Aimee Allison knows something about building community. As a candidate for the Oakland City Council in 2006, Allison attracted a passionate band of volunteers. She lost that race, but she went on to become the host of a radio show on KPFA, and the co-author of an anti-army recruitment book called “Army of None.” She hasn’t lost any of her organizing drive. Now she’s launched a new website in Oakland called Oakland Seen. Think of it an ongoing campaign championing the city of Oakland.

We talked to Allison about her civic pride, and her plans.

OakBook: Now that you’re a media mogul, are you going to get back into politics?

Aimee Allison: I’m not running for anything right now. I love publishing and media. And social networking is an amazing way to get involved and bring people in.

OB: The site looks great, and you have a very talented team of contributors. What do you want to do with Oakland Seen?

AA: The most important thing I’m trying to do with Oakland Seen is to help support the next generation of people who will be leading the city. I also want to build the infrastructure that becomes more than a publication. I want it to become a vehicle for the community to communicate with each other. What I was saw happen in my campaign was that all these people came together, but those folks dissipate unless there’s something to keep them together.

OB: What are you planning on covering?

AA: The main issues: accountability in City Hall, campaigns and elections, education, public safety, arts and culture. After a few months of doing this, it will emerge what our audience is interested in. We are going to be cheerleaders for the best thing the city represents. It gives me a lot of hope for my son’s future.

Allison said that Oakland Seen will be hosting events all over the city, so look for a party sometime soon in a neighborhood near you.

Textie Textie at Hatch Gallery

This month, Oakland finds itself at a cultural crossroads with our City Council considering a 50 percent cut in arts funding which could drastically affect such venerable arts organizations such as ProArts and The Crucible. Such groups are indispensable because they provide opportunities for emerging artists to gain credibility and acclaim as well as a civic service in terms of arts education. I recently had the honor of getting my first ever critical essay published in a catalogue produced by ProArts. Where would budding critics and artists be without such institutions? I urge you to make your voice known this Thursday at a City Council meeting when this issue will be brought up. Last year, funding was restored and I was there to cover it. I hope this year, we can again succeed in preserving some of that funding. With that said, here are my picks for The Month Ahead In Oakland Art. 

TEXTIE TEXTIE: a show of recent paintings by Gaby Wolodarski
Hatch Gallery, 492 23rd Street
hatchgallery.org/
Artists Reception: Thursday, April 1, 6 p.m. – 9 p.m.

Hatch Gallery has had so far an almost utterly impeccable run of shows, some interactive and many playful. The biggest surprise, for me, was the mixed media collaborative works that sprung from the pairing of James Kirkpatrick and Derek Weisberg. For Weisberg, they were among the most wit-filled works he has ever had a hand in. This month, Adam Hatch's space showcases the work of Gaby Wolodarski, whose recent art aims to make sense of the (at-times) maddeningly overly saturated world of information within and about us -- on our iphones, twitter feeds and friends networks, real or imagined. In the artist's own words: I'm interested in paint's ability to arrest space-time. My aim is to crystallize its implacable forward motion, to distill its formation within human consciousness. My process is not experimental -- experiment is methodical. My procedure is intuitive above all. My inspiration comes from daydreams and night-dreams. I do not intend to be discursive, or even clear, though I find myself using semantic promise and moments of visual clarity to murky ends.

OAKLAND SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS SPRING EXHIBITION 2010
Marion E. Greene Black Box Theatre, 531 19th Street
Artists Reception: Friday, April 2, 6 p.m.- 8 p.m.
oakarts.org 

Once, former Oaklander and current emerging art star Josh Keyes taught art here to many deserving students. Now you can lend your support by checking out and possibly buying the work of the current slate of student artists at the Oakland School for the Arts’ annual spring exhibition. This is a time when funding sources for schools like this 8-year-old charter high school are at risk and your support is key. There will be hundreds of student-generated prints, paintings, drawings, digital artworks, sculptures, jewelry pieces, and more for sale, with prices starting at a very kind ten dollars. I wonder if someone will find the next Josh Keyes here?

SPRING OPEN HOUSE AT THE HEADLANDS CENTER FOR THE ARTS

This ain't in Oakland, and it might be a mild trek for some of you out there, but it sure will be worth it. Longtime Oakland artist and curator John Casey is among the artists who have a studio there; Artists like Desiree Holman and Casey Jex Smith, who were once Oakland-based, are alums. Past studio artists like Barry McGee have gone on to wider success after their time here, which explains why collectors, dealers and art aficionados alike have long made this a must-stop and I think you all should, too. Even country-rock singers like the critically acclaimed Will Oldham have had residencies here. It should prove to be an eye opening glimpse into the art-making process and/or just plain fun. Either way, it is well worth the trip. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Headlands Center for the Arts' past program director (2007-08) Anuradha Vikram about its place in the local art firmament and what artists she is looking forward to seeing this time out. 

  Theo Konrad Auer: What is the place/importance of the Headlands/their open house in the local art community? 

  Anuradha Vikram: Headlands' open house provides local artists an opportunity to see what their peers are working on while meeting and engaging with artists from a variety of different communities, art world centers as well as other regional scenes. The dialogue that the open house creates around artists' working practices is essential for developing and growing the arts community of the Bay Area.

  TKA: What has your experience working at the Headlands been like?

  AV: Headlands Center for the Arts is an extraordinarily valuable place that is woefully underappreciated by the Bay Area community. Because the programming is predominantly artists' residencies and not exhibitions, and because the park location means it's less accessible than a downtown institution, Headlands suffers from its program being unquantifiable by simplistic metrics such as tickets sold or numbers attended. However, the artist-in-residence program is of great value because Headlands supports the creative process on a very deep level. The discursive nature of Headlands' programs invites non-artists to talk with and understand artists, the ways they work and why they do what they do. I feel very fortunate to have been part of it.

  TKA: What artists are you looking to checking out there this time out?

  AV: Tucker Nichols, Qian Li, Kalup Linzy, Luke Fischbeck, and catching up with the affiliate and MFA fellowship artists.

Save the date: Anuradha Vikram, Lawrence Rinder, the director of the Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archives and former Curator of Contemporary Art at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and Oakland artist Steven Barich will be discussing the future of local art at OakBook's gallery in Jack London Square on Thursday, April 22. Watch this space for more details.

Art@the OakBook, 423 Water Street, Oakland, CA 94607

A black and white portrait of the artists Michael Eli and Savanna Snow in their installed threshold at the Oakbook gallery. Their show opens this Friday.

Michael Eli and Savanna Snow are having their first show (in a long time...a group/solo show: they painted most of the displayed paintings together) at the OakBook's gallery called Art@the OakBook in Jack London Square this month. It opens tomorrow – Friday, March 19, 7 p.m. to 11 p.m. Please come support this show. The scope of the exhibit is breathtaking. The work is eternal, stylish and sob-inducingly beautiful.

I had a sneak peek in the gallery yesterday as they were hanging the work and took some pictures of what I saw. I could not capture the extent of the show so I focused on details. I imagine that there are about 100 paintings throughout the two rooms of the gallery. I asked them a few questions about their show (called A GOLDEN DAWN) and they took the time to respond thoughtfully. 

Obi: What is the relationship between magic and art? Is there one? What is the Golden Dawn?

