paintings + drawings

Fail

During the first month of the Art In Storefront Project, a local project created to combat or cover over the economic downturn, one artist was already stabbed.

From the coverage on Two Coats of Paint: "San Francisco street artist Chor Boogie was working on a project on Market Street between Sixth and Seventh street (in image at right) when he confronted four people who were trying to steal his spray paint. They stabbed him and took off on a Muni bus, but he hopes surveillance cameras will help police track them down. Boogie's mural is part of San Francisco's Art in Storefronts project launched last month. The arts commission selected 20 artists to come up with art installations aimed at revitalizing Market Street and other neighborhoods.

"Chor Boogie along with all the other artists who were invited to the Art In Storefronts program were only paid $500 to help defray some of their expenses associated with these installations, so they're really providing a gift to the city," says Luis Cancel from the San Francisco Arts Commission. Naturally the arts commission hopes this was an isolated incident but recommends that artists painting murals for the city work in teams."

Nice -- "work in teams." That's kinda like saying "when gussying up our City you're on your own." More coverage is here.

Shameless Self-Promotion

..."it works for me on just the most basic level..."

That's me babbling like a brook about Franz Kline's Lehigh V Span for SFMOMA's Oral History Project. It's part of "Dispatches From The Archives."

You should definitely stop in and check it out (because I have more face time than seen here) and, of course, listen to everyone else who is included, since they are way more interesting.

Embrace Of The Irrational, Trailer

The latest from John Herschend.

Attention. Your Attention, Please.

SFMOMA now has this beauty from Robert Motherwell on view. It's a stunner in person (the internet is not doing it any justice.) Get over there, check it out. You won't be sorry.

Shameless Self-Promotion

Martha Colburn At SFMOMA

From the press release:

"In Martha Colburn's animated films, collages, paintings, and installations, textbook histories and heroic figures undergo lurid transformations. In her recent work Myth Labs (2008), the Mayflower's pilgrims meet a Midwestern America strewn with meth addicts, while devils in the apocalyptic Don't Kill the Weatherman! (2007) fill SUVs at the gas pump, hastening our own global warming–induced flood.

In this weeklong residency, Colburn screens new and past works with multiple projectors and musical accomplices. Highlights include an SFMOMA/Performa co-commissioned new work, Thollem Mcdonas on piano, indie legend Jad Fair on guitar, and a matinee of favorites selected by the artist."

November 5-12, 2009.

Two Collaborations

Both Bay Area, both recent.

First, Art Practical. It's just up and running so it's a bit early for comment. The design is snazzy in a staid kinda serious-art-mag way.

From the site: "Art Practical is the new home of three important chroniclers of San Francisco Bay Area contemporary art and visual culture: Shotgun Review, Happenstand and Talking Cure Quarterly. The site represents the current shifting landscape of arts journalism by serving as a juncture for critical dialogue rather than a proprietor of it.." <yak, yak, yakkkity yak... some more art speak, then> "Art Practical is emblematic of... a long local history of incubating experimentation and innovation with international perspectives. <and then some more art speak.>"

Second, The Grand Piano. A cool historic-sorta project involving the always amazing Ron Silliman.

From the site: "The Grand Piano is an experiment in collective autobiography by ten writers identified with the rise of Language poetry in San Francisco — Rae Armantrout, Steve Benson, Carla Harryman, Lyn Hejinian, Tom Mandel, Ted Pearson, Bob Perelman, Kit Robinson, Ron Silliman, and Barrett Watten. The eleventh pianist, Alan Bernheimer, takes the lead in organizing documentation for the books and this website.

The Grand Piano takes its name from a coffeehouse at 1607 Haight Street in San Francisco where from 1976 to 1979 several of us programmed and coordinated – and all of us participated in – a weekly reading and performance series.

The project focuses on the 1970s when we first met and collaborated. Yet the volumes engage issues beyond that time, and the project adheres to no prescribed set of themes.

New volumes of The Grand Piano appear several times a year. The complete series will comprise ten volumes."

photo: Anna Halpern. Performance still, UC Berkeley Art Museum, 1970. Courtesy of Peter Selz.

What would Clyfford Still Do

Remember last spring when the San Francisco Art Institute canned some of its tenured faculty? Well, it seems like their problems with labor are far from over.

Here are some facts, according to the SFAI Action Group’s latest press release that place the battle in context: 

“In 2009 when a neutral Federal Mediator was brought in to facilitate contract negotiations, she observed that the SFAI administration was the least cooperative she had ever experienced.    

In July, the California Labor Commissioner decided that SFAI had not  compensated its faculty for work completed.  

A neutral Grievance Review Committee consisting of appointees of the school administration and from the Faculty Union conducted a prolonged investigation.  They concluded that numerous violations of the labor contract occurred when 9 tenured faculty --1/4 of the tenured faculty—were illegitimately laid off under a pretext of financial exigency.  Most of these faculty, who had served SFAI for 15 to 31 years,  have had differences of opinion with the relatively inexperienced administrators.   The Grievance Committee found troubling evidence of multiple instances of  intimidation, harassment, ageism and a hostile work environment.  

On October 21, the renowned American Association of University Professors has concluded that this matter raises key issues of academic freedom, tenure, and due process, and has launched a formal investigation of this deplorable situation.”  

The group is asking for donations to help illegally fired SFAI tenured professors pay for legal aid. More info is here.

Marina Abramovic Institute, Huh

I've been suffering through a recent rash of press releases that say next to nothing.

Below is my favorite. Please RSVP to an event which is not described in the least.

What will Koh do with his butt this time? Does Marina know about her namesake? Why can't I enter Igor Josifov's website? Why isn't there even a website for the Institute? Dunno, no answer is provided. 

Google maps does offer this bit of helpful information -- looks like the future home of the Institute is also the trash receptacle for the neighborhood, and suspiciously close to the Art Academy. Go at your own risk.

A High Line For The Bay Area

Instead of tearing down the old Bay Bridge span, the NY Times (and some architecture students) suggest turning it into open space. Sure, what a swell idea. After all the High Line is really cool.

But here's the rub, we are not going to use that span anymore because it is seismically unsafe. Remember Loma Prieta?

If you think walking across a dilapidated bridge is more neat than dangerous, then more info on your post-apocalyptic fantasy is here.

 

photo: USGS