August 8, 2005

Tehama, a deserted stretch between 1st and 2nd streets in SOMA, seems an unlikely place to find an art gallery.

"People always think we're on Natoma, because that's where the Varnish Gallery is -- but it's TEHAMA!" enthuses Brian Moore, founder and director of the Pigman Gallery.

He is, shall we say, an excitable fellow. Cheering up an otherwise drab street with its bright red facade, Pigman radiates the same quirky glow of its director. Art is often paired with performance, making for delightfully bizarre, circus-like events. Past gallery attendants have found themselves greeted at the door by opera singers belting outthe Ave Maria, or lectured on the finer point of recycling by a seven year old enthusiast.

"It's a kind of theater," Moore says.

Playing art curator/ringmaster is a new role for Moore. Only a year earlier, he was known in the city as a local advertiser and graphic designer.

"I got real tired of the repetitiveness of it," he says. "I knew I needed a change."

Encouraged by his work with the Hunters Point Youth Foundation, Moore knew this change would have a socially conscious slant. A run-down warehouse on Tehama provided the outlet.

"I looked in the window," he says, "it wasn't like this at all, it was really dirty. Contacted the landlord and thought, 'I'd really like to do something here, why don't I just do a gallery?'"

For the first three months, Pigman floated aimlessly in the San Francisco art community, barely making a ripple. The gallery lacked direction: Moore had thrown himself fully into Pigman without even really knowing what "Pigman" was.

That is, until Sue Coe.

Moore had long admired Coe's work, but didn't think he had any chance of landing her.

"She's absolutely famous, and I'm just this little 'pigman'," he says.

He wrote an email to her gallery in New York, pleading the correspondence be forwarded along to Coe. She responded in less than an hour: "Why are you called 'Pigman'?" she had to know.

Moore explained how the name grew out of a long commitment to animal and human rights. The answer won him the artist.

Finally, there was a splash. Coe's activist-oriented art set the stage for one of the gallery's liveliest openings. Moore was impressed with the artists' willingness to debate with the audience. There was heated discussion all evening: "You couldn't even get to her!" he says.

This gave Moore a method of presenting artists by placing a heavy emphasis on their ability to talk about their work: "If there's nothing to say, I'm not at all interested," he insists.

This month check out Paper!Awesome! On exhibit through August 31, and featuring more than 150 artists from around the world, the exhibit pays tribute to those lungs of the earth: trees! Lively, free, and unpredictable, Pigman is a playful alternative where you can count on seeing something different.

Pigman Gallery
72 Tehama St, San Francisco
Gallery hours, M-F 11pm-5pm, Sat 12pm-4pm