Holiday in Heaven

Robert Rahway Zakanitch

Rococo Revisited (2008)

Gouache on Paper, 96'' x 72''

To visit the work of Robert Rahway Zakanitch in "From a Garden of Ordinary Miracles" at the Samuel Freeman Gallery in Santa Monica is to find oneself suddenly and unexpectedly adrift on a mighty cloud of joy: we're blessed, we're blessed, we're blessed, we are blessed.

There is a particular sensibility in this work, a way of looking at the world with love, a way of allowing magic and light to slip into your consciousness, which, along with the underlying tone of assuming the best in all of us, reveals a habit of mind that is enchanting:

Those who see all creatures in themselves
And themselves in all creatures know no fear.
Those who see all creatures in themselves
And themselves in all creatures know no grief.
How can the multiplicity of life
Delude the one who sees its unity?

These massive (96” x 72”) displays of flowers and creatures
(it's even more of a surprise in person!) allow one to become so absorbed in the experience of joyful seeing and awareness that one forgets oneself:

. . . in those moments when we forget ourselves—not thinking. “Am I happy? Am I having fun yet?” but completely oblivious to our little ego –we spend a brief but beautiful holiday in heaven.

But the forgetting is a sort of divine paradox, because in the forgetting, one feels most oneself in this intimate connection with nature and beauty and sheer goodness.

By “goodness,” you understand I mean moral goodness, and by “moral goodness,” I mean what is beautiful in the human spirit, from even the tiniest impulsive act of generosity or kindness or mercy. I mean take-my-hand goodness; I mean Gwendolyn Brooks’ “Maud Martha Spares the Mouse” goodness:

Maud Martha could not bear the little look.
"Go home to your children," she urged. "To your wife or husband."
She opened the trap. The mouse vanished.
Suddenly, she was conscious of a new cleanness in her. A wide air walked in her. A life had blundered its way into her power and it had been hers to preserve or destroy. She had not destroyed. In the center of that simple restraint was–creation. She had created a piece of life. It was wonderful.
"Why," she thought, as her height doubled, "why, I'm good! I am good."
She ironed her aprons. Her back was straight. Her eyes were mild, and soft with loving kindness.

Through some amazing grace, these works nudge you to spread your wings--to be a better person--to put a little love in your heart.

Inside Out

Last year, I read Daniel Goleman’s Vital Lies, Simple Truths: The Psychology of Self-Deception because I was thinking about the inner being and the face one presents to the world. I was thinking also about Paul Ekman’s work with micro expressions--how one might be able to deceive with words, but how one's true emotions will leak out and give one away. Now I am reading Thomas Moore’s Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationships which, in spite of the title, mostly concerns coming to a deeper knowledge of one’s self and one’s own soul—the desires and fears and dilemmas and mysteries with which we struggle. Our demons and our angels.

All right. So we have (or we are) this soul, this heavenly and demonic being, and we try to fit it into this world that demands from us certain obligations. We must work or marry or raise children or all of the above. We take this big inner being, this chaotic, passionate, inspired, crazy, impulsive, beautiful, ferocious mess of humanity, and squish and shove and squeeze it into some kind of semblance of what might pass for convention so we can get jobs/make friends/find mates/not scare people/not get arrested. We tell lies, to ourselves and others. We construct a self that is presentable/suitable/appropriate. We keep our real selves in check.

Like wily toddlers, some of us occasionally escape through the screen door when no one’s looking and run out naked through the sprinklers in the front yard shrieking with joy. Some of us create a life in which we get to have an alter ego or two. Some of us let the angels and demons out in our art or writing or music or dance. Some of us can’t bear the strain and we get a little neurotic. Or sink to the bottom of a bottle. Some of us are so wounded by the struggle that we sort of give up and our soul flattens out a little, lying down resentfully in a corner like a dog that never gets let off the leash. In a lifetime, we might try all of those things.

Last month, I was helping Bob Debris, a friend who is a photographer (if by “helping” we mean telling people they looked beautiful and tucking in shirts and pushing strands of hair out of faces and draping shoulders with glittery fabric and fastening a corset around the voluptuous waist of one beauty) as Bob took pictures of masses of humanity on Members’ Family Day at Lotusland in Santa Barbara. Not to suck up to Bob (though it might be a good idea, being as it is summer and he and his lovely wife Caroline Allen do have a pool), but first I will say that to watch this kind of artist at work is fascinating.In some of the photos, the models just did whatever they wanted. Other models seemed to inspire Bob, and he would start telling them what to do, how to move or turn, how to hold a hand up or shift a leg. Those images were the best, the most fun and the most funny, the ones that took on a new life. It was so interesting to see how some models would submit entirely and give themselves up to Bob’s vision. Others resisted flatly. Still others brought their own visions and inspirations to the image.

And then, if you can look past the fake fur and Mongolian armor and spears and plastic flowers and toy skulls and all the other props (or maybe the props are a means to the revelation), some of the images clearly present the mystery of the soul; that is, you see in the image the inner being, what seems like a previously hidden essence of the person that emerges in the flash of the bulb. How do that happen? You can see the Lotusland images here in all their glory. (You can see more of Bob's work here.)

Which brings me to the Alice Neel show at LA Louver. What astounds me about Alice Neel's work is that you walk away from the paintings and you actually feel as if you know something about the subjects--about who they are as human beings. Sometimes it's beautiful, sometimes it's ugly. Sometimes it can't be put in those terms, it's more of a sense or a mood. It's as if the artist has the ability to turn us inside out and reveal our secret selves to the world.

Coming to your TV set: So You Think You're An Artist?

