By JUDITH JOFFE-BLOCK
Mission Local talked to Brion Nuda Rosch as he prepared for The Portable Ice Cream Stand’s first open hours, held on September 18.
Can ice cream socials finance art? Probably not, but the question and the process of discovering the answer, said local artist Brion Nuda Rosch, is the impetus behind his new exhibit, The Portable Ice Cream Stand.
Now until October 11, Rosch will be redecorating the front room of Southern Exposure’s gallery in a high concept show that centers around a wooden stand containing a freezer full of a local favorite–Mitchell’s ice cream.
The large windows in the front of the gallery make it easy for those walking on 14th Street to peer in, and Rosch hopes they will see the stand, enter and make a donation in exchange for some ice cream.
“Right now the portable ice cream stand represents for me that bake sale when your child’s school needs to raise more money for a basketball hoop,” he said from Southern Exposure on the eve of the exhibit’s September 18th soft opening. “With the common appreciation of ice cream I am hoping to diversify those who might come into an art space.”
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The 32-year-old Rosch has constructed temporary ice cream stands for mini-fundraisers, but has never made one the center of an ongoing art show before. Since he will constantly change the gallery’s design, the artist hopes visitors will stop by to witness the changes during open hours, which will be held every Thursday through Saturday from noon to six until the exhibit’s close.
“What I am encouraging is for them to see what occurs over a month,” he said, acknowledging that the changes will be subtle—moving small objects to different positions around the room and inside a fort he has built for children to play in.
It’s a process he tried over the summer at Project 7 in Berkeley. He described that show as “simply a movement of objects through the room, there was never really a beginning or an end to any of the pieces.”
He describes this one as going “from a starting point of a pretty barren room to a rearranged barren room.”
The point of both, he says, is the process.
The objects he moves, he said, are unfinished pieces of art. Most are scraps of wood that he found in his studio and painted again and again, changing their shape and texture. Some are geometric units comprised of smaller shapes glued together, their edges smoothed by coats of gray paint, while others are narrow, gray wooden strips in varying sizes. Disks of dried paint in various colors that unintentionally resemble scoops of ice cream also decorate the room.
“Why am I drawn to this block of wood?” Rosch asked, holding up a black painted square. “I could find any other block of wood, but there is something about this one coated in layers and layers of paint. That is the ephemera I carry with me from project to project.”
Lured by the local music scene and an ex-girlfriend, Rosch moved to San Francisco from Phoenix 10 years ago. Since relocating to the Mission in 2002, he has been active in the neighborhood art scene, both as a curator and an artist.
His resume reads like a tour of Mission art venues. He curated the now-closed Mimi Barr Gallery Space from 2003-2005, participated in the Clarion Alley Mural Project in 2005, and worked with a collective known as The Folks to curate art at the Adobe Bookshop on 16th street.
He even opened his own Mission gallery—the Hallway Bathroom Gallery–housed in his South Van Ness Street apartment.
Maysoun Wazwaz, 31, the exhibitions program manager for Southern Exposure, said Rosch’s initiative and unconventional ideas made him an attractive candidate for the gallery’s residency program. He will be the first of three artists in residence this fall.
“We work with artists who are doing things out of the ordinary,” said Wazwaz. “We say, its okay if your work doesn’t sell, we still value the work that you do.”
Open hours at the Portable Ice Cream Stand are from 12pm to 6pm on Thursdays-Saturdays through October 11th at Southern Exposure, 417 14th Street.