« October 2019 |
Main
| December 2019 »
Things worth sharing:
- Helen Thorpe spends a year in a Denver classroom with students learning English as a second language in her remarkable book The Newcomers: Finding Refuge, Friendship, and Hope in America, and she paints a vivid picture of the United States I still believe in, where we welcome and support the weary.
- Rose B. Simpson's sculptures are already magical as individual pieces and only grow more powerful in the pairings and groupings in her current show at Jessica Silverman.
- Speaking of pairings, Drew Heitzler finishes up his year curating two-person shows at slash with a fascinating juxtaposition of Kota Ezawa's Merzbau wallpaper with a capsule of irradiated seeds Sean Raspet will plant in Michigan. Forests of the past, forests to be.
- Kimberley Acebo Arteche uses technology to beautiful effect to explore her Filipina heritage in the curved body of a pixel, currently on display at Incline Gallery.
- Craving tea leaf salad or paratha whilst in Noe Valley? Inle Burmese will sort you out, deliciously.
- Anything at the Recombinant Festival is always worth checking out, and this year they outdid themselves by bringing in Morton Subotnick for a live performance of "Silver Apples of the Moon" with accompanying visuals by Lillevan. I tuned in, I blissed out.
- Julien Faraut's film John McEnroe: In the Realm of Perfection is more New Wave punk poem than strict documentary, but any movie that bookends its soundtrack with Sonic Youth and Black Flag is going to be all right by me.
- I've also been enjoying a surreal journey through the animations of Suzan Pitt thanks to the Criterion Channel. See also this essay about her work by Haden Guest.
- Stephanie Syjuco gave a great lecture at Mills Wednesday evening on the politics of imaging and representation, and how she's been addressing said topics in her work. Always always love hearing what she's up to.
Things worth sharing:
- Anyone who has read King Leopold's Ghost knows that Adam Hochschild excels at making even the most difficult and tragic events of history eminently readable, and his superb essay collection Lessons from a Dark Time illuminates some dark corners indeed but covers some hopeful subjects as well. Related, from The New Yorker: When America Tried to Deport Its Radicals.
- For the collaborative show How To Fall In Love In A Brothel by Sunhui Chang, Ellen Sebastian Chang, and Maya Gurantz currently on display at Catharine Clark, the viewer is invited to engage with the exhibition at the level of intimacy that feels right to you. Watch a video in the media room, poke a hole in the shoji screens that form the central gallery installation, or schedule an "intimacy hour" to spend time inside said installation.
- Guerrero Gallery is filled to bursting right now with art from three very exciting local artists: photography from Marcela Pardoa Ariza, paintings and installations from Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, and paintings and sculptural work from Troy Chew.
- Saturday evening I was at ODC for Signals from the West, a breathtaking amalgam of dance, video and performance art, sound, and more, envisioned by curators Claudia La Rocco, Hope Mohr, and Julie Potter. From their program intro: "Signals from the West is a multi-disciplinary conversation within the international celebration of the Merce Cunningham centennial. We invited ten Bay Area artists from the visual, literary, and performing arts to be in workshop with each other and with the choreographers and former Cunningham dancers Rashaun Mitchell and Silas Riener: an experiment for everyone." More experiments like this please!
- Meanwhile back in Oakland, more excellent curation last weekend in the form of the film program Unruly Alliances organized by Amanda Nudelman and Rosa Tyhurst at Royal NoneSuch. I caught a screening Sunday afternoon that featured work by Patrick Staff, Connie Zheng, and Yetunde Olagbaju, and the group discussion afterward with Zheng and Olagbaju gave me much food for thought. Much love and restful energizing thoughts to Royal NoneSuch too as they close for a year-long sabbatical.
- High Life (aka Robert Pattinson in Space) is not without its flaws, but personally I love it when Claire Denis fucks with my head. Other positives include solid black hole science, a spaceship designed by Olafur Eliasson, and a Tindersticks soundtrack.
- I also did a rewatch of Clio Barnard's fascinating 2010 film The Arbor, in which actors lip-sync to interviews with friends and family of playwright Andrea Dunbar alongside newsreel footage and stagings of Dunbar's work.
- And if you can squeeze a play into your busy schedule today or tomorrow, I highly highly recommend Nassim at Magic. Just don't read too much about it ahead of time, all of the fun is in the discovery.
Things worth sharing:
- If you haven't already read Jan Morris's "travel" book Hav boy are you in for a mind-bending treat, and I also highly recommend Conundrum, her account of her transition, originally published in 1974(!).
- Taro Hattori worked with a whole host of collaborators for his current show at Kala, Exinclusivity - Space of Inclusion, creating an immersive experience in the gallery that makes (literal) space for stories of migration.
- Meanwhile Creative Growth also has a spectacular show in its gallery right now, Meeting Places: Mangkaja and Creative Growth, that juxtaposes Creative Growth artists with Aboriginal artists from Western Australia. Their upcoming Holiday Studio Sale is always a must-shop as well.
- OMCA is running a series of community conversations as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, and the first one on Saturday afternoon featured inspiring thoughts from local heroes musician/activist/filmmaker Boots Riley, animator Rosana Sullivan, and CAAMFest's Stephen Gong. Related: Sullivan's short film "Kitbull" is one of the best animated works I've ever seen, and I'm not just saying that because it features a black cat.
- Christian Petzold creates a world unfamiliar and at the same time way too familiar in Transit, a film based a 1942 novel by Anna Seghers but set in present-day France. Also: read Seghers's extraordinary novel The Seventh Cross, which captures how terrifying it must have been to live in Nazi Germany.
- Oakland's own CTRL+SHFT Collective once again shows the work that needs to be seen in their current group exhibition Black and brown bodies will forever dream & exist, featuring art by Sequoya Akosua Lee, Lukaza Branfman-Verissimo, Samantha Maria Xochitl Espinoza and Malaya Tuyay.
- After another week of "planned" Bay Area blackouts it was restorative to visit Headlands on Sunday afternoon for the close of the 2019 season, and to see beautiful work by Anna Fitch & Banker White and Kelly Akashi. Already looking forward to 2020.
- Ana Lily Amanpour's stylish 2014 debut film A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night was shot in black-and-white in Bakersfield but all of the characters speak Persian, including the titular character who also happens to be a chador-wearing skateboard-riding vampire. Absolutely perfect for the end of spooky season.
- Happiness on a cold SF night is a hot pizza pie from Square Pie Guys in SOMA. Save some room for the monkey bread for dessert too.
Things worth sharing:
- While not as assured as Stoner (and featuring a truly unsympathetic protagonist) John Williams's first novel Nothing but the Night is an excellent example at how deftly Williams was able to write about the human psyche.
- I spent four glorious nights at SFJAZZ last weekend reveling in music by a wide variety of artists there to celebrate ECM's 50th anniversary: Tigran Hamasyan, Wadada Leo Smith, Avishai Cohen, Vijay Iyer, and Egberto Gismonti. Here's to another 50 years of amazing music!
- Trust me when I say The Mustang is infinitely less cheesy than the trailer would imply and is in fact an incredibly beautiful film by French director Laure de Clermont-Tonnerre with important things to say about incarceration and restorative justice and the human-animal bond. I cried a lot and then immediately donated to an inmate wild horse program. Also: prison abolition now.
- I can't believe it took me this long to see Julie Taymor's Frida but what a great film, especially considering the circumstances Taymor and Salma Hayek were faced with while making it. The Mexico City locations! The Brothers Quay animations! Tina Modotti! Baby Diego Luna! Frida's art!
- Tove Jansson dancing with her cat.