GEORGE HERMS

Following in her Grandfather’s footsteps, Granddaughter Myranda Gillies seeks the extraordinary in the ordinary. Exploring the streets and bodegas near her Brooklyn home, Gillies sources both man-made and natural fibers along with strands of plant life. Pineapple fronds, lemon grass, sugar cane, plastic mono-filiment and commercially dyed fibers all find their way to her loom. Beyond the plastic mono-filiment and commercial fibers, the natural elements are all cultivated and imported from faraway lands, sourced to satisfy a community that hungers for a taste of home.

Through gallery ephemera and more than 40 works by 10 artists, the exhibition documents the activities and artistic production of the Rat Bastard Protective Association (RBPA), an inflammatory, close-knit community of artists and poets who lived and worked together in a building they dubbed “Painterland" in the Fillmore neighborhood of mid-century San Francisco. The idiosyncratic group included Wallace Berman, Bob Branaman, Joan Brown, Bruce Conner, Jean Conner, Jay DeFeo, George Herms, Wally Hedrick, Manuel Neri, and Michael McClure, among other, less constant members.

George Herms emerged in the Sixties as a primary figure of the California assemblage movement, a movement which at its heart sought to unify art with life. In a rejection of precious or traditional art making materials and rigid compositions, Herms wove a new world order redeeming civilization’s refuse with a fresh eye and poet’s touch. This exhibition continues the mission in both two and three dimensions.