Pecha Kucha - a lively 20 second soundbyte of the things you love most
I recently attended my first Pecha Kucha night at SPUR this week and it was a rapid fire of discoveries, passions and some facts that were disheartening. On the theme of Chaos, we were presented inspiring quotes referencing chaos by philosophers and writers book ending the curious short lectures (20 second slides) by people who discussed the chaos of Japan’s nuclear reaction on food supplies in Tokyo, the chaos of the SF’s Chinatown urban unplanning, the bike route termed the “Wiggle” and its proposed expansions, and more. Go check out a Pecha Kucha night, originating in Japan for a place of “drinking and thinking” in a relaxed environment and plan your own!
“I’m on the Kimchi Line”
from our newest board member for Living Arts Fund, Nancy Choy. Thank you. And to all who attended our First Person Magazine potluck. We’re stirring up a few leaves, and fermenting ideas for 2012. See you soon I hope Bay Area creatives.
Maurizio Cattelan: ALL
ends with the “Last Word”, a 7 hour marathon of 15 minute live contemplations on the “voluntary end”. The bravado of this artist has always intrigued me. From the Wrong Gallery to Gagosian Berlin, Toilet Paper, his mini self on a tricycle at the MOCA and the list goes on from all his work and presentations, actions and misbehavin’s Cattelan has been a critical inspiration that expanded and questioned the different paradigms of art stereotypes and takes some major risks. I’ll always remember seeing him on his foldable bicycle in New York, going to exclusive raves and art openings. As I remarked in my last post, it takes an end to make a new beginning, so I am thrilled at his announcement that this retrospective marks his finale as an artist because I will only look forward to what he is going to do next.
For a full list of artists performing at the Guggenheim for Last Word from Arthur Danto to Courtney Love, and the beloved Drew from Matmos whom I received this announcement from, go here. And if you aren’t in NY, then you can stream it live here at 3pm PST on January 21st.
Today, let us acknowledge our leaders locally and nationally
People on the outside may criticize Occupy for not having a political face, but perhaps this is strategically genius, so that all may be stakeholders. All may have a chance to think critically for themselves and make decisions, have dialogue with the stranger next to them or learn about their friend’s who are gathering with them. And, as we remember one of the greatest leaders and speakers in American History, Dr. Martin Luther King, it may also be safer for the Occupy movement to remain faceless as we can see that controversy makes our government very dangerous towards the safety of our public figures. As we examine our past historical and successful movements of dissent, we are still finding our way today to practice free speech in a media controlled society and consider the Occupy movement as a practice. A practice in making something new, so every march, every action may not be perfect because this is a national and global experiment. Communicating with new media has connected large audiences and updated those involved in solidarity despite some of the bad comments on the sites. I continue to urge artists to propose projects in support and solidarity of Occupy. We need your voices and creativity to keep the movement alive with color, with humor, and with humanity.
When I think of local art leaders, I automatically think of Lawrence Rinder from the Berkeley Art Museum as he is on the right path to employing local artists and cultural producers to co-program for the museum and again, pay those artists to perform and engage. He is on the right path to opening the museum as a forum. To SPUR, for engaging with all who appreciate architecture and to open the conversation to the public about development and new groundbreakings in San Francisco and their effects on community. To mavericks like Amy Franceschini who brought food politics to the foreground of her art practice to help these communities which affect everyone. To Amanda Eicher, who has used her excellent artistic vision to helping a community in El Salvador meet their basic needs. For all the inclusive and cool public programming happening at the SFMOMA where public engagement is key to examining exhibitions from a variety of access points.
Nationally, I know a lot of people are disappointed in Barack Obama. And in an election year, we want to see more fulfillment of his proposed “change”. Angela Davis said at Occupy Oakland that it is hard for one person to make changes when they are still part of a structure that makes it difficult. But yesterday, my friend quoted Obama in his intent to bail out banks saying, “We are too big to fail.” But pointed out that for anything to change, we needed this failure to start over. It is almost a point of arrogance to say such a thing. Is corruption too big to fail? As schools in Oakland close, as the public sector gets privatized thus, Unions are broken, and the have’s and the have not’s become a mandate for Republicans as usual, it may be too much to politely ask our government over and over to re-prioritize our budgets and pass laws that don’t oppress Americans but deliver creative incentives not capitalistic ones. As public money is poured into scientific research, war, all in all pure capitalistic gains for oil and control of industry and the creative sector is squeezed into patronage from oligarchs, we ask that you experiment. That you gather in discussion to meet your own needs with your peers. To use your time differently and critically. That you gather to form community. That you gather to take a stand. Bit by bit, take Occupy as inspiration for something experimental, confusing, challenging and as a gathering that will stimulate work to recreate a better future. The goal may not yet be clear, but working together is a good step.
