Second to the Gods...

1. Second to the Gods: Royal Regalia of the Yoruba
2. Improving the Bowtie: African-American Improvisational Quilts

Over the past two years or so, the Mills College Art Gallery has become one of the most interesting venues in the East Bay. A combination of historical and contemporary exhibitions rotates at sometimes dizzying speeds (some shows are only up for two weeks). The transformation of the exhibition program from OK to pretty spectacular is clearly related to the presence of a new director. At present, aside from the three shows reviewed here, there is also a group of pieces by Bay Area neo-conceptualist Gay Outlaw, videos by Mona Hatoum and Linda Montano, and a gallery hung with works drawn from the museum's collection of about 6000 objects. Oh, and a twenty-foot metal shipping container just outside the building covered with the murals of Oakland artist Keba Konte in honor of his mother. (When I asked about this last piece, the young woman sitting at the front desk looked at me blankly and said "what container?" I took her to the door and pointed at it. She then told me it was probably just something for the students to paint on. Fortunately, the true identity of this piece was on the school's website.)

Yoruba beadwork filled the front gallery—mostly crowns and coronets, made during the last hundred and twenty years or so. Dr. William K. Ehrenfeld recently gave the college almost 800 works, and this is the first of three small shows consisting of works selected from that gift. The center of the room featured rows of this astonishing headgear, each one mounted on a simple cloth pedestal. Three-dimensional birds, faces in relief and geometric patterns adorned these fez-like forms made from leather and covered entirely in glass and sometimes stone beads. The symbolic meanings attached to the bead's palette of mostly primary colors are apparently linked to specific temperaments, among other things. There were also beaded staffs, a set of what looked like vestments, and even two chairs/ thrones encrusted with glistening patterns. It goes without saying that these pieces have profound religious and social significance. But I still allowed myself a few guilt-free moments to just stare at them in open-mouthed admiration, as amazing, enchanting products of ingenuity and artistry.

In the other large exhibition area of the gallery, quilts made by African-American women during the last thirty-five years hung on the walls. These works' lively, organic compositions show what can be done with the traditional "bowtie" pattern when it's being explored by quilt-makers steeped in a tradition of improvisation. These quilts are such satisfying, deeply attractive works of art that it's difficult to imagine them being rejected as "filled with mistakes"—an attitude apparently held by some of the Euro-American quiltmakers who came in contact with similarly crafted objects. It's ironic, when we compare this with widely-held attitudes towards improvisation in music—specifically, jazz. But putting aural and visual artforms side by side is really an apples-and-oranges kind of activity. It's better to just feel grateful that Eli Leon has collected and preserved the marvelous quilts in this show.

It goes without saying that these pieces have profound religious and social significance. But I still allowed myself a few guilt-free moments to just stare at them in open-mouthed admiration, as amazing, enchanting products of ingenuity and artistry.

Free Dinner: Sara Thustra

My wife and I walked up the steps of City Hall to find an impressive array of activist folk crowding the halls like a sit-in from the Sixties. After worring their way through security and piling a plate full of beans and macaroni from a nearby conference room, the crowd mashed themselves into room 282 of City Hall to run their eyes over a collection of paintings and prints by Sara Thustra.

In place of Barry McGee's more overt "Smash the State" sprayed on the wall above Matt Gonzalez's desk (marking the sentiments of his farewall), Sara Thustra fills the offices with hypnotizing, technicolor-ray paintings. In general, Sara Thustra's brand of art/activism combines retina burning color, ironic humor, and a crowd-mantra version of Marxist critique as a kind of "optical protest."*

The office-shows, started in 2001 by Matt Gonzales while on the Board of Supervisors, are being carried forward by his brave replacement Ross Mirkarimi. While the desks and file cabinets remain, the three roomed office has turned gallery (despite the best intentions of the artist) including a bar soaked with cheap wine. It's exciting to think the work will remain up for a month, but wandering around the mostly vacant building last night, it occurred to me that we were probably standing witness to choir practice.

I encourage you to visit City Hall during regular business hours to knock on room 282.

* Quote from the artist in the email announcement

in/organic

I'm going to try quoting Baudelaire without sounding pompous (please feel free to mock me).

But this passage from Baudelaire's Le Voyage did come to mind when looking at the in/organic show by Curtis H. Arima at the West Gallery of the Richmond Art Center.

We saw stars
And waves; we saw sands, too;
And despite many crises and unforeseen disasters,
We were often bored, just as we are here.

