Opening February 7, 2008, 7-11pm
with Jessalyn Aaland, Erin Allen, James Bradley, & Lisa Rybovich Cralle

Here is the deal: In the 90’s it was really popular for the media to call our generation the “slacker” generation. Apathetic, disinterested, uninvolved, disengaged were all words used to describe the so-called “attitude problem” of the “youth of today”, and still are. All around us though, including and especially those who run our country (politically and financially), we see disconnectedness, loss, alienation from others. Like with the rise of punk in the late 1970’s, there is now this super awesome community of young adults at the tail end of this generation trying to bring a sense of togetherness back into our lives, maybe just for ourselves, maybe for you too if you want to be a part of it. DIY all ages shows, vegan brunches and secret cafes at somebody’s house, bands touring in station wagons or maybe even the Greyhound, photocopied zines and comic books, collectively-run nonprofit art galleries…these things are all part of the legacy of our generation, and they are all an attempt to find some sort of togetherness in this vast void of it. We see this in alternative spaces across the country and the scenes which have emerged from them: Fort Thunder in Providence, the Smell in Los Angeles, or Baltimore’s Wham City. Even in the Bay Area, we can look at the up-and-coming all ages show collective Club Sandwich, which artists Aaland and Allen are a part of.

“FTWAKAPMA: The Reality of Life” is a group show of four Bay Area artists, Jessalyn Aaland, Erin Allen, James Bradley, and Lisa Rybovich Cralle, who are trying to make sense of this idea of community in our generational collective consciousness, as we knew it growing up and how we see it now. All of the work in this show deals with the experience we have had growing up in an MTV/internet/techno-disconnect world, and this resulting need for a basic level of human interaction which facilities camaraderie, brotherhood, and the sharing of knowledge and experiences. For Allen and Bradley, the result is very direct appropriation and rewriting of imagery and text from our youth cultural experience, such as one might see in the work of art collective Paper Rad, while for Aaland it is a more dreamy sort of wishfulness, with collage works of stickers and mostly 60’s and earlier found imagery.

The Tricycle Space
710 Oak St.
San Francisco, CA 94117
503.502.3273
www.thetricycle.org