Writing/Words
Writing
The California State of Mind an interview with Glenn Phillips, Getty curator and member of Pacific Standard Time: Art in L.A.1945-1980 curatorial team.
Frieze:
George Kuchar 1942-2011.
Art Practical:
Moby Dick CCA Wattis, San Francisco
Within Arm’s Reach Ari Marcopoulos, Berkeley Art Museum
An Autobiography of the San Francisco Bay Area SF Camerawork
Words
Sourced from Amy Winehouse song titles and words from Fool’s Gold brief. Fool’s Gold publication, 2008 at Matts Gallery and Gasworks, London; CCA and Transmission, Glasgow; Weinsowski and Hardbord, Berlin).
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The Diagonal of May 23, 1963
Fire, Money, Water, Sex
Command Performance
Raw Material – ok, ok, ok.
Gutter corner splash:
Night shift
The Hole.
Splitting: Four Corners
Looking Glass
Fountain
Distance No object.
Cy+Roman Steps
Capriccio
Demetra (Demeter)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
(A poem based on the titles of seminal works in the SFMOMA collection
curated by Brion Nuda Rosch for their Open Space blog).
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Solo
I am not who you say I am
Transgression
Done Apologizing.
Inscriptions, carefully crafted
bodies challenge
an implosion.
Male/female binary
photographs
friends and fashion reassemble
images gathered.
In, that, his, as well, cuts them up.
Fracture with points with characters,
draws graphite, he starts.
I am not who you say I am.
Family and final conception
collages at the limits
towards his process.
While emphasizing the political construction of the body and its subversive possibilities.
(Jonathon Solo’s work in Small Things End, Great Things Endure at New Langton Arts. Titles of the works and words extracted from Maria del Carmen Carrion and Jill Dawsey’s accompanying text provide the materials).
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Sarkis alive and after SFAI, Walter and McBean Galleries
red and green
the dripping
red hand
in the beginning, watercolor box
the scream
golden sound
the difference between lightning and thunder
sound of meeting
two beats
looks and words
dusk
swimming bread
after and before the beginning
mask with milk
in the beginning to the zone.
(based on title parts)
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Kathy Acker’s Clothes:
Ghosts of the 80’s
Comme de Garcons
Vivian Westwood
Betsy Johnson
Black, white, grey, striped
Tasteful with an edge
Hanging, gently alive
Quite a surprise
Sartorial stories
(Dodie Bellamy for Mathew Higgs: Squatting at New Langton Arts).
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Thomas Hirschhorn is Hip (at the Wattis)
Tape, cardboard, not scrappy………. though green, red, dirty kakhi – fatigues, fatigue. Precise production, military precision, ex- military, swiss army knife
Camouflage, army training day
“ask Derrida” – when did he become fashionable again, Scritti Politti did it first.
Media overload, tape, cardboard – taped. More, more, more of the same, can’t think, don’t need to , experience it
“philosophy begins with the experience”
*/////////////// Mass, assault, overload
It’s all there, held together, everything over and over and again and again. Relentless/ consume, engage = impact.
Who’s disguising who?
He is fashionable, fashion, is he the art world’s latest accessory, God no, too powerful.
RePEtiTioN…..Mass…… media. Hip and scholarly – good
Chaos – out of the chaos a sense of simplicity, it becomes clear, words don’t register.
“becoming is not historical”
freedom ask Derrida > text, treatise, slogans. Later on the street spot Diesel’s camouflage campaign.
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WELCOME - to Goldichiari, an Italian collaborative duo at Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York
A monumental structure fills the space, looks like plaster, feels hollow. Walk slowly around peering into the oddly angled cubicles, each self–contained:blocked. Thoughts of confinement, hidden identities – hear some tinkling music, ah the gallery assistant has the radio on, fitting though. A mood, distant memories of something…
Turn the corner and climb the small step ladder, looking down on the edifice it reads WELCOME…oh
Not sure, too inviting perhaps. Welcome to my world, welcome you are greeted, welcome to the unfriendly gallery world? GD cites Donna Haraway vision is always a question of the power to see and perhaps of the violence implicit in our visualization practices.
Back down the stairs and round for the last time – yes I prefer the unsanitized version, no cosy salutations and with that walk out of the gallery, nose in the air.
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Think again, CCA Wattis, San Francisco
I always come away from a Matthew Higgs’s show feeling moved in unexpected ways, therein lies the power of the exhibitions he curates.
The “highlight” of General Ideas Rethinking Conceptual Art for me was Matthew Creed’s Work No. 227 working together with Ron Terad’s Five Colored Words in Neon in the large empty space dedicated to the two works. It was one of those epiphanies when suddenly standing in the darkened room the neon words severe, high, elevated, guarded and low suggested different psychological states. I was excited and thrown slightly by this new connection, powerful stuff. Lights on, a shift in mood – an intense sort of channelling experience.
