paintings + drawings

I am making art too.

Jill Miller

Add to My Profile | More Videos

Jill Miller, 2003.

CAMP gets the okay to continue its march.

Today's SF Chronicle reports that yesterday the Presidio Trust announced it will move forward with Donald Fisher's museum plans.

Craig Middleton, executive director of the Presidio Trust, was quoted as saying "San Francisco is a beacon to the world, and this adds to that, creating a place of innovative beauty, art and history."

Huh?

How do we become a beacon when we force potential museum attendees to drive the length of San Francisco to see Fisher's collection? I don't see anything innovative in that. We all know it would take forever to ride from downtown to the Presidio on MUNI. Even Fisher knows public transit sticks here - he's been lobbying for more parking garages for years.

CAMP is not the Barnes - an out of the way treasure trove founded in the 20th Century. As matter of fact, Philly is working on moving the Barnes to Center City and integrating it into the arts district.

Like it or not, keeping the culture together makes alot of sense in San Francisco. A portion of our economy is based on tourism. Tourists visit museums. Will they rent a car for one day and drive to the Presidio? I doubt it. Architecturally the museum is a snore. The surrounding park is nothing special, its the tended remains of a military outpost.

Fisher's project belongs downtown.

Previous CAMP coverage is here.

M.I.A. at SFMOMA.

Here's the latest piece I wrote for KQED:

Let’s take a quick run through “Matisse and Beyond, ” the rotating exhibition of selections from SFMOMA’s permanent collection. Or maybe a brisk walk -- I’m pretty sure running is still not allowed in the museum.

The first two galleries one enters feature the beginnings of  20th Century art in Europe -- Fauvism, Dada, and Cubism. When you look around, please notice that all the paintings and sculptures are by men.

The third gallery offers the murmurings of early 20th Century art in America -- a few Precisionists, some Modernists and two pieces by Georgia O’Keeffe. This would also be the home to the Museum’s two Frida Kahlo paintings, but they are currently out on loan.

Next up are the galleries that house mostly pre-WW2 art from America and Europe -- Surrealism, the beginnings of Abstract Expressionism and more Surrealism. It’s a room that evokes that odd, super sexualized-moment in art that happened right before Germany got ambitious. By the way, no women artists are found here.

Now we come to my favorite part of “Matisse and Beyond,” the room full of AbEx’ers. The Rothko is king of this gallery. There’s an anorexic Giacometti sculpture, perhaps to remind you that the Abstract Expressionists were reacting to the War to End All Wars. Wait, slow down, you almost missed a painting by Joan Mitchell. One of the best post-war painters -- and she’s female.

Alright, we’ve just crossed the half-way point, and we’ve only seen work from two women artists. Hurry up, there must be more women artists on view somewhere in here. After all the 20th Century gave us Jackson Pollock, but it also gave us Lee Krasner.

A few paces more lead us through the shrine to the behemoth abstract struggles slathered together by Clyfford Still. No women artists are allowed in. Nor men for that matter. Still’s deal with the museum states that he gets the room to himself.

Now into two galleries of work from the 60s – Neo-Dada, Pop Art, Minimalism and the seeds of Performance and Conceptual art. As you leave the last of the two rooms you might notice the silvery Andy Warhol silkscreen of Elizabeth Taylor. How about that - an image of woman on a horse, made by a man. You might also notice -- I sure did -- that for two consecutive rooms, there were no women artists on view.

Now we stumble into the 80s and 90s galleries, the last two rooms of “Matisse and Beyond.” Immediately on the left, a Kiki Smith bronze wall sculpture welcomes you. Further in is a Vija Celmins painting of a Superfortress. Over there are two sculptural busts by Janine Antoni, beautifully understated but creepy (like the Smith, in a good way) and a quartet of drawings from SECA winner Rosana Castrillo Diaz. In front of you is “Fire,” an installation by Teresita Fernandez, that seems to be getting in a fist fight for your attention with Jim Hodge’s gargantuan sculpture “No Betweens.”

And with that, “Matisse and Beyond” comes to a screeching halt. You’ve just seen 130 pieces of art, twelve of them by eight women artists which works out to less than one in ten pieces.

