Saturday, December 31, 2016
Saturday, December 24, 2016
Tuesday, December 6, 2016
Richmond's Annual Downtown Holiday Festival
Richmond, CA - With wreaths and snowflakes adorning the street lamps along Macdonald Avenue, Downtown Richmond is starting to look a lot like the holidays. The neighborhood is also gearing up for a fantastic celebration of the season at the annual Downtown Holiday Festival on Wednesday, December 14 from 4pm-8pm, thanks to a continued partnership between two cornerstone agencies-Richmond Main Street Initiative, East Bay Center for the Performing Arts with support from the City of Richmond.
Visits and photo opportunities with Santa will take place from 4pm-7pm. Giveaways for children include books donated by West County Reads and gift bags for young children (while supplies last). Families will also have opportunities to enjoy live music and caroling outside and in the Community Theater, performed by East Bay Center students and faculty artists.
Upstairs, in the Iron Triangle Theater, audiences of all ages will enjoy A Richmond Nutcracker, a unique and spectacular performance telling the story of The Nutcracker through a Richmond lens. Classic characters, stories, and dances will be presented in traditional and distinctly Richmond interpretations. Performances are scheduled for 5pm and 6:30pm (running time approximately 45 minutes).
Following the second performance, a procession will lead guests to the corner of 11th Street and Macdonald Avenue for group caroling and the ceremonial illumination of the holiday lights.
Admission is free and made possible through generous support from the City of Richmond, Mechanics Bank, Sims Metal Management, and individual donors. More information about the festival, making a contribution, or volunteering can be found at www.richmondmainstreet.org or by calling (510) 236-4049.
What: Downtown Holiday Festival and Holiday Lights Illumination Ceremony
When: Wednesday, December 14, 2016
Time: 4pm - 8pm
Where:
East Bay Center for the Performing Arts, 339 11th Street Richmond
Saturday, December 3, 2016
Friday, December 2, 2016
Do your Christmas shopping at Creativity Explored
Indulge in mischievous gift giving at Creativity Explored.
Naughty & Nice Holiday Art Shop
December 2 - 30, 2016
Shop Creativity Explored's annual Holiday Art Shop this season. Bring your friends (and have fun) while supporting local artists with developmental disabilities. One-half of the proceeds from the sale of every artwork go directly to the artist.
The Gallery and Studio is stocked with affordable gifts for everyone on your list. Select from original drawings, paintings, textiles, ceramics, mixed media, framed art, and a collection of products featuring designs by Creativity Explored artists.
Opening WeekendSaturday, December 3 & Sunday, December 4
12:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Holiday Gallery Hours
Monday – Friday 10:00 am to 6:00 pm
Saturday – Sunday 12:00 pm to 5:00 pm
Also open by appointment
Main Studio / Gallery / Offices
3245 16th Street (at Guerrero Street)San Francisco, CA 94103
(415) 863-2108
info@creativityexplored.org
Wednesday, November 30, 2016
Italian Christmas Market at the Museo Italoamericano
Italian Christmas Market at the Museo Italoamericano
The Mercatino di Natale is the cheeriest Italian tradition in the Bay Area, inspired by the famous Christmas markets in Northern Italy and throughout most of Europe.
Come join our community in the celebration and pick the perfect gift for family and friends: artisanal food, handmade jewelry, latest Italian fashion, trendiest accessories and more. All unique items are made by Italian Artisans. We can't wait to give you a hug!
Time and place: 10:00 am - 6 pm Saturday; 10:30-5:00 Sunday
Museo Italo-Americano, Fort Mason Center BLDG C, San Francisco.
In collaboration with Forchette Tricolori, a vibrant cooking club where, originally, women shared recipes and celebrated good eating.
The Mercatino di Natale is the cheeriest Italian tradition in the Bay Area, inspired by the famous Christmas markets in Northern Italy and throughout most of Europe.
Come join our community in the celebration and pick the perfect gift for family and friends: artisanal food, handmade jewelry, latest Italian fashion, trendiest accessories and more. All unique items are made by Italian Artisans. We can't wait to give you a hug!
Time and place: 10:00 am - 6 pm Saturday; 10:30-5:00 Sunday
Museo Italo-Americano, Fort Mason Center BLDG C, San Francisco.
