Bill Cosby's African-American art collection to remain on view at the Smithsonian

Gerard Sekoto. 1913–1993, South Africa Boy and the Candle. 1943

It really is about the artists and the Cosby's have a magnificent collection. Many of these artists, because they are African-American, are little known and little seen:

Highlights of the collection include: Rare late 18th- and early 19th-century portraits by the Baltimore-based African American artist Joshua Johnston
Explorations of black spirituality in the 1894 masterwork “The Thankful Poor” by Henry Ossawa Tanner and in the 1943 painting “Boy and the Candle” by South African artist Gerard Sekoto
The struggle for freedom and equality explored through the 1989 sculpture “Toussaint Louverture et la vieille esclave” by the Senegalese artist Ousmane Sow and the 1982 painting “Still Life: Souvenir No. IV” by the African American artist Eldzier Cortor
History, knowledge and memories explored through Cosby family quilts and African textile
A section on music and urban life that includes African musical instruments and African and African American modern and contemporary works

http://www.examiner.com/article/bill-cosby-s-african-american-art-collection-to-remain-on-view-at-the-smithsonia?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Burning Man Temple returns to Patricia's Green, July Arts Calendar, Discover and Go and more..

Burning Man temple returns to Patricia's Green in Hayes Valley:

Photo courtesy of Black Rock Arts

http://www.examiner.com/article/hayes-valley-temple-returns-to-patricia-s-green-sf

July Arts Calendar from SF Art Enthusiast: http://sfartenthusiast.com/calendar/

Discover and Go: San Francisco Public Library is transitioning its beloved free museum and attractions passes program, known as Check Out San Francisco Family Pass, to a new online platform called Discover and Go. Library users will still be able to access free passes to more than a dozen San Francisco museums and attractions with the use of their library card. With Discover and Go, library users can better plan their visits to local attractions by reserving a pass online with their library card and printing their tickets at home or at the neighborhood library. In addition, while the Check Out San Francisco Family Pass was available only for families accompanied by children under 18, some  Discover and Go attraction passes are available for users of any age.

To start accessing passes to a variety of Bay Area attractions with your Library card, go to: discover.sfpl.org

San Francisco’s Discover and Go program is sponsored by the Department of Children Youth and Their Families (DCYF) and San Francisco Recreation & Parks.

http://sfpl.org/mobile.xhtml.php?pg=2000812701

Highlights from past SFAQ projects: http://sfaq.us/event/highlights-from-past-sfaq-projects-2012-2015/

'28 Chinese' at the Asian Art Museum

Edgy, transgressive, disturbing, challenging, interesting and in some cases, simply beautiful - if there's one show you must see in June, this should be the one.

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http://www.examiner.com/article/28-chinese-at-the-asian-art-museum

'Pacific Worlds' at the Oakland Art Museum

http://www.examiner.com/article/pacific-worlds-at-the-oakland-art-museum-brash-art-on-sf-muni

Top things to do and see for Memorial Day Weekend SF

http://www.examiner.com/article/top-things-to-see-and-do-for-memorial-day-weekend-sf?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Only two more weeks to see 'Botticelli to Braque' at the de Young

http://www.examiner.com/article/only-two-more-weeks-to-see-botticelli-to-braque-at-the-de-young

Weekend Picks: MoAD, CJM, OMCA, Peninsula Women's Caucus for Art

http://www.examiner.com/article/weekend-picks-moad-omca-cjm-and-peninsula-women-s-caucus-for-art

'Promised Land: The Art of Jacob Lawrence' at the Cantor Arts Center

Thanks to the generosity of the late Dr. Herbert J. Kayden of New York City and his daughter Joelle Kayden, Stanford MBA ’81, of Washington, D.C., the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University now holds one of the largest collections in any museum of the work of Jacob Lawrence (1917–2000), a leading voice in the artistic portrayal of the African American experience.

The gift is comprised of five paintings, 11 drawings, 39 prints and one illustrated book, all dating between 1943 and 1998 and all given in memory of Dr. Gabrielle H. Reem, who is Herbert Kayden’s wife and Joelle Kayden’s mother.