Liam Everett + Josh Smith @ Altman Siegel
Yet another handsomely curated show at the new SF dealer of dealer’s space in the 49 Geary building giving Bay Area collectors, artists and fans some great art to sink their teeth into. In a group painting show featuring Jessica Dickinson, Liam Everett, Alex Olson, Josh Smith and Garth Weiser, painting is still a medium of surprise, commitment and openness.
I encountered Smith’s work in New York at Reena Spauling’s, a downtown artist run space that pretty much launched the career of the artist before handing him over to Chelsea’s bigger monied gallery. He laid out a bunch of wooden bar stools that took over the space and his paintings strewn all over the floor kinda made you feel like you missed the party. Josh’s name spelled out on his paintings became his moniker, even in Japan shows where he used the Kanji spelling. He’s translated his namesake from text to his hand print onto the more recent paintings on view at the gallery. With De Kooning’s rough hewn yet energetic strokes smeared into his stamp, the color blocking areas and over painting collide with an edge between rawness, disruption and accessibility to our senses. The hand print itself conjures images of the first finger painting teacher, Ruth Faison Shaw in 1926, a story of her discovering one of her students who cut his hand in class then retreating to the bathroom and later found painting the walls with the iodine from his finger. She went on to develop a non-toxic finger paint for children and used it as a tool for therapy for her patients. As Jackson Pollock was in therapy, he would bring in his drawings to show his doctor for analysis and by the 1940’s abandoned brushes for sticks, knives and dropping fluid paint. There are traces of his hand print in his Number One (Lavender Mist) painting at the National Museum. Or if you’re a Gen X’er, you could just relate these handprints to the eerie DIY blockbuster horror flick, the Blair Witch project where little handprints, supposedly bloodied marked the walls of an abandoned house.
This was my first exposure to Liam Everett, a recent transplant to SF from New York where he lived and showed work for ten years. His work kept me the longest at the gallery inspecting his painting closely and then completely just pulled into his dyed hanging shroud. I couldn’t tell if the gaze of the painter in these pieces was male or female. The painting held a similar vein with Smith’s where you could visibly witness the tools. A palette knife moved the paint away from the canvas creating black and white negative traces like a windshield wiper leaves in the rain or the style of the later Batman cartoon series drawn starting with black and then erasing back with hues of various deeper colors. They were like spotlights rotating in the night. His hints of blood red in the painting palette continued into a life-sized shroud that hung from the wall with ease. The material cascaded off its nails and looked like a big ink blot on the wall which drew you in immediately. Exhibited like a painting, it lent a different aura as a soft barely dimensional sculpture if it swayed. It held water and wine, miracles and tears saturated into its delicately dyed and natural folds as a hybrid of modern sculpture and painting. I wanted to just touch it. If I owned it I might even lie under it for just a short while…
5 Painters is up through Feb. 25th.
Wandering- A lost art form
Today, I had to run a few errands and it turned out that I had a lot of time to kill before meeting with a friend because the lines were shorter than expected for my time down near the Civic Center. A strange triangle of stone monuments of our governing powers that be, the aesthetic of western bureaucracy, a library turned museum, and a library that functions as a social servant for the homeless in many ways. It was gorgeous and sunny out. Unusually warm with a slightly warm breeze which I normally love. So, why is it that I couldn’t sit still with my book? I found myself texting, typing notes into my phone, getting calls from unknown numbers, and then when I finally sat down, the protest on the steps of some institution vying for more “revenue” to keep senior citizens at home instead of nursing homes was pulling at my attention strings. The raucous drew me in to the crowd for a moment before I ended up in the glass corral of the Asian Art Museum sipping on my palm juice encased in a brown glass bottle. Or maybe it was just the preservatives in the drink that enhanced my distractions?
