Engineer's Daughter

matokie mix 06.20.21

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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.

matokie mix 06.13.21

mix

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.

matokie mix 06.06.21

mix

made lands

Through June 26 - Minoosh Zomorodinia: Made Lands at Local Language

I'm very happy that Oakland creative studio and fabrication shop Local Language was able to restart their artist-in-residence program earlier this spring, and the current show by Minoosh Zomorodinia is a real beauty. Zomorodinia began mapping her walks in 2016 when the xenophobic new administration unsettled her visa status. She started transforming the data points on her phone into physical objects both to lay claim to her adopted land and to reference the legacy of colonization in the United States in general and in California in particular. In this exhibition Zomorodinia continues to use those paths to investigate how the process of capturing memories on our digital devices affects our recall of past events, as in the My Ziggurat series in which she builds up layers like the ancient architecture from her Persian heritage and paints the resulting structures with gold leaf as if a monument to memory itself. And while you're in the neighborhood I recommend grabbing a bite at Forage Kitchen across the street and then heading down to West Grand to see Sheila Ghidini's deconstructed/reconstructed furniture at Gearbox Galley, another smart take on the concept of reassembly.

Other things I liked this week:

• The Sediments of Time: My Lifelong Search for the Past by Meave Leakey and Samira Leakey. Meave Leakey is foremost a brilliant paleontologist, and she also has a remarkable grasp of sociology, zoology, chemistry, genetics, climate science...the list goes on and on. I loved hearing the stories about her important discoveries in Africa, and she also begins and ends with some strong words about the survival of our species if we don't change our current self-destructive ways.
• Hooligan Sparrow by Nanfu Wang. This documentary about Chinese human rights activist Ye Haiyan is a portrait in courage both of the feminists in China defying their government to demand change, and of the filmmaker herself, who had to stay one step ahead of the police and smuggle her footage out of China.
• For Memorial Day Sunday I took public transit over to the city, picked up cheese-on-a-stick and boba tea from Stix, and had a picnic lunch by a pond in Stern Grove. Highly recommended.
• Seeing Silicon Valley: Life inside a Fraying America by Mary Beth Meehan and Fred Turner. I attended a virtual talk with Meehan and Turner and their University of Chicago Press editor Joseph Calamia on Wednesday and was inspired to immediately buy their book. The talk should be up on the Press's YouTube channel soon.
• To celebrate Pride Month Santa Clara Valley Audubon Society hosted a wonderful talk Wednesday evening with Jennifer Rycenga, one of the founders of Queer Birders of North America. Queer Birds: Community Inclusion, Community Building, and Community Science is available here.
• This year's ODC Theater Festival is all-virtual and features an impressive line-up of artists who showcase how good dance can look on film. I caught the opening night program on Thursday and especially loved the short pieces by the ODC Theater Opportunity Fund Artists.
• In honor of Black Birders Week this last week I recommend seeking out Annie Kaempfer's documentary The Falconer about Rodney Scotts's mission to provide access to nature for his community.
• Yesterday I kidnapped my friend Zach and headed off to McLaren Park for Psychopomp, the new outdoor theater walk from We Players specifically formulated for pandemic times. It was a magical and transcendent experience and then we went and outdoor dined at Red Window and that was most excellent too.

design by time

Through August 15 - Design by Time at the Museum of Craft and Design

The Museum of Craft and Design is a genuine city gem out in the Dogpatch, and their current group show Design by Time is a fascinating look at some cutting-edge work. Organized around the idea of time at a point in history when many people have lost a grip on temporal reality, the exhibition displays items from 8 countries and a 22 different artists and design collaboratives, with both established and emerging names represented. I was smitten with Swedish studio Front's reimagining of a Royal Delft vase that seemed to perform duration, pictured above, while nearby Sebastian Brajkovic's Lathe V Chair piece resembled classic French furniture that had been melted sideways in a sly visualization of history. Some objects also directly address how time acts on materials, as with the tiles from London studio Glithero gorgeously imprinted with cyanotypes of urban weeds. The museum also has a fantastic gift shop, and while you're in the neighborhood I further recommend brunching at Piccino, seeing Liam Everett's glorious show at Altman Siegel in which he gives me real Richter vibes, and picking up some treats from Biscuit Bender for the road.