In this one-man show Arima a talented metalsmith uses his skills in an attempt to recreate nature's handy work in unnatural settings. For example he creates two wall mounted pieces out of old window frames to form display cases for some nicely made tree limbs and vines fabricated from sheet metal and wire that are bisected by some unfortunately weak drawings of trees and vines. The purpose of this exorcise is unclear to me. It's not surreal work. It is pretty stuff probably better suited to a window display at an upscale dress shop like Anthropology rather than an art gallery.

This show seems very much like a display of parts rather than completed works.

The in/organic show runs from September 6th to October 30th
The Richmond Art Center
2540 Barrett Avenue, Richmond, CA 94804
Phone: 510-620-6772
http://www.therichmondartcenter.org/html/new_exhibitions.html

Identity Theft

Much of the attraction of Outsider Art derives from the astonishing range and commitment with which self-taught artists will reinvent the whole process of art from the ground up. Artists like Henry Darger and Daniel Martinez operated in a kind of void. Nobody saw Darger's work before his death, and Ramirez was misdiagnosed as schizophrenic because he was deaf and couldn't lip-read spoken English.

The Creative Growth Art Center makes these tragedies feel out of date. It's a place where all difference is enjoyed, and communication is constant and intense. But that deeply inventive quality of the artists' work continues for all of that. I think this quality is what people have in mind when they use the word "naive." But these artists aren't unexposed to the image culture that's everywhere around us, and they seem more socially able than your average art-school class. What they're new to, and at the same time completely committed to is the fact that they can make the stuff themselves. That long moment of discovery, when you see that you can actually make this stuff, is probably the best moment of any artist's career, and in this workshop that moment has an amazing and delightful attenuation.

The September show at CGAC is a portrait collection. Much of the work on display is by the Center's stars: Donald Mitchell and the late Dwight McDonald, for example, both of whom have authored books which the Center published and offers for sale at its store. A good third of the show resulted from a collage/portrait workshop led recently by local artist Deborah Barrett. The basic game of production for most of the work involved building a bust, either frontal or in profile, out of scraps of old ledgers and legal documents, and then furnishing the face in primary colors with letterform stencils. The invention with which letter, numbers and their parts stand in for noses and ears is constant and, taking the group as a whole, wonderful.

In addition to the workshop and artists already named, this show included work by regular CGAC artists David Alvares, Marion Bolton, Terri Bowden, Kimberly Clark, Louis Estape, William Scott and Ernest Spears. The gallery and workshop are open Monday through Friday from eleven in the morning until five-thirty in the afternoon, but not on weekends

"Identity Theft," the portrait show.
Creative Growth Art Center, 355 24th street, Oakland, CA 94612

Sept. 15 to Oct. 14, 2005
Opening Reception, Sep. 15, Five to Eight, P.M.

Dan's Family Fun Park

When I first heard about Dan's Family Fun Park, I was under-whelmed. The idea of turning a gallery space into a put-put golf course and batting cage seemed flippant and dubiously ironic—a bit, "hey look what I can do!" However, in the resulting show, currently at PLAySPACE gallery and running through the 16th of September, Daniel Purbrick and Daniel Reneau have gracefully and gratuitously exceeded my low expectations.

All three miniature golf holes can be completed in four strokes, but may take you many more. (Dan Reneau claims to have done it in three!) In the batting cage you can flail at plastic balls pitched to you by either the accommodating gallery attendant or anyone who's handy, while projected on the wall beside you other batters work out their angst and polish their swings. Outside the batting cage there is a Mrs. Pac-man arcade game on which, if you have brought enough quarters, you may be able to get the high score. Or you can save your quarters and use them to buy some candy at the confectionary which you can enjoy while watching the projected go-cart racing or relaxing at the picnic table. T-shirts are available, but limited in quantity, and will go fast. The mini-golf holes, despite their jaunty green Astroturf and orange trim, exude much of the solemnity and gravitas expected from minimalist sculpture while inviting transgressive interaction akin to a Felix Gonzales Torres' candy pile. The batting cage and its video projection evoke the ubiquitous video projection room but turned on its head—the projection, window dressing for your performative activity. The concessions, in addition to being yummy, question the commercial role of art space but without the usual preachy-ness. Questioning the art market, subverting formal tropes, and challenging spatial behavioral norms, are great. But what is best about Dan's Family Fun Park, is that it takes us, within the gallery space, to a place before we learned the "rules" and reminds us that this work, all work, is there for us and that it can be fun.

