Eight bridges connect the San Francisco Bay, so it is an apt name for a gallery platform that brings the Bay Area art world together.

Our mission is to maintain a vibrant gallery scene, despite restrictions on travel, celebrations and other larger gatherings. We want to support our artists by informing and entertaining curators, collectors and critics with potent online exhibitions of their work.

On the first Thursday of every month, we will launch 8 shows of artists relevant to the Bay Area. They may be working in this place, long considered an epicenter of change, or deeply engaged in the conversations the Bay Area holds dear, whether it’s related to technology, the environment, social justice or sexual identity, to name a few. In addition, each month will highlight the crucial work of a Bay Area non-profit arts organization.

Founding Committee

Claudia Altman-Siegel, Kelly Huang, Sophia Kinell, Micki Meng, Daphne Palmer, Ratio 3, Sarah Wendell Sherrill, Jessica Silverman, and Elizabeth Sullivan

Ambassador Committee

Sayre Batton & Maja Thomas, Joachim & Nancy Bechtle, Matt Bernstein, Sabrina Buell, Wayee Chu & Ethan Beard, Natasha Boas, Douglas Durkin, Carla Emil, Matt & Jessica Farron, Lauren Ford, Ali Gass, Stanlee Gatti, Brook Hartzell & Tad Freese, Pamela & David Hornik, Katie & Matt Paige, Putter Pence, Becca Prowda & Daniel Lurie, Deborah Rappaport, Komal Shah & Gaurav Garg, Laura Sweeney, The Battery, Robin Wright, Sonya Yu & Zack Lara

Sponsors

Lobus, The Space Program

P.P.O.W
Dinh Q. Le

For Asian-American and Pacific Islanders Heritage month, P.P.O.W. is pleased to present photo-weavings and films by Dinh Q. Lê (b. 1968) that confront the history of the Vietnam War. Lê uses photography and film as technologies for image making and apparatuses for distributing ideological narratives. The range of techniques he employs expands the categories of photographs and film to reveal the failings of individual memory and collective perceptions.

In Of Memory and History, a 2003 exchange with Moira Roth, Lê writes “From Vietnam to Hollywood is drawn from the merging of my personal memories, media-influenced memories, and Hollywood-fabricated memories to create a surreal landscape memory that is neither fact nor fiction. At the same time I want the series to talk about the struggle for control of meanings and memories of the Vietnam War between these three different sources of memories.”

Lê has exhibited at the 2013 Carnegie International at the Carnegie Museum of Art, PA and documenta 13, Kassel, Germany in 2012. His work has been exhibited at the Museum of Modern Art, NY; Carnegie Museum, PA; MoMA PS1, NY; The Museum of Fine Arts, TX; Mori Art Museum, Tokyo; and the Asia Society, NY, among many others. Dinh Q. Lê: True Journey Is Return, a retrospective with a recently published full-color catalog, was recently on view at the San Jose Museum of Art. Lê is a co-founder of the nonprofit organization Sàn Art. Lê lives and works in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

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From Father to Son: A Rite of Passage, 2007
Two channel/single channel video
Duration: 10 minutes
Edition of 10

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From Father to Son: A Rite of Passage, 2007
Two channel/single channel video
Duration: 10 minutes
Edition of 10

In From Father to Son: A Rite of Passage, Lê takes film footage of two iconic Hollywood movies about the Vietnam War, “Platoon” and “Apocalypse Now,” and re-edits the two films, blurring what is fact and what is fiction. This video depicts Charlie Sheen’s character witnessing his father, Martin Sheen’s character, suffering from post traumatic stress disorder. The younger Sheen in turn enlists in the same war and becomes the same person as his father, perpetuating a never ending cycle of violence and trauma.
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South China Sea Pishkun, 2009
Digital animation video
Duration: 6:30 minutes

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South China Sea Pishkun, 2009
Digital animation video
Duration: 6:30 minutes

South China Sea Pishkun is is based on an historic event that took place on April 30th, 1975. The North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong were marching towards Saigon and other cities in South Vietnam, while the Southern Vietnamese Army, American military, and U.S. diplomatic personnel were trying desperately to escape. Hundreds of U.S. helicopters were fleeing in panic toward the South China Sea, searching for U.S. Army aircraft carriers to land on. Many eventually crash-landed in the sea when they ran out of fuel and hundreds of helicopters that did reach the aircraft carriers found themselves stranded, hovering in the air, because the carriers were full. Eventually an unknown number of helicopters were pushed into the South China Sea to make room for others to land. “Pishkun” is a Blackfeet Native American term referring to the site where they used to kill roaming bison by driving them to a panic, and then running them over a cliff. South China Sea Pishkun shows these powerful machines that reined terror over Vietnam for so long in their last moments, crashing, struggling, flailing, sinking, and dying in the sea.

The Characters, 2002
C-print and linen tape, framed
33 x 67 1/2 inches

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The Characters, 2002
C-print and linen tape, framed
33 x 67 1/2 inches

In his series From Vietnam to Hollywood, Lê meshes stills from well known Hollywood films about the Vietnam War with found images of unidentified Vietnamese people from that time. The resulting work poses a dense and dazzling visual energy that, according to Art Historian Lucy Lippard, “weaves multiple strands of identity and experience, history and memory, mythology and reality, conflict and resolution. In a uniquely disciplined collage form, he illuminates the complex interactions of his two homelands—Vietnam and the United States. Apparent contradictions are transformed into visual ebb and flow, cultural give and take.”

Untitled from Vietnam to Hollywood (paratroopers), 2005
C-print and linen tape
38 x 72 inches

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Untitled from Vietnam to Hollywood (paratroopers), 2005
C-print and linen tape
38 x 72 inches

In his series From Vietnam to Hollywood, Lê meshes stills from well known Hollywood films about the Vietnam War with found images of unidentified Vietnamese people from that time. The resulting work poses a dense and dazzling visual energy that, according to Art Historian Lucy Lippard, “weaves multiple strands of identity and experience, history and memory, mythology and reality, conflict and resolution. In a uniquely disciplined collage form, he illuminates the complex interactions of his two homelands—Vietnam and the United States. Apparent contradictions are transformed into visual ebb and flow, cultural give and take.”
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