david horvitz

david horvitz is guest blogging as part of a show of his up currently in the adobe books backroom gallery in san francisco, showing various things he is doing 'right now'. more here and here.

[all david horvitz. top to bottom: poster produced for adobe books with image from horvitz's public access project. from guest blog post 'museum of moving image right now' photo of jim henson, time piece, 1965. from guest blog post 'long island city studio right now' showing notes for a new project horvitz is working on.]

the 770 show • kelli yon

in the adobe books stacks, kelli yon found the book, "alien contact: the first fifty years" by jenny randles. on page 30 is a vivid image of a disc-shaped object over san francisco taken on october 10, 1956. this picture sparked an endeavor for kelli-she began training immediately to become a san francisco ufo field investigator for mufon (mutual ufo network). in early january 2011, a sighting was reported (mufon case # 27230) in san francisco's hayes valley neighborhood and as part of her research, kelli visited the location in hopes of encountering the unusual.

image 1: CA: UFO Alert 3, 2011, newsprint takeaway
image 2: page 30 from "alien contact: the first fifty years" (ufo over san francisco, 1956)

the 770 show • suné woods

for the 770 show, suné woods browsed the stacks of adobe bookshop inviting the books to choose her. for several hours, she combed through the sections carefully and finally, a fascinating object from the 1920s found her: "history of prostitution" by dr. william w sanger. the weathered blue book contains only one image, a light impression made from a label on the inside front cover. "history of prostitution" is dr. sanger's record of his world travels studying vast populations in an attempt to bring the reader a comprehensive, global understanding of the history, places, societies, and statistics associated with prostitution.

suné was fascinated with the authoritative language used in the book and questioned the accuracy of sanger's study. his research appeared skewed, especially since he characterized a large portion of the populations he visited as "uncivilized"--a word that stood out and inspired suné's cyanotype print of the phrase: "bold-faced lies". the book's context seemed to take on a whole new meaning when read in 2011. suné was curious and at the same time, fascinated, as to why contemporary editions of the book have been printed considering sanger's lop-sided demographic.

in her practice, suné uses the body as a site to think about histories: passed on, forgotten, or imagined. www.sunewoods.com

image 1: suné woods, untitled (bold-faced lies), 2011 and "history of prostitution" in installation at the 770 show
image 2: cover of "history of prostitution"
image 3: light impression of on inside cover of "history of prostitution"
image 4: chapter 30, barbarous nations in the "history of prostitution"

the 770 show • sean mcfarland

in the studio sean mcfarland looks through hundreds of photographs a day. some are his own, some are in books, and some he finds on the internet. with each image, there's an invitation into a world outside his own and for sean, photographs and books have always functioned as a way of travel, be it through image or story. when perusing the busy, urban adobe bookstore he came upon "the redwoods" by richard st. barbe baker. the trees on the book's cover instantaneously reminded sean of his many trips spent among the giant redwoods, and in a way, he could almost smell the forest and feel its mist. certainly, a far cry from the sometimes overwhelming bookstore in san francisco's active mission district. in response, sean made a photograph that depicts what he thought it would feel like to be in the places on the pages of this book.


image 1: cover of "the redwoods" by richard st. barbe baker
image 2: interior page of "the redwoods"
image 3:"redwoods and sun", sean mcfarland, 2011, unique polaroid