In collaboration with Forchette Tricolori, a vibrant cooking club where, originally, women shared recipes and celebrated good eating.
Thursday, November 24, 2016
Monday, November 21, 2016
SF State 29th Annual Stillwell Student Juried Exhibition
The majority of the exhibition at the SFSU Fine Arts Gallery features art students’ latest
work in a variety of medium. The most moving piece in the exhibit is a Golden Gate Bridge replica
sculpture, titled “Crisis Line: (415)
781-0500,” referring to the San Francisco Suicide Prevention Crisis Line, composed of bright red miniature plastic
people fused together.
Nearby was a laugher, a bulging circle made from hundreds of emoji stickers, titled, “Please Just Call
Me.”
One wall of the exhibit showcases letters and drawings by
watercolorist and oil painter Leo D. Stillwell Jr, who died in 1948 at age 22. The letters, which include drawings, were
written by Stillwell to his friend Russell Hartley. Beautiful small paintings and drawings also
adorn the backs of the envelopes. The
letters were found about 25 years ago in a dumpster on Duboce Street by Alan
Perry, who recently donated them to the University. Stillwell’s mother donated 500 of his works
to SF State in 1987, although her son never attended SFSU. Bay Area journalist
and former SF Chronicle writer Jesse Hamlin wrote about the exhibition recently
in the Chronicle.
I arrived at the exhibit 15 minutes before closing, so I was in
a hurry and didn’t take notes. The
Gallery does not allow photographs. After I left, I saw signs directing me to another
gallery several hallways and doorways away.
When I got there, it was closed.
I passed by some large pottery workshops finding my way on the way out
of whatever building I ended up in.
Not to go all John King here, but hopefully when the new SFSU buildings go
up on 19th Avenue after the Muni revamp, there will be easier access
to public spaces, less need for outsiders to wander the campus, and more people
seeing the art being created here.
Fine Arts Building, Fine Arts Gallery
Wednesday, November 09, 2016 to Thursday, December 01, 2016
Gallery hours: Wednesdays through Saturdays, 11am to 4pm.
The gallery will be closed for Thanksgiving break, November 23 through November 26.
Free.
E-mail: gallery@sfsu.edu
Phone: 415-338-6535
Posted by Phil Gravitt
Posted by Phil Gravitt
Saturday, November 19, 2016
Frank Stella at the de Young and Bruce Conner at SFMOMA
Bruce Conner's huge retrospective, now at SFMOMA, is a polar opposite. A deliberate outsider, a Peck's Bad Boy of art, Conner adored being angsty, depressive, grim, an avant guarde practice of art sketched in black. By the time he died at age 74 in 2008, the San Francisco–based artist had created films, collages, photograms, performances, assemblages, drawings, and paintings. He avoided celebrity like the plague and reveled in his outsider status. If Stella's work deliberately avoids emotion and any definition of self, Conner positively played with both ideas to the point where he announced his death....twice, before actually dying in 1974.
Conner told Kenneth Baker (then art critic for the SF Chronicle), "My entire history as an artist coincides with the history of the bomb," he told me in 2000, "and it's colored almost everything I've done. But I also don't see why you can't have a good time and be aware of your own mortality."
Frank Stella at the de Young through Feb 26, 2017
Bruce Conner at SFMOMA through Jan 22, 2017
Tuesday, November 15, 2016
Rebecca Solnit at the Green Arcade on Thursday, November 17 + calendar of events
Thursday, November 17, 7pm
(doors open at 6:30)
At the 3rd Floor
McRoskey Mattress Factory
1687 Market St.
The Green Arcade and
University of California Press
Present:
A Release Party for:
Nonstop Metropolis:
A New York Atlas
with Rebecca Solnit & Joshua Jelly-Shapiro, editors
A note from Rebecca: This event has been planned for a long time. But after the election, we're making it a focus on cities as cosmopolitan places of coexistence, tolerance, subversion, resistance, and joy, of Black, Asian, Latino, Muslim, Jewish, Quaker, immigrant, queer, drag, trans, feminist lives and victories. Please join us.
