Neon Monuments: The One-Stop Shops that Shape the Tenderloin

Exhibition Run: December 5 - January 30

Elliot Bamberger wants you to look twice at San Francisco.

To Bamberger, a San Francisco native, the city’s small businesses are less like old buildings and more like odd characters. Described as portraits, the neon-lit bars, liquor stores, and laundromats that Bamberger focuses on in his photographic series, Neon Monuments: The Bars, Businesses, and One-Stop Shops That Shape the Tenderloin, are charming—and enduring—testaments to classic ideas surrounding opportunity, enterprise, and resilience.

Evoking endearing, personal qualities that are more closely associated with individuals rather than architecture, Bamberger believes that the Tenderloin’s mom-and-pop shops are what unify the area’s motley, immigrant-heavy community. “If there was just a bunch of conglomerates and chains, [San Francisco] would definitely feel like most other cities in the country,” says Bamberger. “Rather than just treat [San Francisco] like a utility, think of it as more of a character or experience.”

But in the commuter era, how do you look at a city for what it is, rather than what it provides? And in this age of uber-convenience, will these small businesses survive? Featuring photographs of bars, liquor stores, and laundromats, Bamberger’s latest exhibition, Neon Monuments: The Bars, Businesses, and One-Stop Shops That Shape the Tenderloin, pays homage to the familial businesses that make San Francisco unique—and urges viewers to engage with San Francisco’s diverse, urban landscape.