Tales of the City

Populated with little narratives that are heavy with symbolism, Rocky McCorkle's large, hyperreal photographs hint at film stills and glossy ad pages. His solo exhibit "You And Me on a Sunny Day" continues his series of pictures depicting the life of an elderly couple. One shot, set in a San Francisco apartment lobby, features a group of people engaged in myriad small actions — two people emerge from an elevator, a figure wheels a bike out of the frame, a young man changes his shoes, an expectant old woman stands on the stairs before a similarly expectant dog. Outside, barely visible through a window, the blazing sun screams over the Presidio hills next to the Golden Gate. It could be a scene from a film — or a slick advertisement for any number of products that are placed just so. Another picture is shot from the inside of an apartment looking out a window. The foreground and background get equal billing, from the breakfast and bric-a-brac on the sill to the man smoking on the fire escape to the tall apartment buildings that rise like sentries above Russian Hill. It's a mysterious image, part Hitchcock and part 1950s Winston ad.
Oct. 6-27, 2007