If you think this simply reflects the demographics of the modern art world, you’ve been duped by SFMOMA. This does not reflect the art of the 20th Century. There were, in fact, more than a handful of women making museum-worthy art in the last hundred years.

Janet Bishop, curator in charge of “Matisse and Beyond,” emails, “The historical portion of SFMOMA's collection, like other modern collections, is definitely skewed toward work by men, which reflects the broader exhibiting and collecting patterns of the art world over the course of too much of the 20th century.”

“But,” Bishop continues, “fortunately, in recent decades, the situation has changed quite a lot.  Women have a much greater prominence in the art world now, curators are more aware of issues of representation, and a much higher percentage of work by women now enters the collection every year.”

For instance, Bishop points out that this year, SFMOMA acquired the Fernandez and Antoni sculptures as well as a Louise Lawler piece (I’m a big fan) and a huge installation by Ann Hamilton. As a matter of fact, in 2007, the painting and sculpture department purchased work by 10 women and 11 men.

It would seem we are living in a brighter tomorrow.

But why then has SFMOMA acknowledged that their collection of pre-Watergate art reflects a male-centric collecting pattern and let it go at that. We are constantly revising and reinterpreting history to fit the ideas of the day. Does the museum really want to flaunt it’s mistakes?

There are two very simple solutions to SFMOMA’s seemingly-sexist quandary. Either one, when implemented, would help make the place the world-class Museum The City deserves.

The first answer is the most expensive and least likely to happen. The acquisitions committee could go out to market and pick up more historic pieces by women. Mary Cassatt, Sonia Delaunay and Suzanne Valadon are still going for less money than their male counterparts.

An easier answer to SFMOMA’s embarrassing dilemma is for Janet Bishop to go to their warehouse and dig up more pieces by women artists and put them on view. Pieces from Helen Lundberg, Helen Torr, Helen Phillips or Anne Bremer – all of would look terrific in the early 20th Century Americans.

Why not give that Rothko a breather and mix some more women in with Joan Mitchell? Nell Stinton, Helen Frankenthaler and Agnes Martin would strike up a fascinating conversation with Mitchell.

The Surrealists could certainly use something from Barbara Hepworth or Mary Calley. They might even enjoy a real kick in the pants from Meret Oppenheim’s “Miss Gardenia.”

Why not break up the man-minefield of art that has Warhol’s National Velvet holding it together with something from Eva Hesse, Alice Baber, Joe Baer or African American abstractionist Ellen Banks?

Last but not least, SFMOMA must consider hanging, somewhere, works from three Bay Area icons: Jay DeFeo, Joan Brown and Amy Flemming. These San Franciscans wrestled with their craft, and came out victorious. They need to be celebrated equally with the Clyfford Stills and David Parks.

Hey SFMOMA, we’re getting on this kinda late, but how about this for a new year’s resolution? A more equitable view of women artists in “Matisse and Beyond.” You can do it -- you’ve already got the goods.

Mike Kelley's Day is Done.

screens at YBCA on Jan 31 beginning at 7:30pm. Event info is here.

To tide you over here is part of an interview with Kelley about the making of the Day is Done.

And on a related note, below is the episode of Each & Every One of You where Don Goodes teaches viewers how to make  installation art with secondhand stuffed animals as well as how to make art videos (using the macro feature).

The future is now, again.

I don't usually comment on architecture, but this one was too easy to pass up. It seems Venturi and Brown's Learning From Las Vegas is being applied in a big way in Dubai.

Being billed as "beyond history," Falconcity has rebuilt the major wonders of human civilization all in one community. The best part - The giant pyramids have become the town's management office. And the hanging gardens of Babylon? Luxury flats and a coffee shop.

Since the oil is running out in the Middle East (many believe that we passed peak production in 2001), its probably a good economic plan to start parceling off the desert to create a gigantic amusement park-housing development for China, Europe and the West.

The tragic fate of my grandfather's name sake.

I guess before the popularity of film, newspapers were responsible for offering death in all its gory details. (Click on the image for a larger version in a pop-up window).

Yep, I'm a Hershey. The candy bar-making ones.

See Sellout. Now.

