Engineer's Daughter

did you know love is healing?

Through October 1 - Jeffrey Cheung: Did you know love is healing? at pt.2

I didn't intend to take a blogging break over the last couple months, but then the August doldrums hit hard, plus the Delta variant, plus trying to figure out what still feels safe to do (not much), plus canceled and rescheduled travel, plus several friends getting breakthrough infections...I just needed to hunker down. Thank goodness for socially distanced gallery visits though, especially when Jeffrey Cheung has a whole pile of joyful new work to unleash. Cheung remains reliably salacious in this show, and the way he groups nude figures together just hits differently after 18 months with very little proximity to other humans. His DIY roots are still firmly on display even as he is more assured in his artistic choices than ever, and Cheung's vision of a vibrant gender-fluid, shame-free utopia is completely necessary right now.

Other things I liked this week:

• Peach Blossom Paradise by Ge Fei. Despite some disturbing scenes of assault I was impressed with how Ge Fei wove together this fable, set during a time of Chinese history before the idea of revolution turned sour, and I also appreciated how the female characters were centered in the story.
• Old Enough by Marisa Silver. This gem of a coming-of-age film from 1984 takes place during a hot NYC summer and is anchored by Sarah Boyd's wide-eyed, fearless performance as she befriends an older teenage girl and broadens her privileged horizons. There's a great scene in a makeup aisle that was giving me serious Wet 'N' Wild flashbacks too.
• I was hiding out in a rainy Fort Bragg last Saturday for Coastal Cleanup Day, but was delighted to see so many friends posting pics of their environmental efforts! And it's never a bad day to gather up some garbage, particularly here in Oakland.
• During a time when even masked-and-vaxxed events feel nerve-racking to me I'm extremely grateful to the cultural organizations that are still offering Zoom options, and I had a ton of fun laughing along with Lockdown Comedy during their monthly online show on Thursday. Host Lisa Geduldig is always a pro and the bits she does with her mom Arline are pure gold.

regarding extinction

Through June 26 - Kara Maria: Regarding Extinction at Anglim/Trimble

Stepping into a gallery of Kara Maria's paintings is pure pop joy, with vibrant splashes of color and psychedelic shapes twisting this way and that. Once you get closer you realize each piece contains wildlife too, a threatened creature calmly situated in its unnatural environment. The message about our current climate catastrophe and our responsibility as humans is crystal clear, but Maria also calls attention to the beauty and diversity of the animals on our planet. We'd better do our best to get our act together, and quickly. Also don't miss the Jerome Caja show concurrently at Anglim/Trimble, featuring a fantastic array of Caja's work and Anna van der Meulen's moving photographs of this local soul who is still very much missed. And then grab a biscuit (or five) at Biscuit Bender before stepping over to Slash's beautiful new space to see the Arboreal tree-themed group exhibition curated by Juana Berrío.

Other things I liked this week:

• A Good Time to Be Born: How Science and Public Health Gave Children a Future by Perri Klass. Despite the grim discussions of childhood mortality, I thoroughly enjoyed this accessible look at how we've managed to subdue a host of deadly diseases over the past century. Klass also celebrates a number of women and people of color who were new names to me, and it was very cool to learn about them.
• Butter on the Latch, Thou Wast Mild and Lovely, Flames, and shorts Squeezebox, Me the Terrible, First Day Out, The Mask Task, all by Josephine Decker. I love it when the Criterion Channel allows me to do a deep dive into a artist's body of work, in this case the director of Shirley and Madeline's Madeline. Decker's films are intense and not always easy to watch but entrancing all the same, especially in the way she incorporates music. 
• This talk Gardening for Water, Fire, and Habitat from the Laguna de Santa Rosa Foundation, if you are already as freaked out about the drought as I am.
• And last night I spent some hugely therapeutic time on Zoom(!) laughing along with the Mental Health Comedy Hour and special guests Margaret Cho and Guy Branum.

now see this

Dennis Gallagher

Through March 8 - Dennis Gallagher: Shape / Structure at Rena Bransten.  Unless they've closed the show a smidge early ahead of their move to Minnesota Street Project (yay!) you have one more day to see Dennis Gallagher's intensely absorbing sculptures and works on paper at Rena Bransten Gallery.  Gallagher was an important artist and teacher in the local scene before his death in 2009, and he is still very very much missed.

 

 
Eleanor Friedberger

March 8 - Eleanor Friedberger at the Independent.  I just saw her a few months ago when she did a free show at the Brick & Mortar to premiere songs off her album New View, and I can't wait to see her again so soon.  Certified goddess.

