SAN FRANCISCO (January 2014)—The de Young will host assemblage artist, John Zaklikowski, from January 8, 2014, through February 2, 2014, as part of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco’s Artist-in-Residence Program. Working primarily with disassembled electronic parts such as computer hard drives, motherboards, sound and video cards, keyboards and processors, Zaklikowski transforms these discarded items into large scale works resembling high-tech mosaics or intricately woven tapestries.

Zaklikowski draws inspiration from conceptualism as well as the cultures of Italy, Japan and Tibet. During his extensive travels throughout North America, Europe and Asia, the artist studied different cultures and artistic techniques, including Oriental brush painting and Tibetan thangka painting, a complex process that often combines painting and embroidery on silk. In his work, Zaklikowski experiments with nontraditional materials and centuries-old artistic forms, exploring what gives objects meaning by arranging devices in a way that renders them ineffectual as electronics and reincarnates them with a new purpose.

A number of Zaklikowski’s works resemble particle accelerators, a likeness that has attracted interest from the physics community in addition to the art world. His art has been featured in science and technology publications such as Symmetry magazine, Fermilab Today and Make magazine. Zaklikowski has also been invited for personal tours to view particle accelerators at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Illinois, as well as the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Palo Alto, California.

Born in Buffalo, New York, Zaklikowski now lives in Marin County and works at his private studio in San Francisco. In addition to presenting solo exhibitions of his work at Untitled Gallery in Sausalito, California and Dogpatch Gallery in San Francisco, Zaklikowski was awarded a Peter S. Reed Foundation Grant in 2012. In 2013, the artist held a six-week residency at the Hermitage Artist Retreat in Englewood, Florida.

In addition to displaying several of his large-scale assemblages, Zaklikowski will also present a selection of interactive exhibits for children at the de Young. The artist hopes to explore the concepts of perception and optical illusion, looking at the interconnectedness of art, culture and science.

Patrons are invited to visit John Zaklikowski in the Kimball Education Gallery Wednesdays through Sundays from 1‒5 p.m. For more information about John Zaklikowski, visit zaklikowski.com.

An Artist Reception will be held in the Kimball Education Gallery on January 25, 3‒5 p.m.

Visiting \ de Young
Golden Gate Park, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, San Francisco, CA 94118

Museum Hours
Tuesdays–Sundays 9:30 a.m.–5:15 p.m., last ticket 4:30 pm. Closed Mondays.

General Admission
$10 adults, $7 seniors (age 65 and over), $6 youths (age 13‒17) and college students with ID. FREE members and children 12 and under. FREE general admission the first Tuesday of each month.

Additional fees apply for special exhibitions.

Tickets available at www.deyoungmuseum.org.

About the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, comprising the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park and the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park, are the largest public arts institution in San Francisco.

The de Young originated from the 1894 California Midwinter International Exposition and was established as the Memorial Museum. Thirty years later, it was renamed in honor of Michael H. de Young, a longtime champion of the museum. The present copper-clad, landmark building, designed by Herzog and de Meuron, opened in October 2005. It showcases the institution’s significant collections of American painting, sculpture, and decorative arts from the seventeenth to the twenty-first centuries; art from Africa, Oceania, and the Americas; costume and textile arts; and international contemporary art.

The Legion of Honor was inspired by the French pavilion, a replica of the Palais de la Légion d’Honneur in Paris, at San Francisco’s Panama-Pacific International Exposition of 1915. The museum opened in 1924 in the Beaux Arts–style building designed by George Applegarth on a bluff overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. Its holdings span four thousand years and include European painting, sculpture, and decorative arts; ancient art from the Mediterranean basin; and the largest collection of works on paper in the American West.

Media Contacts
Clara Hatcher \ chatcher@famsf.org

Arlo Crawford \ acrawford@famsf.org