More at: http://www.examiner.com/article/promised-land-the-art-of-jacob-lawrence-at-the-cantor-arts-center?CID=examiner_alerts_article

Alternative Exhibition Spaces (Artists Keep Inventing)

Alternative Exhibition Spaces (Artists Keep Inventing)

One of Richard Shelton's paintings, on large pieces of destructed buildings. At Temporary Space LA.

It’s no longer news that San Francisco is becoming more and more inhospitable to artists and other members of the working class. Many of us are leaving. The rest are scrambling, praying, and looking for new ideas. Dave & I started a public exhibition space in our living space. (Not a new idea, but not especially common either.) It’s just a stop-gap, until we find a more compatible community, which for us is probably going to be Los Angeles. 

Gallery visitor with iPad for enhanced viewing (point it at the art and it gives you more info on the piece, including preliminary drawings.) Work by Richard Shelton. At Temporary Space LA.

On a recent scouting mission to LA, we stumbled across an art opening at Temporary Space LA, which is (temporarily) at 5522 Wilshire Blvd. There was coffee, live music, and a big solo show of work by Richard Shelton. Temporary Space, like BigCrow, is about “creating an alternative art economy.” How refreshing! They were also started by artists, in this case Richard Shelton & Stacie Meyer. Unlike our invitational group shows, they are doing solo shows by mid-career artists and they have some cool tech-assisted art-viewing ideas that I’ve never seen before. They also encourage and facilitate direct collector to artist communication.

Gallery visitors at Temporary Space LA. Works on paper by Richard Shelton.

The best part of the experience for us (David W. Sumner, Pamela A. Heyda, John W. Wall, and yours truly) was the enthusiastic response from the gallerists when they found out we were artists from SF. We were welcomed, given freebies, invited to submit, and encouraged to move down to LA. 

Wow. OK. We’ll be back.

The Met launches 'The Artist Project,' a new online video series

Thomas P. Campbell, Director and CEO of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, announced today the launch of a new online video series, The Artist Project, in which 100 artists respond to works from The Met’s vast collection, which spans more than five millennia and cultures throughout the world. Beginning March 2015, for one year, the Met will invite 100 artists—local, national, and global—to choose individual works of art or galleries that spark their imaginations. In this online series, artists reflect on what art is, what inspires them from across 5,000 years of art, and in so doing, they reveal the power of a museum and The Met. Their unique and passionate ways of seeing and experiencing art encourage all museum visitors to look in a personal way.

Trailer here: http://artistproject.metmuseum.org/about/

Over the course of five seasons, The Artist Project  will share the perspectives of one hundred artists with the public, telling us what they see when they look at The Met.

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-met-launches-a-new-online-video-series-the-artist-project

Pi Day and St. Patrick's Day Parade

The weekend has something for everyone:

For the non-math types among us, Pi Day is the annual celebration of the mathematical constant that’s the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, or 3.14. So, every March 14, museums around the Bay Area host Pi Day-themed celebrations; this year, you’ll find parties at the Exploratorium and Mountain View’s Computer History Museum.

 If that’s not your scene, head to Mission Pie, which will sell slices for $3.14 on Saturday, or to the SoMa StrEat Food Park, which hosts the Pi Day Puzzle Party at 7 p.m.

The weekend and St. Patrick's Day Events:

http://www.examiner.com/article/st-patrick-s-day-san-francisco

'Letters to Afar' at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

Entering the darkened gallery at the Contemporary Jewish Museum where “Letters from Afar” is showing is like entering a time capsule made up of your grandfather’s home movies.   Young girls with 20’s bobbed hair smile at the camera, another young woman applies makeup. Young men pose in front of a car, children tumble out of school, full of life and mischief. Other images portray the traditional world of the Hasidim and the Shtetl – men wearing the top hats and the forelocks of Orthodox Jews. The clips recall the tumbledown wooden houses and synagogues of impoverished shtetls and their threadbare residents.

 One film was made by the great Yiddish linguist Alexander Harkavy, who came to the city of Nowogrudok (now in Belarus) to document how the money raised by his landsmanshaft — a hometown organization abroad — was being spent on orphanages, hospitals, and schools.

