Engineer's Daughter

tree show iv

The annual Tree Show at Giant Robot is always one of my favorite group exhibitions to check out, and this year features a strong showing by a huge collection of artists, from Deth P Sun to Albert Reyes to the Little Friends of Printmaking (their awesome eager beaver screenprint at right).  As you might guess from the title of the show the theme is trees, and everyone has a slightly different take.  I adored Maxwell Loren Holyoke-Hirsch's delicately rendered Holy Tree as well as PCP's more ambiguous chains of organic material, and Beci Orpin's cut-wood tree with birds perched in its branches, pictured on the show postcard, is even more beautiful in person.  I noticed a lot more of the artists grappling with the topic of environmental responsibility this time around, appropriate since a percentage of the proceeds from this year's show will be going to San Francisco's Friends of the Urban Forest, whose cause I passionately support.  I didn't buy any of the art myself, only because I was ensnared in Giant Robot's retail section by Marcel Dzama's new collection The Berliner Ensemble Thanks You All which includes 28 prints, a fold-out poster, a specially-designed envelope, and a scrapbook.  Dzama makes me weak in the knees, what can I say.

SFMOMA is wrapping up their Around '68 film series tomorrow with a screening of Philippe Garrel's 2005 film Les Amants réguliers (Regular Lovers), a soundly unsentimental look at the Paris riots and their societal aftermath, especially among French youth.  I'll be on my way to Santa Cruz tomorrow afternoon and will be missing the screening, so I stayed up tonight to watch the film on DVD.  Even on my teeny TV the cinematography was simply luscious, and Garrel's son Louis and Clotilde Hesme turn in mesmerizing performances as the lovers of the title, even though they don't properly meet until an hour into the movie.  Also full points for a rockin' party sequence involving a Kinks song right in the middle.  I was reminded of La Maman et la putain (The Mother and the Whore), another black-and-white French film of a certain length that takes its time developing its characters, and I think Garrel's film is a fairly brilliant way of ending a series that has been less concerned with the romance of 1968's revolutions and more about the human cost.  Now: full speed ahead to the Berlin Alexanderplatz screenings in June!

And I'm DJing on Sunday:
3 - 6pm PST, Sunday, June 1
KALX Berkeley 90.7fm
So here's the catch.  Cal somehow made it to the regional baseball championships, which is all this weekend.  They might have a game either at 1pm on Sunday, in which case I'll run across the street to hear the beginning of Trevor Paglen's talk at the Berkeley Art Museum at 3pm and then go on after they're done, or at 5pm, in which case I'll DJ until the game starts.  Sorry it's so complicated, but this will be the last time I'm on the air for a few weeks and I'm going to make it good.

faculty towers

University architecture in England has come a long way since I spent my year abroad there at Warwick lo those many moons ago, when I practically lived at the fantastic arts complex in the center of campus but found the rest of the buildings decidedly worse for wear.  Recently gorgeous new libraries and lecture halls designed by big names like Norman Foster and Daniel Liebeskind have been popping up at campuses all over Britain, and the Guardian has a mini-tour here.  I love Edward Cullinan Architects' pepper pots pictured at right, but my favorite is the School of Slavonic and East European Studies at University College London, designed by Alan Short Associates, with its whimsical windows and green technology.  I fantasize about taking a class in that building.

indecently huge

Oh Bret and Jemaine, please skate off into the sunset with me.  After a delicious dinner at Suppenkuche (served to us by our favorite cute waiter, no less) Aimee-the-magic-ticket-wrangler and I made our way to Davies Hall and sat in thrall for over two hours to the wonder that is Flight of the Conchords.  OK so the sound was terrible (Davies is really not set up for New Zealand digi-folk parodists) but everything I did catch had me bent over double laughing.  I've always been a solid Bretrosexual myself, but the sight of Jemaine sitting cross-legged at the edge of the stage in his stripey (or possibly argyle) socks there at the end of their encore was almost enough to swing me to the other side.

