San Francisco's START SOMA To Host The Video Game Art Show

Start Soma | February 25, 2005 - San Francisco, CA. On Thursday, March 10, 2005, START SOMA, San Francisco's gallery for emerging artists and collectors, will host the opening of THE VIDEO GAME ART SHOW. Curated by START SOMA founder John Doffing, the exhibit will explore the iconic connections between video games and New Art. Featured artists include Mars-1, MISK, NoMe, Retna, Plasticfucker, David DeRosa, The Vinyl Killers, Tim Gaskin, Kelly Tunstall, Brad Isdrab, Aidan Hughes, Jimmy Soat, and Keith Haring's street-art partner, Eric Orr. In addition, the show will showcase video art, multimedia, projections, visuals, and 8-bit music from high-tech artists Stefan G., HEXASTATIC, and CHAOTRON.

Several dozen artists from around the world and over 100 pieces of NEW ART - all of it somehow connected to Video Games!

The FREE opening, which begins at the Blue Cube, San Francisco's newest club and event space, at 6 PM, marks START SOMA'S second anniversary. Since its inception the gallery has hosted several dozen shows in a wide range of spaces, including a downtown loft, a Mission-district warehouse, a turn-of-the-century boutique hotel, and San Francisco's City Hall. Solo shows have featured Tim Gaskin's neo-pop paintings and MISK's stylized graffiti art.

"THE VIDEO GAME ART SHOW is an homage to the thumb-muscle-building mechanisms that babysat us in the seventies and eighties" says Doffing. "All the artists in this show had a literal connection to video games -- so it's not surprising that old-school gaming iconography should show up in their art. In turn, they continue to re-invent the aesthetics that interactive designers look to as 'cutting edge.' The connections between NEW ART and video games cannot be overstated."

The March 10th opening event, which also coincides with the Game Developers Conference at San Francisco's Moscone Center, will feature a unique "Video Game Lounge," game displays and giveaways from Ubisoft, Plantronics, Senet Entertainment, Ultimate Game Chairs, Gravy Factory and Banshee Pads. Featured DJ's at the opening include Tom Thump, DJ Soulside, Chris Sia, NoMe, and Kelly Tunstall, along with very special LIVE performance from rapper WISE PROOF. The opening will also feature an appearance by the Suicide Girls.

"This is NOT your typical wine and cheese art show," says Doffing. "We have networked games. Wall projections. A gaming cinema. Superstar DJs and Rappers. We even have the Suicide Girls! Mix this with some amazing art - from painting and sculpture to NEW multimedia art and 8-bit music, and we have an art show that is pretty amazing. I am absolutely honored to be a small part of this, and am very pleased that we were able to put together an art show that coincides with the 2005 Game Developer's Conference."

"Video game iconography has seeped into every crack of pop culture" says San Francisco artist Tim Gaskin, whose Lara Croft painting will appear in the show. "Americans spend more money on video games than they do on movie tickets, and it is about time that the connections between video games and NEW ART are showcased."

START SOMA is an upstart art gallery in San Francisco with a unique focus on original art by emerging artists. Founded by high tech entrepreneur John Doffing in March 2003 as an antidote to "wine-and-cheese stuffiness" of the typical fancy art gallery, START SOMA provides an iconoclastic common ground for emerging artists and the people who love their work. www.startsoma.com

THE VIDEO GAME ART SHOW

MARCH 10, 2005 | 6 pm - 2 am

The Blue Cube | 34 Mason

SAN FRANCISCO