Engineer's Daughter

lost/found

Through October 30 - Maja Dlugolecki: Lost/Found at Glass Rice

This new body of work by Maja Dlugolecki reads as pure emotion on raw canvas, with the artist's intuition guiding every brushstroke and marker line. I continue to very much appreciate how artists are processing the pandemic, and here the title of each painting includes something lost and something found, taken from anonymous responses Dlugolecki crowdsourced from the internet. Layered on top of Dlugolecki's canvases, where in places the color is more sparse and in others diluted paint almost completely saturates the frame, these glimpses of other people's lives led me to meditate on my personal gains and losses over the last 18 months. And then Dlugolecki invites you to write your own anonymous experience of lost/found on a slip of paper and leave it in a box as you exit the gallery. 

Other things I liked this week:

• Jennifer's Body directed by Karyn Kusama. I hear from my reliable source in Gen Z that this film is experiencing a resurgence on TikTok right now and rightfully so, with its sharp script by Diablo Cody that centers the female characters in a teen horror movie. There's gore and demonic possession for sure, but also smart things to say about high school friendship.
• My Little Sister directed by Stéphanie Chuat and Véronique Reymond. Very difficult subject matter here as adult siblings face cancer, but it also has absolutely gorgeous direction that allows Nina Hoss and Lars Eidinger to just do their thing. The depiction of family dynamics, and of the magical thinking that accompanies grief, felt very real too.
• Saving Justice: Truth, Transparency, and Trust by James Comey. Nothing in here that's new to anyone who regularly reads Heather Cox Richardson, but worth a look for the entertaining stories from early in Comey's career. He tries to explain some of his more controversial positions from recent times too, with varying levels of success.
• I'm grateful to my alma mater UCSC for the online events they've been holding during pandemic, and last week's forum "The 21st Century Revolution in Gender & Sexual Diversity: A New Generation Leads the Way" was particularly inspiring. Psychology professors Phillip Hammack and Adriana Manago made a good case for complicating the media narratives around social media and offered a lot of hope for the future besides.
• This year's Litquake is going full blast right now with an impressive hybrid line-up of outdoor readings and online events, and I was able to catch a virtual conversation Thursday evening between Bonnie Tsui and J.M. Thompson Thursday evening about Thompson's book Running Is a Kind of Dreaming. I will never ever be an Ironperson or even a runner of any kind but I do enjoy hearing about athletes' experiences.
• I also got to dive into the much-postponed Other Minds Festival 25 this weekend thanks to their excellent livestream that made me feel like I was right there in the theater with the musicians. The line-up includes West Coast jazz and new music from Anthony Braxton & Roscoe Mitchell, William Parker, Jen Shyu, Elliott Sharp, Tyshawn Sorey, Darius Jones, Wadada Leo Smith, Mary Halvorson, Amirtha Kidambi, Ikue Mori, Myra Melford, King Britt, William Winant, Junius Paul, Mark Dresser, Sylvie Courvoisier, Hamid Drake, and Ambrose Akinmusire.

remembrance of things paper

Through July 5 - Remembrance of Things Paper at Round Weather

Round Weather has been open since December in a beautiful space in an old Oakland bottle factory, and this week I swung by for a visit to the current group show and just loved everything I saw. Gallery director Chris Kerr not only has a thoughtful eye for art that addresses sustainability and the current climate catastrophe, but he and the gallery's Advisory Council are running the space as a nonprofit and are sending money from sales to environmental organizations. The current exhibition is themed around a specific material, paper, with its associations with recycling and just the sheer pleasure of its many textures and forms. Daniela Naomi Molnar, pictured above, uses collected rainwater, dew, and earth pigments to create her striking watercolors which in turn depict mankind's effects on landscape, while Michelle Yi Martin's mesmerizing woven pieces similarly take on added meaning when you learn she works with exclusively found materials. The motif of transforming one person's trash into new treasure continues in Ajit Chauhan's practice, where he erases the edges of discarded postcards into forms of his choosing. And in one of those wonderful moments of Oakland serendipity, while I was at Round Weather I glimpsed a piece by Miguel Arzabe resting under the stairs from a previous show, which reminded me I needed to see his current solo exhibition at Johansson Projects so I went yesterday and it is super fantastic.

