San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
CHARLES DESMARAIS’ ART PICKS
Taravat Talepasand: “Yeki Bood, Yeki Nabood, Once Was, Once Wasn’t”: “Westoxicated” is the title of a photo-realistic selfportrait that commands this small gallery in the Minnesota Street Project. It is a key to the artist’s embrace of pleasure as a metaphor for self-determination. Ends Saturday, June 30. Free. Jack Fischer Gallery, 1275 Minnesota St., S.F. 415-522-1178. www.jackfischergallery.com
“René Magritte: The Fifth Season”:
A well-chosen, carefully researched, beautifully designed reconsideration of a beloved artist whose enigmatic works taught us, as beginners, to look more deeply. Through Oct. 28. $27$35; ages 18 and younger free. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, 151 Third St., S.F. 415-3574000. www.sfmoma.org
“Cult of the Machine: Precisionism and American Art”: This large exhibition gets a bit repetitive, with picture after picture of mechanical forms seen close up, at skewed angles. Yet there is no denying the visceral charge one still gets from the most invigorating of these images, or the continuing influence of the era (1910-50) on design, architecture and art. Through Aug. 12. $13$28. De Young Museum, Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, S.F. (415) 750-3600. http://deyoung.famsf.org
“Ragnar Kjartansson: Scenes From Western Culture”:
Those who wandered, mesmerized, through Ragnar Kjartansson’s nine-screen video installation “The Visitors” at SFMOMA last year will want more from this quite different 2015 effort than it delivers. But if not every work by an artist can be a masterpiece, this strong follow-up is rewarding on its own terms. Through Sept. 1. Free. McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, 1150 25th St., Building B, S.F. 415-580-7605. www.mcevoy arts.org
“Channel 3: Marilyn Minter”:
Minter’s is an unsubtle art that preaches to the choir. Yet its brazen feminism reclaims for the artist, and perhaps for women in general, the power to name their own terms. Through July 7. Free. Ratio 3, 2831A Mission St., S.F. 415821-3371. www.ratio3.org