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Lyon's Den

When I first arrived at the Modernbook Gallery I was disappointed. The fourth floor of 49 Geary St. had initially stunned me. As I walked out of the elevator and down to the end of the hall, I was passing multiple galleries filled with graffiti collages, bronze baby sculptures, and Richard Avedon prints. As I finally got to the open doors of the “San Francisco Then” exhibit, I was already coming-down off of my art buzz--the previous glimpses of the other shows had provided enough excitement for me to be satisfied. I arrived with a feeling of disenchantment; the framed, well-ordered black-and-whites somehow didn’t measure up to the taxidermic infants and color fields of Barry McGee. Nevertheless, I entered Fred Lyon’s new-but-old gallery with a sense of respect and inquiry.

To be honest, I was bored at first. It was neat, organized, and lacked any sort of creative media that the previous galleries had (i.e. music and color). The orderly ambience of the small room set my overall mood. Even the one man who worked there was boring. Mr. Lyon did not make a good first impression; but I gave him one last chance. I was determined to inspect every picture that was hung on the wall; if the prints were not interesting at least, then Fred will have truly lost me.

As I went up and down the aptly painted walls (white), I first looked at the pictures from afar, then closer, catching every detail. The beginning were the five larger prints; they seemed to be the everyday attractions that San Francisco had, and still has, to offer: a cable car thrill ride, hills and towers, a seagull over the Golden Gate Bridge, and again the Golden Gate Bridge by itself. The titles for the pictures continued with Lyon’s prevailing struggle with creativity--the cable car thrill ride was named “Cable Car Thrill Ride,” the hills and towers were named “Hills and Towers,” and so forth. Yet, something was still pushing me to continue on with the other images. Maybe it was Marta, my emphatic teacher who planned the trip, who was throwing every new discovery of the exhibit into the room; perhaps it was the desire to find one image that would make the trip worthwhile, or maybe it was just my morning double espresso that kept me going--either way, I was determined to find something.

So I ventured on to the other side of the room--a more personal side with smaller images with more people than landmarks. This is where most people were; it was a side that held more history. The pictures consisted of a conventional San Francisco image; fog, bridges, cable cars, street signs all alluded to the typical San Franciscan-city lifestyle. Lyon’s theme of old meeting new was omnipresent. Whether it be the pleasant top to bottom juxtaposition of adolescent boys climbing a fence with aging men playing dominoes or with Lyon’s gallery itself, the theme was held thoroughly throughout the exhibit. He continues an intimate character study with a wall filled with eight pictures stacked carefully above and beside each other, all evoking a working man feel: a fisher with his son, a parking enforcer, a teenage boy racing a homemade go-cart, a sailor on leave at Fisherman’s Wharf, etc. With each picture, San Francisco’s story deepens; the history of the city is embraced by the monuments and the people who made them, all captured by Lyon.

Every picture in the exhibit ranges from the year 1946 to 1953. Lyon was said to have chosen this era because “it was shot in black and white and, most important, because it was organized and boxed and labeled.” This was where I started to learn the meaning behind the gallery’s atmosphere--form was following function as Lyon imitated his picture’s moods within the place they were being displayed. I began to realize that this wasn’t a man of the twenty-first century; he was an octogenarian who had just opened his first gallery featuring pictures that were sixty years late. That was where I grasped the meaning of this exhibit: it was different and eye-opening. It wasn’t meant to be compared to anything being done now because, obviously, it wasn’t being made now. I had been looking at these images from a completely different angle; instead of trying to find something new, I should have been looking at the past.

A new mind was being wrought as I walked out of that gallery. Sure I went back into the other galleries by contemporary and edgy artists, but I went back holding onto the sense of history that Lyon’s distilled in his “San Francisco Then” exhibit, and I’m pretty sure that was his intention.

San Francisco Then: Fred Lyon's photographs from the 1940s and '50s. Through Aug. 28. Modernbook Gallery, 49 Geary St., S.F. (415) 732-0300. www.modernbook.com.

LA Ladey

Alex Prager, a 31-year-old Los Angeleno, is none too shy when it comes to representing her hometown. The West Coast based photographer, whose wildly playful exhibits have landed her recognition from The Daily Beast, Nylon, Elle, and The New York Times (twice), has completed her trilogy of photographs back in January with the opening of “Week End.” She now, however, has a new title that she is ‘repping’ L.A. with: director. Her latest venture--a rough 4-minute short film featuring Twilight Saga star Bryce Dallas Howard--coincides with her ubiquitous theme of cinematic 50s/60s inspired leading ladies. Her themes have become largely recognized as an overall reference to Los Angeles culture: beautiful and flirty on the outside, disastrous and miserable within. Prager’s woman--enveloped in false eyelashes, Mad Men attire, and cigarette smoke--often portray a world of enigma and vulnerability. The Los Angeles fantasy-world Prager creates in her subjects seem to consistently allude to a type of insane mystery that only a Hitchcock directed Pierrot Le Fou could inspire. Whatever she lacks in her fragmentary motif, Prager neutralizes with a strong loyalty to Los Angeles.

You can see Prager’s work at www.alexprager.com.