I had vaguely considered the possibility of heading over to see the Fiery Furnaces at the Great American afterward, but I'm going to bed instead.  I'm so punk rock.

beryl cook 1926-2008

If you haven't spent a significant amount of time in England you probably haven't heard of the artist Beryl Cook, who painted enormously popular images of ordinary (and usually working-class) people and who passed away this week at the age of 81.  Her work is decidedly populist and perhaps more destined for the decorative poster industry than fine art galleries, but it's hard not to be charmed by her jolly women of the night or ladies unashamedly swigging beer with their lunch.  She also captures a particular sensibility that reminds me of the run-down shops near where I lived in Coventry or even certain seedier suburbs of London.  No matter what color palette you try to give it, ultimately the depression sets in.  The Guardian has a selection of her paintings here.

humuhumunukunukuapua'a

Forgetting Sarah Marshall: Goodness me, I love Team Apatow's movies.  Mostly because Paul Rudd is usually guaranteed some screen time, here playing the equivalent of every bro in Santa Cruz who ever screwed up my bagel order because he "spaced it."   And Jason Segal is pretty damn awesome too.  I like my raunch with some heart, and everyone who has been through a seriously shitty break-up will find something here that will make them laugh and/or cringe.  This was one of those movies where I kept missing lines because I was still guffawing from the previous line.  I guess I'll just have to see it again.

the art of martina navratilova

The last time I followed tennis as a sport (isn't the French Open going on right now?) was when I had a teenage crush on a player who played for my high school's varsity team, though the street I grew up on dead ended in a set of public tennis courts and I would often wander up there with my racquet to hit some balls against the concrete backboard.  When it had rained water would collect in pools at the bottom of the wall, and rather than avoid the wet I would let my balls roll through the puddles on purpose and then pound them with a great squishy "thwack!"  It was a highly satisfying sound, and I also liked making a pattern of wet prints on the backboard.  I never thought of incorporating paint, but that's exactly what former women's tennis champion Martina Navratilova and Slovak artist Juraj Kralik (pictured) have done in their Art Grand Slam project.  I suppose it can be argued Navratilova has more control over where a paint-soaked tennis ball lands on a canvas than the average 10-year-old with a racquet, but I think their "tennis art" has more novelty value than artistic resonance.  Still, it's hard for me to deny the nostalgic pleasure of seeing colorful spots with that great fuzzy tennis ball texture.  It's almost enough to make me dig my racquet out of storage and make use of the tennis courts in the park by my current home.  If you'd like to see more of Navratilova's and Kralik's "tennising", the Guardian has a selection of images here.

point-device

Werner Heldt, Parade of Zeros (detail), 1933-34 (Germany).  After a wonderful weekend chock full of lively conversation, mind-blowing music, a Mars landing, a giant ice cream sundae and an epic hike, I'm all kinds of grumpy to be back at work.  I vaguely suspect I'm not the only one who feels this way today.  Heldt's satirical drawing fits my mood perfectly, with its sea of people reduced to numerical nonexistence.  In the words of The Prisoner, "I am not a number.  I am a free man!"  I'll just keep telling myself that.

a thriller in ten chapters

When Robert McCrum started as the literary editor of the Observer in 1996 Amazon was still trying to gain traction after just having launched the year before and no had yet heard of Harry Potter.  Needless to say, the literary landscape has changed quite a bit since then.  On the occasion of his retirement from the newspaper McCrum has boiled his tenure down to 10 major events, from the astronomical advance Zadie Smith (pictured) received for her debut novel White Teeth (which I confess I still have not read, though On Beauty was an absolute delight to someone who spent her formative years literally soaking in E.M. Forster) to Amazon's recent introduction of the Kindle electronic reading device.  We have seen by now that despite some lofty predictions the printed page is not threatening to die out any time soon, and McCrum points out the ever-growing amount of written material that can be found on the Web simply offers another option to readers:

This, perhaps, explains the paradox that despite more book activity than ever, the book itself seems less central than before. Actually, what I have described are the birth pangs of a golden age. The market for the printed book is now global; the opportunities for the digital book are almost unimaginable. To be a writer in the English language today is to be one of the luckiest people alive.

Personally I know that for all of the reading I do online, from blogs to newspapers and everything in between, I would be loathe to replace the library books I read on the bus to and from work with a small screen of text.  Of course, I'm also dead curious to try a Kindle.

old growth

I just got home from the Dead Meadow show at Slim's and I'm still floating on a cloud of euphoria.  Last time I saw these particular psychedelic outlaws was several years ago when they opened for Sleater-Kinney at the Riviera in Chicago.  They knocked my socks off then and they've only gotten better.  At some point tonight I looked back into the crowd behind me and saw one fellow standing with his mouth literally hanging open.  I laughed because I understood exactly how he felt.  

