Remember that age-old question: Is advertising art? The two have a strained relationship and San Francisco has never been immune to the tug-of-war between expression and capitalism. Now try to remember a music festival called Wild West in Golden Gate Park during late 1960s. You probably can't because it never happened. (The show was canceled due to major disputes over admission price and funding. This idea that art couldn't survive without monetary help only brought further conflict between artists and advertisers.) In Steven Wolf Fine Arts newest group show, What Keeps Mankind Alive, Anthony Discenza and Jacqueline Gordon use typical advertising graphics and characteristics in the way of murals and installations, to create pieces that go on to provoke the conversation between the two sides. These pieces are displayed next to found art — such as the poster for Wild West — in an attempt to examine the balance between art and capitalism.
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