Artlog

MISSION 17 is a gallery that primarily exhibits and supports the work of artists from the San Francisco Bay Area, with particular emphasis on experimental art forms, and the possibilities they present for social and psychological reflection. We are also interested in the aesthetics of everyday life, and include in our programming exhibitions of amatuer and otherwise “extra-artistic” phenomena.

Director/Curator, Clark Buckner holds a PhD in Philosophy from Vanderbilt University. Along with working at MISSION 17, he teaches both graduate and undergraduate courses on video, contemporary art, and critical theory at The San Francisco Art Institute. Previously he taught as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Philosophy Department at Mills College. He has published articles on contemporary art and critical theory in both popular and academic journals, including Art Review (UK),The San Francisco Bay Guardian, and The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism. In 2005, he co-edited a volume of essays on problems in Continental Philosophy, titled Styles of Piety: Practicing Philosophy After the Death of God (Fordham U.P.). And he has contributed to art shows and screenings at, among other venues, Artist’s Television Access, The Berkeley Art Center, Swarm Gallery, The Haley Martin Gallery, and The Los Angeles Center for Digital Art.

Assistant Director/Curator: Laura Mott moved to San Francisco after attending Bard College for her M.A. in Curatorial Studies and has a BFA in Art and BA in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin. Previous to her graduate studies, she was the Assistant Director of Peter Freeman, Inc, New York. She has held curatorial internships at the International Artist Residency Program in Sweden (IASPIS) and The Whitney Museum of American Art. She has also independently curated projects, such as The Moment Presents Itself in four vacant brownstones in Brooklyn and her thesis Come On Pilgrim: A 110-Mile Exhibition. She writes contemporary art criticism and has been the co-editor of several publications, most notably Robert Mangold Catalogue Raisonné: Works from 1963-66 (New York: Peter Freeman, 2004).