Rigo23 at the Luggage Store

May 11 - June 16, 2007

Backtracking 199485
new work by Rigo 23

large-scale mixed media drawings on canvas

Opening
Friday May 11, 6-8pm
@ the luggage store
1007 Market Street (nr 6th), San Francisco

Lecture/Discussion
Saturday, May 12, 3-6pm
with Rigo 23, Keith McHenry, Garth Ferguson, and other guests to be announced.

Gallery Hours
Wednesday-Saturday, 12-5pm and by appt.

It is with great pleasure and honor that we present “Backtracking 199485,” a solo exhibition by Rigo 23: new large scale mixed media drawings with text on canvas with handmade zines accompanying each new work. Rigo’s graphic imagery borrows stylistically from signage, advertising, cartoons, logos and newsprint photography.

San Francisco has always been regarded as a “safe haven” for social experimentation; and as a place where differences enriched rather than divided the socio-political landscape. San Francisco was a sanctuary town, which welcomed individuals fleeing from war and hunger. San Francisco welcomed people moving towards freedom of expression -- sexually, politically, socially, artistically and spiritually; and as Rigo says, who “…at least walked towards a better and more humane collective future.”

Posada Carriles's Predicted Impunity

On the 8th of May a U.S. federal court dropped the immigration charges against Posada Carriles. Jury selection was supposed to begin on Friday in the trial against the suspected bomber, but U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone blasted the prosecution for "fraud, deceit, and trickery" in the way it ran the case.

So far, Fidel has been publicly mum over the court’s decision. However, an article in official newspaper Granma bemoaned the “predicted impunity” of the court’s decision, and an official at the Cuban Interests Section in Washington accused the Bush administration of protecting Posada Carriles.

Amores Pesos

MACO (México Arte Contemporáneo), the new international contemporary art fair in Mexico City, took up residence last weekend in the fancy district of Lomas de Chapultepec, although no one seems to know why the site used for the fair’s first three incarnations was not chosen again. One rumor is that the original neighborhood was too poor and too close to the centro historico: Potential Mexican clients, who are, by default, rich and paranoid, were reportedly worried about their safety and felt ill at ease in the old location.