PRESS RELEASE

EXHIBITIONS:

November 15-December 23, 2000
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 7 from 5:30-7:30 pm

The STEPHEN WIRTZ GALLERY is pleased to announce the exhibitions of new work by ULRIKE PALMBACH and recent photographs by MICHAEL KENNA.

In the main gallery, we will exhibit the work of German-born artist, ULRIKE PALMBACH. The objects that Palmbach creates exist at the intersection of the familiar and the strange, the humorous and the tragic, the promising and the ominous. Palmbach zeroes in on ordinary daily peculiarities by using mundane raw materials such as felt blankets and twine in an extra-ordinary way.

Inertia is a large installation comprised of an abundance of felt objects that appear to have been left by a receded river current. Made from layers of blankets, the elements are uniformly rounded, as if worn by incessant spinning and tumbling. Their immobility evokes a yearning for the motion which shaped them, yet also defines their place at rest.

ULRIKE PALMBACH (b.1963, Stuttgart, Germany) received her B.F.A. from the San Francisco Art Institute in 1989. Her work has been included in several exhibitions including the 1997 Bay Area Now show at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco.

In the small gallery will be photographs by MICHAEL KENNA. Kenna's signature style is capturing simple beauty with black & white photography by combining formal aesthetics with elements of drama and a sense of stillness and isolation. While his photographs are quiet and meditative, they are equally rebellious. Kenna presents an intelligent interpretation and presentation of nature juxtaposed with the man-made.

In the current exhibition, we will feature Kenna's recent photographs taken in such places as Easter Island, Russia, France, Austria and Czechoslovakia. Also included are recently printed images of cooling towers in England.

MICHAEL KENNA (b.1953, Widnes, Lancashire, England) will have a solo exhibition, Night Work, opening this winter at the Friends of Photography. A book of the same name was recently published by Nazraeli Press in conjunction with this exhibition. Kenna's photographs are in many museum collections including The Art Institute of Chicago, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and The Denver Art Museum.

For additional information, please contact Kira Lyons (415)433-6879.