I opened my book and in an hour, skipped from Szeeman to Hulton, over to Hopps and back again confusing exhibition histories but underlining nuggets of identifiers that led me to believe I wasn’t ever on the wrong or different path to curating. This was before the phD in art history, etc. etc. track. Most museum directors back in the 60’s came from other disciplines - architecture, organizing theatre, music, making films. It was a time of real engagement with artists. Rebecca Solnit and her discussion of wandering through fields of thought and disciplines got me thinking about all the different fields I’ve been interested in and how I’m beginning to finally take a step back and examine the fundamentals of everything. I have been by and around artists for so long for mainly the pure pleasure of exploring ideas and sharing experiences that were critical moment to moment and in the moment, but now I have time to research, read and go deeper into my practice.
A few weeks ago I went to a reading for the poet Alden Van Buskirk and his lucid style of poetry had so many university professors asking him, “How did you develop your writing and what is your thought process?” And he said, “Most of the time I’m writing my best poetry when I’m not actually writing.” It’s so true. I get the best writing and ideas when I am just wandering and free. And he expressed his thought process by just stroking his chin with his hand. “You have to think other than with your mind.” Again, I was so happy to hear this connection. One of the Dalai Lama’s 20 things you can do to get good karma is to spend time alone for some part of the day. I’d like to add, leave your phone at home for part of the day or turn it off. I bet some beautiful things will happen.
David Hockney vs. Damien Hirst
Craft is having a bit of a comeback in the arts as “materialist” shows are being curated and sculpture in various forms as well as design are integrating. Hockney who recently received an Order of Merit from the Royal Queen of England will be having a largely anticipated new landscape exhibition at the Royal Academy later this month and along with it a poster advertising, “All the works here were made personally by the artist, himself.” On that note, Damien Hirst will be having a big retrospective at Tate Modern. The spectrum of art has led to a lot of divides between camps of thought throughout its history. Here, we have a landscape painter who has recently turned down a royal portrait commission and thinks of prizes as suspect, and on the other, we have an artist with just as much commitment but uses his skills towards consistently subverting the art system reflected also in his lawless approach to “making art”. Are we still an “either / or” society?
Obsessions with collared shirts
A good one is hard to find for a lady at the office and versatile enough to look smart around town without feeling the separated notion of “office wear” and “casual wear”. I found a nice Anne Klein one the other day with white embroidered polka dots but unfortunately someone left a lipstick stain on the collar. I like visiting the new Steve Allen shop in Hayes Valley, but alas the turnover on shirts is so quickly, I can’t think up a good reason to impulse buy. And there’s a wonderful purple polka dot trench dress at M A C but I just want the top bit to go over jeans, you know? Hopefully H&M’s holiday wares will end soon and all the fur vests and gold threaded turtlenecks will come to their senses and offer a simple shirt that’s not too precious but precise enough to wear in a modern casual way. Or perhaps my favorite vintage dealer Wear It Well will resurface after the cold season to offer something special.
Ceramics - so I took your advice!
On Monday, Gregory from the Brew Craft workshop said that brewing beer is like making art sighting examples of “throwing a pot” or “writing poetry”. I’ve written poetry for a while, but I think the art and grant writing world have kinda straightened out my forms a bit. I decided last night, to transform one of my Christmas presents, a digital camera into something analog- a ceramics class with a new, dear friend. So, yesterday after an exciting meeting I ventured to the Asian Art Museum to check out a Korean ceramics show to see if I would find any inspiration. Here’s a piece by a contemporary artist who works kind of not knowing what she’ll build as she gilts and glues together pieces that would normally seem like “failures” or “discards”. It’s a beautiful way to view challenges in life and shifting the paradigm of rejection into something awesome.
I was quite surprised by my first handling of the clay at our initial class last night and even though I think I entered the class with a preconception that I wouldn’t make anything utilitarian, I’ve now generated a list of objects I’m excited to make and share.
The Korean ceramics show “Poetry in Clay” ends at the Asian Art Museum January 9th. So, if you’d like to check out some trompe l’oeil vases made of soap and this sculpture pictured here that resembles how soap bubbles stick together… vamoose!
I first met Christian Dillon of East London Furniture last April, when as fellow artists-in-residence at Meanwhile Space, Whitechapel, he generously helped Daniel Rourke and I convert the basement into a lounge for our first ever GLIT.CH Karaoke event.
At the time, Christian was in the nascent stages of developing his sustainable furniture “Pallet Project.” At any given moment he could be found searching the city streets for discarded wooden pallets, bringing them back to Meanwhile, breaking and pulling them apart, studying with furrowed brow his trove of materials, or using his amazing sense of design and carpentry skills to create elegantly modern yet warm furniture you’ve always wished you had. I don’t think I ever saw Christian not working except for when he dropped by once for some song and drink. So it comes as a wonderful no-surprise to learn that over the last year, Christian’s brainchild has transformed from the one-man transient Pallet Project into a team of artisans known as East London Furniture based in a shop all their own on Hoxton Street, right off of Cremer, where they are quickly amassing a fanbase for both their work and parties.
