paintings + drawings

Animals.

The SF Art Institute cancelled tonight's public discussion about "Don't Trust Me," the exhibition by international artist Adel Abdessemed. For that matter, the show itself was closed prematurely on March 26, due to threats of violence by animal-rights activists.

According to the Chronicle, "along with a variety of other elements, the show included a series of video loops of animals being bludgeoned to death with a sledgehammer in front of a brick wall. The animals killed included a pig, goat, deer, ox, horse and sheep."

The article goes on to say SFAI claims the work is about the way food is processed - in Mexico, where the footage was shot, animals are still slaughtered by hand.

On record are: "This is a snuff film about animals," said Elliot Katz, a veterinarian and founder of In Defense of Animals, a national animal rights group headquartered in San Rafael.

"There is no artistic merit in cruelty to, or suffering of, living creatures," San Francisco SPCA director Jan McHugh-Smith said in a written statement last week.

The Art Institute's response is here. 

Four bits.

1. Rosenbach Company, a pop opera by Ben Katchor and Mark Mulcahy - if it's half as good as Katchor's slide lectures of the 90s.... btw Marjane Starapi's lecture is sold-out.

2. In the SF Chronicle, Kenneth Baker writes "Borderlandia familiarizes us with an artist who appears to work best when he does not know quite what he wants and so lets himself dream pictorially on his preoccupations with boundaries that divide cultural rituals, belief systems, social strata and eras." Well said.

3. East vs. West, but hipsters all.

4. The tiger beat goes on. Two gallery shows of work by local high school students are looming on the horizon: NIAD and OAG.

The color orange as political.

Sultan vs. Taaffe vs. O'Brien.

And still they ride.

April 8-10, 1949 in San Francisco the Western Round Table on Modern Art convened.

The object of the was to try and figure out the now. Three sessions were scheduled for the first  two days; an unscheduled fourth session was added the third day at the request of some participants. The second session was open by invitation to the public and to members of the San Francisco Art Association; the three other sessions were closed.
                           
All sessions were transcribed by two court reporters and also recorded on wire. Conference time totaled nine hours. The typed transcript was then corrected and approved by each contributor.
                           
Sets of photographic reproductions of works in this exhibition were made in advance and sent to members  of the symposium for preparatory reference. During  the discussion, points were illustrated from time to time by examples in the exhibition. At the onset, however, it was decided that lengthy devotion to analysis of specific works of art would emphasize individual preference and idiosyncrasy at the expense of ideas with the possibilities of wider and deeper implication.
                           
A special exhibition of modern art was assembled for the event and shown concurrently at SFMOMA, where the meetings were held. The Round Table and its Exhibition were organized by Douglas MacAgy, then Director of the California School of Fine Arts. Transcripts, audio recordings and photos can be found at ubu.

from the transcript of one of the session, Frank Lloyd Wright expounds:

"Modern art has become a cliche, hasn't it? When we speak of modern art, we think of all sorts -- well, a sort of chamber of horrors. We wonder if anybody understands it. It is virtually unintelligible to all except the initiated; and who are the initiated? I think chiefly the picture dealers themselves. Modern art seems to be a commodity now in the hands of -- well, I don't know the names of the dealers. There are a great many of them."

End of the week bits.

1.    Interview with East Bay sculptor Charlie Milgrim. Mercury 20’s Kathleen King presents a super overview of a personal history.
2.    Don’t forget Serge Hambourg at BAM/PFA. Photos from 40 years ago prove the French hippies had class. And that the pigs in France were just as brutal as their American cousins. Film series is here. Hambourg talks on April 4.

SF, still home to the merry pranksters.

From the press release: “The Billboard Liberation Front today announced a major new advertising improvement campaign executed on behalf of clients AT&T and the National Security Agency. Focusing on billboards in the San Francisco area, this improvement action is designed to promote and celebrate the innovative collaboration of these two global communications giants.

‘This campaign is an extraordinary rendition of a public-private partnership,” observed BLF spokesperson Blank DeCoverly. “These two titans of telecom have a long and intimate relationship, dating back to the age of the telegraph. In these dark days of Terrorism, that should be a comfort to every law-abiding citizen with nothing to hide.’

Come see the improvement at 14th St. and Valencia St. in San Francisco.

The BLF has been improving outdoor advertising since 1977. Prior campaigns have included work for Exxon, R.J. Reynolds, and Apple Computers.

AT&T is America’s favorite telecommunications trust. Based in San Antonio, Texas, it has over 300,000 employees and annual revenues of $117 Billion.

NSA is the largest intelligence organization in the world. Headquartered at Fort Meade, Maryland, its budget, personnel, products, and services are all classified. “

Flickr set is here. More liberation ideas are over there. And this is just prissy.

WTF.

Plot synopsis: Some yahoos trek around Utah in search of Nancy Holt's Sun Tunnel. Upon arrival, one plays the didgeridoo inside the cement tubes. At night, they are attacked  by coyotes. One of them is killed and eaten.

I'm not joking.

OK, well maybe the last part was wishful thinking....

Stan VanDerBeek's "Symmetrics".

(1972).

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy's "Lightplay."

(1932).