REDWOOD CITY, CA.- Alone, new, a site-specific, photo based installation by artist Frank Boban, is on view at The Art Kiosk from May 18-June 23, 2019.  The  Art Kiosk, a new and unique exhibition space curated by Fung Collaboratives, is bringing thought provoking artwork to Redwood City, CA and the San Francisco Bay Area. A ten month long exhibition program features artwork that is greatly undiscovered in this part of the Bay Area: Installation Art and Art in the Public Realm. Participating Art Kiosk artists range from emerging to establish and invited to come from the Bay Area and around the world to install their site-specific commissions. Each installation is ambitious, relevant to current times and the site, and embraces content to challenge the viewer. 

Boban’s installation transforms ART KIOSK into a giant camera obscura for viewers to walk into and experience real time city happenings and actions. The glass facades showcases four giant photographs of Redwood City locations and the surrounding area taken by Boban in 2019. Alone represents the internal need and at times struggle of finding identity, purpose, and place in an ever-changing world.  Boban’s work seeks to rid self-imposed sanctions, some of which are driven by the need to fit in, only to find that this painful paradox is uninhabitable. 

“The solution cannot be found outside but instead inside—the way out, is the way in. This discovery of “being” concludes with the understanding that “existence” is possible even in a world that appears, for the most part, upside down,”  said Frank Boban.

The camera obscura projects real time images of downtown Redwood City into the kiosk through the physics of light passing through rudimentary lens producing upside down images onto the viewing screen within. The kiosk literally becomes a giant camera where viewers can walk inside and reflect on their own personal journeys. The four large photographs of passageways and staircases evoke feelings of journey, searching, and the unknown—never knowing what is around the corner. In the entrance of the kiosk, an image of a draped window glows with hope and comforting providing a calm feeling that everything will be all right. The duality of this doorway image coincides as viewers step into the darkness with the idea that finding oneself doesn’t involve searching but rather internal self-reflection.

The ART KIOSK had its soft launch in January 2019 with an official unveiling of Seeking Life by Santa Fe based mother–daughter artist team Nora and Eliza Naranjo-Morse in February. The artists sculpted geese and hung them in a migratory pattern through colorful strands of festival decorations salvaged from the streets of Santa Fe creating a context for the birds. NJ based installation artist Kate Dodd created a veil like vortex that filled the space much as books fill our imagination. She partnered with the library to create four towers of books from which the content exploded and filled the space. Strategically scheduled to coincide Women’s History month, Incubator inspired girls and boys, women and men who marveled with the detailed hand laced paper installation. NYC painter/ sculptor Katharine Umsted brought traditional narrative painting in the form of four 8’ x 8’ collages. Long View was on view for the month of April. Each upcoming exhibition embraces singular styles, narratives and concepts inspired by Redwood City and have an amazing photogenic quality perfect for cell phone photo opportunities.