Savanna: One might say that they are one in the same - a call and a manifest answer. To quote Hermes Trismegistus - "As above, so below;" For myself, both magic and art is a system mastered through precise practice to achieve levels of understanding through learning.

In many of my pieces I seek to explore the “within,” utilizing a system of geometry. I want to be freed from the tradition of representational art. How does one express what we “see” without the external? Geometry underlies all. This concept of a framework beneath was put forth by the Greeks as a “ Golden Mean “ it is incontestable. For me A Golden Dawn is the beginning of a New Romantic art movement a marriage of Geometry, Magical Order & past Utopian movements of late 19th century California. 

Michael: I don’t believe in magic. The Golden Dawn to me represents the power of positive thinking, the subjects and topics contained within the work is my portrayal of this. I wanted to create beauty that speaks of the Romantic ideals of centuries past. 

Obi: Describe the big threshold in the gallery, what is the symbology there?

Savanna: The threshold is the entrance to what I deem “The Lodge.” Made from reclaimed wood, it is a portal between space & thought.

The Lodge is marked on the top with the numbers 0=0 which is the level of neophyte or in layman’s terms, a beginner. Flanking the entrance are my interpretations of the twin pillars of Solomon, Joachim and Boaz. These pillars represent of strength & beauty respectively. The old level that sits between them was given to us by a master craftsman & friend of ours: Steve Akana. I chose to place the level on the lodge to speak of the balance required of the pillars. As one passes through this threshold they encounter a room containing the historic, mythological and mathematical concepts shown in our paintings. Much of the inspiration for the show we have tried to place in this room as well, books, objects and parts of our studio. A gold curtain in the corner leads to a locked door with the level 10=1 ipsissimus or master of masters. We invite the participant to pass through the lodge and leave as magus 9=2, having reflected on our works.

Obi: Where does your imagery/inspiration come from? It seems very alchemical or metaphorical, almost anachronistic. How do you choose your images?

Michael: This show is collaboration, but we have a dissonance of inspiration that is representative imagery versus Savanna’s often-geometric pattern. For this show, however, we concur on the specificity of the era, past utopias put forth by the naturalists & romantic artists and the classical philosophy that we reference. The 19th century was a period of Romantic idealism and California was born. Our generation is left to contend with their true legacy of the Gold system and all the shortsightedness of the industrial revolution. We have the opportunity to right the wrongs of our forefathers. We have accounted for our mistakes and it is enlightened that we move into the future. We are obliged to pick up the gauntlet and trudge into the future with our eyes and our minds wide open. I see a Golden Dawn.

The subjects represented in the portraits are those who saw the affectations of the Industrial age and railed against it, but like Pan, were ultimately defeated. These people rejected materialism and some embraced spiritualism. Naturalism and spiritualism have just as much if not more to do with development of California as do Oil & Gold. When Oil & Gold fail us the spirit of naturalism will protect us all. We embrace the future and encourage all whom enter to see the beauty in all things.

Savanna: I don’t choose my images, they choose me. For this show, I was inspired most often by the materials and the places that gave us them - Wood from the sea coming full circle utilizing metal and the fire of my imagination. There is definitely an obvious anachronism due to our speaking of the late 19th century within the context of the present day.

For more images, go to the photo set on Flickr or Savanna's site.  

A Golden Dawn opens Friday, March 19, 7 p.m. onwards 
Art@theOakBook
423 Water Street (inside Jack London Square -- at Broadway)
Oakland, CA 94607

Obi Kaufmann is a well known local artist and publisher of Sweetart.

The team behind Blankspace

A few years ago, in the early days of The Oakand Art Murmur, two galleries distinguished themselves by regularly pulling off the rare feat of fulfilling the promise of an art walk much heralded in our local media. One of them, Boontling Gallery, tended to focus on figuration and otherwise representational work. It closed in the summer of 2007. The other, Blankspace, covered the other end of the art pool, favoring more conceptual work to critical acclaim. The two spaces were situated at the far end of the art murmur map, with miles separating the two spaces from the nexus of 23rd and Telegraph - where most of Oakland's galleries lie - which for an artwalk is not realistically walkable.

The fact that shows at these two spaces were often well attended and had recieved critical kudos says a lot. It says even more when you consider they were both far from where most of the hipster action is. I say were as starting Monday, it will apply to both galleries as Blankspace will join Boontling as one of the few art spaces that has gotten a chance to end their run on their own terms,  instead of those dictated by development. I recently had the opportunity to talk with Blankspace co-director, artist and curator Kerri Johnson about her space's history and her future plans, which include running a new gallery called The Branch Gallery in Uptown along with art scene veterans Nicole Neditch and Brook Baird. 

TKA - Why is Blankspace closing? 

KJ - The reason for our closing is just being done with this building - we live in the back and the roof is in bad shape - we have to put buckets all around the gallery so seeping rainwater doesn't damage the art or our belongings! When Lena and Matt Reynoso (of neighboring gallery The Compound) told us in February that they would be moving into a larger space due to bad infrastructure of the building (leaky roof, etc) and a need to grow their space, we felt it was sign that we were ready to move. The four year mark felt like the perfect time. We wanted it to end on a high note! 

TKA - How did you find yourself running a gallery?

KJ -  Blankspace started March 18th, 2006. Jason Byers and I took over this building from Adam Rompel. He had been doing Lucky Tackle here for two and half years. Before that Jason had lived in this building and had a studio in it for a while. He also helped Adam build it out into a gallery. Adam asked us to take over the building when he was planning to move on as he knew we were looking to open a gallery. 

TKA: What were some of highlights of your run?

KJ: Peter Foulcault -We worked with at him at Blankspace and we are working with him at Bayvan. His work is really interesting and he's really sweet. His drawings are collaborations with robots whose movements are directed by the sounds produced by his audience at any given moment. Pete Nelson's show, "There aint No Party Like a Holy Ghost Party." He had a drinking fountain which dispensed moonshine made form candy corn! The name of the show is actually tatooed on his body. He's from the south and many people in his family are from the pentecostal religion. 

TKA - What's your background as a gallerist/curator?

KJ: I went to The San Francisco Art Institute and graduated with a degree in photography. I worked at the Walter McDean and realized I really liked working in the gallery field and started doing internships at Pond Gallery, Intersection for the Arts, and Crown Point Press. I recently was the co-director of The Oakland Art Gallery, and with Nicole Neditch, facilitated the merger of that space with ProArts. We were hoping we could get The City [of Oakland] to stand behind [The Oakland Art Gallery], but when it became clear that wasn't sufficent funding we made the decision to merge with ProArts.

TKA - Tell us about your new project, Bayvan(The Bay Area Visual Arts Network)?   

KJ: We met Brook Baird right around the time of that merger. She is an art consultant me and Nicole Neditch are working with, and have started Bayvan with. We placed art throughout The Ellington development and organized opening receptions and tours in conjunction with that. Back in June of last year, we started it as a way of connecting folks to the gallery scene. We do not exclusively represent artists, but we sell and place their work - whether in businesses or developments like The Ellington in Oakland. We placed Val Britton's work, among others, at The Ellington and placed Daniel Healey's work at The Layover. One of the things for the online registry we are putting together is we say don't 'house' any of the art. What we have found is everyone is aware of what is going on, but no one knows how to take advantage of it. Bayvan has been born out of that gap and to make it easy for people  to view and buy local art. We feel like it is better for work to circulate than just sit somewhere in a storage room. We are trying to get more art works from the galleries out there and we are trying to make it easier to buy them. On a basic level, an artist who we are working with has to communicate online - we have collectors who go up on the site and we have different people we have done rental projects with and they tell us what they are looking for and we can help them find it - or they can on their own through our online registry. We don't house any inventory art work in the space at Branch Gallery, will want the work to be out there constantly circulating.