HOSTED BY: The McRoskey Mattress Company
Tuesday, November 22, 7pm
Poetry with Chet Wiener, Michael Palmer and Sarah Riggs
Sunday, December 4, 10am-6pm
The 3rd Annual Howard Zinn Book Fair
At City College, Mission Campus
Wednesday, December 7, 7pm
The San Francisco launch of Mat Callahan's
The Explosion of Deferred Dreams: Musical Renaissance and Social Revolution in San Francisco: 1965-1975
Saturday, December 10, 7:30pm
Poetry with Sarah Rosenthal, Aja Couchois Duncan
and Arisa White
Tuesday, December 13, 7:30pm
Poetry with Susan Gevirtz & Mystery Guest
(doors open at 6:30)
At the 3rd Floor
McRoskey Mattress Factory
1687 Market St.
The Green Arcade and
University of California Press
Present:
A Release Party for:
Nonstop Metropolis:
A New York Atlas
with Rebecca Solnit & Joshua Jelly-Shapiro, editors
A note from Rebecca: This event has been planned for a long time. But after the election, we're making it a focus on cities as cosmopolitan places of coexistence, tolerance, subversion, resistance, and joy, of Black, Asian, Latino, Muslim, Jewish, Quaker, immigrant, queer, drag, trans, feminist lives and victories. Please join us.
HOSTED BY: The McRoskey Mattress Company
Tuesday, November 22, 7pm
Poetry with Chet Wiener, Michael Palmer and Sarah Riggs
Sunday, December 4, 10am-6pm
The 3rd Annual Howard Zinn Book Fair
At City College, Mission Campus
Wednesday, December 7, 7pm
The San Francisco launch of Mat Callahan's
The Explosion of Deferred Dreams: Musical Renaissance and Social Revolution in San Francisco: 1965-1975
Saturday, December 10, 7:30pm
Poetry with Sarah Rosenthal, Aja Couchois Duncan
and Arisa White
Tuesday, December 13, 7:30pm
Poetry with Susan Gevirtz & Mystery Guest
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Free First Tuesday at the Contemporary Jewish Museum: Rivers and Tides
Nov 1 is #FreeFirstTuesday! at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Explore "#NedKahn: Negev Wheel" and view documentary "Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time."
Landscape sculptor #AndyGoldsworthy is renowned for his environmental sculpture using ephemeral materials like ice, stone, leaves, and wood. →thecjm.me/2fjK4ZL
#KahnCJM→thecjm.me/NedKahn
http://www.thecjm.org/programs/film-video-screenings/1152-free-first-tuesday-documentary-rivers-and-tides
Landscape sculptor #AndyGoldsworthy is renowned for his environmental sculpture using ephemeral materials like ice, stone, leaves, and wood. →thecjm.me/2fjK4ZL
#KahnCJM→thecjm.me/NedKahn
http://www.thecjm.org/programs/film-video-screenings/1152-free-first-tuesday-documentary-rivers-and-tides
Friday, October 28, 2016
Canaletto
Canaletto, born OTD 1697: Piazza San Marco in Venice, seen from the Basilica of Saint Mark. |
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canaletto
Wednesday, October 26, 2016
November at SFAI, Day of the Dead in SF and Open Studios, 3rd week.
San Francisco Art Institute, 800 Chestnut Street. Photo by Claudine Gosset |
Andrei Codrescu lying on the guest-bed of an art collector under a portrait of Mao by Andy Warhol. No attribution/ courtesy of Nina Savich/ SFAI |
November 8: "Gender in Translation, After Hours," organized in partnership with Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the US
Ongoing Visiting Artists and Scholars series including Andrei Codrescu on Nov 8 and artist Koki Tanaka on Nov 1 whose show Koki Tanaka: "Potters and Poets” will be on view at the Asian Art Museum November 4, 2016–February 14, 2017. Dara Birnbaum, a New York-based media and installation artist, on Nov 15.
Chestnut St, San Francisco, CA. Visit sfai.edu for more info ...
