Book & Job Gallery is located on one of the most soulful stretches of the Tenderloin. Within earshot of The Ha-Ra Club and across from Castle Apartments, 838 Geary is a treasured space for those looking for carefully curated exhibitions. For over 10 years the gallery has shown work from international artists and photographers just emerging on the scene. Carson Lancaster, the owner of the gallery, along with Adrian Martinez, Austin Leong, and Kyle Warren Smith have established a generous curatorial practice.
One way to understand the space is to view it in relation to a co-op. The artists that operate the gallery use the upstairs as a studio, and present the street level gallery to cultivate community.
The premise of the exhibition un/FAMILIAR which opened July 15th was to ask 25 photographers for one of their favorite photos.
It’s an exhibition that humanity can relate to. Those that ponder the past because they lived it, will find a forking treatise on the gaze. While not an explicit concept of the show, it makes one think of why young people should play with a polaroid, or instant camera.
Printed photographs used to be ubiquitous. Instead of scrolling on our phones looking for a shred of vulnerable intimacy, people born during or before the age of the ‘Kodak Moment’ saw the possibility to distill an aesthetic observation through a viewfinder. They used to keep prints in their wallets, lockers, and journals as carefully curated memories. Sometimes the photos developed strangely, sometimes there were ghosts, sometimes the unexpected and beautiful happened. The medium was valued in part because it was limited.
Photo submitted by Julie Casemore
It was through shooting images of our lives that we might encounter the uncanny, glimpse something unnerving and removed through the habitual and common. Cherished moments didn’t have a pre-meditated awareness of our entire social network assessing our appearance moments later. This exhibition points to being in the world as subjectively experiential, often tenderly, rather than posturing and drowning in a simulation.
Photo submitted by Michael Jang
This review isn’t a defense of a rosy past, but rather an identification of lasting impressions gathered through the ritual use of the photographic process. The success of the show is based on the clarity that the participants had in choosing what they considered a favored lasting impression.
The sincerity hits home.
Participants of un|FAMILIAR include: Nora Lalle, Lex Escobar, Lui Araki, Cait Molloy, Meg Roussos, Micah Landworth, Michael Jang, Nelson Chan, Julie Casemore, Alexander Goodwin, Shannon Mueller, Meghann Riepenhoff, Vanessa Woods, Benjamin Vilmain, Carson Lancaster, Ken Clanton, Austin Leong, Rachael Phillips, Adrian Martinez, Kyle Warren Smith, Natalie Ivis, Dane Pollok, Eric Ruby, Chris Veltri, and Alexis Gordon.
Contact Book & Job on their Instagram for an appointment if you’d like to see the show this week.
Photo submitted by Shannon Mueller
Photo book submitted by Alexis Gordon
In accord with the spirit of the gallery, next month will be a solo show by Anna Rotty. Poll Work was a four year project from 2016 - 2020 that Rotty developed as a Field Election Deputy in San Francisco. The body of work will include portraits of poll workers that helped facilitate voting in the Tenderloin.
