COLL.EO, A New American Dream, 2015
Writer Kimberly Chun has written a detailed preview of The Dissidents, The Displaced, and the Outliers, an upcoming exhibition at Random Parts in Oakland curated by Dorothy Santos featuring work by several Bay Area-based artists, including Eliza Barrios, Leslie Dreyer, Tom Loughlin, Elizabeth Travelsight, and COLL.EO. Titled "Left Ot In S.F.", the piece appareared on The San Francico Chronicle on April 29.
Below is an excerpt:
"How do you solve a puzzle like San Francisco — a city in flux, planted in a bedrock of Left Coast values and a shifting landfill of artisanal comestibles and messenger-bag boutiques?
Bay Area artists Colleen Flaherty and Matteo Bittanti — working, and playing, under the collaborative moniker of COLL.EO — are game to try. For “A New American Dream” and “City Blocks,” the collaborators turned images sourced from Google Street View of the homeless on San Francisco streets into picture-postcard-like prints and a child’s toy while reframing and pointing to the oft-seen-but-seldom-foregrounded sights of the city.
The views are further complicated as the pair turn the lens around with a self-mocking “artist statement,” stating, in persona, “I am giving visibility to invisible individuals and that makes me feel good. Look! These people camp on the sidewalk. They have tents and carts. They are a new metropolitan tribe. … All these images truly resonate with me and with my upbringing.” (Kimberly Chun, The San Francisco Chronicle, April 29, 2015)
The Dissidents, The Displaced, and the Outliers opens at Random Parts this Saturday, May 2 and will remain open until June 5th 2015. The reception is scheduled for Saturday, May 2 between 4 and 8 pm. A sister exhibition, also titled The Dissidents, The Displaced, and the Outliers, opens at Incline Gallery in San Francisco on May 16.
LINK: San Francisco Chronicle