Through August 14 - The Black Index at Palo Alto Art Center
After outdoor lunch with my folks in Redwood Shores yesterday I schlepped a little further down the Peninsula to the always-lovely Palo Alto Art Center to see this small but powerful exhibition curated by Bridget R. Cooks and organized around the theme of Black self-representation. Lava Thomas's renderings of mugshots from the Montgomery Bus Boycott (pictured above: Alberta J. James) take my breath away every time I see them, and Kenyatta A.C. Hinkle's 2020 project The Evanesced: The Untouchables is equally moving, composed of 100 gorgeous ink and watercolor drawings of Black women meant to bring attention to those who have been abused, murdered, and disappeared. Hinkle wants viewers "to think about how we are all agents in erasure, and we all have a role that we play," and the exhibition at large presents a strong statement about anti-colonialism even as it maintains attentive to nuance and complexity. Also currently in Palo Alto: the excellent Resonance show at Qualia gallery, featuring artists who merge the visual and the aural in their work.
Other things I liked this week:
- Kill Switch: The Rise of the Modern Senate and the Crippling of American Democracy by Adam Jentleson. A very readable history of the filibuster and an extremely strong case for why it needs to be abolished that just added to the pile of rage that's going to sustain me all the way through next year's midterms. Stay angry, my friends.
- The Witches of the Orient by Julien Faraut. I loved Faraut's John McEnroe documentary and he uses similar experimental techniques here to tell the compelling story of the Japanese women's volleyball team that won the gold in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. Highly recommended if you're ambivalent about this year's competition but are in the mood to watch some amazing women kick ass.
- Headlands held an "Open House Lite" last Sunday, their first in-person event since lockdown, and while I'm still feeling tentative about the future (and downright gutted about the loss of the Affiliate program) it was wonderful to be back and to see and hear inspiring work and to eat Chef Damon's mac and cheese.
- SF's Opera Parallèle has teamed up with the Dallas Opera to produce Everest, an inventive online graphic novel opera that I thoroughly enjoyed despite its intense subject matter. Very clever use of comic book conventions and you just have to abandon any disbelief (similar to any musical theater experience to be honest) that the characters are singing without oxygen on the top of Everest.