Day of the Dead Events in SF including the 17th annual Dia de los Muertos at SOMarts: http://www.somarts.org/exhibitions/day-of-the-dead/
http://www.sfstation.com/2016/10/25/3-not-to-be-missed-day-of-the-dead-events-in-sf/
Art Span. Open Studios, 3rd week:
WEEKEND 3: OCTOBER 29 & 30, 11AM TO 6PM
Presidio, Richmond, Upper Haight, Buena Vista, Cole Valley, Sunset, Ocean View, West Portal, Portola, Excelsior, Balboa ParkFor more information: Open Studios
Tuesday, October 18, 2016
eBay Collective
Photo; Peter Estersohn/Architectural Digest, April 2012. Interior Design, Suzanne Kasler Interiors |
"Today, eBay launched a new destination, eBay Collective, an elevated shopping experience to provide interior designers and consumers with curated inventory of furniture, antiques, contemporary design and fine art. The bespoke experience has been specifically developed for eBay’s 164 million active buyers looking for sought-after products from trusted dealers and galleries. Dealers featured on the destination have been invited by eBay, and they meet eBay’s criteria to ensure a high-quality shopping experience. “eBay’s brand is about helping every person find their version of perfect. Following our launch of eBay Wine this spring, eBay Collective is another example of how we’re committed to providing our consumers with curated experiences that are complemented with unique inventory and increased scope of choices to shop from,” said Jill Ramsey, eBay’s Vice President of Soft Goods."
http://www.ebay.com/rpp/collective
Sunday, October 16, 2016
Sunday, October 9, 2016
Sawyer Rose performs "The Carrying Stones" at Fort Mason
"Carrying Stones" is a series of a sculpture, performance and video works that portrays the physical, emotional, and practical effects of this issue.
Concurrent with this performance, her sculpture "The Ties that bind" is also on exhibit at Ft. Mason.
"The Ties That Bind "sculpture is a data visualization of hours of unpaid work that women do in the domestic sphere. It is made of 1000 handmade tiles, each representing an hour of time worked.
Women around the world do more unpaid housework than men – A recent study by the Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the percentage of men and women who are involved in housework has barely moved since 2003, with 84% of women reporting doing 2.6 hours of unpaid housework daily vs. 64% of men who reported doing any housework at all, and those that did spent 2 hours a day. This is even more striking at a time when the US has nominated its first female presidential candidate.
While women in the US workforce are still struggling to break the glass ceiling, they’re also fighting to stop “scrubbing the tile floor” at home. Cooking, cleaning, and childcare responsibilities often still default to women, keeping them from advancing at work and in society.
Inspired to explore the “double burden” carried by women who work at paid jobs and are also responsible for domestic labor at home, Bay Area artist, Sawyer Rose debuted "The Carrying Stones" project at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture on Friday, September 23. "Carrying Stones" is a series of a sculpture, performance and video works that portrays the physical, emotional, and practical effects of this issue.
The project documents the lives of 47 women who are currently tracking the hours they spend on paid work, unpaid work, and other activities in a custom web application built for this project.
Ties That Bind (detail) // 2016, 20 x 8 x 7 feet, 1000 handmade tiles, silver solder, copper, fiber, wireframe figure |
“No matter how far today’s women “Lean In,” it’s hard to be the CEO when they are also the head chef, janitor, and caregiver,” says Sawyer Rose. “The goal of this installation is to shine a light on an important issue in our society, and to be a catalyst for more dialogue and solutions to the problem.”
Learn more about the Carrying Stones project at: http://www.carrying-stones.com/ and https://fortmason.org/event/carrying-stones/. The sculpture will remain on display for two months on the south side of Building D next to the FLAX art & design store.
For inquiries & sponsorship opportunities: sawyer@sawyerrose.com 415-806-2458
all images courtesy Sawyer Rose
Saturday, October 8, 2016
Quick Saturday Museum Round-Up: Legion, De Young, Asian Art Museum, Kearny St. Workshop & Market St.
Legion of Honor @legionofhonor Now open! Meet the Le Nains, a 17th century artistic trio of brothers who lived together, played together and painted together. http://leg.hn/yGXGF
Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive @BAMPFA
Happy Saturday! FamilyFare today consists of exploring the Berkeley Eye Exhibit & creating some fun art. http://ow.ly/rouG304HKoT
De Young Museum @deyoungmuseum
Encourage exploration and creativity with one of our free family art-making sessions! http://dey.ng/DLge2
Ed Ruscha exhibit closes tomorrow https://deyoung.famsf.org/
Asian Art Museum @asianartmuseum Get in on @AsiaWeekSF action with a trip to our "Mother-of-Pearl Lacquerware from Korea" show—now on view.