PLAySPACE Gallery is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12-6pm. It is located on the second floor of the California College of the Arts at 1111 8th Street. For more information contact dpugh@cca.edu

Yellow Car Parade

There is no shortage of parades to attend in the Bay Area. When I moved here two years ago I made it a point to go to as many as I could. I love the idea of parades; people coming out to gather on the street and be entertained by a steady stream of bands, floats and talent troops. And yet, time and time again I am disappointed by the reality of the cheap costumes, half hearted dance routines and mass of advertising. With that in mind, I have to say that the Yellow Car Parade was one of the most satisfying parades I've been to .

When I arrived at 49th and Telegraph Ave, there was a small group of spectators gathered outside Temescal Amity Works (www.amityworks.org) waiting for the arrival of the parade, the majority of them wearing lemon-yellow t-shirts. A "Yellow Car Parade" banner of the same hue was hoisted, under-which the cars would soon pass. Local artist Jon Bromit served as the parade's MC, attempting to woo unsuspecting passersby, particularly the ones who happened to be wearing the uniform. At this point I was feeling a bit nervous for the artist/organizer, Shane Montgomery, due to the relatively low turnout of spectators. My own work often depends on the participation of others and I wished I could beam in a bigger crowd to amp up the energy. What's a parade without cheering masses?

After waiting for about 20 minutes, during which time we were given free apples collected from neighborhood fruit trees by Temescal Amity Works, the yellow cars could be seen queing up around the corner. The first vehicle was a yellow Harley Davidson. As the driver and his passenger pulled under the" Yellow Car Parade" banner the MC announced "And starting off the Yellow Car Parade Today is Lee and company, on the "Screamin' Banana" a '98 Harley Davidson. He's a scorpio, has several tattoos and scars, and likes animals! Thank you Lee and company!" After this brief introduction the Harley sped off and the next car pulled up. Each time this happened a similar set of stats were announced as drivers, some with passengers, waved to the small but incredibly enthusiastic cheering on-lookers. Judging by facial expressions, body language, and how quickly the car sped away from the center of attention, the participants seemed to range in their enthusiasm for the event. A family in a yellow dune buggy got my vote for the best showmanship as their entry was complete with a woman doing the official parade wave and a driver with incredible facial hair. The lineup of cars ranged from new and sporty to old and unremarkable and included a '55 Ford, a Thunderbird, a Lotus, a Corvet Stingray, a Fiesta, a Mustang and a truck with custom details including an homage to a dead pet pitt-bull. It's probably obvious from my coverage of the event so far that I know very little about cars and was generally more interested in the people who decided to participate in this event than the wow factor of a yellow Lotus.

After the 'formal' presentation, the cars made a loop around the neighborhood, showing off their yellow solidarity on Telegraph Ave. I imagine this was, in some ways, a more rewarding, more exihlerating experience for drivers and the bewildered public. When the parade ended I was left feeling uplifted by the simple gesture of this public intervention into the otherwise quiet comings-and-goings of a saturday afternoon in Oakland. I was also curious to know more about these people who had decided to respond to random invites tucked under their windsheild wipers. About a third of the parade participants joined onlookers and organizers for a BBQ after the final lap. I met the dune buggy family and another driver who used the after-party as a chance to parade his cherished pet pitt-bull. It was during the BBQ that I started to get a sense of the power of this project. One participant wondered allowed if the drivers shared other character traits besides their choice in car color. Someone else remarked that there were lots of scorpios in the parade. Neighborhood residents who had stopped by to watch the parade were remind of relatives who had owned similar kinds of cars. The whole thing was an excuse to get strangers to come out and eat hot dogs together. That's not to say the yellow cars were inconsequential. More and more we are afraid of our neighbors, hesitant to take risks whick involve strangers and out of the ordinary activities. So, in order for those safety boundaries to be crossed we need to feel we have something in common. In this case it was yellow cars.

As far as art projects go this was not a mind bending idea or a profound emotional experience, but it was a wonderful way to spend a saturday afternoon and a refreshing feeling of openness amongst strangers. I vote for more art like this.

For more images see http://amityworks.org/visit.html

Midori Harima

I'm always surprised to find "art" in the San Francisco Art Commission's Grove Street window space and neighboring empty lot. Its architecture is not uncommon to retail or commercial storefronts and generally the most surprising thing about an empty lot in the city is that it remains undeveloped.