Other things I liked this week:

• The Bad Side of Books: Selected Essays by D.H. Lawrence. Lawrence can certainly be a frustrating and problematic writer, but I admire his endless curiosity and his inquisitive way of working out the world around him. He'll find a particular turn of phrase that just lights up your brain, whether he's describing the New Mexico landscape, or birdsong, or metaphysics, or a scammer acquaintance. Geoff Dyer edited this collection and his introduction is top-notch too.
• Mädchen in Uniform directed by Leontine Sagan. I love watching queer film during Pride month and this is a classic, depicting forbidden love between a student and teacher at a boarding school in Germany between the world wars. Also worth watching just for the Expressionist close-ups.
• This past week was Kronos Festival week, and I spent a good part of the day last Sunday wandering around Golden Gate Park with Ellen Reid's wondrous Soundwalk in my ears, which had premiered as part of the festival. The rest of the programming is available on YouTube through August 31, and the Soundwalk is sticking around for a few years.
• Another fun way to celebrate Pride is Canela's to-go rainbow picnic bag filled with Spanish chips and candy and the most delicious sangria. Highly recommended.
• I also sampled this year's Frameline festival at home this week in the form of Chen Hung-i & Muni Wei’s As We Like It, a giddy gender-bent reimagining of Shakespeare that had me grinning ear-to-ear throughout. The whole Focus on Taiwan program is very cool too.
• Megablack SF threw one heck of a Juneteenth party at the Ferry Building farmers market yesterday, and I walked away with bundt cakes from Minnie Bell's Soul Movement, various puddings from Yes Pudding, and sprinkle cookies from A Girl Named Pinky. All the sweets, in other words.
• MoAD also had great Juneteenth programming all day, including a panel discussion in conjunction with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History that featured Annette Gordon-Reed, Jelani Cobb, Imani Perry, and Kevin Young.
• And to celebrate Summer Solstice, I recommend this virtual saunter on Mount Diablo courtesy of Greenbelt Alliance.

Programming note: I'm taking some time off this week to go run around Los Angeles and see art and friends in SoCal, my first getaway out of town since pandemic. I'll be back in two Sundays.

the violets in the mountains have broken the rocks, part two

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.

the journeys of trees

 

I'm very happy to report that fave local mag Bay Nature has started their own series of online talks, and the first one earlier this week featured a wonderful conversation between editor-in-chief Victoria Schlesinger and science writer Zach St. George about his new book The Journeys of Trees. Watch the recording above, then follow the links below to buy the book and/or subscribe to Bay Nature. And next up: tidepools!

See also:

• The Journeys of Trees
• Bay Nature
• Bay Nature Talks: Tidepools

 

go see this

Through May 30 - Brendan Fowler: New Pictures, Bench and Six Sampler Works at Capital.  The latest in a number of strong shows at this newish SF gallery, Fowler explores the concept of temporality utilizing both the embroidery sampler and the musical sampler in his work.  And while you're in the neighborhood...

 

May 22 through June 11 - Andrew McClintock: Salt Water Batter 2.0: 3.5 Volts at Et al.  The exhibition description is nothing but a list of materials: 72 x 11 qt Polyethylene Containers, 20 lbs Sodium Chloride, 840 oz Dihydrogen Monoxide, 50 lbs Cuprum, 55 lbs Aluminium.  Guaranteed to be brilliant.

 

Wednesday, May 20 - Contemporary Photography in Mexico curator talk at SF Camerawork.  In conjunction with the current group exhibition Existe lo que tiene nombre co-curator Sergio De La Torre will be speaking with the gallery's Executive Director Heather Snider about how he selected the images for the show as well as the state of photography practice in Mexico right now.

 

Through June 6 - Black Virgins Are Not For Hipsters at The Marsh.  Powerful solo theater is alive and well at The Marsh, and Echo Brown's show is no exception as she takes on love and race and identity with hilarious and poignant results.

go see this

Sarah Hotchkiss

Through September 13 - Something Completely Different at City Limits Gallery.  For a gallery that usually focuses on a single artist or two at a time this is a veritable supernova of a group show, with 60 different artists represented.  In keeping with the City Limits philosophy each artist was invited to submit a piece that differs from their customary practice, and the resulting works encompass a dizzying array of sculpture, painting, drawing, video, installation, and more.  No previous knowledge of the artists is necessary to enjoy the show, and it's a really fun way to wrap up the summer (the traditional group show season) and maybe pick up a little something for your home collection too.

 

 

Through September 14 - Disruption at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.  The most exciting part of the current Bay Area Now 7 show at Yerba Buena might be the roster of public programs being held in conjunction with the exhibition, including this series of workshops curated by Bean Gilsdorf.  On Saturday I attended Kristina Lee Podesva's hilarious and thought-provoking class "Learning SSL (Startups as a Second Language)" in which we participants sharpened our listening comprehension and translation skills.  Remaining installments in the series include a clinic with Amanda Curreri exploring blauwe bloempjes (ie "bold-faced lies") and double zero's playful session with a seesaw.

that conversation we were always on the edge of having runs on in my head

exuberant, unbridled, expansive

one week

participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings