ibid.

I'm DJing tomorrow:
9am - noon PST, Sunday, August 9
KALX Berkeley 90.7fm

Last night Dave and I did a very pleasant Art Murmur meander in the warm Oakland air.  Despite an alarmingly strong police presence (apparently there's nothing else going on in Oakland on a Friday night that requires their attention) moods were running high, and the art was very good indeed.  These were my favorites:

• Jennie Ottinger's ibid. at Johansson Projects (pictured right) - Gallery owner/curator extraordinaire Kimberly Johansson knocks another one out of the park with Ottinger's show.  Timothy Buckwalter totally nailed it when he said Ottinger is "kinda like Marlene Dumas meets David Park" on his blog.  The slightly obscured features of Dumas meet Park's blocks of color and strong sense of composition in Ottinger's work, with subjects freely ranging from racehorses to operating rooms to a line-up of schoolgirls with ruddy knees.
• The Four Corners Tour by Erica Gangsei at 21 Grand - Gangsei has created a wonderland of an installation in the gallery, mounting small photographs, sculptures, and stop-motion animated videos at neat intervals directly onto the walls.  Look closely and you'll see eyeballs staring back at you out of that piece of fuzz, or a rainbow reflected through a tiny piece of plastic hanging from a pin.  Gangsei references Richard Tuttle directly, and her work also brings in elements of Hayao Miyazaki and Tom Friedman.  Utterly unpretentious and completely charming.

I didn't make it to the Best of the East Bay party at the Oakland Museum last night, opting instead for pizza and beers and good conversation at Lanesplitters and then International Freakout A Go-Go over at the Totally Intense Fractal Mind Gaze Hut, but early reports indicate a fabulous time was had by all.  I hella heart my East Bay.