Forget summer returns. Art is now being turned into the next reality show. "Work of Art: The Next Great Artist", which debuts on cable channel  Bravo on Wednesday, June 9, pits 14 very different artists against each  other in weekly challenges and awards the winner a $100,000 prize and a  solo exhibition.

The question is, can highly personal, visual art be judged like a  gourmet dish or a ready-to-wear collection? And is the rarefied world of  art ready for a reality TV make-over? Another question the producers dodge is how the "artists" REALLY were chosen. Can we trust their judgment on art when, when, judging by the above photo, the artists are all young, attractive and quite photogenic. What - there are no good artists over, say, 50? No older men or women? Louise Bourgeois would have never made it through the first round; neither would most of the artists whose works now grace our museums and whom we value - the list is endless.

"The whole point of the show is that there is no right opinion.  Everyone has their own subjective view. But it is amazing every week  that there is a consensus about the quality of the work, and what's good  and what's not," said Dan Cutforth, one of the executive producers. So, does this means that the show has already been taped and the "contest" already decided?

"Good art really moves people and inspires a reaction. You know it  when you see it. The old chestnut 'I don't know much about art, but I  know what I like' is true," he told Reuters. How about some..oh, I don't know.. .smidgen of art history or background as to why people like what they do. How do you define good art - by only a reaction? Whose reaction? And what kind of reaction?

"Work of Art" comes from the same Magical Elves production company  that blended personality and the process of fashion design in "Project  Runway", and helped lift the lid on how food goes from good to great in  "Top Chef." 

In the first challenge, contestants ranging from 23 to 62 years-old  are randomly paired off and asked to produce a visual work that captures  the essence of their partner. A three-person panel of judges decides  who has responded best to the challenge, and who will go home. In future episodes, the contestants must create unique pieces in  mediums such as sculpture, photography, collage and industrial design.

"When we started reaching out to the art community, we were worried  that people would be against the idea of a reality show. What we found  was that people were pretty receptive," said Cutforth.

Or maybe they were desperate for a way to make a living; let's face it - if a contestant "wins" one of these shows, he or she has a shot at sales, a gallery and a huge step up in the competitive art scene. Artists don't live in an ivory tower, or, at least, those who have to pay the rent and put food on the table don't. I don't blame them for participating in this but it certainly can lead to a further degradation of any method of judging what's good and what's not. Far too often now, we judge solely by price; if a piece of art sells for a lot of money, it must be good. No sales equals bad art. By that standard, Van Gogh was a failure as were many artists whom we now value.

More than 2,000 people from oil painters to conceptual artists and  silk-screen experimenters applied to take part, reflecting the hunger  for a larger public canvas for an often misunderstood form of  expression. But will the show encourage more people to seek out art or simply be satisfied with what may be a visual version of McDonald's?

"One of our goals for this show is for people to realize that art is  all around them. It shouldn't frighten people to have opinions," said  Jane Lipsitz, Cutforth's Magical Elves business partner.

"People perceive art as being possibly elitist and a rarefied world.  So it would be amazing if we were to bring art more into the  mainstream," she said. Unfortunately for this laudable goal, the artists presented in the PR photo look, for the most part, young, attractive and today's version of hip. They don't look unique but more of the glossy, standardized model that we get on every other TV channel. Maybe the show will prove me wrong. I was appalled by the idea when I first read about it and I haven't seen anything that makes me feel otherwise. Or at least, not yet.

The TV show has been embraced by some professionals.  Mixed-media artist Jon Kessler and photographer Andres Serrano are  among the guest judges, while the permanent panel is made up of New York  gallery owners Bill Powers and Jeanne Greenberg Rohatyn, and New York  Magazine art critic Jerry Saltz. What? No 800-dial-in-your-choice-for-this-evening's-contestant? Any bests as to whether they will have a text messaging option set up by the end of the first week?

Art auctioneer Simon de Pury acts as mentor to the contestants, and  the series winner gets a prestigious solo show at the Brooklyn Museum,  the second-largest art museum in New York City.

"I think the art world is definitely risky. It would be very easy  for people to think this show is not for them. But I think people who  actually watch will be sucked in," said Cutforth.

I will watch. After all, it's summer and the TV pickings are slim. But I'm withholding judgment, which one does anyway with a new show. It just seems wrong that something that can be as life-affirming and soul satisfying as art is turned into a spectator sport in this fashion.

One wonders what Louise would say.

A SHOW IN PETALUMA

I was wandering downtown Petaluma with my friend Jo this weekend and we stopped in to Dimensions Galleria on 115 Petaluma Blvd. North. Two groups of pieces really caught my eye.

First, in the window, were some delightfully funky and whimsical ceramic cars by Jon Gariepy. Inside the gallery, we were also shown a couple of his ominously leaning ships. Both cars and ships are featured on his website; I recommend clicking on the thumbnails.

Then, hanging on the wall were some intriguing pieces that seemed to combine layers of felting or paper on some kind of screen. AHA! It has probably been 15 years since Susan Hersey and I were active together in Artspan/SF Open Studios. I remember her papermaking studio on 18th by where it cuts off of Portola and having a conversation with her about her planned move north. Some of her lamps are also featured at Dimensions. It was very cool to see how she has continued to explore new possibilities within her chosen medium.

Abstract Expressionist Art on USPS Stamps

 
In the 1980s, when I was collecting stamps, it always bugged me that the French could continue to produce amazingly beautiful stamps, a few every year, that showed treasures of French art. They were engraved, the colors were both rich and subtle, and having a page of them was like a poor person's art collection. 

