Engineer's Daughter

agenda 07.31.13

Thursday, August 1:

• ALL AROUND US ALWAYS Launch Party at Will Brown
• H.A.P.P.I.N.E.S.S. at Studio 110 Projects
• Shahzia Sikander in Conversation with John Zarobell at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
• Convergence Line: A Mixed Reality Concert at SOMArts Cultural Center
• Crez Deedee, Heart of the Whale, Le fomo, Pony Fight at Monarch
• "Address" Group Exhibition at Alley Cat Books Gallery
• Free First Thursday at the Berkeley Art Museum
• Exploratorium’s After Dark: Freestyle
• Ty Segall at the Catalyst
• San Francisco Symphony: Warren Haynes Tribute to Jerry Garcia at Davies Symphony Hall

Friday, August 2:

• Members Only featuring Jennie Ottinger at Johansson Projects
• "Cinderscape" First Friday Event at Aggregate Space
• Max Nordile Arts Showing Odds and Clods at 1-2-3-4 Go! Records
• Jack's Night Market at Jack London Square
• From the Container: New Paintings by Nick Wildermuth and Daniel Jefferies at a.Muse Gallery
• Noise Karaoke at MOCO
• Around the Bay in 80 Minutes at The Costume Shop at A.C.T.
• Talkies at Lost Weekend Video
• Liquid Systems 003, feat. Kind Herb at Lounge 3411
• Zarouhie Abdalian / MATRIX 249 at the Berkeley Art Museum
• Exhibition: 4 Swiss Bay Area Artists at Misho Gallery
• Sounding the Path of the Signal at the Berkeley Art Museum
• Rancid at the Warfield
• Benefit Concert for Surf For Life at the Independent
• San Francisco Symphony: Warren Haynes Tribute to Jerry Garcia at Davies Symphony Hall

Saturday, August 3:

• Cynic Cave
• Beer Garden featuring Gypsy Jazz by the Oakland Manouche Project at Classic Cars West
• Art Opening: (y)our (t)own: love for Oakland by Oakland artists at Actual Cafe
• Featherboard Writing Series at Aggregate Space
• Lower Bottoms at Revolution Cafe
• Debaser | Hip Hop Summer Jam at The Knockout
• Food - Gallery Opening Party at Photobooth
• Rancid at the Warfield
• Petaluma Music Festival at the Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds
• Skygreen Leopards at the Lucky Horseshoe

Sunday, August 4:

• Beyond the Fence Trunk Show at Mighty
• Slow Textiles Workshop Series at Rock Paper Scissors
• Johnny Legend's "Rock Baby, Rock It!" (1957) at the New Parkway
• Johnny Legend & The Chuckleberrys @ The Night Light
• 1st Sunday at the Ruby Room
• Americanarama at Shoreline Amphitheatre
• Sublime with Rome at the America's Cup Pavilion
• Balmorhea at Bottom of the Hill

Monday, August 5:

• "In Search of the Miraculous..." at Helena Hallway Gallery
• Quiet Lightning: The Greenhouse Effect at the San Francisco Conservatory of Flowers

Tuesday, August 6:

• Book Launch for Peter Orner's Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge at Hotel Rex
• Between Youth, Sara Century, Tripp Nasty, Floral Fucks, Aja Vision at MOCO
• Surprise Phenomenauts Show at Merchant's Saloon
• Pete Swanson + Bad News + Earth Jerks at the Elbo Room
• Ferlinghetti: A Rebirth of Wonder at the Contemporary Jewish Museum
• Neither Friar Nor Conquistador: The Spanish Immigrant Community of Cannery Row at The Emerald Tablet

Wednesday, August 7:

• The Living Newspaper: Extra Extra by Liz Magic Laser at Southern Exposure
• Bawdy Storytelling's 'One Night Stand' at the Verdi Club
• Kill Your First Presents: Wachaa & It'll Happen at the Cynic Cave
• White Fence at the Rickshaw Stop
• Harry Connick Jr. at Davies Symphony Hall

paparazzi

Puffy Areolas, 21 Grand, Oakland.  August 11, 2010.

i have tried in my way to be free

show 268

playlist

baby, i lost my handshoes...

The above video documents the weird and wonderful opening of the collaborative group exhibition Baby, I lost my handshoes... in its third iteration at the Kunsthalle Exnergasse in Vienna last year.  From the gallery's website:

With shared interest in the expression of social and cultural life, Donna Huanca, Vytautas Jurevicius, Lisa Meixner and Aki Nagasaka interpret the impact of form and style through playful narratives of architecture, fashion and language. Their works make imaginative and stylised use of documentary, advertising, scientific inquiry and ethnographic field work, and, much like the curiously named Handshoes of the exhibitions title, their combination of works evidences a radial creative/thought process, seemingly free from the rigid critical or ethical interpretations. Correspondingly, Baby, I lost my Handshoes... has been curated without following one specific curatorial position or theme, but rather experimenting with an open interaction of various ideas, formats and narrations.

I believe the project is on hiatus for now as the artists are scattered around the world and all busy with other things, but I secretly hope they'll pop up with a collaboration the Bay Area in the future.

