Engineer's Daughter

long kwento

Through December 4 - Maia Cruz Palileo: Long Kwento at the Wattis

This extraordinary solo show by Maia Cruz Palileo at the Wattis fuses Filipinx histories with the artist's own unique visual language into a simultaneously fractured and cohesive whole. Drawing both from extensive research Palileo conducted in the Filipiniana collection at Chicago's Newberry Library as well as the artist's own family stories, Palileo's paintings and sculptures refer directly to a violent, colonialist past while at the same time celebrate the vibrancy and craft of Filipinx culture. The complex narrative that emerges defiantly reclaims space and refuses to reduce the diasporic experience to any individual story. In the evocative booklet that accompanies the exhibition, curator Kim Nguyen quotes Grace Kyungwon Hong on the topics of memory and knowledge:

To bring out your dead is to say that these deaths are not unimportant or forgotten, or worse, coincidental. It is to say that these deaths are systemic, structural. To bring out your dead is both a memorial and a challenge, an act of grief and of defiance, a register or mortality and decline, and of the possibility of struggle and survival.

Other things I liked this week:

• A Will to Kill by RV Raman. A classic Agatha-Christie-style whodunit set in a remote manor in the Indian countryside, this book gave my brain a lovely rest as I left detective Harith Atreya to puzzle out a murder. Maybe I should have been reading more mysteries during pandemic.
• Aftershocks by Nadia Owusu. A gorgeous memoir of a childhood lived all over the world and the lasting effects of a mother's abandonment and a father's death plus bonus colonialism and racism. Loved the geological metaphor Owusu employed throughout too. 
• While I have been making sure my coffee is bird-friendly for some time now, I hadn't thought about my chocolate until a wonderful presentation this week by Sharol Nelson-Embry about harvesting practices such as agroforestry, wild harvesting, and shade growing and how they connect to some cool bird species. Nelson-Embry offers delicious bird-friendly chocolate options in her online shop Cocoa Case, and you can even pick up a set that benefits the San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory during their fall fundraiser.
• In yet another brilliant shutdown hack the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival is presented as a streamable film this year, beautifully filmed in various locations around the Bay Area...including an elementary school near my apartment! I was able to attend the virtual premiere Thursday evening and hear intros from the presenting artists too, which was super-neat. 
• The Mill Valley Film Festival also has an impressive online program this year, including Bob Sarles and John Anderson's riveting documentary Born in Chicago about the birth and the enduring influence of the Chicago blues. I watched it last night and was grooving around my apartment to all of its amazing vintage gig footage.

witness

Through November 13 - Carrie Mae Weems: Witness at Fraenkel Gallery

In a week where we learned that U.S. police killings were undercounted by more than 17,000 over the past 40 years, it felt like a gift to be able to survey the work that Carrie Mae Weems has created over that same period of time. While her photographs could easily fill an entire floor of a museum, Fraenkel has curated a  focused selection that displays the breadth of her practice and creates meaningful juxtapositions besides. Two pieces from her famous Kitchen Series are here, in which Weems places herself into quiet scenes of domesticity and relationship, as well as heartbreaking newer work that speaks directly to police violence against Black bodies. I also loved the cluster of photos from her series Family Pictures and Stories with their depictions of family dynamics and Black joy. And then I stepped out of the gallery and directly into Market Street to join the Women's March and to yell for choice and reproductive rights. 

Other things I liked this week:

• Motley Stones by Adelbert Stifter. Set in the Austrian/German countryside and written in the nineteenth century with a surprisingly modern sensibility, these thematically-linked short stories are pure poetry, especially in the translation by Isabel Fargo Cole. Stifter wrote, "We seek to glimpse the gentle law that guides the human race."
• Working Girls by Lizzie Borden. Sex work is nothing but work in this 1986 masterpiece that follows a day in the life of working girl Molly at a high-end brothel in New York. With innovative cinematography and realistic interactions amongst Molly and her fellow workers nothing is gratuitous either.
• With virus transmission still at Substantial in Alameda and San Francisco counties I'm still opting for virtual culture where I can, and Crowded Fire's fantastic play The Displaced, written by Isaac Gómez, still managed to scare the bejeezus out of me even from the safety of my couch. What happens when the ghosts of gentrification become real?
• I was similarly grateful this week for Opera San José and their wonderful online presentation of Rimsky-Korsakov's Mozart and Salieri, an opera that just goes to show artists have been exploring the fraught relationship between the two composers long before Amadeus.

