Josephine Taylor: Night House On view September 30 – December 23, 2023 | South Gallery Opening reception: Saturday, September 30 from 3 – 5pm; artist talk at 4pm Jon Rubin: An art school that is riddled with doubt On view September 30 – November 4, 2023 | EXiT and Vestibule San Francisco: Catharine Clark Gallery announces Night House, an exhibition of new drawings by Josephine Taylor, on view September 30 – December 23, 2023, in the South Gallery. At once both intimate and immersive, Taylor’s compositions invite us into the extraordinary lifeworld of a family and its environment: the quiet meals, the sleepless nights, the moments of rest in between wake and dream. It is also a body of work about color: the dusky grey blue of night and the shifts in light and dark that shape and inform our emotional responses and moods.
Above: Josephine Taylor, Peace, 2 (Aki sleeping on couch), detail, 2023. Botanical indigo on canvas. 69 ½ x 62 inches. Taylor writes: “Night House is made up of portraits of the people and things in my home at night. More than that, it is a self-portrait of a feeling and a state of being. It explores how I see things in the most private moments of my family’s domestic life, under the cover of darkness. I see color differently throughout the night: sometimes, the world around me appears covered in a thin, steel-gray veil; and at other times, it feels suffused in an inky flood of indigo.” She continues: “The works in this show explore how persistent melancholy morphs not just what we see, but also how we see. Blearyeyed and exhausted at night, I often sit and stare at whatever is in front of me: a family member sleeping, a vase of flowers, a doorway lit Catharine Clark Gallery | cclarkgallery.com | 2
from behind. Nighttime brings an altered state: things bleed together, light plays with dark, and static objects become luminous and activated. The environment feels total in the way that a singular, complex organism might. Night breathes; it pulses and glows.” “After many months of observation, I realized that night often shrouds space with a luminous blue cast. After experimenting with synthetic blue pigments and paints, I felt an increased dissatisfaction with how blue as color was represented. I shifted course, abandoned my synthetic inks, and reached for one of the most ancient sources of blue—the indigo plant. Through a labor and time-intensive process, I used dry and liquid indigo to render these images, either rubbing the indigo directly onto unprimed canvases or spraying it directly onto the surface. I never apply a paintbrush or drawing instrument to the canvas; in this way, I am trying to create an image with color in its truest form. I want the medium and the process to echo the emotional content of the work. In the dry indigo works, I want to evoke the physical demands of rubbing, and the idea of creating a mark or stain as opposed to lifting it away; with the liquid indigo works, I want to draw attention to the permanence of natural dyes, the unforgiving nature of it, and the unharnessed bleeding liquidity of it.” “Ultimately,” Taylor remarks, “I hope that the viewer walks away wondering about melancholy, family, and night; and in that space, I hope the viewer recognizes the great potential for heightened beauty in those moments when we are pushed to the limits of our emotions.” In conjunction with Taylor’s exhibition, the gallery presents An art school that is riddled with doubt by Jon Rubin, on view September 30 – November 4, 2023. Installed in EXiT and the Vestibule, Rubin’s work critically and humorously invites us to consider how we imagine creatively sustainable lives. As part of Rubin’s presentation, the gallery exhibits his banner installation Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents’ House (2018), originally presented at the San Francisco Art Institute. In Rubin's installation, myths, legends, lies, and misremembered stories of past student art works are presented as both cautionary tales to be never repeated and possible instructions to future students.
Join us for an opening reception on Saturday, September 30 from 3 – 5pm, with an artist talk with Josephine Taylor at 4pm Above: Josephine Taylor, Doors, 2023. Colored ink and watercolor on canvas. 30 x 24 inches.
