Pour the Line
A Site-Shop-Happening-Anything
September 13 – October 4, 2019
Opening Reception: Friday, September 13, 2019 from 6:30-8:30pm
Off-Hours Programming:
Thursday 9/19 - 1-4pm: Soup Stories
Saturday 9/21 - Midnight to 3AM: $1 or $1 Million and Chair Conversation with ALEXANDMUSHI
Saturday 9/28 - 8pm-10pm: Church on the Moon with Summer Mei Ling Lee
Location:
Abacus Row
1256 Mason Street
San Francisco, CA 94108
Wednesday - Sunday, 12:00 pm - 7:00 pm
Featuring Abacus Row, ALEXANDMUSHI, Brian Singer, Hoi Leung, Jen Pearson, Mary Bain, Olivier Burel aka OGREoner (OGRE), soft-geometry, Summer Mei Ling Lee, Think Make Tank, Yosh Han, and others.
Above image: soft-geometry, Doughnut, Solid Oak in Caramel. Image credit: Palaash Chaudhary
Pour the Line
$3899 is a high sum to charge for a donut. A natural response may be “Is this the correct price?”
The answer depends: Is it the real thing, or a thing of art?
This line of questioning is the key concern of re.riddle’s Pour the Line, a site-store-happening-anything, that takes place at Abacus Row this September through October in San Francisco’s Nob Hill neighborhood.
A ‘revisit' to The Store (1960) by Claes Oldenburg, where the artist occupied an abandoned shop in New York with “products” for sale, is what inspired this “thing” we’re creating. The provocation then was that its offerings—an inventory of banal, everyday objects such as a dress, ice cream sundae, iron, pistol, slice of cake—were all made of papier mâché. Hence, their referential presentations in the context of conventional commercial consumption echoed the contemporary debates about an existing, tenuous relationship between art and life, reality and non-reality.
Indeed, this postmodern theme has been thoroughly unpacked by art historians. It’s not our intention to re-analyze it. Rather, Pour the Line is hinged on the persistence and relevance of its ideas as they relate to us today. Ambiguity. Spontaneity. Irony. What role do the paradoxical and dialectical play in our current human experience?
A concerted effort made by creators, artists and thinkers from multidisciplinary backgrounds has been led by re.riddle to explore these concepts and questions. Pour the Line’s program will entail design and art objects for sale, artists talks, performances, manifestations and anything else it feels compelled to do. In addition to operating during regular business hours, experimental programs that comment on the theme of art and life will take place on random days and at “off” times such as after midnight or before dawn. Details will likewise be shared by alternative means and methods.
At stake is the risk that modern commercialism and over-consciousness might eclipse the spotlight directed at the sliver of space between art and life. This is where various freedoms—and monsters—may be born. Such a liminal experience is not always paradisiacal, however; eventually one must land somewhere. Perhaps, and we hope, it is occasionally on the line.
~L. Lui, Creative Director
Image: Think Make Tank Collective, Alex Nichols, Mushi Wooseong James, Magali Charmot and Susann Volzer (from Cologne) 2018, Oh My God I’m so Fucking Alone, Exhibition Title ‘Origins’.
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Pour the Line is presented as part of the AR et al., series.
AR et al. is a series of pop-ups produced by Abacus Row in collaboration with others – independent designers, artists and small business owners. Abacus Row is an independent line of jewelry designed and crafted in San Francisco. AR et al. is an on-going project for Abacus Row to explore various creative synergies, to showcase the work of fellow creatives, and to build community. www.abacusrow.com
Think Make Tank Collective, Alex Nichols, Mushi Wooseong James, Magali Charmot and Susann Volzer (from Cologne), Oh My God I’m so Fucking Alone, for Pour the Line, 2019.
Michail Michailov, Dust to Dust, 2019, color pencil on paper, 48 cm x 64 cm
re.riddle editions: interactive site-specific installation, 2019, string, cashmere/wool, scented with Pour the Line.
Installation inspired by Fred Sandback. Conceptualized in collaboration with renowned perfumier Yosh Han, re.riddle presents Pour the Line, an interpretation of an area scent of what a drawn line might smell like.
Brian Singer aka Someguy, limited edition screenprint on paper, 2019.
ALEXANDMUSHI, 2019, for Pour the Line’s Happenings/Anythings at Abacus Row.