Of course there are many surprising (and strange) things to see and experience in the Civic Center area. What I like about the Grove Street windows is that it doesn't try, or perhaps is incapable of, divorcing from its surroundings the way many gallery spaces do.

Artist Midori Harima, on view in the Grove Street windows through October 2nd, seems to point to this observation with the title of her piece: Circumstantial Message. From a distance it appears as though installation might still be underway—a wide swath of white scrim stretched across both windows obscures the view into the space.

Approaching closer a figure becomes visible. The figure is three-dimensional, sculpted from Xerox copies. It is child-sized, the palms of its hands pressed against the glass. The figure is unfinished from the shoulders up—cut off at the same height as the bottom edge of the scrim. At the back of the space are sets of legs and feet arranged in regular rows, like soldiers (or prisoners?) standing at attention. The legs and feet are also made of Xeroxes, child-sized, and cut off and intersected by another layer of scrim.

As the title implies I am left to my own devices to interpret the "message" embedded in Harima's work. Does it have something to do with the passage from childhood to adulthood? Is it about the loss of curiosity and wonder as we learn to behave within social norms—as we learn to act like adults? Normally I would be frustrated by this kind of work, finding it emotionally charged but vague and without clear intent. But today I am happy to encounter it, happy to consider its possible meanings in relation to the street life slipping by, happy to behold a still moment amongst the constant movement.

http://www.sfacgallery.org

The Art of Vivika and Otto Heino

Visiting the Oakland Museum of California is a bit like solo rock climbing. There are three levels of California stuff on display set out in cave-like concrete exhibition halls. And on a weekend you will almost certainly find yourself alone. In search of the exhibit "Plant Portraits". I chose Level 3 "ART." I knew the special exhibition would be in the back of the gallery so kept a steady pace through the past few decades of the permanent collection but got stuck on a few landscapes near the turn of the century. Canvases like Henry Joseph Breuer's "In Mission Canyon Santa Barbara 1902" make me want to get out of town. (Of course, this canyon may now be town.) I made my way to the special gallery at the back and, to my surprise, was in a small, darkish room with "The Art of Vivika and Otto Heino." Not plant portraits but Arts-and-Crafts inspired pottery.

Vivika and Otto Heino were a wife-and-husband team who practiced pottery together for forty-five years and participated in the California craft scene of the 1950s. They met when, after returning from World War II, Otto signed up for a pottery class with Vivika who had a studio across from his family's New Hampshire dairy farm. After living on both the East and West Coasts, they settled in Ojai, California and named their studio "The Pottery." Photographs of Otto at the wheel and Otto stoking the wood-fired kiln after Vivika's death in 1995 hang on the walls. (You can visit Otto at http://www.ottospottery.com .)

For me the show was more about lifestyle and a California lost than pots—the Oakland Museum sets me up for nostalgia. I grew up on the North Coast and most of the adults in my life were craftspeople. I expected the visitors' comment book to reflect my sentiment but found that visitors were moved by the objects themselves. "What up. Cool pots." "We're French and we're very impressed by your work." "Thank you for introducing so much excitement in my life!" Finally, the somewhat equivocal "The "Olive tile" is so exquisite that it almost brought me to tears." prompted me to take a closer look. "Olive tile"—a slab tile with impression of olive branches and fruit—did not have me weeping. But I kept looking for excitement and decided I was close enough when I found a palm-sized vase with a fleshy orifice and an iron-blue brush stroke on which seems to hang a copper-red human heart. A good-looking object that has only happened once. There is something moving about that.

[Note: Go to Level 1 "NATURAL SCIENCE" to see "Plant Portraits: The California Legacy of A.R. Valentien." Albert R. Valentien was an Arts and Crafts ceramic decorator who decided on a whim to enter the world of plant illustration. California, with its floral diversity and year-round blooms, beckoned. In 1908 he was commissioned to paint the wildflowers of the state. By 1918 he had completed 1500 "portraits"—he had no botanical training. I did the math and that is one painting every two and a half days—this while on one long road trip in a very early automobile over a young and untried highway system. If you are interested in obsessions, you might want to see the show.]

Power to the Peaceful

I am a terribly jaded, hopeless optimist and the 37 minutes it took to find parking felt too San Francisco for my Oaktown sensibilities. After a mile hike through a neighborhood and then into Golden Gate Park, I finally reached the 7th Annual 911 Power to the Peaceful Festival (PTTP) at Speedway Meadow.