This afternoon: Kearny Street Workshop, the Bay Area’s hub for Asian Pacific American arts, presents APAture’s Performing Arts Showcase Featuring Sammay Dizon and a lineup of some of today's most exciting emerging artists from the San Francisco Bay Area. http://www.asianart.org/events/1046?starttime=1475884800
"While lollygagging up Market Street, stop and take a peek at the cool doohickeys and rad new structures along the way. The third annual Market Street Prototyping Festival is underway, happening on Market from the Embarcadero to Van Ness. "
http://sf.curbed.com/2016/10/7/13206230/market-street-prototyping-festival-2016
Monday, October 3, 2016
The Do Not Miss Exhibits this Fall plus Open Studios 2016
I have already covered the Magid;The Proposal on my other blog - cheznamaste.bogspot.com but I also plan to write about the Bruce Conner show and one other -LE Nain - not mentioned in the article. The usual arts focus is on the trendy and popular but there is a lot more going on than that.
http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/09/06/fall-visual-arts-picks-be-sure-to-see-these-eight-exhibits/
SF Open Studios 2016
SF Open Studios, the oldest and largest open studios program in the country, is an annual, month-long art event in October and November that showcases over 800 emerging and established San Francisco artists in their studios. 2016 marked the 41st annual SF Open Studios event. We invite you to explore our city and find amazing art at every turn. You’ll discover an authentic connection to your art community and artwork in myriad forms, from painting, photography, and printmaking to glass, metal sculpture, and more. The event connects collectors with artists for engaging dialogue and a glimpse into the life of the working artist; SF Open Studios simultaneously helps artists build their mailing list, gain new admirers, and ultimately sustain a living making art.
http://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/09/06/fall-visual-arts-picks-be-sure-to-see-these-eight-exhibits/
SF Open Studios 2016
SF Open Studios, the oldest and largest open studios program in the country, is an annual, month-long art event in October and November that showcases over 800 emerging and established San Francisco artists in their studios. 2016 marked the 41st annual SF Open Studios event. We invite you to explore our city and find amazing art at every turn. You’ll discover an authentic connection to your art community and artwork in myriad forms, from painting, photography, and printmaking to glass, metal sculpture, and more. The event connects collectors with artists for engaging dialogue and a glimpse into the life of the working artist; SF Open Studios simultaneously helps artists build their mailing list, gain new admirers, and ultimately sustain a living making art.
Saturday, September 24, 2016
Celebrating Korea at the Asian Art Museum
Shamanic painting of General Choe Yeong (1216-1388) |
stART tour for Kids
10:30–11 AM
All tours meet at the information desk
Asian Art Museum storytellers share myths and folktales from Korea while exploring objects in the Korean galleries. Recommended for families with children ages 3–6.
The Spirit of Korean Art Docent Tour
11:30 AM–12:15 PM and 2–2:45 PM
All tours meet at the information desk
A museum docent brings the Korean collection to life through a dynamic tour of highlights.
Art-Making Activities
11 AM–4 PM
North Court
Through this hands-on activity, families can create their own designs inspired by mother-of-pearl lacquerware and Korean art and culture. Activities are created and led by the museum’s Art Speak high school interns.
Artist Demonstration with Hwang Samyong and Lee Ikjong
Presentations 12–12:45 and 3:15–4 PM
Demonstration 1:15–3:15 PM
North Court
Mother-of-pearl lacquer artists Hwang Samyong and Lee Ikjong demonstrate the process of working with mother-of-pearl and lacquer using the “cutting up” technique on larger-than-life pebbles. These whimsical artworks are featured in the special exhibition Mother-of-Pearl Lacquerware from Korea.
Storytelling for Families
1–1:45 PM
All tours meet at the information desk
Asian Art Museum storytellers share myths and folktales from Korea while looking at art in the Korean galleries. Recommended for families with children of all ages.
K-Pop Lounge
1–4 PM
Resource Room
Sit back, listen to K-pop and test your knowledge of the current Korean music scene with a K-pop quiz. How well do you know your K-pop? Share your knowledge and win a prize!
