100ft WHALE - opening reception

Fri, Sep 9
6pm to 9 pm
FREE

100 Ft. Whale

New work by Sarah Applebaum, Alex Clausen, Sherry Koyama, Julia
Petho, and Allen Stickel

September 2 - September 24, 2005
Gallery hours: Wednesday 5 to 7 pm, Saturday/Sunday 12 to 5 pm, or by
appointment

"Whereas, as we have already seen, that the tape-measure gives
seventy-two feet for the skeleton of a large sized modern whale. And
I have heard, on whalemen's authority, that Sperm Whales have been
captured near a hundred feet long at the time of capture."1

"What the white whale was to Ahab, has been hinted; what, at times,
he was to me, as yet remains unsaid."2

Though inspired by Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick, 100 Ft. Whale
is not a show about whales, nor whaling, nor Moby Dick himself. It is
a show not about what Moby Dick was to Ahab, but what the white whale
is to the rest of us.

For Ahab, the extraordinary size of Moby Dick was an inextricable
part of his desire to conquer his elusive white whale. Removed from
the context of Moby Dick, this connection between size and the desire
to conquer is no less inextricable. As children we try to conquer the
idea of time by counting to 100, thinking a number as large as 100
must surely represent hours, not seconds. We can try to conquer the
idea of distance with 100 feet of string stretched around a
classroom, but still can't quite picture what that 100 foot whale
would look like. As adults we learn to quantify love (3 months, 2
weeks), life (28), friendship (57 guests on the evite), death (how
many children will I leave behind?), and even ourselves (SWF 5'5" 113).

Through painting, drawing, photography, and sculpture, the artists in
100 Ft. Whale examine this elusive relationship -- between nuance and
numbers, qualified and quantified, desire and digits -- in search of
the 100 foot whale and all that as yet remains unsaid.

1 Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1999.
p. 487

2 Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 1999.
p. 197

Venue:

Michelle O'Connor Gallery
2111 Mission Street
San Francisco

Michelle O'Connor gallery is located on the second floor, next to
Thrift Town.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=2111+Mission+Street+san
+francisco&spn=0.032810,0.060176&hl=en

Additional Info:

510-759-4516
www.sherrykoyama.com