KALEID Gallery artist Michelle Waters is a selected participant in the upcoming group exhibit Auto-Manic curated by Peter Foucault.

Michelle is donating all funds from art sales for the next couple of months to International Bird Rescue & Research Center (http://www.ibrrc.org). The foremost experts in saving oiled wildlife and are currently in the Gulf cleaning birds. (They’ve been around since the 70’s and are the people who did bird rescue during and after the Cosco Busan spill; more recently they saved 400 brown pelicans in Southern California last winter.) Visit Michelle's website for available works (http://www.michellewatersart.com/) or purchase her works in person at KALEID Gallery.

Root Division presents Auto-Manic
Ever since the first interstate highways began carving a path through the urban landscape in the early 50s, California has been the epitome of American car culture. Nostalgic images of the warm summer sun reflecting off the chrome bullets on the ached tail fin of a steel behemoth have given way to technologically savvy hybrids that can tear up a track at 0-60 mph in less than four seconds, and are nearing 130 miles per gallon.

From Thunderbirds to Teslas, the freeways, side streets, beaches and parking lots of California have always been clogged to the saturation point with automobiles. These everyday objects have deeply imbedded themselves into the collective unconscious of artists working within this urban environment, and created a fertile trajectory for exploring the relationship between man and four wheeled machine.

At our current vantage point, within a deep and crippling economic recession, with CO2 emissions reaching an alarming level and gas prices teetering on the preposterous at times, we must re-evaluate our relationship with the beloved car. With the devastating fall of the big American Car Companies and the disappearance of such iconic brands as Pontiac, a dramatic new relationship is evolving between producer and consumer, pragmatist and dreamer.

As we speed off into a new era of travel, technology and environmental responsibility, the thirteen artists in Auto-Manic, from California and beyond, respond to the role of the automobile, and its alternatives, in art.

Curated by Peter Foucault

Featuring Live Performances by:
Kevin E. Taylor
M.A.P. (Mobile Arts Platform)

Opening Reception: Saturday, June 12 from 6 to 10
Outdoor BBQ starts at 6pm!
Suggested donation: $2 - $20

Exhibition dates: June 9th- 26th, 2010
Gallery hours: Wednesday - Saturday, 2-6 pm (or by appointment)

Root Division
3175 17th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415.863.7668
www.rootdivision.org