Why oh why couldn't the USPS do that? Oh sure you'd get the Cassat or Rockwell now and then, but the production values weren't very good and they never seemed to occupy the space of the stamp as well as the French ones.


Well, I haven' seen them yet except in a magazine and online, but I can't wait to buy a few sheets of these latest stamps. They are for the current first class postage, 44 cents, and the list is interesting:

• The Golden Wall (1961) — Hans Hofmann (1880–1966)
• Romanesque Façade (1949) — Adolph Gottlieb (1903–1974)
• Orange and Yellow (1956) — Mark Rothko (1903–1970)
• The Liver Is the Cock’s Comb (1944) — Arshile Gorky (1904–1948)
• 1948–C (1948) — Clyfford Still (1904–1980)
• Asheville (1948) — Willem de Kooning (1904–1997)
• Achilles (1952) — Barnett Newman (1905–1970)
• Convergence (1952) — Jackson Pollock (1912–1956)
• Elegy to the Spanish Republic No. 34 (1953–1954) — Robert Motherwell (1915–1991)
• La Grande Vallée 0 (1983) — Joan Mitchell (1925–1992)

San Francisco Museum of Performance and Design

Something's Happening Here: The San Francisco Rock Scene

The Charlatans, 1966 @ Herb Green (courtesy MPD)

San Francisco's neighborhoods are full of little known but interesting spaces. To me, one of the more fascinating is the Museum of Performance and Design. Tucked away on the 4th floor of the Veterans Building (401 Van Ness Ave) and in part of the space formerly occupied by SF MOMA (before its move to 4th Street), the current exhibit is of particular interest to those of us who came here in the 60's.

We were drawn by the promise of a new way of living (aka, sex, drugs and Rock and Roll). Rod McKuen's poetry about Stanyan Street became a best seller, almost everybody was drenched in patchouli oil, draped love beads around their necks, believed in free love, thought that we were going to change the world forever -  and listened to the music. The Avalon Ballroom was in its heyday and music promoters like Chet Helms were pioneering psychedelic light shows, the forerunners of today's music videos.

Before rap, before heavy metal, heck before disco, SF's music scene blossomed with bands like The Beau Brummels, The Charlatans, Country Joe and the Fish, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. We could hear Janice singing in funky little dives and Grace Snick was the ice princess for a whole generation of young men (and maybe even a few women). Men wore their hair long, we all got into Indian religion and transcendental meditation, spoke of peace and love even while the Vietnam War was raging. It was sometimes silly, sometimes innocent, certainly naive and it was over far too soon.

Co-curators Melissa Leventon and Alec Palao evoke this rich era using a wealth of rarely seen footage, posters, images, and costume from private and public collections and from the artists themselves. Visitors are able to sample extremely rare audio and video clips, some of them drawn from the important archive of recordings from San Francisco’s KSAN that are now in MPD’s permanent collection.

Just a few of the key original items on display include:

Costume pieces worn by Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana, Sly Stone, and others
the full-sized original painting featured on the Grateful Dead’s Anthem of the Sun album cover
The famed “Captain Trips” hat worn by Jerry Garcia
original posters from classic Bay Area venues, including the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium
Rare letters, documents and one-of-a-kind ephemera from the Bay Area's 1960s rock'n' roll heyday
Iconic and previously unseen photographs from the archives of photographers such as Baron Wolman, Herb Greene, Bob Seidemann, Bill Brach, and Elaine Mayes
Musical instruments used by John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service), Merl Saunders, Dan Hicks, and others

The exhibition will be open to the public September 25, 2009-August 28, 2010.
Admission is free, with a suggested donation of $5.
Gallery hours are Wednesday-Saturday, 12:00-5:00 pm.

401 Van Ness Ave, 4th Floor
http://www.mpdsf.org/
Thanks to David W. Summer of the Museum of Performance and Design for his invaluable help on this.
dhttp://photographynewsnotes.blogspot.com/

STRAY SHOPPING CART PROJECT

I hope nobody minds that this is not Bay Area - wasn't sure how or where else to share this website I just found. Like some of the pieces I've created, it initially reads like an extended joke but is a serious project:
The Stray Shopping Cart Project

What I really enjoyed, as an artist, is how it started as a casual zine spread and grew over time to encompass installations and recreations of settings. His outdoor installation in Long Island City is detailed on flickr and looks like it would have been fun to walk around.

The Birth of Impressionism - Masterpieces from the Musee d'Orsay at the De Young

 Whistler. Arrangement in Black and Gray (aka The Mother). Seriously, is there anybody in the western world who doesn't know this painting? (@ Musee d'Orsay/used with permission)

Because the Musee D'Orsay in Paris will be closed for renovations and because "our" Dede Wilsey, President of the Board of Directors of the De Young, has the connections and cachet, SF is getting three separate and equally fabulous exhibits, detailing much that is most important in 19th Century French art. The first state of the exhibits opens on Saturday at the De Young. I was able to preview the show yesterday and it really is full of significant pieces. Most importantly, it places the Impressionists and their followers within the context of the academic art of the period.

More at http://www.examiner.com/x-13996-SF-Museum-Examiner

Another image of the Big Buddha in the Civic Center

SFAI MFA Show at Fort Mason

Normally, I'm fairly tolerant of student work. I realize that students don't have that much experience and their work shows it. I realize that this is the time for experimentation. But this show is so bloody bad that I am non-plussed to find anything positive to say about it.

New pieces up at the Examiner.com on the various MFA Shows

From Monica Lundy's show at Mills College (up until the end of the month)

New pieces up at the Examiner on the various MFA shows.

http://www.examiner.com/x-13996-SF-Museum-Examiner

TechShopTech and Industrial Tools for Artists

For technical and industrial artists and other creative types whose spectacular ideas never make it past the napkin they were designed on, TechShop seems like a really good idea.

