Richard Haden and Jeff McMillan February 17 - March 28; opening reception February 19 from 6-8 pm; 1632 C Market Street between Gough and Franklin, San Francisco, www.lincart.com

Location tells a lot about a gallery’s personality.  Lincart straddles the Civic Center, Hayes Valley and the Mission, and the crowd from Zuni across tiny Rose Street brings in an urbane mix of uptown and downtown types.  The nearby Van Ness-101 corridor is a metaphor for the extent of their reach outside the city.  Unrestrained by commercial office building rules, crowded openings go late but the hot dogs and keg run out early.

Like most gallery owners, Lincart business partners Alexandra Holly Fouladi and Charles Linder show a diverse roster of local and international artists, and participate in art fairs in order to broaden their reach and expose their artists to new markets.  Unlike most dealers, Holly and Charles are a part of the close-knit Bay Area artist community not only because they show the work of local favorites like Tucker Nichols and Eleanor Harwood, but because they are artists themselves. 

Work on view at Lincart in February is a representative mix of the program that goes on all year long: conceptual, an unconventional use of materials, and a strong element of humor.   Coming down this week is the sniping fantasy world of Italian artist Laurina Paperina, who Charles and Holly first saw at Mexico City’s ZONA MACO contemporary art fair.  Now layered with the unintended irony of anachronism, her drawings lampoon endangered species “celebrity dealer” and “art star.”

This Thursday, Paperina’s snarky cartoons are exchanged with the exacting realist sculpture of Richard Haden.  At first you may not notice Haden’s sculptures, mistaking them for discarded mundane objects such as a beat up fire extinguisher, a crushed shovel or a badly damaged refrigerator door.  But on closer inspection you will learn two surprising facts, that they are meticulous recreations of these things, and that they are carved entirely from wood.  

“Haden is inspired by Situationist art, hiding the role of the artist so he’s almost like a spy. I love that about his work, the work just sort of disappears,” says Linder. But once the viewer discovers that the object is not the original, but an articulate reproduction, they begin to understand its deeper artistic and aesthetic value. Haden often damages or manipulates the original form in order to add compositional interest. He then carves the objects out of wood, after which he hides the fact that they are wood by painting them.

Visually, there is little difference between the sculpture and the original object, yet Haden’s work is far more rewarding to behold. In a recent interview on ARTLURKER Haden said of his work: “I choose to not simply place a readymade on a pedestal as another attempt at undermining an institution. In a nutshell, I remake traumatized readymades to serve a different end. That end is communication, referent, narrative, and so on.”

Also on view will be London-based artist Jeff McMillan, who takes found paintings and partially submerges them, frame and all, into oil paint. The result is half-obscured images that call to question ideas about authorship and vandalism. The paintings are transformed into objects that are more sculptural than two-dimensional, and uncomfortably seductive to behold.

HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Charles Linder received his BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, where his teacher, conceptual artist Tony Labat, was a strong influence.  While attending graduate school at UC Berkeley (MFA New Genres ’93), he opened an influential gallery in his home called Refusalon, open for nearly ten years.  His work is conceptual and plays with the unconventional usage of materials including cars, paint, photography, stickers, epoxy, wood, metal, neon and found objects. Linder says of his own work:  “[My] art is the sum total of all the other artists I have met and all of their objects and situations I have arranged for an audience”. Linder is represented by Gallery 16 (principal Griff Williams is another artist/dealer SFAI alum) in San Francisco, and has shown in galleries and exhibitions internationally.

Prior to co-founding Lincart, Holly Fouladi had an art studio on Otis Street. Also a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, she spent successive years making and teaching art. Though not a traditional gallery environment, she used her studio to exhibit her own artwork and that of her friends.  Charles and Holly met in 2000, when he wandered into her studio during renovation and became intrigued. He soon pitched the idea of starting a gallery together, and shortly thereafter, Lincart was born. At this point Hope Bryson, gallery director, joined their team, and has been there ever since.  Says Holly, “Hope is an important part of the gallery and a great support to me. I really appreciate her outgoing and friendly spirit.”  In 2003 the gallery moved into its current location on Market Street.
 
And they’re not the only ones who think it’s a good location.  LA dealer Robert Berman, one of the first to go into Santa Monica’s Bergamot Station in ’79 and who has worked with Keith Haring and Raymond Pettibon, will open a second location next door to Lincart this month.  A connecting door cut through the wall to Lincart indicates that friendly collaboration is in the works.

The exhibition featuring Richard Haden and Jeff McMillan runs February 17 - March 28; opening reception February 19 from 6-8 pm; Lincart is located at 1632 C Market Street between Gough and Franklin, San Francisco, www.linccart.com