FOG Design+Art

January 22 – 26, 2025
Booth 117

Fort Mason Center, Pier 3
San Francisco, CA

(San Francisco, CA) – Venus Over Manhattan is pleased to announce its inaugural participation at FOG Design+Art, showcasing a focused selection of both historic and contemporary works byPeter Saul, Joan Brown, and  Richard Mayhew, complemented by pieces from Brad Kahlhamer, Sally Gabori, and John Pule. Celebrating the Bay Area’s creative heritage, our presentation spotlights major works that foreground personal histories and richly varied aesthetics, reinforcing the vital role this legacy plays to many of the gallery’s artists.

A major highlight of the presentation is San Francisco Earthquake (2024) by Peter Saul, a riotous new painting that captures the artist’s irreverent, Day-Glo interpretation of his hometown. The Transamerica Pyramid, Coit Tower, and the Golden Gate Bridge convulse in vivid color, a nod to the city’s 1906 earthquake and a continuation of Saul’s lauded San Francisco series—another of which is held by The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Also on view is Joan Brown’s A New Age: The Bolti Fish (1984)—showcased in her recent retrospective at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art— a monumental self-portrait that situates the artist inside the jaws of a mythic fish, bridging her longstanding fascination with spiritual imagery and her bold, iconographic style. Richard Mayhew, who passed away at age 100 in September 2024, is celebrated here with a luminous painting and several watercolors that highlight his remarkable mastery of hue and atmosphere—work that resonates with his African American and Native American heritage, weaving themes of identity, memory, and reverence for the land.

Reflecting the Bay Area’s legacy of innovation and cross-cultural exchange, the booth also features profoundly evocative works by Mirdidingkingathi Juwarnda Sally Gabori, Brad Kahlhamer, and John Pule. Gabori’s Dibirdibi Country (2010) transforms recollections of her ancestral Bentinck Island into a bold, gestural map of personal and cultural memory. Kahlhamer’s Survival Chandelier KC (2018) reimagines the chandelier’s ostentation through raw wire and bells, engaging themes of displacement, power, and Native American identity. And in This way to reach the blue of the land (2024), Pule merges Niuean traditions with contemporary painting techniques, invoking the lush island terrain through cascading oil, varnish, and ink.

Taken together, these works underscore Venus Over Manhattan’s continuing commitment to placing iconic historical voices in dialogue with leading contemporary practitioners. The presentation reveals how each artist’s unique perspective converges in an exploration of place, heritage, and the luminous possibilities of material. From Saul’s brazen reconfiguration of San Francisco’s cityscape to Mayhew’s saturated “mindscapes,” the gallery’s FOG Design+Art debut affirms the abiding significance of the Bay Area as a catalyst for reinvention and cross-cultural artistic production.
 

ABOUT VENUS OVER MANHATTAN

Venus Over Manhattan is dedicated to illuminating the work of a diverse range of historical and contemporary artists through dynamic rotating exhibitions and scholarly publications. Since it was founded by Adam Lindemann in 2012, the gallery has been responsible for revitalizing and establishing commercial, scholarly, and public interest for artists such as Peter Saul, Richard Mayhew, and Joan Brown. Venus Over Manhattan operates from Great Jones Street in New York City, and its distinct exhibitions program, which has recently featured works by Claude Lawrence, Peter Saul, Richard Mayhew, Chéri Samba, Keiichi Tanaami, and Joan Brown, attracts a broad spectrum of collectors, curators, writers, and arts enthusiasts. As art world trends continue to shift, Venus Over Manhattan remains steadfast in its focus on the discovery of artists across generations, geographies, and cultures and to expanding the depth of artists celebrated across global institutions, by audiences, and within the art market.
 

For additional information about the presentation and availability, please contact the gallery at info@venusovermanhattan.com