Truly sustainable design doesn’t wear do-gooder on its aesthetic sleeve; the beauty of the work comes first, followed by the elating reveal that the piece you covet actually helps Mother Earth. East London Furniture’s designs exemplify this. On first sight, you simply want that perfect singular item for that Ikea-fied corner of your room… and then you want it more when you discover that it’s completely made from used materials that would have otherwise ended up as London landfill… and then even more when you discover how just genuinely nice Christian and his people are. Happy new year indeed.
- Kyoung Kim, London Editor
“Your smile is your best asset,” says Gregory
Last night I encountered another wise being. He bestowed on us two full hours of just sheer joy, wisdom, humor and what he referred to as the “no bullshit choke chain” moments in life. If you’ve attended any First Person Magazine or Living Arts Fund events, chances are you’ve tasted our mead. Wildly fermented from Sandor Ellix Katz’s book “Wild Fermentation” it’s a concoction of naturally left out honey and fruit that transforms. Jon recently bought a beer brewing kit, so he invited me to the workshop. And Gregory explained the process of brewing to a life long process like any other that deserves our attention and commitment, hard work and love. He compared it to writing poetry, throwing a pot, or playing a saxophone.
“Don’t be too anal. I can always tell an anal beer when I taste one. If you hold your sphincter all the way up to your jaw while you make your beer, you’re gonna taste that.” He instructed everyone to flex for a minute. Just follow the instructions and he guaranteed a wonderful brew that may be counter intuitive, but science would prevail. He lectured over radio broadcast music where Bob Dylan was the DJ. He sipped occassionally from a plastic cup and had his dog Louie tied by his side as he gushed on about going to Amsterdam and meeting Trappist Monks who took him in to their monastery where he spent the next 39 days, some of the best of his life and learned their brewing techniques, simplicity of life, scholarship skills, and discipline. Gregory was a no nonsense, warmhearted man who shared his knowledge and some technique about brewing after he had done it for 47 years. I felt honored to bear witness to his testimony. Sometimes when English is a second language, we learn to distill language to the simplest form in order to communicate. I find that when we get older, we do the same as Gregory spoke with tenacity, largess and a candidness that was refreshing and entertaining. He also said to call him anytime at the shop if we had questions but to not expect him to have time to converse about politics.
You can only meet Gregory if you are interested in brewing beer. If you are indeed genuinely enthusiastic to give this hobby a shot by all means I encourage you to visit and buy a kit from Brew Craft on Clement St. and 20th. Thanks Jon and I look forward to the smell of hops in our kitchen soon! Here, I am in my brewing outfit with Gregory in his shop. Jon asked me if I had looked that up. Nah, I just had a feeling I should put on my overalls. I’m like Alden Van Buskirk, the poet who sweetly put it as “thinking other than with the mind.” I think Gregory was pleasantly surprised we were matching. Oh, and beware the “barking spider” in their restroom if you do visit!
Happy New Year from First Person Magazine
Finally, my year of the Cat is over. Yes, in the Vietnamese lunar calendar we have a cat year. I’m not a Rabbit, sorry. If you know me then it will make more sense. Here we are at our neighborhood market MOM (Manila Oriental Market) shopping for goodies to recreate Jon’s new fave dish EVER, “Thai Boat Noodle Soup”. He thinks we’re shopping for pho, but I wanted to give it a shot since we got back from LA. He’s obsessed and I wanna make him happy and try it. I was feeling so full from all the family’s Xmas goodin’s so I opted for the “Jade Noodles” that day which I was quite happy with. Anyway, this pigeon here just reminded me to keep my eyes open and aware of all the strange fruits come my way friend or foe, to observe everything with a good flow. I’ve had a wonderful past few days with old friends reunited and Bozho told me his resolution was to consider all comments a compliment which is an extraordinary way of perceiving things. So, yes… here’s to friends tried and true as well as letting go of our ego to pursue our dreams and being open to ideas, suggestions, collaborations and life as an opportunity to make together. Hope that pigeon doesn’t end up in the freezer aisle.
The persimmons I took home became a bookmark during a fraction of my commute with my new book that I am devouring, IQ84 by Haruki Murakami.