Thousands of Bay Area residents gathered to protest, to party, and to participate in a "free, outdoor music and arts festival with a social justice message." It is undeniable that there is power in numbers, and the feeling was palpable. It has been a long time since I've seen such a collection denim, tie-dye and Caucasian dreadlocks. The slightly acrid smell of marijuana wafted through the air, riding the sound waves of some high quality reggae, and finally landing on the sunburned foreheads of all of us so accustomed to the fog. I was already excited to hear from the likes of Woody Harrelson, Angela Davis and the irrepressible Michael Franti. The sunshine simply confirmed that it would be a day of feeling good.

In a sea of anti-Bush propaganda and completely compostable paper products from the food vendors, our nation's woes seemed surmountable. Peace really felt like a possibility. Just suppose if everyday all across America we all had the opportunity to buy hemp soap, to hawk cheap political t-shirts, and to skateboard on a half-pipe in the park before an adoring audience. Wouldn't everything be a little more chill? Now, it certainly doesn't hurt if everyone looks like they are in their mid 20's, shows lots of skin, and wears uber trendy sunglasses. I mean it, thousands and thousands of pairs of totally hip sunglasses!

Oh, and I can't forget the dancing. Yuppie bouncing, hippy flailing, and Urban Outfitter clad hipster undulating all together boogying at the knees of costumed stilt walkers. Now that makes me—well, peaceful—sleepy even.

Thank God for San Francisco, for Bay Area optimism and self-righteousness. Who else will remind the rest of the country that we can "all just get along?" As long as there's enough pot, sun, beer and vegan carob chip cookies for everyone.

If you're feeling the peaceful vibe, check out the Power to the Peaceful Film Festival that takes place Monday and Tuesday, September 12-13 at Roxie Cinema. http://www.powertothepeaceful.org/film.html

Crytal Liu - You're Invited

A small room in an otherwise cavernous gallery was home to two new series of drawings by Canadian artist Crystal Liu. The secondary space, contained within a larger and considerably less interesting exhibition, could not have provided a more fitting scenario. Liu's "My House is Dead: it's my birthday" consists of 14 delicately drawn cakes, which are simultaneously haplessly pathetic and utterly gorgeous. Some drawings depict towers of unbalanced confectionery tiers with droopy frosting, adorned with effortlessly drawn ribbons and stars, while others appear collapsed and delicious. They are decadence unfurled, with a glimmer of hope. "Let's Stick Together" is an equally hope-filled series of small, bristly sea urchin-like objects, floating in bunches with a straggler here and there, set in fantastical, airy landscapes. Akin to the cake drawings, these too support the awkward and delicate, yet heartening narrative the title suggests. Overall this show is well worth checking out. Bring your imagination, and maybe a half-squished cupcake.

http://www.hosfeltgallery.com/HTML/exhibitions.htm

Various Artists

When I was young I liked to make friends play a game with bad clothing catalogs. We'd flip through the catalog together and from all of the awful outfits on each page we'd have to pick the one we would wear (for a full day at school) if forced to do so. A perhaps more grownup version of this game can be played at galleries . . . which one of the artworks on exhibit would you display at home? Picking from things you like is fun, but ideally this should be played with unappealing art.

My husband and I started our visit to Berkeley Art Museum with modernist Hans Hofmann's paintings. He is described as an "influential Abstract Expressionist painter" but I just don't like his stuff. Neither does my husband, so we played the game. We both choose the same 1944 piece, "Effervescence."

Up to the next floor where there are lots of treats starting with a section of Li Jin's 15ft. scroll, "Harvest II", a traditional Chinese ink wash with a cheeky twist. The artist is apparently exploring "the pleasure of meals taken with family" . . . this stretch of the scroll depicts a fetching young woman in the nude, two elderly folk in underclothes (seemingly poised for a soul kiss) and some city slickers awkwardly perched on the edge of their picnic. Pleasure indeed; wish the whole thing was unfurled.

Around the corner are two glass cases of Alexander Calder's 1920s "toys." Charming little things made from wood and metal and fabric that I would like to have on a shelf at home. The forlorn "Blue Velvet Cow" and the "Animal Zoo Puzzle" are particularly desirable. Good thing those purse-size gems are behind glass.

In front of Chiho Aoshima's huge plasma print "Magma Spirit Explodes. Tsunami is Dreadful", my son awoke from his stroller nap with wild eyes. And with good reason, this huge manga-esque vision of a wide-eyed mermaid shooting fire is like a good bad dream. The slick CG image invites close scrutiny for smaller details like nude figures swimming through the waves of ocean blue. Husband and I agree we'd gladly sport this on a wall at home.

