Engineer's Daughter

morakot (emerald)

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Apichatpong Weerasethakul

Through April 21 - Apichatpong Weerasethakul / MATRIX 247 at the Berkeley Art Museum.  A beautiful pairing with the concurrent (and also quite excellent) Anna Halprin MATRIX exhibition, Weerasethakul's video installation Morakot (Emerald) offers a meditative glimpse into another world inhabited by spirits and stories of the past.  While the camera examines the stained sheets and vintage wallpaper of an abandoned hotel, three voices trade reminiscences in Thai about good times and bad.  Dust motes (or feathers or points of light or nebulae) also occupy the same space onscreen, their presence echoed by an actual lantern hanging low to the floor in the gallery.  By the time the faces of the speakers briefly flickered into view Weerasethakul had fully sucked me into the universe he had created, not unlike how he does when I watch one of his films, and then before I left the gallery I read through the translation of the spoken dialogue.  These are the last lines:

"Under the starry sky rests my heart.
I'll wait for you here day and night
knowing that you...
knowing that you will return."

See also:

• Berkeley Art Museum
• Apichatpong Weerasethakul

show 260

playlist

sohyung choi

Sohyung Choi

Sohyung Choi

Looped Memory I - Sohyung Choi from Sohyung Choi on Vimeo.
 
Sohyung Choi explores ideas around photographic memory in her installations and videos, often incorporating found objects to enhance the feeling of abandonment these items exude.  She writes in her artist's statement:

In much of my work, I reconfigure discarded materials, things that are often viewed with a degree of sadness and poignancy as they have been abandoned and obsolete.  I photograph the objects as if in a sketchbook but also I'm interested in the poetic nature of loss as it relates to our identities.

I first encountered Choi's work at Headlands when she was a Graduate Fellow (she is currently an Affiliate artist there), and she was also notably selected as a participant in last summer's DigitalArt.LA international expo, co-presented by Los Angeles Center for Digital Art and Downtown Film Festival Los Angeles.  Drop in on her studio at Headlands Spring Open House on April 28 for a chance to see what she is working on right now.

See also:

• Sohyung Choi
• DigitalArt.LA
• Headlands Center for the Arts

agenda 04.10.13

Thursday, April 11:

• Vanessa Marsh Gallery Opening at Z Space
• Cock ESP, Nuclear Deathwish, Tainted Pussy, Omnivorous Sincillium, Styrofoam Sanchez, Business Ettiquite, U.M.M. at First Church of the Buzzard
• Kala-fornia: State of the Art 3 – Exhibition Opening & Auction Preview Party at Kala Art Institute
  
• Strange Sinema 63: Weirdest Animated Hits at Oddball Films
• The Asteroid #4 at the Brick and Mortar Music Hall

Friday, April 12:

• Mishka San Francisco Grand Opening
• Useless Body Language at Abco ArtSpace
• One Bay One Book Discussion Series at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
• Artist Lecture: Frances McCormack | The Constant Gardener at the San Francisco Art Institute
• L@TE Friday Nights at BAM/PFA: Pamela Z and Christina McPhee
• Maggie Haas: Never Finished at The Lab
• Learn Your Lesson Girls: Shockucational Shorts for the Ladies at Oddball Films
• Yeasayer at Mezzanine
• Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark at the Regency Ballroom
• Mudhoney at Slim's

Saturday, April 13:

• Bangarang Crash w special guest V Rocket at St. Mary's Pub
• Basstown Miami Bass, Old School Rap, Breakdance Party at the Knockout
• Outdoor Watercolor Workshop with Clint Wilson at Kala Art Institute
  
• ArtSpan Benefit Art Auction 2013 at SOMArts
• Opening Reception: Double Take at Mills College Art Museum
• Rattle Rattle Record Release at The Lab
• Mount Eerie at the Chapel
• Band of Horses at the Fox Theater

Sunday, April 14:

• Superman is Jewish? at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
• Beautiful Noise Series [02] at The Lab

Monday, April 15:

• Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture: Trenton Doyle Hancock at the San Francisco Art Institute

Tuesday, April 16:

• Feast of Words: A Literary Potluck at SOMArts
• Fellowship Talks: Osvaldo Ramirez Castillo and Sanaz Mazinani at Kala Art Institute
• Beach House at the Fillmore
• Sigur Rós at the Fox Theater
• Green Day at the Greek Theatre
• Japandroids at the New Parish

Wednesday, April 17:

• Words and Places: Etel Adnan at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
• Sigur Rós at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
• Japandroids at the New Parish
• Bad Religion at the Regency Ballroom

hereditament

Les Mamelles, Dakar, Senegal.  November 20, 2006.

mere top

Antje Majewski & Juliane Solmsdorf

Amy Patton

 

"For Claire" excerpt from alice cohen on Vimeo.

Through April 14 - Mere Top at Royal NoneSuch Gallery.  This all-video group exhibition was curated by Christina Linden and features a wealth of female energy, drawing work both from the Bay Area and from Berlin care of feminist collaborative ƒƒ.  Two separate video programs are projected simultaneously onto adjacent walls in the gallery's intimate space, creating coincidental juxtapositions and conversations as each channel loops.  Antje Majewski and Juliane Solmsdorf contribute two distinct pieces that use dance as a medium, one a more traditional enactment of the light/dark dichotomy and the other depicting a wonderfully strange ritual involving their bodies as they writhe across the streets and sidewalks of a modern city.  Ideas about the relationship between dance and the sacred also emerge in Amy Patton's The Mirror of Simple Souls Who Are Annihilated and Remain Only in Will and Desire of Love, a video in which a group of individuals lose themselves in the ecstasy of movement.  I also loved Alice Cohen's stop-motion fantasia of the feminine For Claire as well as the project by Mathilde ter Heijne and Amy Patton where they display a series of close-ups of anonymous men's scrotums to fascinating, hilarious, and ultimately tender effect.