These amateur movies, were made in the 1920’s and 1930’s, were shot by American Jews returning to their Polish homeland to visit friends and family. What makes the images almost too painful to watch is the knowledge that a decade or two later, those who remained in Poland would be dead.

These people, excited to see a relative from America and delighted by the new found ability of the camera to capture images on film, have no idea of what awaits them.

http://www.examiner.com/article/letters-to-afar-at-the-contemporary-jewish-museum

Celebrate the Year of the Ram

Ram, sheep or goat - lots of fun to be had.

http://www.examiner.com/article/chinese-new-year-celebrate-the-year-of-the-ram

'Seduction: Japan's Floating World,' now open at the Asian Art Museum

“Seduction: Japan’s Floating World,” works from the John C. Webber collection, now open at theAsian, brings you all the glitz, glamour, drama, eroticism and entertainment of Edo Japan. Fifty works from ukiyo to kimonos to scrolls to objects d’ art allow us to enter this world of sex for sale - delightful, deceptive, decorative and for most of the women involved in the sex trade, exploitative and ultimately tragic. 

http://www.examiner.com/article/seduction-japan-s-floating-world-now-open-at-the-asian

Spare a rose, save a child

Buying a dozen roses is a traditional way many people say "I love you" for Valentine's Day. But what if that token of affection also meant saving the life of a child with diabetes?

For the first time this year, it does! All you have to do is be a part of a new grassroots effort called "Spare a Rose, Save a Child."

A small group of our friends in the Diabetes Online Community (DOC) came up with an idea to use social media for a bigger "social good" and help make a difference, and it's caught on like wildfire not only in the DOC but also across broader health communities.

The idea is simple: instead of buying the typical "dozen roses" that's so popular on Valentine's Day, you buy 11 (which is still romantic, we promise!). Then, you donate the value of that single extra flower to help a child with diabetes in the developing world. Your loved one still gets flowers, and you both show some love to someone who needs it.

Seriously, it's THAT easy!

Of course, there's nothing that says you can't donate more than just the cost of a rose! That's just a starting point.

What's the value of a rose, by the way? Well, it varies depending on where you live and the type of store you're buying from, and it costs a little more right now due to V-Day inflation, but generally it costs anywhere from $2-$7.

Your donation goes to the International Diabetes Federation's Life For A Child program, which processes contributions and sends them to established diabetes centers for ongoing clinical care and diabetes education these children need to stay alive.

http://www.idf.org/lifeforachild/donate

The cost of a single rose is more than enough to make a difference, IDF reports. Just $1 a day provides a child with:

regular insulin
quality blood glucose monitoring equipment (meter, strips, lancets)
essential clinical care
up-to-date diabetes education materials
specialized diabetes training for medical staff

On Twitter, the hashtag for this effort is #sparearose.

The American Diabetes Association is doing a flower-related effort of its own for Valentine's Day, using TrialPay as a way for flower-buyers to donate $18 of the total purchase price to the ADA.

http://diabetesadvocates.org/spare-a-rose-save-a-child/

'She Who Tells a Story' at the Cantor Arts Center

Boushra Almutawakel (Yemen, b. 1969), Mother, Daughter, Doll from The Hijab Series, 2010. Series of nine pigment prints. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Museum purchase with funds donated by Richard and Lucille Spagnuolo Photography © 2014 MFA, Boston

"She Who Tells a Story, " now open at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford. presents the work of 12 women photographers from Iran and the Arab world. The artists explore identity, narrative, representation, and war in daily life, presenting the Middle East through Arab eyes. 

http://www.examiner.com/article/she-who-tells-a-story-at-the-cantor-arts-center?CID=examiner_alerts_article

'Mr. Turner,' a triumph for director Mike Leigh and actor Timothy Spall

 If you like biographical movies about artists to be "inspiring" and your vision of the late 18th/early 19th century decorous and mannered, Mike Leigh's film on J. M. W. Turner is not the movie for you. Turner was not a gentleman but he was a genius, possibly the greatest landscape painter than England has produced. 