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JOSEPHINE TAYLOR creates narrative images —drawing, painting, print, collage— and video. Her work often examines the emotional and psychological remnants of memory, human connection, and adolescence. Her subject matter is personal, domestic, rendered with a tender fragility, and often at the scale of the people or objects she is portraying. Taylor earned a Bachelor of Arts in Religious Studies with an emphasis in East Indian languages from the University of Colorado, Boulder before pursuing a graduate degree in Fine Art at the San Francisco Art Institute. She was a recipient of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art SECA Award in 2004, and was included in the California Biennial at the Orange County Museum of Art that same year. Also, in 2004, she was awarded an Artist in Residence at Headlands Center for the Arts. In 2005, Taylor's work was included in Bay Area Now IV at Yerba Buena Canter of The Arts. In 2017, Taylor received an Eureka Fellowship from the Fleishhacker Foundation. Taylor’s work is included in the permanent collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York. Her work was featured in OFF-SPRING: New Generations, a group exhibition at 21c Museum Hotels that premiered at the Cincinnati campus in 2013,which most recently traveled to the museum’s Oklahoma City campus in 2018. Also, in 2018, Taylor’s work was featured in Care and Feeding: The Art of Parenthood at the Palo Alto Art Center. Her most recent solo exhibition at Catharine Clark Gallery, Beside Me, included a video collaboration, with interdisciplinary artist, Jon Bernson. In Spring 2019, Taylor debuted a new series of photogravures published by Mullowney Printing at Gallery 16 in the group exhibition, Epoch. In 2020 her work was featured in a group exhibition at Catharine Clark Gallery that presented projects created in collaboration with Mullowney Printing. In Summer 2023, Taylor was a part of the group exhibition Figure Telling: Contemporary Bay Area Figuration at di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art. Her work has been recently acquired by the Victoria and Albert Museum and by the San Jose Museum of Art, where she was in a collection show South East North West in 2020. Taylor teaches at Stanford University Night House is her sixth solo exhibition with the gallery. She lives and works in San Francisco and has been represented by Catharine Clark Gallery since 2003.
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Installation image: Josephine Taylor, Night House. Photo: John Janca.
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Josephine Taylor Iron Lung, at night (1), 2023 Indigo denim rubbing on canvas 62 x 70 inches $25,000
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Josephine Taylor First flowers, 2023 Indigo denim rubbing on Japanese Cosmo 10 x 8 1/8 inches $2,800
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Josephine Taylor Chris at table, 2023 Colored ink and watercolor on canvas 48 x 36 inches unframed 49 x 37 inches framed $9,500
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Josephine Taylor Desk, 2023 Colored ink and watercolor on linen 24 x 18 inches $5,500
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Josephine Taylor Pincushions, 2023 Colored ink and watercolor on canvas 30 x 24 inches unframed 31 1/2 x 25 1/4 inches framed $7,500
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Josephine Taylor Lepidoptera, at night, 2023 Indigo denim rubbing on canvas 62 x 98 inches $25,000
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Josephine Taylor Pareidolia, at night, 2023 Indigo denim rubbing on canvas 62 x 102 inches $25,000
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Josephine Taylor Peace, 1 (Mika sleeping on couch), 2023 Botanical indigo on canvas 53 x 42 inches $12,000
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Josephine Taylor Peace, 2 (Aki sleeping on couch), 2023 Botanical indigo on canvas 70 x 61 inches $15,000
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Josephine Taylor Iron Lung, at night (2), 2023 Indigo denim rubbing on canvas 62 x 70 inches $15,000
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Josephine Taylor Madonna, 2023 Colored ink and watercolor on canvas 36 x 24 inches unframed 37 x 25 inches framed $8,500
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Josephine Taylor Doors, 2023 Colored ink and watercolor on canvas 30 x 23 inches unframed 31 1/4 x 25 inches framed $7,500
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Josephine Taylor Black Flowers, 2023 Botanical indigo on canvas 26 x 24 inches $5,500
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Josephine Taylor Self-portrait in shower, 2023 Botanical indigo on canvas 51 x 32 inches $9,500
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Jon Rubin: An art school that is riddled with doubt On view September 30 – November 4, 2023 | EXiT and Vestibule
Jon Rubin Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents’ House, in the series "Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents' House", 2018 Hand-cut letters and felt sewn-on backing. Edition of 2 + 1 AP 93 x 71 inches Individual: $6,500 Set of 8: $40,000