TKA: Is it fair to say you're trying to make it easier for emerging art collectors? 

KJ: We had a hard time getting folks into a show with Victoria Wagner last year at Blankspace. 

TKA - Who are you showing at Branch Gallery right now? 

KJ:  Karen Gallagher is the artist that's up right now. She is an Oakland artist who has graduated from the San Francisco Art Institute with an MFA. She does these really ephemeral encaustic pieces. She uses beeswax and dried pigments in layers and layers - they are really beautiful and detailed - that are actually referencing her bruises. She is someone who bruises easily, so she has been investigating the residue of situations - both physical and mental - and this work is the result of that. If you didn't know what these pieces are about, you would probably have no idea.

TKA: Why are so many artist-run art spaces so cyclical in such a short time frame? 

KJ: I think that is the nature of the artist run space. People get out of school and have the time and the energy. I am glad they have so many spaces even though they are not lasting. There's a lot of them here and having us close - it's passing the 'baton' to the new spaces. People get an empty building and they can work with it for awhile and then rising rents take them out. Artists are opportunists which is great - they do it for awhile and then move on to their next project."

The current art show at Bayvan's Branch Gallery is Karen Gallagher's Discolorations. The show runs through April 2nd and will be open for the next First Friday from 5 pm - 8 pm.

For more on Bayvan, visit bayvan.org/

Gina Telcocci has always been an artist. As a kid growing up in the sixties with a jazz musician for a father and a mother who was always doing craftwork, art seemed to be in her blood – and in her daily life.

“My parents were totally encouraging,” says Gina. “They never told me it was impractical, which it is. And so, I continued to do it what I was doing.”

And she did it so well that now she gets commissioned to create and show her art in public places. On Saturday, March 6, her new installation (above) was the highlight in the re-opening of the San Francisco Public Library's Potrero branch.

Her childhood love for art wasn’t just a fad or a passing fancy. Gina took her art seriously. She learned how to make jewelry; she studied photography. Her undergrad degree was in print making. Like a lot of contemporary artists, painting was the medium she wanted to express herself in at the time and she went to the University of Colorado at Boulder to get a masters degree in painting and sculpture. It was while she was there that she realized that she really wanted to be a sculptor. “In grad school, I discovered what I loved about sculpture,” she recalls. “I loved working with materials.”

More than two decades later, she still loves working with organic materials. Her favorite, if she had to choose one, is wood. “I like wood because it gives you a little bit of resistance, but it’s soft and warm. I also like rusty steel things, and old things that show their history.”

Gina's creations, no matter what they are, always intersect with nature. And perhaps that's why a lot of her work is outdoors. You’ve probably seen her art without knowing it -- not just in the east bay, but all around the Bay Area and beyond: the stone and sod installation at a park in Albany, the People’s Grocery arbor, the willow, wood and wire installation in the Santa Cruz Canyon, and most recently, the installation at the Potrero branch of the San Francisco Public Library, commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission.  

“(My work is) about the cycles of life, my relationship to the environment, natural and artificial - what we’ve created. I love our duality as humans – as animals and as abstract and thinking beings that we are. I’m interested in how we need nature.”

Over the years, the pieces dearest to her have been the ones that have crystallized her impulses and concerns – and that reflect her interest in nature, like the bar form she used to make out of sticks, or her work with twigs assembled into hollow shapes.

And she’s still growing as an artist. “I’m trying to become more succinct and direct in whatever I’m producing,” says Gina. “I’m intuitive so I’m not sure where I’m going, but it’s getting clear over the years. My goal is to become more eloquent using what I see as language of form and elements.”

Gina’s gets her love of nature from her mother, who was an environmentalist. “She was always a big influence in getting me interested in the natural world and environmental issues and things like that,” she says.  

Her mother, folk art, and artists who use natural materials in unusual ways, such as sculptor Deborah Butterfield -- these are the influences on her art, which the unassuming artist creates in her west Oakland studio, but which has been recognized by groups outside Oakland and even in other states.

As she finds success in the art world, she makes it a point to pass on what she loves and knows best. She runs a neighborhood art workshop for kids on Tenth Street in west Oakland with the East Bay Local Development Corporation and the City's Cultural Arts & Marketing Department. Her next project isn't about where her installation is going up. It's about where these kids will get to show their art. 

To see Gina’s latest work, which was just installed on Saturday, March 6, head over to the San Francisco Public Library’s Potrero branch. For her on Gina, visit her website, ginatelcocci.net/

Embed In Bed by Steuart Pittman

This month, I am choosing to highlight some shows that aren't necessarily a part of an Oakland art walk opening event. In these picks, there will be no Midtown art walk, no Uptown Art Murmur and no open studios in Jingletown. Sometimes, an event can overshadow the art it means to evangelize. Considering that and the practice of many local galleries to schedule separate artist receptions on "off days" like Sunday or not when an art walk is happening - perhaps in an effort to attract collectors scared off by crowds - I have chosen three worthy art events that exist on their own, not necessarily in conjunction with anything. With such heady times, one of Oakland's most distinguished and prominent galleries is closing this month even as a new one seems to opens every month, sometimes it is better to think of the smaller picture before you step back and take it all in.

NOWHERE/ANYWHERE: A solo exhibition of new work by Steuart Pittman
Blankspace
6608 San Pablo Avenue
blankspacegallery.com/
Art Murmur Reception: Friday, March 5, 7 p.m.– 10 p.m. 
Special show and gallery closing tea reception: March 14, 3 p.m. - 6 p.m. 

A show and gallery closing reception?! Yes, you read that right. Blankspace, easily one of the top art spaces in Oakland, based on critical reception and show attendance, is ending its run on its own terms, a rare exception in a city dotted with shuttered spaces. Kerri Johnson and Jason Byers, talented artists in their own right, opened Blankspace to provide a gallery for work that's often site-specific and conceptual, while also serving to help emerging artists and craftspeople sell their affordable works in the gallery and its attached shop.

One site-specific installation by Pete Nelson featured a drinking fountain that poured out moonshine made from candy corn in an effective and evocative satirical meditation on the crossroads of faith and addiction. Other shows gave an early spotlight to talents like Misako Inaoka and Case Simmons.

This month, the gallery features a new a series of oil and acrylic painting from recent Mills College MFA grad Steuart Pittman. In a culture that is practically defined by its own excess, it seems reasonable that artists would adopt a counteractive visual language. Influenced by abstract painters and working toward a sort of post-minimalism deeply informed by Josef Albers' color theories, the work displays heavy brush strokes done in a meticulous manner with titles that leaven the emotional weight of the piece because that have been clearly informed by someone raised on Looney Tunes, or possibly a follower of Marcel Duchamp.

As Kerri Johnson says, "...the surfaces aren't perfect and the shapes aren't perfect - there is a sort of whimsicality. Steuart's work embodies a thoughtful playfulness Jason and I have been attracted to with the artists we have worked with.  I mean one of the pieces is entitled Slanderous Bastard!"