More at:http://www.examiner.com/article/mr-turner-a-triumph-for-director-mike-leigh-and-actor-timothy-spall

2015 Martin Luther King celebrations in the Bay Area

http://www.examiner.com/article/2015-martin-luther-king-celebrations-the-bay-area

Bay Area top ten art picks for 2014

 Vuillard from the "Intimate Impressions" show at the Legion


I am going over my articles for the year - I wrote a lot more than I thought I did and it's not all bad either. Some of the works, like the "Hagaddah" by Arthur Szyk, touched me deeply and others - like the "Masters of Fire" at the Legion - intrigued me. I was saddened by the lost of so many galleries and gladdened to find out that some -like Meridian and Roots - managed to survive eviction, find new spaces and continue on their mission. It's hard to limit the list to ten; the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford deserves a separate list for their shows on Robert Frank and Charleton Watkins as well as the new art spaces curated by DeWitt Cheng.

http://www.examiner.com/article/bay-area-top-ten-art-picks-for-2014

@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz. http://www.examiner.com/article/ai-weiwei-s-songs-of-freedom-on-alcatraz

Jackson Pollock

Joan Mitchell, Sunflowers

First on everybody's list is the new museum in Stanford:. http://www.examiner.com/article/the-anderson-collection-at-stanford-opens-to-the-public

My next choice for one of the most beautiful, spiritual, and ethical shows of the year was the Arthyr Szyk exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum: http://www.examiner.com/article/arthur-szyk-and-the-art-of-the-haggadah

"Intimate Impressionism from the National Gallery of Art" at the Legion of Honor. http://www.examiner.com/article/weekend-picks-for-march-28-30

Tetsuya Ishida: Saving the World with a Brushstroke" at the Asian Art Museum.  http://www.examiner.com/article/bay-area-art-picks-for-november-14-20th

“Roads of Arabia” at the Asian Art Museum. On everybody’s top ten list, although it is equal parts archaeology and art history (censored to exclude the ancient Jewish and Christian communities in the Arabian peninsula before the rise of Islam). http://www.examiner.com/article/roads-of-arabia-explores-the-arabian-peninsula-s-ancient-past

"Masters of Fire" at the Legion of Honor. This was another show that is equal parts art and archaeology: http://www.examiner.com/article/masters-of-fire-at-the-legion-of-honor

 Zheng Chongbin

 Li Huayi

A real eye opener for me - Contemporary Chinese calligraphy married to modern art. The Chinese painters in this show - Li Huayi, Wang Tiande, Zheng Chongbin and Lu Chuntao come from such a long tradition of using ink and manipulating the brush to create art that that is such an integral part of Chinese culture that it is imprinted in their DNA. http://www.examiner.com/article/li-huayi-wang-tiande-zheng-chongbin-and-lu-chuntao-at-nanhai

Ursula O'Farrell

Women artists in the Bay Area: From the sidewalk, Mythos Gallery looks like just another nondescript storefront off busy Shadduck Avenue in Berkeley. But if the viewer takes a second look, he (or she) will see one of the most powerful – if smallest – exhibitions of women artists from the 1950’s through today. The exhibition at Mythos Gallery is the first of two to showcase women painters who arose out of the Abstract Expressionist and Figurative artistic movements of the 1950's. http://www.examiner.com/article/beauty-fierce-as-stars-groundbreaking-women-painters-at-mythos-gallery

Romare Bearden at Jenkins Johnson: http://www.examiner.com/article/storyteller-works-by-romare-bearden-at-jenkins-johnson

The FAMSF and Guidekick partner to create a mobile app guide to SF

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF) has announced their partnership with Guidekick, a start up company that creates pocket sized, mobile app guides. Their first San Francisco based project will be to create a guide to Golden Gate Park, which will include nearly 150 points of interest, The de Young Museum is included as well as the California Academy of Sciences, the Japanese Tea Garden and the San Francisco Botanical Garden.

 Cliff House

 Sutro Baths

The 3-D images look like what you would expect - very sterile but the wealth of history and other info makes this worth a $1.99 download from i Tunes. As it is, people are fixated on their cell phones so they might as well get some real info while they are obsessing at the tiny screen.

http://www.examiner.com/article/the-famsf-and-guidekick-partner-to-create-a-moblie-guide-to-sf