TechShop has been in Menlo Park for a while and has just opened in SF, according to an article today in the San Francisco Chronicle.

Photo by Jessica Pons / The Chronicle

posted by Phil Gravitt

Where are the women at SF MOMA?

New posts up at Chez Namaste Nancy on the continuing lack of representation for women artists at SF MOMA, giant 21 foot robot baby at the Shanghai Expo and an essay on Mierle Laderman Ukeles, one of the generation of feminist artists and performers who is still making provocative work.

http://cheznamastenancy.blogspot.com/

MAYNARD DIXON SHOW IN UKIAH

Morning on the San Joaquin Plains, 1921, oil on canvas board

I finally made it over to the Grace Hudson Museum for their show, "Space, Silence, Spirit: Maynard Dixon's West." It is up through June 20th.

The Hudson website notes that it is a coup for a small town museum to display work by an artist of Dixon's prominence. This is true, but it should be noted that the exhibit, one man's collection, is very heavy on drawings and light on paintings, and that most of the drawings are what I'd consider sketches. Having said this, I hasten to add that it is a very well conceived and coherently presented show, arranged chronologically and with all phases of his creative life well represented.

The painting I spent the most time with is a very small oil, perhaps 5 or 6 inches high x 10 inches wide, titled "Trail Herd" and dating to early in his long career, 1915. Unfortunately I can't find an image of it online. It depicts a group of cattle and in the foreground two mounted cowboys. The dynamic movement of the two horses and riders is so very wonderfully captured and the composition dances across the small canvas.

The other single thing I found most interesting was a copy of a letter to the editor Dixon sent to the San Francisco Chronicle in 1939. He had been married to Dorothea Lange (by 1939, divorced) and during the time she was taking the photos for which she is famous, he was producing drawings and paintings on similar themes. The letter is a passionate defense of the humanity and rights of California's economic migrants.

This is a show worth seeing - but for folks reading this from over 2 hours away, frankly it may not be worth a trip up unless you have other things you want to see or do here (and being it's wildflower season, the weather is great, there are lots of great day trips around here and its a very scenic ride either to the coast or the Napa Valley, you could make a great weekend out of it!).

The Art of Photography Today's KQED Radio "Perspectives"

Interesting observations on the art of photography, on KQED radio "Perspectives."

Listen to the recording at http://www.kqed.org/radio/programs/perspectives/

Wed, Apr 28, 2010 -- 7:35 AM
Tools
The most probing questions Peggy Hansen gets about her photography are all about the camera she uses. But the key to good art has little to do with the means of producing it.

posted by Phil Gravitt

(ReBlogged from "Working Artist's Journal")

Another spectacular weekend spent visiting artist open studios . . . this time it was in the Mission district which, according to Mission Artists United, "has more artists than any other neighborhood in San Francisco." I hit the big buildings, spent two days at it, still didn't get to see everyone, but here are my top four favorites:

Sonya Philip
fiber arts
www.sonyaphilip.com
1890 Bryant Street, Studio 210

She calls herself a fiber artist, but I think she's more than that. She did have a lot of woven, knotted, sewn, and needled work. Some of it reminded me of Masako Takahashi's work, although Ms. Philip wasn't familiar with her. A mixed media sculpture caught my eye - it was a white dress form filled with little red & white fist-sized creatures which Ms. Philip called "the spleens." She explains here:




Diane Komater
wire sculpture
www.wireist.com

Her wire drawings are the best I've ever seen in this medium. Excellent, intelligent grasp of line with a good dose of humor. She also shows work at Velvet Da Vinci on Polk Street in San Francisco:



Kirstine Reiner
painting
Workspace Ltd., Studio 10a
2150 Folsom Street
kirstinereiner.com

I'm really at a loss for words when it comes to Reiner's work. It's perfect. Mind-blowing, really. Her rendering of flesh is so alive, it's hard to resist touching it. And she puts just as much care into her backgrounds, with emotional, modulated mixtures of colors and tints:


Natasha Dikareva
sculpture
Workspace Ltd., Studio 12
2150 Folsom Street
dikarevart.com

These sculptures drew me in more than anything else this weekend. I want one. They have enough symbolic and narrative content to keep me thinking for a long, long time and the form & colors are exquisite. Many of the wall sculptures on exhibit this weekend were commissioned portraits that centered around a cast of the subject's face. Surrounding the face was an integrated imaginarium specific to that person's story. Many of her other pieces were covered with ink-like scribing, which she called tattoos, but which really resembled ancient cartography. Natasha Dikareva's work makes spirit visible:



More quick shots of artists in their studios on my Flickr page.

Reinventing Ritual: Contemporary Art and Design for Jewish Life at the CJM

Jonathan Adler. Utopian Menorah. 2006 (Theme: Building)

For most of us, the morning ritual consists of falling out of bed, stumbling to the bathroom, putting on the water for coffee and reading the paper - or the Internet. Some of us check our e-mail first thing. Some have to walk the dog. But the current exhibit at the Contemporary Jewish Museum takes the idea of routine, thoughtless ritual into a more spiritual dimension and links objects made by contemporary artists and designers with the ancient rituals of Judaism.  It is designed to invite visitors to consider their own rituals and create dialogue through a series of questions asked through the exhibition like: What are the rituals that you perform as you wake up in the morning? Are rituals different from a habit or routine? What do you remember about rituals you participated in as a child?  Have you continued or modified those rituals for your family?  Do you have a sacred space in your home? How did you make it sacred?