The show is well worth seeing, and you'll have a couple of great opportunities this Friday and Sunday, which will feature a show and gallery closing reception. Tea will be provided. I recommend you come on out to help provide some good company. Blankspace will be missed. Check back next week here at The Oakbook for an exclusive in-depth interview with Blankspace's Kerri Johnson on the gallery and her many future projects.

Time(Lapse): An exhibition featuring photography, video, and installation by Drone Dungeon, Katja Mater, Kim Miskowicz, and Liena Vayzman
Krowswork Gallery
480 23rd Street - side entrance
krowswork.com/timelapse.html
Opening reception: Saturday, March 20, 6 p.m. - 9 p.m.  

I rarely feature the same gallery two months in a row as I try to make an effort to spread the spotlight around to as many deserving art spaces as possible. Last month, I reviewed Krowswork's last show, Mirror Made Me. That show and the one preceding it were uncommonly strong. Galleries usually have shaky starts. Not this one. Gallerist Jasmine Moorhead's experience, strong eye, and aesthetic sensibility have shown through and I augur this show will continue this nascent space's exceptional run.

In keeping with the gallery's specialization in photographic and conceptual art, this month features photography, video, and installation by Drone Dungeon, Katja Mater, Kim Miskowicz, and Liena Vayzman that recall the experiments 130 years ago of photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge. His early work playing with notions of time and motion figure prominently here. Liena Vayzman's The Lemon Tree project (shown below) looks particularly promising. In ten photos, the harsh, fragile, raw, transitory beauty of decay is seen through lemons, in various states of rot.



As Ms. Moorhead makes clear, "...these artists, like their 19th-century predecessor, are very much in step with the psychic demands of their time, which today require that information be processed faster, that natural cycles previously thought untouchable be understood as manipulable by man and his technology, that linear narrative be treated as suspect, and that uncertainty, not clarity, rule the day."  
 
The Albany Bulb - a documentary
- World premiere screening
St.Alban's Episcopal Church
1501 Washington Ave, Albany CA
Screening: Saturday, March 20, 8 p.m.
 
The Albany Bulb still stubbornly remains a mecca for outsider art made by local artists of varying degrees of sanity, some of whom are homeless denizens of the bulbous tip of the small East Bay town of Albany.
 

For more on the screening of this documentary, visit rekzkarz.blogspot.com/2010/01/screening-driver-other-films-in-march.html  

These days, when sourcing imagery for my own work, I am more inspired by street art and ancient art than anything I see in the galleries. I just got back from a trip to Santiago, Chile and Oaxaca, Mexico, and along with a few bottles of mescal, brought home a number of revelations. There is a neighborhood in Santiago, just north of downtown by the river called Bella Vista, where street art completely covers all of the homes, businesses, mailboxes…you get the idea. The effect is a dizzying, spectral experience that projects an architectural experience, not a subversive one. 

After a couple of weeks we made our way to the capital city of Oaxaca, which lies in a valley underneath a mountain topped by the ghostly plazas of the two thousand year old capital of the Zapotec nation, Monte Alban. It’s an ancient city of nobility with a strong, formally natural, figurative-sculptural tradition. Something about the combination of these two places, their attitude to art as a communal experience, the societal disposition to pictorial narrative, the scale of their public art, all brewed in my heart like a volcano display at a science fair - it was going to blow, and I needed an outlet.

I didn’t think I was going to exhibit my paintings in Oakland this year. I have some big solo shows coming up in Seattle in the summer, and San Francisco in the fall - that’s plenty. When Theo Konrad Auer told me that there were a couple weeks when the OakBook gallery would be empty, and asked if I had any projects I wanted to fill the space with, I honestly didn’t know. I didn’t accept Theo’s invitation and didn’t expect to embark on this mural. Then I went home and had the dream.

Before I describe the dream, I have to say that I read a lot of books on the trip. I read a bunch of novels and a couple of non-fiction works, too. I have always enjoyed alternate history, alt-archeology type-books. My attitude is that when it comes to history and even contemporary sociology, if you can cite your sources, and you’re not a raving crackpot - and you’re a good writer - hell, you have as much license as anybody to the truth. I read 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, by Daniel Pinchbeck. It’s a great read and a fascinating premise: The nature of consciousness might be physical, a quantum epiphenomenon that can shift, a concept that makes consciousness and the brain a question of the chicken and the egg. My brain was primed with fringe yet fascinating ideas, primed for the dream that made me accept the mural project that would become The Feathered Serpent.

I dreamed of an old man (no idea who he was, but he kinda looked like a skinny Mr. Miagi). We were in the cave of Lascaux, that Paleolithic wonder in France, but all the animals on the walls were painted with spray paint. The old man told me that he was across the universe and was responsible for all the crop circles in England. He said that we are all running too hot, that our real internal temperature should be 98.4 degrees. Then he turned into a snake with feathers instead of scales and slithered off under my feet - I heard giggling. I woke up and called Theo and told him I was in. The moment of commitment came from a mysterious place, a want to participate with that giggly old snake man, to find out what he is about, then to find out what I am about.

I had the gallery and I had the date, opening March 5th, first Friday. All that was left was the process of painting the mural. I had a big idea: I wanted to paint the gallery quickly, in one day, created with street art like parameters. Contingent on this whole endeavor was a temporary element: I want to destroy soon after it is made – like a Tibetan sand painting, not meant to exist for long or it would taint the meditation. I decided to base the composition itself on an elaborate story I imagined about the coming of the cosmos as analogous to the coming of human consciousness, all told through the human figure. I painted the same figure fifty times through nine chapters of history. The figure, a strong androgynous character I call Quetzalcoatl, after the Aztec name for the feathered serpent god, is a representation of the emergent potential of human cognition and transcendence.

I have been showing and selling my work, and other people’s work, in Oakland for many years now and there is a kind of homogeneous manner in which the art community moves from reception to reception, fetishizing and commercializing art objects for consumption and collection. I was drawn to this project because we are not selling anything but the idea of the community appreciating this mural as a thing, so short lived in the world. Exploring that idea, I am preparing the reception to be something other than a party, the idea demands an experience: the painting will be illuminated by candles and accompanied by music and a subtle performance. The mural will be labeled with a key to understanding the flow of the dramatic narrative.
The reception will be for only ninety minutes beginning at 6 pm, Friday, March 5th. I will be presenting the story and the visual sourcing of the mural on Sunday, March 7th at 3 pm. Tea and wine will be served. I will paint over the mural on Monday morning.

Obi Kaufmann is an Oakland artist and curator. He has had sold-out shows of his paintings in Oakland (Cricket Engine) and in Seattle (Bedlam) and has been featured at Lyons Wier Gallery in New York City. His curatorial efforts have been featured on the cover of the East Bay Express and in Oakland Magazine and he was named 2009 Curator of the Year by the Piedmont Post. He curates artwork at Swee(t)Art Drawing Gallery and Zza’s Wine Bar Gallery.
 

Art and religion have always had a close, symbiotic relationship. And in Oakland, perhaps no one's work exemplifies that more than Casey Jex Smith's. In an earlier OakBook article, Art, Religion and Success, this is how I described emergent artist Casey Jex Smith: "[He] has created a body of work that somehow manages to be intensely autobiographical regarding his relationship with his faith. It achieves transcendence through the abstraction and thoughtful re-appropriation of the kitsch imagery employed in Sunday school books and other Christian and Mormon ephemera. His images convey heroism and faith through simple, almost naïve illustration. Faces from the Christian and Mormon historical record float in tense space."