one candle

Through October 3 - Nam June Paik at SFMOMA

First, the bad news. As an institution SFMOMA has been making extremely poor decisions for many years now, pretty much since the new wing opened and they hiked the admission and started policing the member tickets and practicing other exclusionary tactics. I had already let my 20-year membership lapse even before the pandemic because (with a few notable exceptions) the exhibitions seemed like the same things over and over again or blatant Instagram-bait, and then just a few weeks ago I joined the Bay Area art community by reacting with horror when the museum announced it was planning to cut the only programs that still kept it relevant: the film program, the Artists' Gallery, and its exceptional blog Open Space. All of this to say it was with great reluctance that I ponied up my $25 to visit yesterday, but there was no way I was going to miss the Nam June Paik retrospective. And the good news is it is an absolutely incredible show. My mind was blown around every corner and I learned a ton besides, especially about his collaborations with cellist Charlotte Moorman (pictured above) and Joseph Beuys and John Cage and Merce Cunningham and Laurie Anderson and more. There are jaw-dropping installations aplenty, like Paik's TV Garden and the immersive Sistine Chapel room, but I was most moved by the candle pieces that begin and end the exhibition as they use the simple metaphor of a lit flame to speak poetically to the brevity of life. I also carefully calculated my visit to coincide with several other excellent shows at the museum: new art/music by Charles Gaines about the Dred and Harriet Scott decision, work made by Bay Area artists in response to the pandemic and Black Lives Matter in the Close To Home exhibit, unconventional takes on photography in Off the Wall, and an unspeakably affecting dual show with pieces by Leah Rosenberg and Susan O'Malley. And of course I had to go stand in front of Diego Rivera's Pan American Unity for a while too.

Other things I liked this week:

• Exercised: Why Something We Never Evolved to Do Is Healthy and Rewarding by Daniel Lieberman. Not a self-help book but nevertheless full of gentle nudges, Lieberman busts exercise myths from the perspective of an evolutionary biologist. I was both fascinated and found some determination to get to a gym once it is safe to do so.
• The Grand Bizarre by Jodie Mack. I first became acquainted with Mack's dizzying visual collages when she was a resident at Headlands, and what a delight to sink into this full-length film that took me on a journey through many countries and through a wealth of textiles and patterns. The soundtrack is totally awesome too.
• I don't even have a garden but still very much enjoyed the webinar from the San Mateo Arboretum Society about gardening for butterflies with Susan Karasoff from the California Native Plant Society. Fellow members of Team Caterpillar please click here for the talk.
• Thursday night I was back at the Bruns Amphitheater for the first time in many years for a wonderful production of Janáček's Katya Kabanova by West Edge Opera, live and in person and safely outdoors. And I would have returned last night for Elizabeth Cree but sadly it was canceled due to a breakthrough case.

three forms

Through August 8 - Three Forms: JB Blunk at Blunk Space

I was looking for an excuse for a drive yesterday, so I trundled on up to Point Reyes Station (zero love to the asshole blonde in the Mercedes who tailgated me and the five cars in front of me the entire way) to revel in some beautiful scenery and to introduce myself to the work of JB Blunk by way of the new Blunk Space gallery. Blunk lived off the grid in Inverness until his death in 2002, and a connection to nature strongly informs all his work. I knew that he had carved the monumental redwood piece The Planet on permanent display at the Oakland Museum, and I was delighted to take in some of his semi-abstract paintings while seated in Blunk Space on one of his wooden stools, carved into sculptural and biomorphic forms from redwood, cypress, and bay laurel. Blunk's ceramic work is also represented in the form of a series of cups that have been recast from his original designs, and it was very tempting to walk out with an entire set in the sage glaze. I'm very excited for further exhibitions and further excuses to visit. And that wasn't the only art I saw yesterday, because earlier after fueling up at AvocadoCon I made a stop at Minnesota Street Project to visit Connie Zheng's brilliant new yam fish seed exchange (nyse) installation and to see everything at Anglim/Trimble: Ajit Chauhan's "erasures" upstairs, and the group show Contested Territories curated by Kim Anno downstairs.

Other things I liked this week:

• An Inventory of Losses by Judith Schalansky. A collection of experimental essays/short stories/meditations themed around things lost that definitely had some tough moments but which I ultimately found quite beautiful. The physical book design is its own work of art too.
• Beyond the Visible - Hilma af Klint by Halina Dyrschka. This luminous documentary explores af Klint's astounding body of work, and the question of what happens to art history when work is discovered that completely rewrites the whole of it.
• I've been feeling pretty glum about environmental devastation lately, but it was very uplifting to hear local legend Doug McConnell give his perspective on our parks and conservation future courtesy of the Sempervirens Fund.
• Also inspiring: What is the water saying?, a screening of videos by Carolina Cayecedo, Denise Ferreira da Silva and Arjuna Neuman, Sky Hopinka, Thao Nguyen Phan, and Charwei Tsai, curated by the Wattis Institute and hosted outdoors at Headlands.
• And because I'm back to outdoor performances only I was grateful to SF Playhouse for the option to stream their current play, The Song of Summer by Lauren Yee. Their video has a few glitches but still (mostly) captures the feeling of being in the theater for a live show, and the play is very sweet besides.

dance desert

Through August 21 - Cybele Lyle: Dance Desert at Et al. etc.