Judaism is one of the oldest, if not the oldest surviving monotheistic religion. Jewish rituals, customs and scholarly traditions have allowed it to survive centuries of persecution so the ritual items in the  exhibit take on an importance beyond their design - they are a  spiritual link with the past. The objects presented in the show reflect contemporary concerns and artistic  viewpoints.

The show is arranged in four thematic nodes: Thinking,  Covering, Absorbing, and Building. These themes focus on ritual as  physical action related to specific acts such as eating, drinking,  counting, smelling, lighting candles, and praying, essentially grounding  them in things shared by all people -- food, clothes, the environment.

Studio Armadillo. Hevruta Minuta. 32 knitted skullcaps. 2007 (Covering)

Ritual is central to Jewish lived experience and practice. Rituals are performed to celebrate or mark life’s passages, to bless the food that that they eat, and to sanctify the space in which they pray. Jewish texts and laws require rituals, although specific customs and practices vary in different parts of the world and have evolved and transformed over the centuries. Contemporary Jews seeking renewed relevance in their relationship to Judaism have expanded and invented new ritual practices. Rituals can be celebratory and raucous or somber and meditative, solitary activities or group experiences. The impact of a ritual on those engaged in it is not easily articulated, but it transforms and changes the participants in the process.

Martin Wilner. Sephirot III, 2007 (Thinking)

The exhibit features innovative works in diverse media including installation art, video, drawing, metalwork, jewelry, ceramics, comics, sculpture, textiles, industrial design and architecture created between 1999 and 2009.  Since the 1990's, Judaism has been revolutionized by feminism, environmentalism and much more and the current exhibit reflects that reality. “The Museum has really been at the forefront of thinking about ritual objects and their contemporary significance,” says Connie Wolf, Executive Director of the CJM. “Reinventing Ritual builds on what we’ve created – looking across the spectrum at traditional objects and rites and bringing in both new and familiar artists to think in fresh ways about the role of ritual in our everyday lives.”

Helène Aylon, All Rise (2007) (Thinking)

Many of the objects can be viewed through the prism of contemporary social movements  – feminism for example being one of the greatest sources of new ritual practices. With Fringed Garment (2005), American fiber artist Rachel Kanter pushes the boundaries of traditional sex roles by combining a kitchen apron and a prayer shawl (until recently worn only by Jewish men) in a more practical form designed for a woman. Kanter writes, “If I wanted to wear a tallit, it should be made for me and speak of my experiences as a spiritual Jew, a woman and a mother.”

Rachel Kanter. Fringed Garment. 2005 (Covering)

A sculptural installation by past CJM Invitational artist Helène Aylon, All Rise (2007), addresses the patriarchal tradition that allows three males to pass judgment in the Jewish Court but forbids women to judge. Aylon’s installation is an egalitarian vision of the future: a courtroom that administers feminist halakha (Jewish law). “I think of my work as a ‘rescue’ of the Earth and G–d and Women—all stuck in patriarchal designations,” she writes.

Alan Wexler. Gardening Sukkah.(Building)

The exhibition also includes a resource area that provides information about traditional and contemporary Jewish ritual. Several works in the exhibition also have an accompanying video-label that provides further insight into the process, ritual, and concept behind these works. These video-labels are portions of a commissioned video featuring commentary by rabbis, artists and the exhibition’s curator. The excerpts provide insight into the show’s themes and an explanation of the highly symbolic rituals of Judaism and more.

All images courtesy of the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Check their website for hours and a list of accompanying programs: http://www.thecjm.org/
or call 415.655.7800. The Contemporary Jewish Museum is located at 736 Mission Street (between 3rd & 4th streets), San Francisco.  

SOMA Open Studios at South Beach

I stopped by South Beach Artist Studios on Sunday, the last day of SOMA Open Studios in SF. I'll write more about Sandra Yagi in the next post, but two of my other favorites were Susan Rippberger and Florence Gray. (That's Florence's work above - a couple of huge paintings in the hall outside her studio.)

Susan Rippberger's studio was a hodge-podge of disparate projects and she was sitting at a table in the middle of it all with food wrappers scattered on the floor by her feet. Turns out, she was weaving a prototype "shawl" out of the plastic wrappers. Half the wrappers were from Mexico, half the wrappers were from the US. She explains it here:



Florence Gray is a painter and I was immediately drawn to her use of color and her expressive, brushy application of the paint. Her newest work is a large set of mostly small pieces, all with single iconic images and single words. She's been using an vintage set of simple kid's flash cards as inspiration. Regardless of subject, her paint handling is really beautiful. Here she is in her own words:



Also: Nancy Ewart wrote about some of the SOMA open studios at the Examiner.

Helen Frankenthaler at Berggruen

Bias Blue, 1965, @ Helen Frankenthaler

 To be young, talented, and ambitious in the NY of the 1950's was not such a gift if you were also a woman. But if you were all of the above, and smart/and or lucky enough to fall in with the most influential art critic of the times (Clement Greenberg), marry another one of the giants of American Painting (Robert Motherwell) and not fall prey to the shadows that consumed many of the women artists of the time, you too could still be a "name" in the art world. Helen Frankenthaler is still a "name" in the contemporary art world. The current exhibit at is a rare look at a thirty year time span, one which is even more rare because none of the local museums have any of her work (or at least, not on display). She has also been fiercely protective of her work, often not allowing images to be reproduced, either in magazines or on the web. So to to see them here in San Francisco, in the flesh, as it were, is doubly unique.