The rest of the exhibition goes without saying – lots of moments where you laugh, stop in your tracks, wonder and move on. A great way not only to re-think conceptual art but one’s own state of mind.
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Dress: Clothing As Art, Richmond Art Center, CA
A cross between a jumble sale – the British equivalent of a yard sale but cosier – and an abandoned playroom. Stuff spills out all over the place and hangs in the oddest way. A rather melancholy sound track can just about be heard emanating from Robin Lasser and Adrienne Pao’s spectacular Picnic Dress Tent. This lends the show an unexpected dimension given that a lot of the works are soft and fluffy in a “crafty conceptual” sort of way. Some of the installaions such as Darshan Amrit’s sewing machine project really need to be activated in order to be complete however the absent air seems to work adding to the ‘Miss Haversham’ effect.
That said this show is a lot of fun, you can’t beat Lisa Kokin and Lia Roozendaal’s dog outfits for that or Elizabeth Jameson’s ever expanding red wool dress. A playful and colorful assemblage curated by the new Exhibitions Director Anu Vikram.
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Round and Round, SFMOMA
Steve Macqueen’s visceral oil Drum roll takes you on an endless tumbling cycle on the streets of New York. The three channel video installation is huge enough to make you feel part of it. Cars, people, buildings and voice fragments come together in an almost psychedelic mix, rolling round and round in a pulsating groove. Sometimes recognisable a world of glimpses rushes by.
The pacing is urgent until over time the loop almost comes to a standstill; a jolt back to reality and a moment to take stock until it starts all over again just like a giant tumble dryer. This abrupt punctuation mark seems to come as a welcome surprise.
The constant motion raises questions or thoughts on activities, urban life and the desire for movement. We are left wondering if indeed this is how we navigate our daily lives, going round and round in circles, not really looking but vaguely aware of sensations and conversations.
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Drums and Drills, The Year of the Doppleganger, Slater Bradley at The Berkeley Art Museum, Matrix 216.
Picture this, Benjamin Brock (Slater Bradley’s doppleganger) playing the drums in the CAL stadium while the football team do their practise drills. Whacky? not really. Slater Bradley seamlessley works this together so you just know it was meant to be. Apart from the obvious references to celebrity and sports stars there are moments when this work is a choreographer’s delight; the players goose-stepping in time to the drum beat, arms akimbo. This is an unscripted performance at its best.
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ATTENTION Wang Du: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco
Step onto Wang Du’s Gulliveresque set and be prepared to be dictated to…
Parade 2000 lines up missiles, bits of machinery, planes, gun-wielding Chinese soldiers and truncated figures – all made from polyester, resin and acrylic. Papers from Chinese magazines spew out all over the place – images of missiles, rockets, piling up, foot print smudged, worn into the floor.
Chinese military music plays relentlessly for this social realist march, evoking memories of words like strident and jingoistic. Interspersed are crumpled metal pieces, newspaper extracts.
Three monstrous figures extrapolated from a Japanese porn site hover over the proceedings, bombastic and sinister, their presence ambigous but somehow essential.
Wang Du thinks state, thinks terror, thinks pomposity – it all adds up, there’s nowhere left to hide.
Meanwhile next door Cornelia Parker’s works hang, too precious, too quiet.
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Sam Gordon: The Twinkie Defense, Ratio 3, San Francisco
Sam Gordon’s ‘art maps’ lead you slowly up the stairs; art show posters, New York happenings and his own alluring psychokinetic photographs. This is in itself an interesting exercise in making connections between artists, galleries and places, never quite sure where it is actually leading you. Allowing this to gently prod and nudge, you slip into the epicenter of Gordon’s domain, his mental space.
The completely covered walls create a crazy yet strangely contained wallpaper of notes, symbols, sketches and thoughts – the cumulative efforts of ten years worth of sketchbook entries. The scans are simply pinned to the walls, some bow, others curl creating an entity that almost breathes. Four paintings of ink, ballpoint pen, acrylic, enamel, spray paints, studio sweepings and gold & silver leaf on canvas are strategically placed on opposite sides of the room. These mystical marks serve as contemplative zones, taking you to another metaphysical level. Crossing and reflecting they pull you into Gordon’s psychic mid-point.
Bringing together “all this content” as Chris Perez describes it is a result of mindful editing and knowing when to stop, a process which Perez and Gordon collaborated on. It’s solid and cohesive and never overwhelms. These are not incoherent ramblings but play out as repetitions and imaginings borne of an obsessive mind.
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Love, Life, Exile – Frieze, April 2006
Kraftwerk, Throbbing Gristle, Jon Savage, Sue Tompkins, Jonas Mekas – a future TART show.
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Spatial Poem No.2, Steven Wolf Fine Arts, San Francisco
Plug in City
A city for happening in
City is a network
HAPPEN
Move
Go
Suburban Runaways of the 1960’s
A sleeping bag full of stitches
hOlLywooD