Korean Traditions Transformed Feature Performance with the Wooden Fish Ensemble
2–3:30 PM
Samsung Hall
The Wooden Fish Ensemble plays the music of Hyo-shin Na, including the world premiere of a new work based on A Meadow by Czeslaw Milosz for piano solo. Program includes commentary by Hyo-shin and a short Q&A after the presentation.
http://www.asianart.org/
Thursday, September 15, 2016
Creativity Explored Opening Tonight
Untitled (Pterodactyl) by Peter DeLira © 2016 Creativity Explored Licensing, LLC, chalk pastel on matte board, 40 x 32 inches |
In this group exhibition, artists explore
the fields of astronomy, geology, paleontology, flora, and fauna through
painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation.
Curated by Andrew Gilson and Glenn Peckman.
Opening Reception
*
Thursday, September 15, 2016
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Music by El Duo
FREE parking available at Mission Dolores Church until 9:00 pm.
Thursday, September 15, 2016
7:00 pm to 9:00 pm
Music by El Duo
FREE parking available at Mission Dolores Church until 9:00 pm.
*Win tickets to the California Academy of Sciences!
Submit your contact information during the reception and we will draw four winning names at 8:30 pm. You do not need to be present to win.
Submit your contact information during the reception and we will draw four winning names at 8:30 pm. You do not need to be present to win.
Monday, September 12, 2016
Jill Magrid and the Proposal - now at SFAI
What happens to an artist's legacy after his death?
In his will made prior to his 1988 death at age 86, in Mexico City in 1988, Mexican architect Luis Barragán designated two people to manage his legacy, with his friend and fellow architect Ignacio DÃaz Morales to identify an institution for his library. DÃaz Morales established the foundation managing the Casa Barragán. Fundación de Arquitectura TapatÃa which owns (in co-ownership with the Government of the State of Jalisco) Luis Barragán's former private residence in Mexico City: Luis Barragán House and Studio. The house is now a museum which celebrates Barragán and also serves as a conduit between scholars and architects interested in visiting other Barragán buildings in Mexico, including Capilla de las Capuchinas and Casa Prieto López.UNESCO added the Casa Luis Barragán to its World Heritage List in 2004. (Wikipedia)
But a portion of Barragán's estate, his professional papers and the copyright was bought in 1995 by a Swiss furniture executive and have not been made available to the public. Furthermore, Vitra, the Swiss company, claims copyright to all images of Barragán's work, including current photographs of the buildings he designed.
"Researchers have been denied access, and even the use of images of Barragán’s buildings is carefully controlled. Among those who study twentieth-century architecture, the inaccessibility of Barragán’s archive and the bizarre conditions of its custodianship have become almost as much of a preoccupation as his buildings." (New Yorker Magazine).
After hearing about this, American conceptual artist, Jill Magid, felt this silencing of an artist's legacy was untenable. With the family's permission, Magid exhumed Barragán's ashes and had them made into a two-carat diamond engagement ring.
In The Proposal, now on view at the San Francisco Art Institute, Magid presents Federica Zanco, director of the Barragan Foundation (sans accent), Swiss home of the archive since 1995, with a two-carat diamond engagement ring made from Barragán’s ashes.
Magid asks: Will Zanco accept “the body” of the man in exchange for the return of “the body of work” to Mexico?
The bare bones of the show - two vitrines with various documents, a floral tribute modeled on Mexican Day of the Dead, a film and even the diamond make the viewer reflect on the questions of intellectual copyright, corporate control, even the commodification of an artist's legacy.
In his will made prior to his 1988 death at age 86, in Mexico City in 1988, Mexican architect Luis Barragán designated two people to manage his legacy, with his friend and fellow architect Ignacio DÃaz Morales to identify an institution for his library. DÃaz Morales established the foundation managing the Casa Barragán. Fundación de Arquitectura TapatÃa which owns (in co-ownership with the Government of the State of Jalisco) Luis Barragán's former private residence in Mexico City: Luis Barragán House and Studio. The house is now a museum which celebrates Barragán and also serves as a conduit between scholars and architects interested in visiting other Barragán buildings in Mexico, including Capilla de las Capuchinas and Casa Prieto López.UNESCO added the Casa Luis Barragán to its World Heritage List in 2004. (Wikipedia)
But a portion of Barragán's estate, his professional papers and the copyright was bought in 1995 by a Swiss furniture executive and have not been made available to the public. Furthermore, Vitra, the Swiss company, claims copyright to all images of Barragán's work, including current photographs of the buildings he designed.