See also:

• Kunsthalle Exnergasse
• Donna Huanca
• Vytautas Jurevicius
• Lisa Meixner
• Aki Nagasaka

agenda 07.24.13

Thursday, July 25:

• Urban Innovation Exchange – Hack the Future SF at Freespace
• Club of the Month Club Quarterly #3: SoEx Swim Team with Erik Scollon
• Where Water Comes Together With Other Water - Opening Reception at Kala Art Institute
• 7 7 7 Series: Raz, Larsen, Rees, Comitta, Haber, Novotny, Dickerson in Oakland
• Bacon Babes & BINGO w/Special Guests Alotta Boutte & Joe Wicht
• (Comedy at the Fox Theater) The Cynic Den - Oakland
• Womanopoly does The Legionnaire Saloon
• Raging Show at 1772 Market Street
• Disorder // Oakland Edition with Black Marble | Buzz Kull | RedRedRed at the Stork Club
• Time // Space // Location at The Lab
• Strange Sinema 66: Strange Synthesis/Media Manipulators at Oddball Films
• Weezer at the America's Cup Pavilion
• Courtney Love at The Independent

Friday, July 26:

• An Evening of Poets' Theater at Gallery 16
• An exhibition which comes and goes as it pleases at Et al.
• The Politics of Photosynthesis: New Works by Ralph Vázquez-Concepción at Studio 308
• The Big Big Deal at Cynic Cave
• Porchlight 11th Anniversary Extravaganza at the Verdi Club
• Hokey Fright Tour at Slim's
• Factrix & Bronze at the Night Light
• This Is Comedy? at Cynic Cave
• Kaleidoscape: An Introduction by Rebar’s Matthew Passmore and Thingamajigs: Locating at the Berkeley Art Museum
• Safiya Martinez's So You Can Hear Me at The Marsh
• Under the Influence at The Emerald Tablet
• Inside the Cosmic Mind - Sci-Fi in July at Oddball Films
• The Postal Service at the Greek Theatre
• Legends of the Summer at Candlestick Park
• RE:CREATION at 1015 Folsom

Saturday, July 27:

• Circuit Bending Skillshare at MOCO
• Renegade Craft Fair - San Francisco Summer at Fort Mason
• Electric Chaircut Performance at Steven Wolf Fine Arts
• Fashion mixer "Accessorize" at Zarif Soulye Fashion Gallery
• [freespace] finale
• Saturday Night Special 2-Year Anniversary BBQ & Open Mic
• No Babies -- Hazel's Wart -- WUV -- Breathing Patterns at The Yellow Room
• The Switch-Up at Riddim
• Shine On presents Maus Haus, LoveyDove, xxx-smiles-xxx at the Knockout
• Geometry of Chance at Mirus Gallery
• Colin Lyons Artist Talk at Kala Art Institute
• Iconic Iranian Poetry at The Emerald Tablet
• Brutal Sound Effects Festival #75 at The Lab
• The Postal Service at the Greek Theatre
• The Cult - Electric 13 Tour at The Fillmore

Sunday, July 28:

• Aja Vision//Beast Nest//May B Knot//Melting Wreck//Yard Sale at 37th Heaven
• Hijacked at El Amigo Bar
• Comics Quitting at Cynic Cave
• Gargamel (DJ Night) at the Night Light
• Dialoguing with Sacred Texts - Opening Reception at Manresa Gallery

Monday, July 29:

• The Reading Score at Important Projects
• Melt the Mic at Melt Cafe

Tuesday, July 30:

• Beautiful Possiblity Tour Homecoming Celebration: Slide Show, Elixir Tasting and Training Session at Southern Exposure
• The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells at Books Inc.
• El-P at The Independent

Wednesday, July 31:

• Cusswordz Album Release at MOCO
• The Berkeley Slam launches a book with Jason Bayani and guest host Thadra Sheridan at the Starry Plough
• Coo Coo Birds, Al Lover, Face Tat, Bubblegum Crisis at Bottom of the Hill
• Sebadoh at Cafe Du Nord
• El-P at The Independent

sook

Ivy Hill, Oakland.  July 21, 2013.

split focus

Renée Gertler

Matt Gil

Paul Wackers

Through July 25 - Split Focus at Eleanor Harwood Gallery.  As I was visiting this group show on Saturday a young boy walking by with his mom stuck his head into the gallery and declared, "Wooooooow!"  My thoughts exactly.  Each of the three artists in the exhibition plays with color and form in fresh, eye-opening ways, referencing classic themes in abstraction but also creating work firmly placed in the now.  Renée Gertler's powder-coated aluminum and resin sculptures balance the rigidity of geometry with the inherent imperfections of her materials, while Matt Gil constructs sensual shapes out of cast aluminum and addes splashes of vivid color here and there.  The Paul Wackers paintings on display nearby could be inventories of the other two artists' work, showing as they do orderly shelves of artworks drawn from his own brain.  Don't miss the accompanying work by the trio in the back gallery either, especially Gertler's pieces in which she magically recreates Bay Area lightscapes inside of paper bags.  Wow, again.

See also:

• Eleanor Harwood Gallery
• Renée Gertler
• Matt Gil
• Paul Wackers

show 267

playlist

2012 seca art award

David Wilson

While I remain ambivalent about much of SFMOMA's "out-of-the-building" programming this year I am genuinely curious about the upcoming SECA Art Award commissions from the 2012 awardees (Zarouhie Abdalian, Josh Faught, Jonn Herschend, and David Wilson).  From when the finalists were announced last September:

SFMOMA assistant curators Jenny Gheith (painting and sculpture) and Tanya Zimbardo (media arts) have just announced the finalists for the 2012 SECA Art Award. This installment of the museum’s biennial award is especially exciting: for the first time in the award program’s history, the museum will be commissioning new work offsite.

I also have to confess that I'm slightly less enthused about the winners than I was about the finalists, who included many friends and associates from Headlands and elsewhere.  Those with the ability to create site-specific art seem to have been favored over those with impressive studio practices in a couple instances, and then I'm surprised a couple artists in particular were passed over given the strength of their installation work.  Still, personal biases aside, I remain interested to see what the winning quartet presents.