Ivan Sokolov: The Stars Above the Stars Below the Stars @ Artists' Television Access

An exhibition of Ivan Sokolov’s photographs & poems, THE STARS ABOVE THE STARS BELOW THE STARS, is now up at Right Window (ATA) in SF through end of May.

Part of the show can be viewed from the street 24/7. The full exhibition will be open on the following occasions:

• 5/19, 7–9 pm — reading night (bring a book to share a page or two with the group)

• 5/24, 1–3 pm — writing letters to Russian political prisoners (please come, it matters)

• 5/28, 7–8 pm — gallery tour + brief reading (Sokolov will read the poems in the exhibition)

• 5/30, 3–5 pm — closing (poetry reading by Joni Prince, Maria Malinovskaya & Jean Day)

(If you can’t make any of those dates, please reach out to the artist directly.)

The photographic part of the show presents a vision of the SF Bay Area over the past year. Night skies give way to blacked-out streets, from which ‘vague presences’ emerge, holding a book as if it offered safe conduct to another place. This gallery of spiritual companions suggests a mode of being-together in history—of trying to look out of the corners of our eyes while thinking of others.

The poetry series that gives the show its title comprises fragments written each for a specific friend. From Paul Celan to the poet’s mother to a pianist robbed of life in a Russian prison, this constellation gathers loved ones together with total strangers—the interlocutors demanding that writing continue. It is a silent music—bare words printed on cards just slightly larger than a phone. Visitors are invited to take the top card in the stack if the poem speaks to them.