On the way out we passed through the temporary "Yosemite in Time" exhibit of Byron Wolfe and Mark Klett's photographic re-creations of historic images of Yosemite. The photographs explore the evolution of this iconic space "while change is evident in the morphing forests and diminishing water of the park, the seemingly immutable granite backdrops provide for strikingly similar images even when taken 130 years apart."

Leaving BAM we battled weekend traffic to our second stop for the day, Cecile Moochnek Gallery. Moochnek herself greeted us and showed us through the cluttered backrooms where more work is on display. Like the gallery collection, Moochnek was bright and cheerful. The overall impression was that the paintings on display make nice postcards and that sometimes the postcards are better than the real thing. Take Yvette Molina's dreamy botanicals; on a diminutive 5x7 card, they are beautiful. In person, the 5ft aluminum panels made me think of the fantasy novels I once enjoyed, a flighty and slightly embarrassing pleasure. Anyway, playing the game once more, Tyler and I again picked the same painting Molina's "Last Light." We seem to be in accord on such things . . . will come in handy when we can finally afford art.

leonardogillesfleur

In the middle—offset toward the west facing windows—of the small, but mostly empty, Mission 17 gallery is a shinny-new, black and chrome, unquestionably beautifully made, two-headed bicycle.

Like a mirror image the two sets of handle bars and front wheel are pointed in opposite directions. The third wheel, the rear wheel, is shared. It is a mechanical contradiction that is both well deigned and flawlessly fabricated.

The bi-bicycle is the latest effort from the collaborative duo leonardogillesfleur entitled Irreconcilable Differences and it is meant to embody the inherent difficulties of collaboration and highlight the uselessness of art objects. To me the piece is wholly symbolic on both counts, but it's only the allusion to conflicts that arise from the collaborative process that bugs me.

The components of Irreconcilable Differences: the altered bicycle and accompanying image of the artists trying to ride it are so polished that they do not betray the slightest hint of conflict or struggle in the pair's relationship. More specifically there is no evidence of the negotiations that took place in bringing the idea for "irreconcilable differences" to fruition—no miscommunication, compromise, trust, or confluence evident in the work.

Instead there is a harmonious, unified and immaculate object—apparently never ridden except for the one image (which comes off more as a promo shot than an earnest attempt to use their creation). This could be the sign of a successful collaboration, but to me it is a missed opportunity as neither the altered bicycle nor its use work to illuminate the nature of collaboration.

Irreconcilable Differences will be on view through October 15th, 2005.

http://www.mission17.com/

Scenes from the Bay Area

Students and graduates of The California College of Arts and Crafts and alumni of the fine woodworking program of the College of the Redwoods, Ft. Bragg, CA, founded the Cricket Engine Gallery in 1996 as an artist collective.

Many of the current artists are MFA graduates of CCAC. The Gallery is housed in a former military infirmary .It is located in the 5th Avenue Marina, near Oakland's Jack London Square. Phoenix Iron Works is right across the way, as are numerous artists' studios and businesses. Going to a reception at Cricket Engine is less like the traditional white wine experience you may know from the galleries in SF and more like crashing your neighbors barbecue. The most recent show they had on view was part of Bayanalle: International Art Exhibition: "Scenes from the Bay Area." The opening featured a miniature golf course that covered the length of the 5th Avenue Marina. Here is a link where you may view a golf course that looks as if it may have been constructed by Fat Albert and his friends.
http://www.fecalface.com/blogs/the_eastsider/archives/2005/07/fore.html

The place has a very homey feel that is quite conducive to wondering about with a nice beverage and jawing with the gentry and or rapscallions of the area ( I rather like the word "rapscallion" ). One such rapscallion is an extremely impressive artist who is known simply as Shultz. Shultz occasionally shows at the Cricket Engine gallery and has an incredible sprawling studio space just a short walk down the Marina. If I thought I could pull it off I would kill Shultz and assume his identy. That is how much I admire him. He works with found objects to create non-functional vehicles that would have both Joseph Cornell and H.G. Well's mouths watering. A photo of his piece titled "Cyclops" may be viewed at the above link. His studio looks like a cross between the Adams family's living room and the Smithsonian's attic. It is just jammed with every sort of red velvet covered, rusty, dusty, parchment yellow object you can imagine. Shultz's studio is not generally open to the public but if you happen to be an attractive young woman or if you are just traveling with one he can be quite accommodating.

