“Martin Machado: Fluid State” has opened at SFAI’s main gallery at their Fort Mason campus. It runs May 30 – August 19th with an opening reception and artist talk Friday, June 8th. It’s a massive overview of Martin’s career not to be missed.
Nearly 1.5 million metric tons of cargo passed through the Golden Gate in 2017. Much of this cargo arrived via container ships—massive vessels stacked high with multi-colored containers arriving from East Asia to drift under the Golden Gate and Bay Bridges and dock at the Ports of Oakland, Richmond, or Stockton. These ships and the containers they carry represent a vast web of global trade, one that is easy to disregard despite the incredible volume of marine traffic cruising just past the pilings of Pier 2 at SFAI’s Fort Mason Campus.
Martin Machado is a visual artist and alumnus of San Francisco Art Institute who has travelled the world on international commercial vessels as a merchant mariner. His work takes the form of drawings, paintings, and photographs that offer a window into this often-overlooked system of global commerce that underpins modern life. Cumulatively, the works in this exhibition illustrate Machado’s time at sea and his deep engagement with the people, places, and historical and cultural complexities of maritime exploration and trade. The exhibition’s title, Fluid State, alludes to the state of flux that defines both a life at sea and the shifting tides of global capitalism.
On view in SFAI—Fort Mason’s Main Gallery is a selection of drawings that appropriate and recontextualize 18th-century images from the history of maritime exploration, including the romantic primitivist drawings of John Webber, who documented Captain Cook’s third voyage around the Pacific. As the official artist on board during these voyages, Webber’s watercolors and sketches of the people and places encountered served a crucial marketing and fundraising purpose for future expeditions. As a result, these images consistently highlighted the drama and heroism of early explorers as well as the otherness of the subjects they encountered; artists such as Webber shaped the primary visual record of these early explorations through the lenses of colonialism and imperialism. Machado’s work resists this one-sided viewpoint espoused by early maritime explorers, illustrating instead the overlapping narratives and conflicting interests that define a contemporary experience of the world’s oceans.
Recent paintings are composed from the artist’s vantage point high above the colorful stacks of containers. The profile of Oahu’s Diamond Head emerges from the horizon, moonlight reflects on the waves far below, and a container ship drifts past in the distance. These works are based on scenes in Qingdao, China; Laem Chabang, Thailand; Honolulu, Hawaii; and in transit on the Red Sea. Other paintings and drawings are portraits of Machado’s fellow merchant mariners, including Phil, Angel, and Earl, all “Able Bodied sailors” by rank. Still more depict unnamed shipyard workers who agreed to a portrait session for a hand-rolled cigarette, yet another form of exchange.
In several other works on view—The Albatross and the Shipping Container, at the entrance to the pier, and Flotsam and Jetsam, two sculptures in the center of the space—containers from commercial ships have escaped their regimented place in the global supply chain and are adrift on the open ocean. They float alone in the sea unwitnessed or have run aground beneath a palm. In the drawing Wayfarers and Fairway’ers, the containers are repurposed as a stage for historical representation and reenactment, in which early-19th century Hawaiian officers pose with well-heeled golfers and surfers ride containers into shore.
All together, Machado’s work reminds us that history is not a final statement, but a subjective and contested narrative.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Martin Machado is a visual artist based out of San Francisco, CA. His artwork is partially influenced by his experience with maritime labor, spending portions of his year working on international containerships and commercial fishing vessels. These voyages and the crew he works with have become intertwined with the narrative of his artworks.
Machado has exhibited internationally and select exhibitions include Festival Teatro Container, Valparaiso, Chile; Italian American Museum, San Francisco; The Santa Cruz Museum of Art and History, Santa Cruz, CA; Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; and Museo Diego Rivera Anahuacalli, Mexico City, Mexico. His work has been featured in The New York Times Magazine, Juxtapoz, and New American Paintings. Machado earned his MFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 2007.
Martin Machado: Fluid State is curated by Katie Hood Morgan, Curator of Exhibitions and Public Programs, and organized with Christopher Squier, Exhibitions and Public Programs Coordinator. San Francisco Art Institute would like to thank the artist, K. Imperial Fine Art, San Francisco, and Cordesa Fine Art, Los Angeles.
SFAI’s Exhibitions and Public Programs are made possible by the generosity of donors and sponsors. This exhibition is supported by Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture and Meyer Sound. Major support is provided by Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund. Program support is provided by the Harker Fund of The San Francisco Foundation, Institute of Museums and Library Services, Grants for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Creative Work Fund, Elizabeth Firestone Graham Foundation, The Robert Lehman Foundation, and Fort Point Beer Company. Ongoing support is provided by the McBean Distinguished Lecture and Residency Fund, The Buck Fund, and the Visiting Artist Fund of the SFAI Endowment.
GALLERY HOURS
Main Gallery, SFAI—Fort Mason Campus
Wednesday–Sunday 11am–7pm (Closed Mondays and Tuesdays)
