Griff On

When you grow up as the son of a charismatic Democratic congressman who loudly championed the arts during the worst of the anti-NEA fights, cynical logic would have it that you’d end up a kneejerk conservative appliance salesman. Thank goodness Griff Williams bucked that possibility. Instead, Williams, son of Representative Pat Williams (D-Montana), became an artist himself, graduating from the San Francisco Art Institute with an M.F.A. and promptly opening Gallery 16 in 1993 at the start of the dot-com vertigo. Well aware that government funding for art was growing ever scarcer, he partnered his gallery with a printmaking business, Urban Digital Color, creating what he describes as an “art version of listener-sponsored radio.” For the gallery’s 15th anniversary show, "These Are The People In Your Neighborhood," Williams showcases the experiment’s participants, some of whom have been in Whitney Biennial exhibitions and won SECA awards. You’ll see works from the likes of Lauren Davies, Ala Ebtekar, Amy Franceschini, Harrell Fletcher, Cliff Hengst, Lynn Hershman, Scott Hewicker, Tucker Nichols, and Margaret Kilgallen. Fifteen years is no small accomplishment for a gallery; celebrate the experiment’s success at an opening party with live music from Or, the Whale.
Tuesdays-Saturdays. Starts: Sept. 12. Continues through Nov. 7, 2008