The next show rumored to be coming up in October at Cricket Engine is a showing of sculpture by Michelle Kern one of the founding members of the gallery. Her web site is http://www.geocities.com/mpkartist/ .And the site of the Cricket Engine Gallery is http://www.cricketengine.org/ .

Elisa Shea

The Lexington Club is a self-described "friendly neighborhood dyke bar" in San Francisco's Mission District. Although there are lots of places that women-lovin'-women hang out around the city, the Lex is probably the best-known almost 100% lesbian space. There's no policy to keep guys or heteros out, but you don't usually find too many of these types here. This bar is complete with a jukebox, pinball machine, pool table, and lots of ladies. What's great about the Lexington is how it fosters "lesbian culture" by hosting dj nights, wacky theme parties, and art exhibitions. So, when I was invited to be one of the hoards of Shotgun Reviewers, I decided to drag my girlfriend over to the Lex for a ginger ale on the rocks and a good look at the current art exhibition. This show is by Elisa Shea and features a series of large color photographs that the artist describes as snap shots of "female-centric queer culture." In these photos you see cool hair-do's, piercings, tatoos, thrift store style and even a bit of street (as in asphalt, under a skater tennis shoe and a dead pigeon). Each photo is made up of strips of photo paper held to the wall by blue tape and staples. Because each image is comprised of different length strips of print paper, it gives the photographs a raggedy edge that suggests a kind of careless punk attitude. Yet, in looking at the pictures I was amazed at how neatly the strips were assembled so that the images appear seemless. I have to say, Elisa is a good photographer. The images are technically well done and the compositions are beautiful, but the longer I stared at them, the more I got stuck on surface. The work is about fashion—style as a marker for sub-culture. I was a little disappointed. I wanted more—wanted something beyond a fashion statement to be the marker for dyke culture.

http://www.lexingtonclub.com/

New Visions

First: Respect to Pro Arts for some 25 years of good work in the East Bay, and congratulations on its handsome new space. Its "New Visions, Introductions 2005", was curated by Catharine Clark and Jack Hanley. Clark too is a local stalwart whose particular vision, which tends toward the surreal, and rough edges, has kept her SF gallery particular and vital for many years. Hanley, simply put, has the best eye for new talent of any West Coast dealer or curator for that matter. Part of the fun of this show is guessing which of the two selected which work. Highlights for this viewer included the video by Tonya Solley Thornton that remembers that video is a form of fine art, not mediocre drama. Deadpan, nice costumes and set.The tour de force of the show is by Sarah Hirniesen, whose apartment complex with the fourth wall removed is charming and well executed. Its wonderful mysteriousness is unfortunately closed off by inclusion of a flyer that makes the meaning specific rather than opting to allow the viewer's participation. Two artists open the show with very strong two dimensional pieces: a near-mural scale drawing by Ema Sintamarian, "How Can I Live Without Ads," which looks like the artist tried to ask a graffitti artist to imagine Shaun O'Dell without seeing his work. Finally, Erik Friedman, on a less ambitious scale, also makes flat, complex images with a larger color palate that were unusual and successful. Also of note: Robert Lewis's dogs (painting) and especially strong, Cham Hendon's wonderful rendering of a 17th century naval scene torn apart by a horrendous color storm.

http://proartsgallery.org/

Doug Hall

My initial exposure to Doug Hall's work came about five years ago. At the time, I was in my first year of graduate school at the California College of Arts and Crafts. In one of my classes we were shown, The Eternal Frame. This satirical film, a collaboration between two collectives, T.R. Uthco and Ant Farm, recreated JFK's assassination. Hall, a founding member of the former multi-media performance group, played Kennedy. For a native San Franciscan, he was pretty convincing with his New England accent. At the time, I wasn't familiar with either collective, but I appreciated the spirit of the video as it scrutinized the media's handling of JFK's death.

That was pretty much it for Doug Hall and I, until about a few months ago when we were both included in an exhibition called, Downtime: Constructing Leisure. Hall had two photos in the show, one of which I recall was a large image of a pool at a Las Vegas hotel. The picture was quite pleasing on a formal level, but compared to The Eternal Frame it was rather underwhelming.

When I learned that Hall was having a solo show I was curious to learn a bit more about his work. Perhaps the images in the aforementioned group show were just an aberration and a solo show would showcase that revolutionary spirit that I found so appealing in his Kennedy film.