For his third show with Swarm Gallery, Smith "... blends appropriated imagery and ideas from illustrated Bibles, Dungeons & Dragons manuals, Durer etchings, Agnes Martin paintings, Mormon architecture, NASA photos, The Lord of the Rings, and Sunday School flannel-board cut-outs into semi-cohesive narrative." 

Here is an exclusive interview with the artist regarding his most current body of work: 

TKA: Your last show at Swarm verged into increasingly abstract territory narrative-wise, hinting at a sort of questioning of spirituality --while inarguably devout, it was certainly fraught with questions. How does this show fit into your ongoing narrative and artistic as well as spiritual dialogue? 

CJS: I don't think I was showing any signs of faith questioning as much as showing struggles with the difficulty of living the standards of faith. For a while in my work, I wanted to avert the viewer’s eyes upward and not dig into narratives that are earth bound and deal with the sadness of human life. I wanted to show moments of transfiguration but am finding it harder to not address the crucifixion. 

TKA: What draws you to these particular images and what do you hope comes from this recontextualization? 

CJS: These are the most important images in my life and the ones that I continue to find pleasure and displeasure in viewing. I find even more pleasure in them when I can bring them together and see what happens. Religion, art, and dork leisure usually exist in their own worlds with their own rules. In my own life, there are real moments where these worlds seep into each other and that is where the most exciting moments in my life happen. For example, a couple of weeks ago I was sitting in church during Sunday School and the teacher, before starting his lesson, announced his XBOX gamer tag if anyone wanted to get on and play Modern Warfare 2 during the week. God does exist. These worlds do not have to be mutually exclusive.  

Lehi's Vision by Casey Jex Smith

TKA: Is there a single work in this show that serves a thesis for it as a whole? If so, what is it and what does it aim to put forward? 

CJS: Lehi's Vision would probably serve as the thesis. It shows a path winding along a landscape with various traps, distractions, and obstacles along the way. It's used in the Book of Mormon as a metaphor for a person's life from birth till death and the help and hurt along the way. It's also similar to how I would set up a Dungeons & Dragons adventure with monsters to fight, traps to discover, and treasure to hoard. I hope that when people view it, they will admire its skill, beauty, humor, and narrative and will repent of their sins, get baptized, and endure to the end. 

TKA: What's next for you after this show? 

CJS: We'll be sending off Lehi's Vision to Paris' Galerie Polaris with some other drawings for a two-person show with John Casey at Galerie Polaris in March. For my next body of work I will probably be designing some large, high-level dungeon maps.

For more on Smith, visit caseyjexsmith.com 

Csicsery (center), studying a subject, the Oakland police, he would later do a documentary about. Photo Courtesy Associated Press

"Reality TV, please!" exclaimed George Csicsery (pronounced "Chi-cherry"), almost spitting out his baklava, when I asked about trends in documentaries today and referenced the dreaded aforementioned.  

"This is a dead horse and a cash cow for broadcasters who want to spend nothing," Csicsery fumed. "It's too fake to be tolerable. If that's the future for documentaries, get me into fiction, and fast. Some shows have come pretty close to reaching some core of inanity beyond which there is nothing - nothing at all!"

A filmmaker and writer since the late 1960s, George Paul Csicsery was born in Germany in 1948 to Hungarian parents headed west, and arrived in the US at age three. Best known as the Math Doc Guy, he has directed and produced 28 films on various subjects, but with an uncanny predominance of mathematical subjects, hence the moniker.

His most successful film remains his first math piece, N is a Number: A Portrait of Paul Erdos (1993), about an eccentric wandering Hungarian mathematician. "Why was 'N' so successful?" I asked. 

"Erdos is a compelling character,” he said. “It is all about casting.  Casting and scriptwriting are wrapped into one when it comes to documentaries. For example, a number of [Werner] Herzog documentaries are great because he chose the right subject at the right time and let the subject carry the film. Look at Grizzly Man or Little Dieter Needs To Fly. "

The last two years have been almost all math for Csicsery. Aside from two shorter pieces funded by the Mathematical Association of America, there's the monumental Julia Robinson and Hilbert's Tenth Problem, about an American female mathematician and her grueling years cracking one of the 20th century's most famous quandaries. There were several grueling years for Csicsery as well - almost nine to complete the film and seven before funding.

And then there's Hard Problems, which, like Julia Robinson, premiered in January 2008. It follows a team of American high schoolers who travel to Slovenia for the 2006 International Mathematical Olympiad. It just showed in January on KTEH, San Jose. "Before doing anything about mathematicians, I had made documentaries about pirates, prostitutes, and romance writers," Csicsery recently told SF Weekly’s Michael Fox, who cited him as the Bay Area's most prolific filmmaker. The last topic refers to Csicsery's most critically acclaimed film, Where the Heart Roams (1987), about women who read and write romance novels, which played well on the festival circuit and aired on P.O.V.

"I am interested in people who can find happiness in creating their own world," Csicsery told me. "That is true of mathematicians and romance writers. These people are creating universes different from where they live."

An Oakland resident, with a BA degree in comparative religion from University of California, Berkeley (1969) and an MFA in film from San Francisco State (1972), Csicsery is quite the Californian, with an abiding love for hiking and climbing in the Sierras, despite an old country fondness for good edibles. From 1982 to 1997, he taught at San Francisco's pioneering Film Arts Foundation, the closing of which he considers tragic.  "I was there from the beginning and watched it unravel. Times change, and younger people find different ways of doing things.  In a way, its demise is part of the changing media landscape."
  
He also taught at San Francisco State and University of California, Davis, one semester each: "I was teaching film history [at State] to 350 students trying to satisfy a humanities requirement. I enjoyed crafting the classes, but I don't think the students [enjoyed them].  I would love to do seminars, but the lifers are not going to give that away to lecturers." 

George continued, waxing more philosophical while wiping some crumbs from his vest. "Lots of people are drawn to documentaries because of the fiction/non-fiction dichotomy. I've always felt that there is no such thing as non-fiction. Some documentaries reflect realities in interesting and compelling ways, but all of them engage in narrative storytelling."

Newsy documentaries are another matter, he said. “Years ago these would have been journalistic tracts or political manifestoes. But ever since people stopped reading beyond the tweet level, documentary has assumed the function of packaging information with attitude - propaganda. Most of the films in this format follow what a good friend once called the 'complain-explain' format. -- You identify a burning issue, show how it's destroying the world, then (you) bring on salvation with your good guys. Not much innovation since the silent Westerns: bad guys still wear black hats. It's a tedious genre, but doc films and TV has adopted it as standard fare."

Narration and celebrity hosts are the twin evils that define the high-end information documentary for Csiscery. “ There is such an intrinsic fear of showing uncooked footage that almost every documentary becomes a scripted essay, images filling up space dominated by narration on the soundtrack. To me, narration represents failure. It represents storytelling, although in some films I had to resort to it. Where the Heart Roams and Hard Problems have zero narration. N is a Number and Julia Robinson have very little - we tried to hide it. Julia Robinson has a celebrity narrator, Danica McKellar, a Hollywood actress, from The Wonder Years. But she's great, also a mathematician, in fact."