Granada, 1953. @ Helen Frankenthaler

At the time, her staining or soaking technique of color into unprimed canvas was different enough to bring critical attention but it's the quality that continues to command respect - the lyrical watercolor aesthetic that harkens back to John Marin and Arthur Dove. Her breakthrough painting, Mountains and Sea (1953) came after a year spent studying and assimilating Pollock's work. This piece made her reputation and established her signature style.

Orange Underline, 1963. @ Helen Frankenthaler.

Her fluid, intuitive visual language - poured paint on unprimed canvas - does not photograph well. In photographs, you miss the shock of paint against the off-cream of the canvas, the halo effect of the colors, the blurred edges. I think that her work remains popular because it makes no demands on the viewer beyond appreciating the dreamy, creamy colors.

Helen Frankenthaler  Provincetown 1, 1965

In the introduction to "Helen Frankenthaler, A Paintings Retrospective" (E.A Carmean, Jr), the author asked her what viewers should learn from her work. Ms Frankenthaler responded, "in my art I've moved and have been able to grow. I've been someplace. Hopefully, others should be similarly moved."

Helen Frankenthaler. Winter Energy

I enjoyed her lyrical pieces in the exhibit but I wasn't sure that that she had been anywhere other than where she first started, back in 1953. Some of the pieces are more shapeless than lyrical with muddy and indistinct colors. Even her master, Jackson Polllock came to a stuck place in his drip-and-pour process. Ms. Frankenthanler has been at it a long time and it's natural that not all the paintings are up to the highest standards. If she were a lesser-known artist, she might be less indulged and that's not a bad thing. The show could have done with a more rigorous selection process. That would have made the better pieces stand out more.

Helen Frankenthaler. Movable Blue, 1973

Nevertheless, to have a solo exhibit of an artist of this stature here in the Bay Area is a grand treat.There aren't many living artists of the second-generation of abstract expressionists still around and fewer still are women. Joan Mitchell, Grace Hartigan, Lee Krasner are all gone so the fact that Frankenthaler is still going strong is something of a miracle.

http://www.berggruen.com/
All images courtesy of the John Berggruen Gallery; copyright Helen Frankenthaler

Worlds in Miniature

The Museum of Performance & Design is making preparations for a new exhibition featuring the world of toy theatres.

Toy Theatres: Worlds in Miniature opens in July and will showcase 21 rare toy theatre models from around the world, some dating back to the 18th century.

Toy theatre certainly isn't dead. In recent years contemporary artists including Sandow Birk and William Kentridge have used toy theaters to create stunning new work.

Sandow Birk produced and filmed his interpretation of Dante's Inferno entirely on the stage of a toy theatre, and Kentridge used a toy theatre to create a production of Mozart's Magic Flute that employed Kentridge's unique projections.

You can see more images of toy theatres at MPD here. I've had the opportunity to work with some of these models and they truly are a fascinating coming together of the visual and performing arts.

Photo of "William Tell" toy theatre courtesy of MPD.

Looking for Art in One of the Wrong Places

Haven’t gotten out much to see art in the last 4 months, with the exception of the early February opening of Love, Art and Chocolate at 323 Gallery, and more recently a quick sprint through SFMOMA 75th Anniversary exhibit.

On an early morning walk the other day, I came across a row of boxy 1950s-style houses that were all painted about the same time during the fresh-paint-and-then-flip housing boom a few years ago. Even though the paint wasn't that old, several houses had massive peeling.

One house caught my eye, and I stopped to marvel at how the paint peeled in interesting and creative forms. I wondered if it was a different painter, if he or she knew that by ignoring all the rules of paint preparation, and then applying the paint a certain way, it would yield a few short years later a 3D mural of peeling paint in the shape of butterflies, the continents of Africa and Australia, the islands of Hawaii, Indonesia, and Rhode, a large manta ray and a tall ship. It was something to behold in the early morning light.Speaking of murals, San Francisco muraling team Jennifer Ewing and Leo Germano recently completed several large art deco paintings that are installed in the historic Varsity Theater in downtown Davis. The theater web site doesn’t mention the murals; I guess you need to buy a ticket to see them. Another reason to go to Davis is to see the Proclivities show of SF encaustic artist Adele Shaw at the Pence Gallery. The opening reception is tonight Friday April 9, 7-9PM. The show runs through May 9.

posted by Phil Gravitt

Chinese Master Ink Painters at the Cantor Arts Center

Just a few quick notes about a show I saw today: "Tracing the Past, Drawing the Future - Master Ink Painters in 20th-Century China" at the Cantor Arts Center, through July 4, 2010
I was really excited to see this show. Not only was it a room full (100 pieces) of ink & watercolor paintings, but it built on the things I learned in February at the "Shanghai, Art of the City" show at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.
This exhibit at the Cantor was work by four artists, known in China as the "Four Treasures" of 20th Century painting: Wu Changshuo (1844–1927), Qi Baishi (1864–1957), Huang Binhong (1865–1955), and Pan Tianshou (1897–1971).

One of the first images the visitor sees on entering the exhibit is a very large portrait of Wu Changshuo, executed by two of his students. the head is painted in photorealistically, the rest of painting is the loose, brushy style more common to traditional Chinese ink paintings. Until I saw a similar piece at the SF museum recently, I'd never seen this kind of work before. They had several examples here sat the Cantor. Always done in collaborations, with one artist working on the face, another artist finishing the rest. Wu Changshuo's work was very colorful and some showed the influence of the European impressionists. (His painting of hanging gourds below.)


Qi Baishi's animal scrolls were animated, sensitive masterpieces - the perfect line, single strokes, awesome! (That's his shrimp at upper right.)

