Edited to add: The show has been extended through the end of June! Go see it!
Through June 12 - The Violets in the Mountains Have Broken the Rocks, Part Two at Gallery 16
I'm so glad I got to see this group show before it closed, especially because it's looking like Gallery 16 won't be much longer in the SOMA space where I've attended so many exhibitions and performances. But while they're still there, they're going to keep putting on great shows. With a loose theme of resilience some of the artworks speak directly to the pandemic, as with Tucker Nichols's incredible free-associative wall installation, while in other cases it's just interesting to see what artists were able to create in the last year. Cliff Hengst's series of intimate watercolors are real beauties, and they seemed to be having a conversation with Wayne Smith's ink-on-hardwood sculptures from across the room. Basically this exhibition felt like a wonderful conversational gathering with old friends and new. While I was in the city I also had a lovely bayside bento from Delica in the Ferry Building and took in the gorgeous Diane Arbus show at Fraenkel Gallery curated by Carrie Mae Weems. Just a fantastic day all around.
Other things I liked this week:
- Saving Freedom: Truman, the Cold War, and the Fight for Western Civilization by Joe Scarborough. With a title (and an author) like that I was of course reading this book with a fairly critical eye, but though Scarborough is no historian this is an absorbing account of a part of American history I knew little about. I just could have done without the partisan potshots, and the alarming amount of typos.
- I thought Marin Theatre Company did an excellent job with Denmo Ibrahim's online play Brilliant Mind, a mix of live Zoom and pre-taped scenes and with the added fun of receiving texts during the action from one of the characters. I just really miss seeing Ibrahim onstage in front of me.
- SF DocFest is doing a few screenings at the Roxie this year but the whole thing is also virtual, so I chose to watch Keeper of the Fire about local poet and activist Alejandro Murguia from the comfort of my kitchen table. This is one of those festivals where every film is a gem.
- In one of the more brilliant pandemic adaptations, Robert Moses' KIN are currently rehearsing and performing a new piece called The Vital Heart of S.F. behind the windows of the old Gap store on Market for passers-by to observe at their leisure. I caught just a snippet of the dancers at work and it was divine.
- The Wattis just launched a new book called Why are they so afraid of the lotus? and to celebrate the occasion Astria Suparak gave a Zoom talk called Asian Futures, without Asians that was absolute fire.
- I caught another incredible performance from the ODC Theater Festival, this time Unheard: Deaf Refugees in America by Antoine Hunter (Purple Fire Crow).
- Until I can see them again in person, the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater program from Cal Performances At Home was completely transcendent.
- And Tanya Diamond and Ahiga Snyder of Pathways for Wildlife taught me a ton about wildlife tracking in the first part of a virtual program presented by Peninsula Open Space Trust. Watch their presentation on YouTube and get ready for part two on July 9.