Also not about math, Troop 214 (1997) details Hungarian Boy Scouts who were exiled during the war in the US and their return to Hungary.  It was co-produced with Duna-TV of Hungary and broadcast there, along with quite a few of Csicsery's films, starting with N is a Number, his first math piece.  He still gets back to Hungary periodically to see family and develop projects. 

More recent Csicsery films include The Right Spin (2005) about how the American astronaut Michael Foale helped save the Soviet Mir space station, and The Thursday Club (2005), about Oakland police officers who put down anti-war demonstrations in the 60s.  George himself was one of the students getting his head busted during the 1967 "Stop the Draft" protest in Oakland, as indicated in the Associated Press photo shown below.

"I blacked out for a minute," he said. "I lost the Zeiss Ikon [camera] which used to be my father's. There's an awkward moment in the film when one of the cops admits they were going around cutting camera straps."  

Although such evidence seems like a slam dunk for a docmaker, Csicsery follows his more esoteric instincts - look at what you don't know - and finds the officers are essentially liberals who prefer fighting crime to kids. This is not the only edgy Csicsery fare. Hungry for Monsters (2003), about false charges of child molestation and Satanism, caused an uproar at the Bermuda and Locarno Festivals in 2004.  
Csicsery has been synonymous with controversy from the beginning. He did Hookers in 1975, about prostitutes organizing a union in San Francisco, which is being re-released by Whole Earth Film now that Harvard paid to digitize it from 16mm, and Let's Get It Over With! (1970), about students protesting the invasion of Cambodia. Then, there was the People of the Current (1971), about the Tausug, a tribe of Filipino Muslim pirates. 

"Pure ethnography," said Csicsery, smiling in recollection of an exotic filmic youth (see photo).  "I was hired by the anthropologist Thomas Keifer. The Tausug are matrilocal: their houses are owned by women.  If you want to get married without paying a lot of water buffalo, you abduct a girl. If you can get her to a religious figure's house before the family shoots you, she's yours."

Around that time, he also worked with Errol Morris on "Gates of Heaven" and Barbet Schroeder on Koko.

“What do you think about more artistic documentaries?" I asked. 
"Well, sometimes films are made because the filmmaker wants to describe something without condemning or praising it. There are very few such films, and most are not made in the US.  Broadcasters rarely tolerate a raw look. It's got to be interpreted, explained, and narrated. For a few hours on September 11, 2001, the networks showed the events in shocking silence. It took almost a day for 'wrappers' [titled intros] and narration - for the networks to regain their stranglehold on how news is packaged.  They didn't even come up with 9/11 theme music until the next day. For those first few hours, the public saw raw documentary."

"Do you see any trends in documentaries?" 
"As production gets cheaper, funding tighter, and attention spans shorter, we're looking at a hideous train wreck.  That will perpetuate all the bad things happening today. Look for more personal stuff.  Of course, if you get a million filmmakers making personal films, you will get a few gems. I see more very short pieces designed for multiple platforms.  Most of these will combine the 'complain/explain' genre with the music video format."

Csicsery has also kept busy writing: to date, four screenplays and numerous articles, which have appeared from Salon.com to the "East Bay Express" and the "SF Chronicle." His article on his doc hero Les Blank was included in the book "Burden of Dreams," (North Atlantic Books, 1984), an anthology that took its title from Blank's acclaimed film on Werner Herzog. "I loved [Blank's] Burden of Dreams. That is a case where the subject [Herzog] created the basis for the film."  In addition to Blank and Herzog, Csicsery's short list of favorite documentarians includes Dennis O'Rourke, J. P. Gorin, Nick Broomfield, Joan Churchill, and, of course, Frederick Wiseman. But in terms of distribution, he learned the most from Blank.

"I have done two articles about [Blank.]  He always self-distributed.  Anyone who has made a deal with a distributor knows what happens eventually - you don't get anything. Internet democratization has helped everyone but DVDs are going to die and how are we going to get money out of downloadables?  With DVDs, if you sell 3 - 4000, that's not bad, but in downloadables that won't buy you dinner.  This is the most important subject facing indie filmmakers - who's going to come up with a revenue model?" 

Currently in production at Csiscery studios, actually called Zala Films, is Songs Along a Stony Road, about Transylvania's folk musicians. "It is almost finished and has great music and images,” he said. “I have another project on a Holocaust subject in Hungary called Angel of Mercy. It is the story of Margaret Slachta, a Catholic nun, who saved a lot of Jewish children in 1944. Everyone has heard of Raoul Wallenberg, but there were others doing similar things. I was researching this and found she was an early feminist. And then my old friend of forty years, Marika Somogyi, a sculptor in Berkeley, said to me, 'I have to tell you something, I am one those kids.' I've done four days of shooting, one in Hungary, and three in Buffalo, where Slatchta founded an order. I am hoping do more shoots in Hungary, and a few in Israel, but I haven't raised any funds.  It is time to get serious."

As if that wasn't enough, true to his new California and old contrarian roots, he is also looking into Joaquin Murrieta, the Gold Rush-era bandit and Robin Hood figure for poor Mexicans, who was the prototype for Zorro. "I want to find what is true, what people believe, and how a legend is created," said Csicsery, smiling, "And, of course, there are also seven or eight more math movies."  

For more info, see www.zalafilms.com.

Doniphan Blair, of West Oakland, is writer, designer, filmmaker and publisher of CineSource Magazine (www.cinesourcemagazine.com).

Oakland often feels like the ultimate Do-It-Yourself town. Dozens of knitting and fabric stores, the ultimate DIY destination -- the East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse -- and the popularity of classes that teach people to make things are evidence that the DIY culture in Oakland is healthy and strong. So it makes sense that the film 
Handmade Nation: The Rise of D.I.Y. Art, Craft, and Design would get a warm welcome here.  

Faythe Levine, the 32-year-old director and producer of the documentary, traveled 19,000 miles and documented the lives of 24 artists coast to coast to showcase the lifestyle and community around the DIY culture in this country.  Appropriately, the film screens this Friday at Rock Paper Scissors, the Oakland collective that is all about doing everything yourself.

Levine, who lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, wore many hats before turning film maker. She’s owned and run art and craft galleries, she’s created and successfully sold her own craft pieces like the messenger owl – and in 2004, she founded -- and still manages – an annual craft fair in Milwaukee called Art vs. Craft.

It was the craft fairs that inspired her to make the movie. She loved the community that she saw at the fairs. “I wanted to do a documentary to capture it before it changed,” says Faythe.

It would be her first documentary. She had done art direction on music videos, but never a project on this scale. “I’ve always photographed everything I’ve done. I have an appreciation for collecting information,” she says. “I can’t say I always wanted to be a film maker. It was the easiest medium for me to get information across.”

The folks at Princeton Architectural Press thought differently. They saw the teasers for her film and liked them enough that Handmade Nation, the book, came out even before the movie. (She had a co-author, Cortney Heimerl)   

The point Faythe wants to make is that people have never stopped making things, despite the perception that everything is mass produced these days. “What this film is specifically about is people in their 20s and early 30s -- people are returning to traditional crafts with a contemporary twist,” she says. “You can learn anything you put your mind to.”

