500 Capp Street 2025 artist-in-residence Catherine Wagner’s work has long observed the philosophical and material qualities of the color blue.
Continuing this line of inquiry into the spatial context of the David Ireland House, Wagner’s culminating exhibition of new work, Blue Reverie, seeks to forge linkages and lineages between the evocative, introspective nature of the color blue, its symbolism in history and music, and the environmental archive of the House.
In Blue Reverie, the visuality of blue becomes an invitation, positioning itself as a channel to observe David Ireland’s legacy in a newly-imagined environment.
Having first met in 1999 while sharing a gallery for the show Museum Pieces: Bay Area Artists Consider the de Young, Wagner and Ireland engaged in many conversations in relation to conceptual thinking and artmaking, the residue of which is now rendered spatially and thematically in Blue Reverie. The exhibition covers installation, photography, projection, sound, performance, and sculptural objects, all of which allow for the formation of multiple, hybridized interpretations of the historic space.
“Blue Reverie allows me to have a visual conversation with David and his home,” says Wagner. “My responses to his marks, paintings, and sculptures add a set of spatial verbs to the language that exists. Through photographs, window interventions, and blue-leafed sculptures, a haiku emerges, suggesting more than is stated.”
In Blue Reverie, life-sized photographs of historic light bulbs coalesce in modern, sculptural forms, while blue filters positioned on windows become lenses into the urban landscape, creating dual visions from a point of translucency and opacity. These forms are met by wall drawings constructed with painter’s tape that perform spatial interventions by mapping abstract drawings in-situ. Pulling extensively from the Paule Anglim Archive Room, the exhibition proposes a synthesis of David Ireland’s work and Wagner’s broader investigation of blue through curatorial engagement.
The free opening reception on October 4, 2025 from 5:30–7:30 pm will feature a special performance entitled “Blue Moon” and a temporary sonic work installed in the upstairs closet by artist Nathan Kosta. Reservations are recommended.