Earlier in the evening I was at the Rite Spot Cafe to see Dandeline and Octomutt, also a fantastic show.  Dandeline brought me much happiness by covering a Val Esway track as well as playing all my favorite songs.  Sheila's fiddle never ceases to blow me away, and during their new "French song" Dan was working a melodica like it was an accordion.  Later Jonathan Richman sat in with Ted for the Octomutt set, but really nothing can compare to Ted's gorgeous guitar work.  It was also at the Rite Spot that I learned of Utah Phillips's death yesterday at the age of 73, and I'm very sad that I'll never have the chance to hear his wonderful stories in person again.

Yet earlier in the day I was at SFMOMA for the latest in their Around '68 series, Nagisa Oshima's 1970 film The Man Who Left His Will on Film.  Apparently Oshima himself wasn't sure of the answers to some of the questions raised by his film, but it compellingly captures the nihilism of Japanese youth at a time of major political and societal turmoil.  Extreme camera angles, disturbing depictions of sex, and a circuitous plotline involving a student's obsession with the last footage shot by a suicidal acquaintance all contribute to the sense of confusion.  I recognized one scene because my friend Kara has it in her film Bachelorette, 34, and now I'm dying to ask her if she included it intentionally or accidentally.  I also need to attach here a rant about the audiences at these SFMOMA screenings, because I am slowly losing my mind thanks to their jerkiness.  There are the people who talk back to the screen, and the ones who talk to themselves, and the ones who express their disgust as if I agree with them or even care.  I understand quietly absenting yourself  from the theater if you didn't quite realize what you were getting yourself into, as not everyone loves insane Japanese avant-garde or Bollywood musicals or four-hour French films like I do.  But today for instance the couple in front of me snorted their displeasure for half an hour and then climbed over two rows of seats in their haste to leave.  I wanted to throw something at their heads.

from model to critic

Last week Lucian Freud's 1995 painting Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (at right) set a new world record price for a work by a living artist when it sold for a cool $33.6 million.  With Freud's paintings you can't help but wonder who the subjects are, and today the Guardian ran a fun piece in which the model Sue Tilley picked out her ten favorite portraits of women and described what she likes about them in her own words.  Her choices range from Frida Kahlo's Self-Portrait with Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird (which currently adorns my cube at work in anticipation of the upcoming SFMOMA show) to Marc Quinn's glorious sculpture Alison Lapper Pregnant that held court on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square the last time I was in London.  She also picks another image of herself, a recent photograph by Jacques Bosser:

I was asked to do this project with the French artist Jacques Bosser in December 2005. As I can't understand French very well I wasn't sure what I was supposed to be doing, but when I arrived at his studio in Paris, I was thrilled to see loads of beautiful kimonos and accessories - at last I would have the chance to dress up. He took about 40 images, which were shown at the Grand Palais in 2006. There was a great difference between this work and that of Lucian: it was an image that showed what I was like at the split second that the photo was taken, instead of over nine months. If you look closely at the photos you can spot a stray hair, a toenail with chipped polish and random hairgrips. This particular image is the one that I chose to have on my wall at home. I didn't particularly want to stare at my face so I chose a back view that showed it was me only by my tattoos and my freckles. It also makes me look quite small: the wig is so huge it changes the concept of size in the photo.

I was struck that Tilley seems as attracted to the story of Pre-Raphaelite model Elizabeth Siddal as I am, with all of its turmoil and tragedy, though where she picks Ophelia I would have submitted Beata Beatrix.  Kira Cochrane, in discussing the male gaze and how it pertains to a female model, contrasts Tilley's experience with Freud with Siddal's pneumonia-inducing stint in Millais's bathtub:

Tilley has spoken of the exhaustion of posing for long periods, and has said that the first time she met Freud she was mortified "when I got there and he told me to take my clothes off. For the first picture I had to lie on the floorboards in a most uncomfortable position, with Leigh [Bowery] and Nicola, the woman he married, and a dog. I was in agony and I thought about giving up. But we work hard in my family, so I stuck it for the whole nine months." The fact that she says she was in "agony" mirrors Siddal's experience, but there is something so active and punchy about Tilley's language, that it seems very difficult to imagine her doing anything that she didn't want to do. In the portrait itself, we can also see the artist moving a world away from the idealised, dreamy view of womanly flesh that once signalled an artist was painting his muse. The painting Benefits Supervisor Sleeping is much more interesting and contemporary than that. And so, it seems, is its subject.

Check out Sue Tilley's favorite portraits of women here.