Her motivation, she says, is the respect she has for the things people make. The motivation was strong enough that she decided to go ahead with the film, even though she did not have any financial backers, financing it with her own credit card. “The underlying message is that making things is very empowering,” she says. “People walk away inspired.”

She recalls a screening at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland, Oregon, where the film screening became a weekend event with a huge turnout coming out to celebrate it. And that sort of response has encouraged her to venture out with her camera one more time.

This time, she’s going to be telling the stories of sign painters – people who hand paint signs. She starts shooting in Seattle and Olympia in March.  “The next film is a similar kind of lifestyle -- taking a skill, taking it to the streets and figuring out how to make it work.”

She understands. She’s figuring out how to make the documentary business work for her.

Handmade Nation screening
Rock Paper Scissors, 2278 Telegraph
Friday, February 12, 7 p.m.
Admission: $ 7 to $1o (sliding scale)

Keep up with Faythe Levine at her blog.
You can look at old teasers of Handmade Nation here.  
The Handmade Nation website: handmadenationmovie.com/

Photo: Lil Tuffy at Kuhl Frames + Art

A new week, and there's interesting art to check out, thanks to Iranian-born artists, rock poster designers, and artists with disabilities. 

EVERYONE!



Save Thursday evening for Everyone, a new show that features the artwork of each artist working in the Creative Growth studio. The works have been selected by Matthew Higgs, Director/Chief Curator, White Columns, often described as New York’s oldest alternative art space 

Exhibition Opening: Thursday, January 28, 5 p.m. – 8 p.m. (With the music of the Creole Belles) 
Creative Growth Art Center
355 24th Street, Oakland
510-836-2340 x 15/creativegrowth.org 
Regular Gallery Hours: Monday thru Friday, 11 a.m. to 4.30 p.m. 

ROCK POSTER ART

Over at Kuhl's Frames, they've had a cool exhibit of more than 275 limited edition screen printed rock posters by designer Lil Tuffy. For those who aren't into rock posters, Lil Tuffy is a designer and poster artist whose work has been shown in various cities across the United States as well as in Mexico City, Calgary, London, Paris, Hamburg, and Dresden. Last year, he made it into the Beatlemania Museum in Hamburg, Germany. More on Lil Tuffy here.

Closing reception: Jan 29, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. 
Kuhl's Frames + Art
412 22nd St., Oakland. 510-625-0123/kuhlframes.com 

FARSAD LABBAUF 




The Bay Area has its own thriving art scene, which often draws art and artists from the rest of the country. This week, Farsad Labbauf, a Tehran-born New Yorker, whose work has been featured in the Saatchi Gallery’sUnveiled: New Art from the Middle East and group exhibitions at Amstel Gallery, Amsterdam and MEHR Gallery, New York, brings his art to town. His pieces are in the collections of the Saatchi Gallery, London and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Esfahan, Iran, amongst others. Check out his intriguing oil drawings on display at Cyanaa gallery. 

If you’d like to learn more about Farsad, watch this video. 
Cyanaa, cyanaa.com
 

 Still from Two Weeks From Monday

I knew I would eventually end up behind the camera, but I thought that would be after a few more years as an actress and film school or something to that effect. But I started thinking about it one day -- "Why not experiment now? Why wait for the money? I’m competent, right?" I mentioned it to a few friends and they didn’t say much, but I don’t think they thought I was serious.  Time passed and my company, Cacao Films, came to be. I questioned my sanity every step of the way. “What the hell am I doing? Can I write something that makes sense? Will it make sense at the end? I mean - come on, I didn’t take a training course in this…” It’s been that way for the last three years. I reckon it will be that way for the months to come. Who knows?

It was one thing being in front of the camera. I only got a few bad looks from a few actresses. As a writer, producer, director, and now editor, the reception has been mixed so far. I’ve gotten respect and support from industry professionals along with a few lies and insults from others (nothing worth talking about, but it’s been noted). It all comes down to respect.

                 
                                                                         Carissa Weir

The experience so far has been priceless. I wouldn’t change a thing. Some one once said making a film is like fighting a war with many battles. I agree. It’s a war I’d fight over and over again. Going on no sleep for many nights, or sleeping for only two hours before having to wake up to get the boys to school, then being able to sleep for 12 hours the next night. That’s the best sleep ever and the feeling of productivity is irreplaceable.

 Two Weeks from Monday is a short subject film about a young woman who has a choice to make between what she wants in life and what is expected of her. It begins as the main character, Simone, a twenty-something woman gets ready for a routine day at work. Her day is thrown off as she is reminded of an approaching deadline. She manages to get through the day only to face the very thing she was avoiding.

Ironically, the lead character in my first film reflects my life and the challenge I faced dealing with fear.  It was something I was battling with and as I soon realized that close friends and colleagues had with the same issue, I decided to document it using the impact my brother had on me. You see, he had Muscular Dystrophy, but he was able to live with the life he had. He found value in each day and with each breath, but there I was -- afraid. Afraid of what society might think about me finding value in my life. He made me aware and I just wanted to share it with the world.

I had the pleasure of living in three countries by the age of ten. Jamaica was the foundation -- work ethics, island life, jerk chicken, curried goat, jelly coconut, grape nut ice cream, bathing in the river, and walking along the seaside. That sea breeze; salty and soothing.  London was different, cold and grey in the middle of August. Fish and chips, salt and vinegar chips, candy for half pence, little girls wearing neckties as part of their uniforms, and snow -- white snow, icy snow, and dirty muddy snow. Then there was Oakland, California.

            What can I say? Oakland is a beautiful place to live and make movies in. The geographical, architectural, and cultural diversity is amazing. This place is a gem, from the taco trucks on International to the gourmet stops of the many different neighborhoods, each with its own vibe. The hustle and bustle of Chinatown and the quiet tree lined streets of a Piedmont neighborhood, all this within a ten to fifteen minute drive. Then there is the beauty of the old brick warehouses, the Victorians, the port, the water, the hills, the homes, I could go on and on. Fog City has its mavericks. I hope to bring Oakland’s beauty to the screen in a way it hasn’t been done before.

Carissa Weir is presently holding private screenings only. If you'd like to learn more about Two Weeks from Monday, visit the website of Cacao films.

It’s the time of year for top ten lists and while The Oakbook doesn’t have one of its own, we’ve got the next best thing -- Artopic’s listing of the “10 Best Oakland Gallery Shows of 2009.” Of those ten shows, seven were featured in this column. Improvised Branches, my first show as gallery director with The Oakbook’s new gallery, art@theOakBook, is holding down a nice, comfy perch at number three. That is but the icing on the cake. The next year promises so much more from our local art community.  

This first Friday falls on the first day of a new decade. Here are some picks for the month that offer up evidence of what Artopic’s Obi Kaufmann saw in Improvised Branches as a “…multitude of voices across the scene and the Bay.”

        
Along with potential accolades, our new year will bring changes less welcome. Shala Davaoodi, infamous landlord/owner of much of the commercial property at Grand and Broadway across from popular nightclub Luka’s, will by the end of January have evicted two longtime members of the Oakland Art Murmur: the critically acclaimed Front Gallery and the well liked artist’s collective Mercury 20. Like the oft quoted first line of Disney’s Peter Pan, “All of this has happened before, and it will all happen again.” First it was the longest-lived member of the Art Murmur, 21 Grand, and then 33 Grand and eventually Industrielle. Who knows what will fill these dead spaces. Is it too much to hope that the smart and conscious development around 23^rd St, and Telegraph be repeated elsewhere? I should hope not. Let’s see what this month holds.

