James Stark

Speaking of Kurt Schwitters: “Artists generally gravitate toward things that are over looked, forgotten or rejected”.
Ed Ruscha, Art in America, Nov. 2011

Pioneering urban artist/photographer James Stark has worked in photography, filmmaking and painting for over fifty years having produced series of portfolios over that time which range from the streets of New York City to San Francisco punk clubs and back streets of San Francisco to landscapes of California’s Great Central Valley. Attracted to the Bohemian lifestyle from an early age, Stark moved to New York City’s Lower East Side after his discharge from the Army in 1966. This period was part of the “Hippie” movement was followed by his return to California and settlement in San Francisco, where he later became a part of the Punk Rock scene and, worked with the band Crime producing photographs and posters. He has published two books, Punk77, and The Band Crime, Punk77 Revisited, documenting the Bay Area punk scene.
Stark has since moved to the San Joaquin Valley, where his focus as an artist has turned to a large degree towards the rural and urban industrial landscape of California’s Central Valley.
Several of his photographs and posters later were published in “Hardco...

Education: School of Visual ArtsN.Y.C., N.Y.
1966-67Studied Photography with Ken Heyman in N.Y.C.

Recent Exhibitions, 2024
Punks Lives, Subliminal Project, Los Angels
We Are The One, Haight Ashbury Art Center, San Francisco
The Art of Noise, SFMOMA, San Francisco

Select List of Exhibitions:
California Photographers, 1970 Traveling 1970
Phelan Awards Oakland Museum 1971
Richmond Art Center Richmond 1972
Coast to Coast Traveling 1981
America-The Other Side West Coast Art Germany 1993
The Lab: San Francisco 1997
New Photography, LA County Fair Pomona 1998/2001
Digital Art 1999, Artisans Gallery Mill Valley 1999
Digital Art, MacWorld Expo New York City/S.F. 1999
Digital Art, Seybolt Expo San Francisco 2000/2002
The Streets of San Francisco S.F. B&W Gallery 2002
Gallery 25 Fresno, CA 2005
Reveiller at Quady Winery Madera, CA 2005-2011
Arts Visalia Visalia, CA 2006
Camera Work Gallery San Francisco 2007
The Hatchery “Free Range” Badger, CA 2010
Visalia Public Art Collection Visalia, CA 2011
The Hatchery “East of Fresno” Badger, CA 2011
Spectrum Gallery Fresno, CA 2013
Arts Visalia Visalia, CA 2013
The Met, Punk: Chaos to Couture NYC 2013
Facha Patato LA 2015
Emerald Tablet San Francisco 2015
Hatchery: Fortress Badger, CA 2015
Hive Gallery LA, CA 2016
Tulare Mu...