Other things I liked this week:

• Sketches of the Criminal World: Further Kolyma Stories by Varlam Shalamov. The second volume of Shamalov's fiction in which he processes his 15 years in the Gulag, this is grim but essential reading. Human nature doesn't come out looking all that great, and if you're a soft heart like me just skip any story involving an animal.
• 1971: The Year That Music Changed Everything on Apple TV+. For a music obsessive this 8-part series is pure catnip, with the usual suspects present but also some nice deep dives into more unusual corners of sound. The vintage footage is incredible, and I appreciated the historical context throughout as well. 
• My YouTube rec for this week is the channel for the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority, with virtual hikes and nature programs galore.
• black midi hosted a listening party for their new album Cavalcade on Wednesday and it was super rad. RIYL high energy post punk math rock.
• I also spent three days Zooming into as much as I could of the International Contemporary Ensemble's Afro-Diasporic Opera Forum, including screenings of and reflections on three operas that the Ensemble has produced: George Lewis’s Afterword, Tyshawn Sorey’s Perle Noire: Meditations For Joséphine Baker, and Pauline Oliveros & IONE’s The Nubian Word For Flowers: A Phantom Opera. The forum ended with a screening of Lisa E. Harris' recent digital opera Cry Of The Third Eye and the whole thing was just wall-to-wall inspiration.
• The virtual Legacy Film Festival on Aging offers a wealth of perspectives on the latter years of our lives, and I chose the Fun & Games program with Ruedi Gerber's Seniors Rocking to honor the passing of goddess Anna Halprin this week and Lance Oppenheim's Some Kind of Heaven about four residents of The Villages in Florida.
• And then yesterday I saw a film! In a theater! It was Christian Petzold's mesmerizing Undine as part of the 25th Berlin and Beyond Film Festival and oh it was wonderful.

matokie mix 05.23.21

mix

contact traces

Through June 6 - Contact Traces at The Wattis Institute

I always love to see what the graduates of CCA's Curatorial Practice program come up with for their culminating exhibition, and this year they have themed the show around care and directly address the traumas of the pandemic. Featuring works by Derya Akay, Lenka Clayton, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Ilana Harris-Babou, and Jenny Kendler, Contact Traces questions how we take care of our selves, our community, our planet. Lenka Clayton's brilliant project 63 Objects Taken from My Son's Mouth, from which the above photograph is taken, highlights both a simple act of protection and also the constant observation (and quick reflexes) that motherhood requires. LaToya Ruby Frazier and Ilana Harris-Babou examine contemporary self-care practices in their pieces, and Jenny Kendler's work illustrates the helplessness one individual might feel against looming climate catastrophe. Meanwhile Derya Akay's joyful stand outside the gallery invites any and all passers-by to help themselves to tea and coffee, fresh fruit and flowers. The collected artworks point to systems that were already unsustainable before the pandemic, and invite us to imagine a more interconnected and just way forward. While you're in the Wattis neighborhood I also highly recommend a stop at Dumpling Time, and the current shows at Hosfelt Gallery featuring a small tribute to our beloved William T. Wiley as well as Isabella Kirkland's extraordinary paintings of Earth's biodiversity and Patricia Piccinini's sculptures and video depicting life considerably more unnatural.

Other things I liked this week:

• The Last American Aristocrat: The Brilliant Life and Improbable Education of Henry Adams by David S. Brown. I enjoyed this less for the biography of Henry Adams himself, who was a little too racist, elitist, and cynical for my tastes, than for the keenly observed history of the times Adams lived through in American and world history. Brown is an excellent writer and really keeps things moving too.
• The House Is Black by Forough Farrokhzad. A revelatory 1963 short film shot documentary-style in a leper colony, Farrokhzad mixes in her own poetry as well as excerpts from world literature to paint an unflinching and deeply human portrait of people isolated from society due to their disease.
• The UC Botanical Garden's YouTube channel, where you can explore the garden from the comfort of your home, has been a balm during the last year. Hoping to visit in person soon too!
• I feasted on many vegan goodies from Sarap Shop and Mackbox and Ube Mami last Sunday at the Oh My Gulay festival and just enjoyed being out and about in the lovely environs of Kapwa Gardens.
• The virtual option for the current Smuin al Fresco season is an excellent alternative for those of us who can't attend the live events, and I very much enjoyed the Pod Peony program last Sunday.
• The Marsh continues to knock it out of the park with their online programming too, with the premiere last night of Candace Johnson's new musical series about the art songs of Black composers, Music to My Ears: Hearing Adolphus Hailstork. She's performing it again tonight if you happen to read this in time, otherwise I'm very much looking forward to future episodes.  

matokie mix 05.16.21

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