See also:

• Royal NoneSuch Gallery

 

matokie mix 04.07.13

mix

Baseball is preempting my KALX shift today so instead you get an updated Matokie Mix yay.  I should be back on the air next Sunday, though I'm also getting my wisdom teeth out this week so no promises.

sanford biggers & marcus samuelsson

If you have a spare hour and 17 minutes I recommend watching this chat that took place between artist Sanford Biggers and chef Marcus Samuelsson at the Hammer last summer.  I'll let the museum do the formal introductions:

Sanford Biggers is an installation, video, and performance artist whose work has been exhibited worldwide. Biggers has won several awards including the Creative Capital Project Grant, a New York Percent for the Arts Commission, and a New York Foundation for the Arts Award in performance art/multidisciplinary work. He is Assistant Professor at Columbia University’s School of the Visual Arts.  Marcus Samuelsson is an award-winning chef, author, and food activist. Samuelsson is noted for defeating 21 fellow chefs on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters, winning $115,000 for the UNICEF Tap Project. He is the chef and owner of Red Rooster Harlem in New York City and his books include Aquavit and the New Scandinavian Cuisine, The Soul of a New Cuisine, New American Table, and his latest, Yes, Chef: A Memoir.

An inspired pairing for sure, and Biggers and Samuelsson are longtime friends besides.  Watching their wide-ranging conversation online is the next best thing to having been there in person.

See also:

• Sanford Biggers
• Marcus Samuelsson

agenda 04.03.13

Thursday, April 4:

• Lawrence Jordan: Prodigies of Physical Phenomena at K. Imperial Fine Art
• "Water & Polaroid" by Matthew Brandt | Opening Reception at Highlight Gallery
• Strange Ideas: First Thursday Reception at Visual Aid Gallery
• W*A*S*H w/ Brad Brooks, Sad Vicious, George Chen & the EB3 at Red Devil Lounge
• Spring 2013 Design and Technology Salon at the San Francisco Art Institute
• Phil Manley/3 Leafs/Gentleman Surfer/Ava Mendoza's Unnatural Ways at the Knockout
• Bronze, The Mantles, Swiftumz & Life Stinks live in concert at the Eagle Tavern
• 1st Thursday Ska, Rocksteady and Dub at the Swell Bar 
• Free First Thursday at the Berkeley Art Museum
• Read for Human Rights at the Berkeley Art Museum
• California Conversations: A State of Technology at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
• Lecture on Civic Art and Urban Change in San Francisco with author Susan Wells at the San Francisco Public Library
• Why Did Gede Let This Happen? Catastrophe and Theodicy in Twenty-First Century Haitian Art at the California College of the Arts
• Ghostface Killah at 1015 Folsom

Friday, April 5:

• A TRAPPED IN YOUR MIND FEELING at Aggregate Space Gallery and Transmission Gallery
• First Friday with El Elle, Pine & Opulence at the Night Light
• Crossroads 2013 Festival of Recent & Rediscovered Avant-Garde Film, Video, and Performance Works at the Victoria Theatre
• Manzanita, Yarrow, Nettles, Sweet Gum, and Jade at Interface Gallery
• Liz Walsh: Everyone at Krowswork
• Mari Andrews + Penny Olson at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary
• Ear Side Out: Sound Performances by Loren Chase and Jacob Kirkegaard at the Berkeley Art Museum
• Erik Scollon at Romer Young Gallery
• The Evoco Project: recent work by Midori at the Center for Sex and Culture
• L@TE Friday Nights at BAM/PFA: Thingamajigs: ]MA[
• Shlohmo + Jeremih at 1015 Folsom
• Thee Oh Sees at the Verdi Club

Saturday, April 6:

• Artists Talk | Jessalyn Aaland + Lila Taff at Swarm Gallery
• UC Berkeley MFA Open Studio at the UC Berkeley Richmond Field Station
• Langton Labs Presents: Hacked Organic
• Grand Opening: Museum of Craft and Design
• Open House: Renny Pritikin and Friends at Southern Exposure
• Angel Olsen at the Rickshaw Stop
• Phosphorescent at the Independent
• Worm Ouroboros at Terminal

Sunday, April 7:

• Fillip: Institutions by Artists: San Francisco Launch at Et al.
• Guided Meditation at the Berkeley Art Museum
• Film Screening: Orchestra of Exiles at the Contemporary Jewish Museum

Monday, April 8:

• UC Berkeley Visiting Artist Lecture Series: Rodney McMillian at 102 Wurster Hall
• SFAI Visiting Artists and Scholars Lecture with Linda Besemer

Tuesday, April 9:

• April's Seduction Feroce at the New Parish
• Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium
• Sparks "Two Hands, One Mouth" at the Chapel

Wednesday, April 10:

• The Great Calculation at Southern Exposure
• Bawdy Storytelling's "StarF*cker" at the Verdi Club
• Vagina Monologues Oakland 2013 at the New Parish
• True Mutants/Protomartyr/Turn To Crime/Skate Laws at LoBot Gallery
• Artist Talk | The Walls Are Closing in: The Archive, Family Narratives, and Image-Making in Uncertain Times at the San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery
• Modest Mouse at the Fox Theater

percipient

Oakland, California.  April 1, 2013.