Martin Venezky: Every Corner Vibrates Like Art

After 47 years, the SFAC Gallery is ending its programming at 155 Grove Street in order to focus all our resources on the new SFAC Main Gallery in the Veterans Building. The final installation is Every Corner Vibrates Like Art by Martin Venezky. Venezky is a world-renowned, Bay Area-based graphic designer, and for the past few years he has been producing murals and fine art prints generated from elaborate photo-collages.

Venezky’s installation consists of hundreds of unique photographs pinned to a vertical structure placed close to each one of Grove Street’s four storefront windows. This photo-mural, which will stay in place until further notice, is fantastically complicated and eye-catching, and gives passersby the chance to discover new forms and pattern-rhythms over and over again. Venezky says, “It's a pleasure to see my work intersect with the city's urban fabric. Watching pedestrians slow down, stop and inspect a detail, even for a moment, is so satisfying.”

The images in the photographs were captured in the surrounding neighborhood and inside the building. Venezky spent time considering the history of the building and its place in the Civic Center. The SFAC Gallery opened, as Capricorn Asunder Gallery, in 1970, and programmed continuously until the City declared the building unsafe for public gathering in 1994. In 1996, the SFAC Gallery opened in a temporary space in the Veterans Building, and then opened its new Main Gallery in 2016. Window installations began at Grove Street in 1996 and quickly became an incredibly visible forum for site-specific sculpture and installation. Venezky’s installation brings our occupation of Grove Street to a close, but we’ll continue to celebrate local artists and drive culture forward through our exhibitions and public programs at the Main Gallery and City Hall.