 

Lauren McKeon

Through March 13 - Bodily Engagements at Interface Gallery.  For the past two months Interface has been bringing together performance and visual artists into exciting juxtapositions, and the project series concludes with sculptures by Lauren McKeon and a movement piece by Renée Rhodes and Melissa Lewis entitled Endless.  I saw it yesterday and highly recommend swinging by this Saturday to view for yourself.

 

Mel Prest and Martha Clippinger

Closed (sorry!) - Mel Prest and Martha Clippinger: Project 9 at c2c project space.  This was one of the best shows I've seen yet in Kirk Stoll's intimate exhibition/live/work space.  Both artists have an innate grasp of color, optics, and form that is sheer pleasure to behold, with Prest's paintings contrasting nicely with Clippinger's more sculptural work, and they clearly had a lot of fun working together to make best use of the space too.

 

 
John Mulaney and Nick Kroll

On a recommendation from my friend Carrie, who is never ever wrong, I impulse-bought a ticket to go see Nick Kroll and John Mulaney perform their "Oh, Hello" characters from Kroll Show at Herbst last week.  And just like that now I'm officially a huge Nick Kroll fan.  That was some serious comic genius, and yes there was Too Much Tuna.

 

 
Renée Fleming

And last but definitely not least, please enjoy this clip of Renée Fleming singing the most beautiful aria of all time.  meriko whisked me off to see her recital at Zellerbach Saturday night, and while the monsoon raged outside we thrilled to her renditions of Schumann, Rachmaninoff, Strauss, Patricia Barber(!!), and selections from The King and I.  All unamplified, bitches.

agenda 01.16.13

Thursday, January 17:

• Mission Community Market
• SJMADE Mini Mart at the San Jose Museum of Art
• Comedy Drawing School at Eli Ridgway Gallery
• Rene Hell, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma + Paul Clipson, Vallens at The Lab
• Dennis Parlante and Matt Gonzalez in Conversation at Meridian Gallery
• The Statues Walked -- What Really Happened on Easter Island, presented by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo at the Cowell Theater
• End of the Reel: An Oddball Memoriam 2012 at Oddball Films

Friday, January 18:

• The Bensons: Jason Benson and Mark Benson at Royal NoneSuch Gallery
• Thinking Like the Universe at Hatch Gallery
• Taraneh Hemami at the Luggage Store Gallery
• Doron Fishman + Film and Video Selections at The Lab
• Pretty Blue Presents: HotTub DJ set, Unstoppable Death Machines, Laughters and Believe in Oakland
• TWO YEARS HERE: our 2nd Anniversary Group Show at Incline Gallery
• Exhibition: Remembering is Everything at Alter Space
• Artist Talk and Book Signing: Gabriele Stabile & Juliet Linderman, Refugee Hotel at Gallery Carte Blanche
• Portholes to the Past at Oddball Films
• The 13th Annual Edwardian Ball & World’s Faire presents “The Doubtful Guest” at the Regency Ballroom
• Ty Segall, White Fence, Nick Waterhouse at The Fillmore
• Tycho, Christopher Willits at The Independent

Saturday, January 19:

• Sasha Darling's and The BellJar Girls Trunk Show
• Lab Winter Benefit w/ Mike Donovan (Sic Alps), Waxy Tombs, Tainted Pussy, Rheal 'Tea + Dia Dear
• "The Witching Hour" Sequinsomnia Burlesque Show Premier
• Rednecks & Aztecs at 1:AM Gallery
• Claire Fontaine at Queen's Nails
• Punch Card at Catharine Clark Gallery
• Small Gems: Winter Group Show at Crown Point Press
• Periodic Calendar at Electric Works
• Yo La Tengo at Amoeba Records
• Pinback, Judgement Day at Bimbo's 365 Club
• Tycho, Doombird at The Independent
• Temple Saturdays featuring Revolvr

Sunday, January 20:

• Zach Watkins + A Magic Whistle + Protoghost at The Night Light

Monday, January 21:

• S.T.D.W.T.F., Straight Crimes, Surf Shit, John Brothers Piano Company & Exit Bag at RCA
• Quicksand, Title Fight at the Regency Ballroom

Tuesday, January 22:

• Slime City #16 at Radio

Wednesday, January 23:

• SIX: 2013 First Year MFA Exhibition at Worth Ryder Art Gallery
• Claire Fontaine in Conversation with Jason E. Smith at the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
• Are We There Yet? at The Rock Bar
• Mandebrot & Skyy, Matthew Dryhurst, Brandon Nickell, Paul Clipson at The Lab

agenda 01.09.13

Thursday, January 10:

• Thinking Like the Universe - Group Show at K. Imperial Fine Art
• New Years Day Swimmers at Altman Siegel
• Dorothea Tanning at Gallery Wendi Norris
• Elaine Buckholtz at Electric Works
• Vincent Jackson at Creativity Explored
• Sic Alps, Chris Forsyth, Bill Orcutt, Meg Baird at the Hemlock Tavern
• Joker + Plastician at 1015 Folsom

Friday, January 11:

• VV, McIntyre Parker at Royal NoneSuch Gallery
• No Babies, Black Dog, Whore Paint, Trophy Wife, Yi at The Hive
• International Freakout A Gogo - with Papa Snap live Fela Tribute at First Church of the Buzzard
• Sacha Eckes at Fouladi Projects
• Chelsea Wolfe, King Dude at the Great American Music Hall
• El Ten Eleven at The New Parish
• RJD2 + Prefuse 73 at 1015 Folsom
• Thee Oh Sees at The Independent
• Keane at The Warfield

Saturday, January 12:

• You Are Here/Cache/Real And Imagined Landscape at NIAD Art Center
• Fifteensixteenseventeeneighteennineteen at Southern Exposure
• Cynic Cave at Lost Weekend Video
• 11th Annual Sleepless Nights: A Tribute to Gram Parsons & Cosmic American Music at the Great American Music Hall
• Alumni Exhibition and 10-Year Anniversary Celebration at Root Division
• Thee Oh Sees at The Independent

Sunday, January 13:

• Unnatural Ways, Thollem Electric, Goldring/Thomson at 355
• Images from Chinatown: Four Decades of Photographs at the Chinese Cultural Center

Tuesday, January 15:

• Gregg Allman at the Palace of Fine Arts

agenda 12.05.12

Thursday, December 6:

• Publication Studio Printing On-Demand at The Popular Workshop
• To Be Determined #2 at new nothing cinema
• Poolside, Blackbird Blackbird, DJ Kele of Bloc Party at the Rickshaw Stop

Friday, December 7:

• Dis/Order: Juried Annual 2013 at Pro Arts
• MFA in Event Planning at Rise Above Graphics
• Mission Holiday Block Party
• MacArthur B Arthur's Final Exhibition: The Home Show
• TALKIES Holiday Show at Lost Weekend Video
• Destroy// 11 dancers + Ava Mendoza, Dominic Cramp, Mike Guarino, Leyya Tawil at Joe Goode Performance Group
• Point of No Return at Southern Exposure
• Cathy Cunningham-Little and Amy M. Ho at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary
• RE@DS: Sam Sax at the Berkeley Art Museum
• Quartet San Francisco Plays the Music of Raymond Scott at the Berkeley Art Museum
• MadC at 1:AM Gallery
• Jack White, The Shins, Metric, Two Door Cinema Club, Of Monsters and Men, The Gaslight Anthem at the Oakland Arena
• White Lung, Turbo Fruits, CCR Headcleaner at Bottom of the Hill
• Low End Theory SF at 1015 Folsom

Saturday, December 8:

• PrettyBluePresents: ReligiousGirls, MTNS (Seattle), Laughters, Believe at Purple Haus
• Everything Is Terrible Holiday Special West at ABCO Art Space
• Misfit Toy Factory at Root Division
• M83, Passion Pit, Tegan and Sara, The Killers, Grouplove, Imagine Dragons at the Oakland Arena
• The Polyphonic Spree at Slim's
• John Prine, Justin Townes Earle at the Warfield
• Dispirit//Thrones//Bädr Vogu//Crypt Keeper at 1530 E. 12th St.

Sunday, December 9:

• Points of Departure: Trivial Pursuit at Royal Nonesuch Gallery
• Meshell Ndegeocello, Con Brio at the Great American Music Hall

Monday, December 10:

• Tom Grrrl / Bitter Fruit / Pig DNA / S.B.S.M. at Menage Twat
• White Cloud + Freak Heat Waves + Means Streets + Chief at The Hidden Temple
• David Bazan, Stagnant Pools at the Independent

Tuesday, December 11:

• Jaberi & Deutsch, the Spencer Owen Consortium, Makeunder at the Night Light

Wednesday, December 12:

• Take Off: Kota Ezawa, Kenneth Goldsmith at Kadist SF