If, for some reason, you have not taken the time to visit Derborah Fischer's latest project - the group discussion blog Sellout. You need to do it.

But don't rush over there, if you only have a couple seconds, go when you have time to lurk or comment. The discussions are often long - offering insights and arguments and sometimes personal attacks and animosity (but that's the web and the art world for ya.)

Anyway, its a great starting point to look at many of the problems and pluses of the art world.

Found in Flushing.

via author and theorist (all-round nice guy) Adam Greenfield.

Wally Hedrick redux two.

According to Gary Carson, who reps Wally Hedrick’s estate, you will be able to catch two sightings of the little seen iconoclast this spring. Sometime in March there will be an exhibition of Wally Hedrick's 'War Room' at The Box in Chinatown, Los Angeles.

If you’ve never heard the rumor about the War Room, here it is: The War Room is a group of four eleven-by-eleven foot black canvases that are arranged into a square, the shape of room. In making the War Room, Hedrick was accused of stealing paintings, including a canvas by Clyfford Still, from the San Francisco Art Institute where he was teaching, then painting them black and calling them his own.

If don’t wanna go to The Box in LA, then try the upcoming Paul McCathy curatorial effort at Wattis. Carson helped McCarthy track down some Wally for it. From the press materials the show looks like a must see of art lingering on the fringes as well as some of the bad boys and girls of the pantheon - with a nice kind of California Uber Alles acting as the glue that holds it together.

Update on Weimar New York....

Frank Smigiel, Associate Curator of Public Programs at SFMOMA and organizer of Weimar New York: A Golden Gate Affair, was kind enough to get me a load of information (in a format I can use) about the delightfully degenerate extravaganza he's cooked up for the Museum, and the City in general (the party continues in several venues - The Stud, The Marsh and Harlot).

Buy your tickets now. The Devendra Banhart performance sold out really early and Weimar New York, in my book at least, is way better than a bunch of wimpy ballads by a fragile and sensitive hippy. But I digress.... Here you go:

Weimar New York: A Golden Gate Affair

Performers include:
Justin Bond and Ana Matronic, emcees
Lance Horne, musical director
Penny Arcade
Marga Gomez
Daniel Isengart
Taylor Mac
Meow Meow
Ann Magnuson
Tigger!
Holcombe Waller

Two Performances

Wednesday, February 13
8 p.m. • SFMOMA Haas Atrium
Thursday, February 14
10 p.m. • SFMOMA Haas Atrium

Tickets
Main (general seating): $35 general; $30 SFMOMA members, students, and seniors. Café Section (perimeter table seating): $25 general, $20 SFMOMA members, students, and seniors. Premium (front row, café seating): $125 general; $100 SFMOMA members, students, and seniors. Tickets are available at the Museum (with no surcharge) or online.

More Weimar New York at SFMOMA

Thursday, February 14
Weimar by Day: Eight Events
1 to 8 p.m. • on the hour • SFMOMA Atrium, Free

Friday, February 15, 2008
The Morning after Weimar New York: A Golden Gate Affair
Discussion • 4 p.m. • SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater
Free with museum admission. Seating is first come, first served.
Dax leads this conversation with two legends from New York City’s downtown performance scene. Arcade and Magnuson discuss their groundbreaking work, the changing face of radical performance in the United States, and the power and pleasure of oppositional art.

More Weimar New York in San Francisco

Trannyshack Presents Ladies’ Choice with Ana Matronic
Tuesday, February 12, 10 p.m.–midnight, The Stud, 399 Ninth Street, $8

SFMOMA CX Presents a Post-Performance Party with Heklina
Wednesday, February 13, 10 p.m.–midnight
Harlot, 46 Minna Street, $15; free for February 13 Weimar ticket holders.

The Penny Arcade Experience with special guests Holcombe Waller, Tigger! and La JohnJoseph
Friday, February 15 and Saturday, February, 16, 11 p.m.
Sunday, February 17, 3 p.m., The Marsh, 1062 Valencia Street $20–$35 sliding scale

Downtown Dandies: A Pair of Solo Performances
La JohnJoseph and Joseph Keckler
Sunday, February 17, 8 p.m., The Marsh, 1062 Valencia Street, $15–$25 sliding scale