I continue to be in awe of artists who were able to create work during pandemic, and to see how Cybele Lyle synthesized the experience and extended her ongoing practice in the work currently on view at Et al. is hugely inspiring. Painted fabric is thumbtacked to wood panels to create portals that suggest a view to the outside (most pieces are alternately titled Desert Windows or Desert Walls), while wood poles propped precariously against the work on the walls imply a delicate architectural/mental stability. I loved the interaction between the inner and outer world in the detail above, and how the colors taken from nature are punctuated by pops of contrasting hues and patterns. In her artist statement Lyle speaks of how "this idea of breaking apart walls and windows and indoors from outdoors changed in meaning for me this past year," and for all of us who were experiencing similar shifts in perception this work resonates most strongly. Meanwhile, on this same art expedition, next door at Ratio 3 I stood rapt before the "aggregate" weavings Ruth Laskey created earlier this year, and then dropped in at Jessica Silverman to take in a multi-decade overview of Catherine Wagner's brilliant, subversive photographs.

Other things I liked this week:

• Wild Minds: The Artists and Rivalries That Inspired the Golden Age of Animation by Reid Mitenbuler. A highly entertaining and well-written overview of the early days of cartoons, chock full of oversize personalities and fascinating details. I only wish there had been more women and POC in the book, but I also wish that of the industry.
• Clockwatchers by Jill Sprecher. This film came and went so quickly in the '90s that I never caught it at the time, but it absolutely deserves wider recognition for its ruthless and artful skewering of office contractor drudgery from the perspective of a quartet of women.
• Saved By Nature along with the Santa Clara Valley Open Space Authority hosted a wonderful talk this week about how awesome bats are and how we can help local bats thrive. Not currently posted on their video page but hopefully soon!
• Last Sunday I had a lovely day out in the city with lunch at the SSP Beer Hall and then a return to my beloved Roxie to see Linda and the Mockingbirds in person, with many of the local families featured in the documentary in attendance.
• That said, with the current virus surge I'm probably going to stick to streaming at home again now, and enjoyed checking out the twisty-turny doc Misha and the Wolves for the SF Jewish Film Festival's virtual opening night.
• The SF Mime Troupe is also committed to keeping everyone safe this summer and have produced a series of weekly radio plays that I highly recommend if you appreciate agitprop that makes you laugh out loud. I'll be eagerly awaiting each new installment.

the black index

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.

out of site

Through August 14 - Brett Goodroad at Cushion Works

It was pure delight to visit the gallery that Jordan Stein oversees at Cushion Works for the first time yesterday, and yes it is directly above the city's best cushion company, and yes I really have to get my couch cushions restuffed after a year+ of pandemic. I first saw Brett Goodroad's work when he was the Tournesol recipient at Headlands and was happy to see his paintings are as dreamy as they ever were, loosely abstract with suggestions of figuration and landscape that shift with the viewer's proximity. Some of his canvases are quite large now too, and one of my favorite pieces was a deconstructed still life that took up almost an entire wall. Goodroad utilizes impressive technique, building up the paint here and allowing the canvas show through there, and though his work is reminiscent of Romantic era paintings it is at the same time completely contemporary. And spending some time with a gallery full of his work almost feels like a meditation.

Other things I liked this week:

• The Hearing Trumpet by Leonora Carrington. While I was familiar with excerpts from this marvelously surreal novel thanks to the interpretations Anne Walsh and Moira Roth (RIP) performed several years back, I'd never sat down and read the whole thing and I am so glad I did and in fact I am now planning to reread it at least once a decade as I continue to age into my own eccentric womanhood.
• Freak Orlando by Ulrike Ottinger. An assault on the senses in the best possible way, Ottinger's take on the Virginia Woolf classic has almost no correlation to the later Sally Potter version but instead you get Magdalena Montezuma and Delphine Seyrig cavorting through a succession of bizarre scenarios both historical and mythological. My jaw was hanging open the entire length of the film and I loved it.
• I spent a lovely Independence Day roaming the newly reopened galleries and the newly relandscaped gardens of the Oakland Museum, and almost the most exciting part was my "NorCal NOLA" picnic box from Tanya Holland's new museum café Town Fare.
• Lake Merritt's Rotary Nature Center has been doing wonderful virtual "lakeside chats" throughout the pandemic about the lake's flora and fauna, viewable on their website here.
• Outdoor walking plays are one of my favorite things right now while I work up to being ready to sit in a theater regularly again, and Eye Zen's Out of Site: Haight-Ashbury is particularly special. Actor Tina D'Elia fully embodies two SF icons, entrepreneur Peggy Caserta and Hibiscus of the Cockettes, in and around their old haunts in the Haight, and the show/tour includes a heap of other queer history besides.

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.

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.

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.