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Jon Rubin Draw a Landscape That Has Worlds Within Worlds Within Worlds, in the series "Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents' House", 2018 Hand cut letters and felt sewn on backing Edition of 2 + 1 AP 93 x 71 inches Individual: $6,500 Set of 8: $40,000
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Jon Rubin Remake Every Object in Your House by Hand, in the series "Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents' House", 2018 Hand cut letters and felt sewn on backing Edition of 2 + 1 AP 93 x 71 inches Individual: $6,500 Set of 8: $40,000
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Jon Rubin Tattoo All of Your Art Heroes’ Signatures on Your Back. As They Fall from Favor, Cross Them Out, in the series "Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents' House", 2018 Hand cut letters and felt sewn on backing Edition of 2 + 1 AP 93 x 71 inches Individual: $6,500 Set of 8: $40,000
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Jon Rubin Bury a Ferrari Under the School’s Parking Lot, in the series "Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents' House", 2018 Hand cut letters and felt sewn on backing Edition of 2 + 1 AP 93 x 71 inches Individual: $6,500 Set of 8: $40,000
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Jon Rubin Build a Small Apartment Under the Floor of Your Studio, in the series "Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents' House", 2018 Hand cut letters and felt sewn on backing Edition of 2 + 1 AP 93 x 71 inches Individual: $6,500 Set of 8: $40,000
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Jon Rubin Blackmail Your Professors as Your Thesis Project, in the series "Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents' House", 2018 Hand cut letters and felt sewn on backing Edition of 2 + 1 AP 93 x 71 inches Individual: $6,500 Set of 8: $40,000
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Jon Rubin Tell a Tragic Personal Backstory in a Room Filled with Laughing Gas, in the series "Photograph Yourself Naked at Your Parents' House", 2018 Hand cut letters and felt sewn on backing Edition of 2 + 1 AP 93 x 71 inches Individual: $6,500 Set of 8: $40,000
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Jon Rubin
An art school that is riddled with doubt 2018-ongoing Installation on EXiT’s garage door POR An art school that is riddled with doubt is part of a larger series of premises Rubin has been writing for years that briefly describe theoretical art schools. An art school that is riddled with doubt is directly related to Rubin’s socially-engaged practice, which often questions the fundamental fictions upon which our institutions are based. “In many ways, despite their seeming implausibility, to me these ideas are no different than any other preexisting art school that someone, usually with far more resources than me, has simply made up.” Rubin’s projects include running a barter-based nomadic art school in the Bay Area and operating a restaurant that produced a live televised talk show with its customers and co-directing (with Dawn Weleski) another restaurant that only served cuisine from countries with which the United States is in conflict. He recently launched The National Museum, a storefront project that invites a different artist each month to change the museum’s identity. Rubin received his MFA from The California College of Arts and Crafts and has taught at the San Francisco Art Institute, the California College of the Arts, Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz and Carnegie Mellon University School, where he is currently a Professor in the School of Art. In 2004 Rubin founded the Independent School of Art, a barter-based nomadic art school that operated in the Bay Area without funding, accreditation, or a physical site.
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JON RUBIN Biography JON RUBIN is an interdisciplinary artist who creates interventions into public life that re-imagine individual, group, and institutional behavior. He has exhibited at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Mercosul Biennial; the Shanghai Biennial; the Carnegie International, The Lyon Biennale; the Solomon Guggenheim Museum; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver; The Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico; The Rooseum, Sweden; as well as in backyards, living rooms, and street corners. Rubin recently collaborated with Iranian-based artist Sohrab Kashani on The Other Apartment, a Creative Capital-funded project occurring both in Tehran, Iran and Pittsburgh, PA. He has received awards from the Arts Matters Foundation, the Creative Work Fund, Americans for the Arts, and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Conflict Kitchen, Rubin’s collaborative seven-year work with artist Dawn Weleski, was named one of the 100 Artworks that “Defined the Decade” by Artnet News. His work has been reported on internationally by outlets including ARTnews, The New York Times, The Associated Press, Public Art Review, Art Papers, The Boston Globe, La Repubblica, Al Jazeera, BBC World News, NPR’s All Things Considered, and Colorado Public Radio. Rubin is a Professor in the School of Art at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA. An art school that is riddled with doubt is his first presentation at Catharine Clark Gallery where he will also be screening a video work in our media room opening November 11, 2023.
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