Charles Desmarais October 25, 2018 Updated: November 1, 2018 (datebook.sfchronicle.com)
Sandow Birk, “Proposal for a Park of Monuments to All of the Countries Bombed by the United States” (2018)Photo: John Wilson White, Catharine Clark Gallery
Sandow Birk’s recent drawings and prints at Catharine Clark Gallery, packed with minute detail and up to 5 feet high, will not be easily read in reproduction here. That is reason enough to see the exhibition, on view through Dec. 22.
A proposed park full of monuments to all the countries ever bombed by the United States is bound to require close attention. And a substantially complete Monument to Logical Fallacies might not be taken in at a passing glance.
Birk has made a career of rewriting history and throwing shade on cultural icons. His series “In Smog and Thunder,” for example, was an elaborate record of a fictional “Great War of the Californias” that pitted San Francisco against Los Angeles. The current series comprises visions of memorials to democratic ideals, some of them yet to be constructed, many already badly scarred and precariously unsteady.
“Sandow Birk: Imaginary Monuments II”: 10:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m., Tuesdays-Fridays; 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturdays. Through Dec. 22. Event Details
