Silence-Sound-Action-( )
Social Botany in San Francisco’s 2nd Research Presentation, Featuring Francis Wong 

Opening Reception: Thursday, October 20, 5-7pm
Gallery Hours: Wed - Sat, 11am-4pm, or by appointment
Installation on view Thursday, 20 OCTOBER, 2016 – Wednesday, 2 NOVEMBER, 2016

“We are not as concerned with selling our music in physical forms, like CDs, or even as MP3s, we are more concerned with increasing the symbolic value of our works, as a means to create both economic and artistic opportunity in an overall sense.” -- Francis Wong

"'Politicians’ revolutions and artists’ revolutions are both selfish, only a community activist’s revolution can be selfless. However, once we face this reality and dig into the true meaning of revolutions, “emptiness” will emerge, since community work is rewardless, it is a kind of ‘subsistence farming,’ an agelong cultivation for survival.” -- Xu Tan

Social Botany in San Francisco is artist Xu Tan’s unique artistic experiment that negotiates the relations between local communities and contemporary art as well as examines how knowledge production relates to and can be transformed into visual art practice. During the project, Xu Tan investigates Chinese Americans with three shared identities: community workers, social activists, and artists. At 41 Ross -- a unique community and art space in San Francisco Chinatown’s historic Ross Alley -- Xu Tan’s series of collaborative research with the arts-activists and curator culminates in presentations of videos, images, and documented conversations.

The current research presentation of Social Botany, Silence-Sound-Action-( ), turns 41 Ross into a public research lab, which encourages the audience to participate in an ongoing study of the art and social practices of Francis Wong, called one of “the great saxophonists of his generation” by the late jazz critic Phil Elwood. Wong refers to “Silence-Sound-Action” as the sequence in a cyclical artistic and social process. The open-ended nature of this pursuit and its possibilities are represented by the open parentheses. Accompanying the lab, the research presentation features Wong’s jazz performance documentaries, his persuasive writings and stories about music and politics, Xu Tan’s analysis videos about Wong, as well as commissioned wall paintings by invited artist, Kunlin He.

More info: http://www.c-c-c.org/social-botany-in-san-francisco-xu-tan/ 
Event cover graphic design: Yisha Dai