considered one of the seminal artists of his generation, Jose Bedia has recently exhibited at the Museo Arte Contemporaneo de Puerto Rico in San Juan, Milan’s Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, the Long Beach Museum of Latin American Art, Miami Art Museum and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego and North Miami. His collective works to date, including the paintings and drawings that will be on display at the Tribal & Textile Arts Show, explore the ceremonial aspect of the Native American peyote ceremonies as well as the idea of the ‘nkisi’ ("sacred medicine") central to the Kongo people in medicine and Oath-Taking.
According to Randall Morris of Cavin-Morris Gallery, Bedia himself is the linchpin between these exhibitions. ‘Bedia is a messenger between the world of the trained and the untrained artist; he is not only an artist in his world but a translator of the intentionality in their worlds. His creative life has been that of a trained artist in dialogue both with the art world and with the world of the tribal and/or non-western artist’
The counterpart exhibit, Indigenous Drawing; reveals how self-taught artists from non-western cultures use the medium of drawing to continue to significantly mark contemporary culture. As curator, Randall Morris states, ‘What makes a self-taught artist authentic is their making of art for purposes not dictated by the art world and in the language of their cultural homeground’ This exhibit will feature several artists from Haiti, Mexico, Jamaica, Native America, Aboriginal Australia, New Guinea and India. This included Amalia, a shamness of the Seri Indians in Northern Mexico whose works are personally recognized by Jose Bedia and Kamante Gatura, house boy to Out of Africa author Isak Dinesen (Baroness Karen von Blixen-Finecke).
General admission for The San Francisco Tribal & Textile Show is $15 per person. This event is open to the public on Friday February 13, 11:00am-7:00pm, Saturday February 14, 11:00am-7:00pm and Sunday February 15, 11:00am-5:00pm. There will be no admittance on Sunday after 4:30pm. For more information, please call (310) 455-2886, or visit us on the web at www.caskeylees.com.
For press information contact Agnes Gomes-Koizumi AGK Media Group at (323) 937-5488 or agnes@agkmediagroup.com.
About Caskey Lees Inc.
Since 1985 California based Caskey Lees Inc. has produced high-end vetted antiques and fine arts shows. The production team of Bill Caskey and Elizabeth Lees is widely recognized for refining and expanding the art & antique shows to a new level in this country. Caskey Lees Inc. produces eight shows annually; three in New York City, two in Los Angeles, two in San Francisco and one in Philadelphia. For additional information about upcoming shows please visit www.caskeylees.com.
About the New de Young Museum
Founded in 1895 in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, the de Young Museum has been an integral part of the cultural fabric of the city and a cherished destination for millions of residents and visitors to the region for over 100 years. In 2005, the de Young Museum re-opened in a state-of-the-art new facility that integrates art, architecture and the natural landscape in one multi-faceted destination that will inspire audiences from around the world. Designed by the renowned Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron and Fong & Chan Architects in San Francisco, the new de Young provided San Francisco with a landmark art museum to showcase the museum’s priceless collections of American art from the 17th through the 20th centuries, and art of the native Americas, Africa, and the Pacific.
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