"Researchers have been denied access, and even the use of images of Barragán’s buildings is carefully controlled. Among those who study twentieth-century architecture, the inaccessibility of Barragán’s archive and the bizarre conditions of its custodianship have become almost as much of a preoccupation as his buildings." (New Yorker Magazine).
After hearing about this, American conceptual artist, Jill Magid, felt this silencing of an artist's legacy was untenable. With the family's permission, Magid exhumed Barragán's ashes and had them made into a two-carat diamond engagement ring.
In The Proposal, now on view at the San Francisco Art Institute, Magid presents Federica Zanco, director of the Barragan Foundation (sans accent), Swiss home of the archive since 1995, with a two-carat diamond engagement ring made from Barragán’s ashes.
Magid asks: Will Zanco accept “the body” of the man in exchange for the return of “the body of work” to Mexico?
The bare bones of the show - two vitrines with various documents, a floral tribute modeled on Mexican Day of the Dead, a film and even the diamond make the viewer reflect on the questions of intellectual copyright, corporate control, even the commodification of an artist's legacy.
San Francisco Art Institute
Walter and McBean Galleries
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
United States
Hours: Tuesday 11am–7pm,
Wednesday–Saturday 11am–6pm
Walter and McBean Galleries
800 Chestnut Street
San Francisco, CA 94133
United States
Hours: Tuesday 11am–7pm,
Wednesday–Saturday 11am–6pm
Sunday, September 11, 2016
Marie Van Elder at The Great Highway Gallery
You are crawling through the desert, on hands and knees. The shimmering wave of heat off the sand beckons with the promise of pools of cool water that seem to get further away.
Cut to Lawton and 43rd Avenue, in the Outer
Sunset district of San Francisco. There
you will find a real oasis.
The Great Highway Gallery is what drew me here, after reading about it
in Sam Whiting’s Visual Arts column in the August 25 San Francisco Chronicle.
San Francisco Artist Anna Conti had a home gallery nearby
until she and her husband, photographer David Sumner, moved to the booming art
scene in MidTown Reno a year ago. http://www.bigcrow.com
Great Highway is a small, narrow gallery, with two driftwood benches and a quiet dog/doorman/velvet rope guest curator. Gallery owner John Lindsey also offers fine
art printing and other art and design services. Great Highway is currently hosting “Ente
Fleurs et Mer,” still life and landscape paintings by Marie Van Elder, through September 24.
Next door to the left is Lawton Trading Post, “a community gathering space” offering pop-up events, music, and classes, today being: Summer Preserving: Jamming and Pickling Class with
Chef Lisal Moran.
Photo: Fred Pompermayer
|
To the right of the gallery is Alex Martins Surfboard Repair, “offering high quality ding repair,” and an
excellent web site for yoga and surf related links. Standing out in front, seeing dozens of well
used surfboards of many colors and sizes in vertical and horizontal racks, I thought it
is an art gallery in its own right. I
pictured James Michener, sitting outside, scribbling an outline for a 600 page
book detailing all the beaches where each board had played and plied its trade, plus
a few hundred pages of the history and the ancestors of all the board owners.
Exhausted from such thoughts, I moved right to see the line
out the door at the Gallery recommended Andytown Coffee Roasters. One of the employees was sitting outside, eating
the last piece (“employee benefit”) of a tasty looking slice of fresh bread choked
into submission by a half jar of Nutella.
This little place somehow has FOUR bakers, and they turn out an array
of Irish family recipe breads, plus muffins and scones.
For the month of October, The Great Highway Gallery will be the site of ArtSpan SF Open Studios Hub Exhibition, featuring Open Studios artists.
Posted by Phil Gravitt
Posted by Phil Gravitt
Wednesday, August 31, 2016
Hans Hoffman at The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive.
