SF/Arts Curator Insight

YBCA's sorta retrospective of nineties Bay Area art rotates around three axes. The first is an introductory collection of ephemera from the era, documenting zines, protests, fundraisers, and many of the now-defunct community arts organizations that nurtured local talent back in the day. The display reminds us how much culture was physically passed hand to hand, each maker or participant a conduit communicating how to show up for one another.

The second spoke fittingly turns around Bill Daniel's near life-size portraits of bike messengers, the daredevils of the pre-digital age who sped documents across town before the advent of email. Daniel's images capture the tribal attitude in stance and glance of the 90's badasses who conquered San Francisco's hilly terrain. They stare down a note-perfect replica of Margaret Kilgallen's 2001 "Main Drag" mural, which dominates the room (and the exhibition) with the artist's triple loves of early 20th-century sign painting, folk art, and street culture. Small dramas unfold among characters dwarfed inside a broken down street scape, the main drag of a downtown gone down hill.

The exhibition's final point of interest is located inside a topsy turvy wooden structure resembling a rickety roller coaster. Several Chris Johanson paintings feature characters up to who knows what, but they seem to be in genial communion -- another group, like the artists in this show, supporting one another while getting stuff done.