Truong Tran's target art pieces make a statement about what it means to be an artist of color in rapidly gentrifying San Francisco.
"We're both invisible and targeted," he says in a video promoting Framed Targets, his exhibit on display through April 11 at California Institute for Integral Studies.
Tran's perspective on the dwindling of the arts world in San Francisco has another layer since he is a gay man of color. He is "situated in a complex and contradictory position of feeling both invisible in the face of a growing demographic of mostly younger, mostly white and straight techies, and a target of the same economic forces driving this social transformation," according to the show's description.
Tran's show features more than 150 pieces including light sculptures, reports The Bold Italic. He uses discarded materials, drawing a comparison to his perceived place in the city.
On the lowbrow end of the local art scene, SF Weekly noted the release of "your first anti-gentrification anthem of 2015" this week as a group called dropped a video called "Mission I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down." It's a parody of "New York I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down," a 2007 song by LCD Soundsystem.
As each week seems to bring about a new depressing map showing skyrocketing rents and the displacement of poor, elderly and minority residents in San Francisco, artists are using the economic and social climate to fuel their ideas.