Huang Binhong did plain air painting in the countryside, and some of his "sketchbooks" (tiny scrolls) were on display in cases. Amazing when you consider they had to grind the inks. His larger scrolls were mostly blacks & greys with lots of layered overpainting and dry brush. (Image of his work at top left.)

Many of Pan Tianshou's scrolls were massive in size. They were designed for public spaces and often hung in government buildings. He also used his fingers instead of brushes much of the time! (Image at right is his.)

In the hall outside the painting exhibit are photographic of the artists, their students, and some of the areas where they lived and worked.

There are a few YouTube videos about the exhibit, but the Cantor web site has almost no images.

Friday Gallery Walk

Just a quick run-down of a few galleries we saw this evening:

F*cal Face Dot Gallery
Marco Zamora & Derek Aalbeck - Extremely small gallery (one room, about the size of a master bedroom) but bold art. Incredibly rendered graphite drawings by Derek Albeck and interesting ink & watercolor paintings on wood by Marco Zamora.

Octavia's Haze
Expressionist paintings by James Michalopoulos - Had trouble finding this gallery (the gallery web site says it's located at 370 Hayes - it's actually a block away from there) and when we did finally locate it, it was closed. Even though we were there an hour before the stated closing time. Too bad, I really wanted to see James Michalopoulos' paintings.

So we checked out another gallery instead - Polanco Gallery at 393 Hayes. They had a terrific group show of Mexican artists - the best show of the evening, really. Unfortunately, they don't allow photos in the gallery, which is really too bad since the images on their web site don't do justice to the work. The work was arranged exceptionally well and paintings by Rafael Rodriquez and Carlos Jaurena were top quality. There was also a great little piece by Abel Almenara that is not even on the web site.



Rare Device is one of those small gallery & craft places that seem to be proliferating these days. Theoretically, sales of the small craft items support the fine art exhibition space, but I've heard from some of the folks in these spaces that actually the economic downturn has hurt small craft sales more than fine art. "94xxxx5" is a photo show in a tiny back room at Rare Device - the work focuses on SF neighborhoods and fits well with the rest of the items in the space.

Along the way, we passed some outdoor art on Octavia:

Allison Adams At the SF MoMA's Artists Gallery at Ft. Mason

"I seek the outdoors and that feeling of connection as much as possible, but I am still within this urban environment most of the time, which can sometimes feel isolating. I reflect and muse upon all that I experience and see here and seek out the Nature hidden under asphalt, pavement, and planted green lawn. " Allison Adams

Allison Adams, Pathway (now on exhibit at the SF MOMA Artists Gallery)

At the current show in The Loft space at SF MOMA's Ft Mason gallery, Curator Renee de Cossio has paired Adams' woven textile forms with Stern's more open and airy pieces. Using an old-fashioned loom four harness loom, Adams uses recycled plastic as well as wire, monofilament, audio and video tape to create asymmetrical woven pieces and three-dimensional sculptural pieces. The woven pieces are shinny and dense, glittering with bits of recycled material, integrated into the irregular grids. The Nebula pieces are more open, and very evocative of the star clusters from which they get their name. Many of the woven textile pieces are enclosed within dark frames which does not, in my opinion, allow their need for visual expansive space. The lighter framed pieces are more successful because the frame disappears against the wall, allowing the viewer to be pulled in far enough to examine the superb craft of the artist as well as the inventive use of recycled materials.  

Allison Adams, Swirl Nebula III

 Unfortunately, Adams' three-dimensional pieces and Stern's airy abstractions (some of which are on unframed paper0 don't always work well together -- or, to be more accurate, the Loft's gallery space is too small to allow each artist's work to claim its visual territory. I was reminded of SF MoMA's exhibit in which they combined pieces by Ansel Adams and Georgia O'Keefe. In many instances, Adams' dark, glossy photographs sucked energy from O'Keefe's more delicate and colorful abstractions. A 2009 show at the Clark Museum in Williamstown, Massachusetts,  which paired O'Keefe and Dove was more successful. Both those artists shared a painterly vision and a similar technique and palate. Yet I understand why the curator packed the small Loft gallery with these pieces. They are unique and deserve to be shown. But, given the gallery situation in San Francisco, artists like Adams and Stern have to fight for recognition in a town with too little space for serious artists.

http://www.allysunkadams.com
SFMOMA Artists Gallery at Fort Mason
Building A, Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, CA 94123 USA
415.441.4777
Hours : Tuesday - Saturday, 11:30 a.m. - 5:30
http://www.sfmoma.org/pages
All images courtesy of SF MOMA Artists Gallery and the artist

Pia Stern at SF MOMA Artists Gallery at Fort Mason (through April 23)

Stern didn't start out to be a painter; in college she studied social sciences, language, city planning, anthropology - the grab bag of a student unsure of her direction and lacking discipline and focus. That's an observation, not a criticism. I think most of us were in the same place in the less financially stressed college atmosphere of the 1960's and 1970's. But she spent her junior year in Aix-en-Provance, signed up for a painting class which changed her life:

Pia Stern. Nocturne

"I felt at home with the people teaching that class...They were all devoted to Cezanne and lived in the shadow of Monte Saint-Victoire. I felt at home with how they looked at things, philosophically speaking, as well as their way of perceiving things visually."

" I remember the first stoke; cobalt blue, a diagonal stroke on a rectangular three-by-four canvas. I burst into tears when I made it. It was a Zen experience."