Combustible Wall |
Magnum Opus |
Push and Pull: Hans Hofmann brings together signature paintings from BAMPFA’s distinguished collection of the artist’s work, such as Combinable Wall, I and II (1961) and Magnum Opus (1962). In 1963, at the height of his internationally acclaimed career, the artist donated nearly fifty paintings to UC Berkeley in recognition of the University’s important role in his early career. He first came to America from Germany in 1930 to teach in UC Berkeley’s Department of Art, at the invitation of Worth Ryder. From Berkeley, Hofmann went on to New York, where his established his famed and influential art schools. By the late 1940s Hofmann was also recognized as a progressive, avant-garde painter and one of the originators of Abstract Expressionism. In 1958, at the age of seventy-eight, Hofmann closed his schools and returned to his studio full-time, for the first time in over forty years. In this last decade of his life, he produced an astounding body of energetic, masterful paintings. “My aim,” he stated in 1962, “is to create pulsating, luminous, and open surfaces that emanate a mystic light, in accordance with my deepest insight into the experience of life and nature.
August 31 - December 11, 2016
Thursday, August 11, 2016
'Sojourner Truth, Photography, and the Fight Against Slavery' At UC Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive
The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive presents Sojourner Truth, Photography, and the Fight Against Slavery, on view July 27 through October 23, 2016. The exhibition features a large selection of photographic cartes de visite of the famed former slave, as well as other Civil War–era photographs and Federal currency, none of which have been exhibited before.
The exhibition is organized by Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby, Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor in the Arts and Humanities at UC Berkeley and author of "Enduring Truths. Sojourner’s Shadows and Substance" (University of Chicago Press, 2015), the first book to explore how Truth used her image, the press, the postal service, and copyright laws to support her activism and herself. Many of the photographs included in the exhibition were a recent gift from Professor Grigsby to BAMPFA.
Runaway slave Sojourner Truth gained renown in the nineteenth century as an abolitionist, feminist, and orator. This exhibition showcases the photographic carte de visite portraits of Truth that she sold at lectures and by mail as a way of making a living. First invented by French photographer André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri in 1854, cartes de visite are similar in size to the calling cards that preceded them, approximately two-and one-half by four inches, and consist of albumen photographs made from glass negatives glued onto cardboard mounts. By the end of the 1850s, the craze for the relatively inexpensive cartes de visite had reached the United States. Americans who could never have afforded a portrait could now have their likeness memorialized. Combined with the emergence of the new US postal system, these cards appealed to a vast nation of dispersed peoples.
Truth could not read or write, but she had her statements repeatedly published in the press, enthusiastically embraced new technologies such as photography, and went to court three times to claim her legal rights. Uniquely among portrait sitters, she had her photographic cartes de visite copyrighted in her own name and added the caption “I Sell the Shadow to Support the Substance. Sojourner Truth,” foregrounding her self-selected proper name, her agency, and her possession of self.
This exhibition places Truth’s cartes de visite in context by reconstructing the flood of paper—federal banknotes, photographs, letters, autographs, stamps, prints, and newspapers—that created political communities across the immense distances of the nation during the Civil War. Like the federal government that resorted to the printing of paper currency to finance the war against slavery, Truth was improvising new ways of turning paper into value in order to finance her activism as an abolitionist and advocate of women’s rights.
Image: Carte de visite of Sojourner Truth with a photograph of her grandson, James Caldwell, on her lap, 1863 (UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, gift of Darcy Grimaldo Grigsby)
http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/07/25/shadows-on-display-sojourner-truth-at-bampfa/
https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2016/08/10/sojourner-truths-photographic-shadow-stretches-into-the-21st-century/
Tuesday, August 9, 2016
Tenderloin Museum
Visiting the Tenderloin
Museum on a recent Friday, it was necessary to wade through and around plenty
of street people, as well as “an unspecified number (of people) serving the
multi-variate interests of an advanced society in what is collectively called
vice.”¹
Along the way, a police
officer and three community outreach counselors were engaged in friendly conversation with sidewalk and doorway sitters, trying to
find out their issues and needs, and offering to take them to services, or
encouraging them to return to the services they have been receiving.
Though small, the museum
itself is new, well organized and thorough.
Photographs and text explain how the Tenderloin was rebuilt after the
1906 earthquake to include large apartment buildings and single room occupancy
hotels, housing many office and government workers. With so many kitchenless apartments,
restaurants, bars, jazz and nightclubs, and large dance halls thrived in the
area. Included is a viewing station with film of dances of the era , and a listening station with songs recorded by Miles Davis and other jazz greats at the Blackhawk and other famous local nightclubs.