September 11, 2002

By Glen Helfand

WHEN ANTICIPATING THE future, one cannot help thinking about the present. The very idea of an art "preview" plants seeds of what we can look forward to at this very moment. As Americans, we're predisposed to want it now – just because we can – regardless of the future implications or long-term side effects. Yet embedded in the idea of "getting it now" is a sense of spontaneity, the sense that we're participating in life as it's lived and culture as it's created.

Which is perhaps part of the appeal of the Bay Area Now exhibitions at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The third edition of this periodic regional survey – the first was in 1997, and the second was in 1999 (is it a biennial, triennial, or what?) – opens in October and hopefully will provide a window into the Bay Area art landscape, at least as seen by one particular group of curators. The exhibition will include 30 visual artists, plus a bunch more local performance artists and film- and videomakers. And the tantalizing word "Now" is right there in the title, focusing us on its specific regional location.

What more could we ask for? Well, as in most areas of culture, critics and audiences are looking to artists to start making visible the shifting attitudes in this age of anxiety. But can art really deliver? It's tough to make the work of dozens of artists fit into a cohesive statement or narrative, and the "BAN3" show's organizers acknowledge this, while identifying some kind of trend: "a majority of the works in Bay Area Now 3 are introspective in nature and are engaged in an examination of the everyday," they write. "Often the works deal with the intersection of routine life with larger political and social concerns – like other citizens, the artists of this time are reaching for something tangible to make sense of our radically altered world."

The "world" part is of interest, of course, but what about the Bay Area? Does such an exhibition accurately represent what's going on here? Our little burg and its tender art community have gone through their own radical alterations since the previous edition of this show. We, more than folks in other art towns, felt the full power of the virtual opulence as the tech bubble rose and the psychic bruises generated by its crash. Did new tech millionaires become major art collectors? Or did the cash surplus just raise our rents? As it peaked, the high cost of living definitely squeezed out too many artists. But as it falls, it's difficult to pinpoint what's happening, though it's clear something is happening.

It's becoming apparent in a new kind of art-world tone. New Langton Arts's annual "Bay Area Award Show," an exhibition meant to showcase promising local artists, was notably more limited than in years past and floated by without much fanfare, despite its decent presentation. There's a similar downgraded spirit these days at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, whose splashy, controversial director, David Ross (who presided over the museum's salad days), was replaced by a new director, Neal Benezra, who's been described in print as "balanced" and "measured." "I need to immerse myself in the culture and understand it before I do anything," he said in an equivocal San Francisco Chronicle profile.

Despite such atmospherics, I personally feel hopeful about the state of the Bay Area art scene, which looks vital, if transitional. New galleries are sprouting up around town like weeds – thanks to the dropping price of commercial real estate (see sidebar below). So many people lost their time-eating, overpaid tech jobs, and some have turned to more soul-satisfying art pursuits. At least I hope they have.

There's something exciting about the fact that there are a number of unknown names in "BAN3." What's disturbing, though, is the fact that few people whom I've polled about the tone and quality of the artists have seen the list, or even sought it out. To trot out the New York example, when the Whitney Biennial announces its artists, the papers and critics are all over the thing. According to Yerba Buena Center's publicist, the "BAN3" roster hasn't been published locally (see box above). And if it's not getting talked about here, you'd best believe the show's not getting talked about outside the county line, in national or international art publications. The question that floats to the surface is, Do we really want it to be?

As usual, the most active dialogue will take place informally. Certainly the art party chatter will buzz fiercely after the show's Oct. 26 opening. We'll have to wait until then to figure out how accurately the exhibition pegs our current Bay Area moment.

Of course, I wanna know now.