Online Exhibition as the Landmark SF Installation Ends
View DEFENESTRATION at the Hugo Hotel building before take-down begins June 3rd!
Varnish Fine Art is proud to partner with Brian Goggin, finding permanent homes for DEFENESTRATION sculptures after they check out of the Hugo Hotel. This installation of original sculpture by Brian Goggin transformed a South of Market building into a renowned art site, and its preservation has been supported by the community, including generous donations by art luminary Banksy. Since Defenestration’s creation by Goggin 17 years ago with over 100 volunteers, San Francisco has delighted in the functioning Lamps, ringing Telephones, Leaping Tables, and Craning Clock to name a few of the 35 sculptures “thrown out the window” of DEFENESTRATION.
I have been caretaking Defenestration for seventeen years so of course I feel a strong, affectionate relationship with the artwork, and feel the loss, however, it has been a good run for a temporary installation. It is an urban project using local urban materials salvaged from the area, and changed over time by both weather and the methods I used to maintain and rebuild the work. Scaling the walls to work around the structure, restoring, and rebuilding the piece with my team for the last seventeen years has been a wonderful and mysterious experience where the local community consistently helped in my process to fabricate install and maintain the artwork. How often can something like this happen here in San Francisco? The artwork could withstand many more years if maintained. Defenestration has been a lively part of a creative public conversation with the world. I am very pleased we were able to experience the installation for the last seventeen years especially when I originally thought it might last only six months, now I am happy the artworks may find new homes with collectors as part of it’s migration from the hood.
– Brian Goggin (May 20, 2014)
These unique works of art must be removed before the Hugo Hotel is demolished, but the DEFENESTRATION Project will continue as new homes are found for each original sculpture. If you’d like to view these works in place, visit the building at 6th and Howard Streets soon!
To See and purchase the artwork
Contact Varnish to purchase artwork shown on their site Varnishfineart.com and to discuss the future of DEFENESTRATION, including potential new projects in cities abroad.
View DEFENESTRATION in person:
Hugo Hotel building
Southwest Corner of 6th and Howard St.
San Francisco, CA
Meet Varnish at their office by appointment:
Varnish Fine Art
16 Jessie Street, #C120
San Francisco, CA 94105
(415)433-4400
Article content from Varnish Fine Art.
Photographs by Cindy Casey of Art and Architecture SF who wrote this article Defenstration Building a year ago.