Hall's exhibition consists of a dozen large-scale photographs of various tourist spots around the globe, including the Eiffel Tower, The Grand Canyon and a striking vista in Yosemite Valley. The pictures are formally stunning in terms of color and composition. But as I strolled through the show trying to understand what Hall was after, I started to feel like I was looking for Waldo. With the exception of three pictures, all of the scenes feature a smattering of people, in some, in the foreground, in others in the background. Surely, Hall must be up to something, there must be something provocative in those crowds. Maybe the artist himself was in those shots, looking at the looker, kind of like in that Anne Collier photo of a vacant Dodger Stadium (until you spot Collier, a speck in the bleachers). But alas, there was no Waldo.

I read through the press release to try to glean a tad more information. And as I read about critiques of advertising and scale of tourism, I nodded my head. I understood all of that, but I couldn't shake my thoughts of Hall as Kennedy and that sense of idealism that tends to accompany youth. It made me think of other artists of his generation, people like Chris Burden and Vito Acconci, and how their work has also become fairly tame as the years have gone by. I have to admit that the idea of having shows, selling work and picking up accolades along the way is appealing, but if it's at the expense of idealism, I'm not so sure it is worth it.

http://www.renabranstengallery.com/Hall_Tour05.html

Los Creamators

I stopped in to have a second look at Eamon Ore-Giron's solo show at QNA a few hours before the official closing this afternoon. It had been almost a month since I first saw the work at the opening and I wanted to compare my memory with the real thing. I was vaguely underwhelmed during my initial encounter. Not because Ore-Giron had departed from his more conventional paintings, which I saw a year or so ago on a visit to the Headlands, but because he had combined aspects of his past work with what appeared to be formal investigations of only surface-level content.

I'm often reminded that it's difficult to see the art at an opening. The real problem for me, however, is not seeing the art, it's that I can't think with any real depth through the layers of ambient conversation and the distraction of social encounters. After my second visit to Los Creamators earlier today, I internally acknowledged the above realization and made a promise to myself to try to go see shows more than once. My enjoyment rethinking Ore-Giron's work turned out to be well worth the return trip.

The rorschach towers carved out of seam-splayed record-covers are like totems of eerie tribal masks. The 45 rpm record stacks edged with a thin line of color cumulatively form rainbow-roll columns that hover beautifully in the middle of QNA's modest front room. While the use of records and record-covers as sculptural objects has become somewhat overwrought since the advent of the turntable-as-instrument some twenty plus years ago (especially in San Francisco where the aesthetic byproducts of these subcultural pursuits have drifted into the mainstream), these attempts feel fresh. In the larger context of recent art history, however, Los Creamtors only narrowly escapes redundancy. I'm thinking specifically of the work of music-oriented artist Christian Marclay.

The video projection in the back room, which reads like a performance document, shows a utility knife turned record needle. A contact mic has been attached to the blade, picking up sound while it gradually destroys the record (In the second video Ore-Giron applies heat giving the record a lumpy topography). While this gesture reminds me of West-Coast conceptualism's sound experiments from the 70s (like Paul Kos' "The Sound of Ice Melting" from 1970), his clever tinkering extends to low-tech sound device in the form of a circular lapel button printed with a speaker. I asked Bob Linder, one of QNA's directors, about the pile of buttons, and he set the nearby turntable spinning and pressed the needle attached to the button into the grooves of the record. Such a beautifully simple gesture actually produced a miniature sound system. Of course it will eventually destroy the record - making the experience of listening to a recording a small step closer to a live, one-time-only event.

One of the things I love about this show is Ore-Giron's willingness to openly try out various tactics, like a scientist testing an hypothesis. From an experiment involving sandblasting patterns on the surface of records to producing a 2 cd set of music to accompany the exhibition, Ore-Giron's considerable effort is admirable. He is also successful at setting the mood; an overall aura of Pink Floyd tinted mysticism and a tendency toward destruction gives the show a feeling of glossy doom. Maybe he's getting at the worrisome effects of cartesian logic when applied to the more emotional abstractions contained in music. In any case I left the gallery this afternoon feeling excited about his lab-like collection.

Ultimately Los Creamators might be considered a sort of opening act for the more resolved practices of artists like Miguel Calderon and Yoshua Okon, appearing in the "Queremos Rock" group show opening on September 16th, but I look forward to seeing the next group of work from Ore-Giron.

http://queensnailsannex.com/