When she returned to California, she began to study painting in earnest. She was fortunate in her teachers for the art world here was still infused with the unique artists that came out of the post-war generation - Diebenkorn, Park, Thiebaud. They distrusted too much verbalization and taught in a direct, personal manner. One of her most influential teacher, Elmer Bischoff addressed the work on "what was going on, or not, in inner terms." (1)

 Pia Stern. This Time The Promise

Out of this she developed a lyrical style, based on intuitive gestures and spontaneous marks, a cryptic language that almost seemed understandable if the viewer looked long enough.  Her current work at the Artists Gallery at Ft. Mason is still lyrical but is edging closer to abstraction. The pieces are larger than the ones last shown here in the lobby of 555 Market Street but they still pull the viewer in. Stern describes her current oils on canvas as a cross between optimism at Obama's election but concern over the dismal decade that we had just survived and where we, as a country and the world, might be going. The canvas is large, rectangular, layered with a palimpsest of oil and oil pastels. She retains the poetic feeling of her earlier work but the gestural shapes and quasi-writing float in the luminous field, asking questions that only the viewer can answer.

 Stern's concerns with what she describes as "...existential nature of her work...the tension between light and dark" comes to the fore in the series "Earth Abides." These charcoal pieces were done just before the US entered the war in Iraq and prefigure the devastating conflict to come. Nevertheless, her work retains what Sister Wendy Beckett wrote about in her 1988 publication, Contemporary Women Artists:

 "When art is personal and private, we can feel an irritating sense of exclusion. The artist has therefore to win our trust, and lure us into his "private dreams" in a way that we can understand. Pia Stern ..has an unusual power of transforming her "dreams" into our own. They remain hers; she does not share them..But we are not asked to riddle out Stern's private meanings." (2) 

What I find fascinating is that Stern, while continuing to develop as a painter, has avoided the pull to make work that is completely insular and self-referential. Her work speaks to me beyond her biography - her parents escaped Nazi Germany -  or even (possibly) her intent. Like all good work, it allows the viewer to make their own assumptions and associations.

(1) Charles Shere. Impulse, Depth and Poetry: The Art of Pia Stern. Imagio, Vol 21, February 1999, pp 31-41.
(2) Sister Wendy Beckett. Contemporary Women Artists. 1988

SFMOMA Artists Gallery at Fort Mason
Building A, Fort Mason Center
San Francisco, CA 94123 USA
415.441.4777
artistsgallery@sfmoma.org
Hours : Tuesday - Saturday, 11:30 a.m. - 5:30 p.m.  
http://www.sfmoma.org/pages/artists_gallery_exhibitions
All images courtesy of the artist. Photographer Ian Cummings.

Pia Stern at the SF MoMA Artists Gallery at Ft. Mason

Pia Stern, "Wicked Romp" (2009). photo, Ian Cummings (courtesy of the artist).

From the press release..

"Stern's paintings suggest a logic of the heart, which she uses to guide her art-making process. Her painted and drawn figures and forms set within abstract fields combine to create rich, tactile, and vibrant expressions that allude to the individual's psyche and one's place in the natural world."

I am going to write a decent review later but for now, I just want to mull over the luminous beauty of her paintings. In her book on Peace, Sister Windy Beckett wrote: "Stern shows us two ways of being: the physical, answerable only to accident, to wind and tides; and the spiritual, answerable to inward truth. One is free-flowing; the other is fixed, grounded in more than its own small compass - in God. "

http://www.sfmoma.org/pages/artists_gallery

Same as It Ever Was

. . . in the immortal words of 80s icons the Talking Heads.

Went to the Getty Villa a few weeks ago. You probably know this already, but it's all antiquities now--the paintings were trucked over to the Getty Center. I am a philistine, I know, but one floor of antiquities is pretty much my limit, then they all start to look the same, so much so that my friend had to call my attention to the paintings of drunks on the wine vessels. The drunks were doing what drunks do everywhere (click on these to see the vessels): singing; singing while urinating (a servant holds a pitcher for his master's eliminations); dancing; flirting and frolicking; making unwelcome advances; having a sexual encounter; staggering home with the help of one's friends; and, of course, the classic: vomiting.

International Women's Day and San Francisco's own International Museum of Women

International Women's Day (8 March) is an occasion marked by women's groups around the world. This date is also commemorated at the United Nations and is designated in many countries as a national holiday. When women on all continents, often divided by national boundaries and by ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political differences, come together to celebrate their Day, they can look back to a tradition that represents at least nine decades of struggle for equality, justice, peace and development.

International Women's Day is the story of ordinary women as makers of history; it is rooted in the centuries-old struggle of women to participate in society on an equal footing with men. In ancient Greece, Lysistrata initiated a sexual strike against men in order to end war; during the French Revolution, Parisian women calling for "liberty, equality, fraternity" marched on Versailles to demand women's suffrage. The struggle continues today because the issues that impact women are our issues - poverty, racism, injustice, violence. As the saying goes, women hold up half of the sky.

San Francisco has it's own museum dedicated to women. The International Museum of Women, (I.M.O.W.), is a social change museum that celebrates and values the lives of women around the world. The museum's programming is offered locally in the San Francisco Bay Area as well as globally. The museum began as the Women's Heritage Museum in 1985 and in 1997 became the more encompassing International Museum of Women.

The need for a larger museum was realized in 1997 when a group of Bay Area teachers sought a place to take their students. One of these teachers, Elizabeth L. Colton, who had been on the board of the Women's Heritage Museum, spurred the drive to create a larger museum, in part through private funding.

Since its rebirth under the new name in 1997, I.M.O.W. has organized more than seven major exhibitions, hosted a number of public fora, developed educational curriculum for schools and created a number of speaker series programs. Current on-line exhibits include "Economica: Women and the Global Economy" and Women on the Map."

http://www.imow.org/home/index
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Museum_of_Women