Siliconversing

To: Retort
From: DW

Documents: Silicon Valley

Two Discussions

Gabriele Basilico, artist
&
Sandra S. Phillips, senior curator of photography, SFMOMA

Fred Turner, Stanford University
&
Richard Walker, UC Berkeley

January 26, 2008, Saturday 3:00 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA

Proceeding from what the artist calls a “slow-paced gaze,” Basilico’s work most often focuses on cities, notably those in states of construction or decay. The subject of his latest photographic project is Silicon Valley. This program features two conversations. In the first, Basilico is joined by Phillips for a discussion of his artistic approach. In the second, Turner, author of From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism, and Walker, author of The Country in the City: The Greening of the San Francisco Bay Area, address the region’s landscape, built environment, and social history.

January 26 - June 15, 2008 

Italian photographer Gabriele Basilico creates beautiful, often haunting portraits of urban environments that favor areas of transition and transformation. His pictures are marked by an eerie stillness — and a notable absence of people — that propels architecture and landscape to the forefront and turns the viewer’s attention to frequently overlooked places. This exhibition presents a series of nearly 50 black-and-white and color photographs taken by Basilico at the invitation of SFMOMA during a monthlong residency in the Bay Area last summer. Chronicling the impact of the technology boom on the region, this exhibition will be the first of an ongoing project focused on Silicon Valley, in which artists will document the area on film. Basilico’s objective style and affinity for observing marginalized urban settings in a classical mode promises a compelling counterpoint to future installments in the project.