“The Graff Show”

Opening reception: Friday, Jan 1,  6 p.m.
2443 Telegraph Ave Oakland, CA 94612

http://www.terminal22.com/

terminal22.com/

Dan Rowley and Jessie Wusthoff endeavored last year to create a gallery unlike any other in Oakland’s emerging art community. With an online art sales component similar to that of Fecalface Dot Gallery in San Francisco and a particularly accessible urban art aesthetic that recalls Upper Playground, paired with a willingness to experiment – as evident at their last show, one of artworks illuminated in a darkened gallery space -- they are quickly becoming a must see on the first Friday circuit, just mere blocks from the epicenter of 23^rd and Telegraph.

In November, Art@The Oakbook featured the work of Marcos LaFarga, a multitalented artist and graphic designer whose art draws inspiration from a study of typography, art history and his background as graffiti writer. That background will come to the forefront here in his first time out as a curator. “The Graff Show” features a mix of artists from three graffiti crews: UM (Marin), CBS (Los Angeles) and Lords (A Bay Area based crew founded in San Jose of which curator LaFarga is a member).The lineup is too long to fully list, but if any of LaFarga’s cohorts are even half as talented as he is, this one should be a ‘can’t miss.’ It “ …will showcase a range of talent and Graffiti styles on surfaces ranging from miniature trains to large wall installations.” DJ Eugene will be holding it down on the 1’s and 2’s as well. What better way to cure a New Year’s hangover than with art, music and good company?

“Juried Annual 2010

Selections by Sherman Sam, Independent Curator, London”

Artists' Talk: Thursday, January 14, 6 p.m.

150 Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, Oakland, CA 94612

proartsgallery.org/ 

ProArts recently opened its latest edition of its Juried Annual show in which artists submit their work to be selected -- sans biographical info. I profiled a past edition of the show for The Oakbook almost a year ago. Such shows can provide a bridge towards gallery representation or perhaps even museum inclusion. This year’s show features work from an artist we’ve previously highlighted, Steven Barich, and prolific artist/blogger Timothy Buckwalter. It’s a solid and wildly diverse selection and one that’s very engaging. Towards that aim, I highly recommend hearing the artists break it all down themselves at the artist’s talk. I’ll be there. Will you?

This December, the Oakland Ballet Company will present the premiere of Carlos Carvajal’s Nutcracker at the Paramount Theatre. This performance isn't just the story of the Nutcracker -- it's the story of a show that might have never happened, had it not been for the commitment of many Oakland artists to their community. The end result is that this year's performance will be even bigger, catering to audiences in Oakland as well as San Mateo. 

Oakland Ballet launched its fall season in October with the Jewels of the Bay, a mixed repertoire of some of the Bay Area’s most well-known choreographers, under the guidance of guest artistic directors Michael Lowe and Jenna McClintock. Lowe has danced with the company for 35 years and is an award-winning choreographer. McClintock is a principal dancer with the company.

After October’s production, the company was faced with a dilemma: how to reconcile a gloomy economy with the desire to give the East Bay community the Nutcracker it has looked forward to every year for the last 36 years. For those who know the 44-year-old Oakland Ballet Company, it is a company with spunk and talent. Not to be deterred, Nicole Levine, the company’s executive director, approached Peninsula Ballet about staging a joint production – and a collaboration was born. “We are pleased to bring the Nutcracker to the stage by creatively joining forces of two ballet companies that have been mainstays in the Bay Area,” said Levine.

Carlos Carvajal, a world-renowned choreographer, created his Nutcracker 15 years ago for Peninsula Ballet. Carvajal, a native of San Francisco, is no stranger to the Oakland Ballet either. The company performed Carvajal’s full-length Crystal Slipper in 2003 and the pas de deux from that ballet in its fall production. “I see the Nutcracker as a community production,” Carvajal said. “We engage the participation of parents, students and former active dancers who have their own schools. It adds a richness that complements the professional dancers.”

Carvajal’s Nutcracker is a family-friendly production that portrays Drosselmeyer as a kinder, gentler character than is often depicted. Carvajal will play the role of Drosselmeyer on December 24. Oakland Ballet favorites such as Jenna McClintock, Ikolo Griffin, Gabriel Williams, Amanda McGovern and Ethan White will once again return to the stage. This beloved holiday tradition has a spectacular growing tree, a spirited party, a battle scene between the mice led by their king and toy soldiers led by the Nutcracker, who appears full size and comes to life. Audiences will be captivated by the magical adventures of Clara and her Nutcracker Prince while they journey through dancing snow flurries and the Kingdom of Sweets. Bruce Steivel, artistic director of the Peninsula Ballet, directs this production.

In addition to presenting the Nutcracker again, the Oakland Ballet has created another community tradition, ensuring that ballet is inspiring and accessible to all. The company will once again donate 2,000 tickets to Oakland public schools and give 1,500 tickets to underserved families, thanks to the support of companies like Chevron, Target, Clorox and others.

Michael Morgan will conduct members of the Oakland East Bay Symphony with the beautiful Tchaikovsky score at the Paramount Theatre. This year, the symphony agreed to a salary reduction to help the Oakland Ballet keep its commitment to live music for this holiday favorite.

Oakland Ballet is partnering with the Alameda County Community Food Bank, offering a 20 percent discount per ticket with a donation of a non-perishable food item.  Tickets for this promotion must be purchased at the Paramount box office. The Nutcracker opened in San Mateo on December 12 and will be presented at the Paramount Theatre on December 24, 26 and 27. 

For more on the Oakland Ballet company, please visit oaklandballet.org

WHEN:

Thursday, December 24 at 11 a.m. 

Saturday, December 26 at 2 p.m. *

Saturday, December 26 at 7:30 p.m.

Sunday, December 27 at 2 p.m.*

*The Saturday and Sunday matinees will be followed by a Sweet Dreams party, which will feature light refreshments and Nutcracker characters posing for pictures and signing autographs. Separate tickets are required and can be purchased through Ticketmaster.

TICKETS: $15-$50 with student and senior discounts through www.ticketmaster.com  or 1-800-745-3000  

WHERE:

Paramount Theatre, 2025 Broadway 510-465-6400, paramounttheatre.com

Savanna Snow's Trishul

"A Long Way from the Cabbage Patch"
Art@TheOakbook’s Holiday Art Show

Art@TheOakbook art gallery

423 Water Street, Oakland, Ca 94607

Opening Reception: Friday, December 11, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. The show runs through January 9, 2010.

This holiday season, Art@theOakBook invites you to discover the work of six local emerging artists who who have gotten positive critical accolades on the local and/or national level. Each and every artist in this show has been “vetted” by critics and journalists as artists well worth watching.

Art@theOakBook's holiday show is your chance to buy affordable art by Marcos LaFarga, Kevin Earl Taylor, Jake Watling, Savanna Snow, Theo Konrad Auer,and Joel Scilley. Here's an opportunity to make an investment in your community by starting up or augmenting your art collection on the cheap.

Joel Scilley’s iPod docks have been noted as a “much buy holiday gift under $100 “ by the New York Times. Theo Konrad Auer’s photos have been positively reviewed by DeWitt Cheng of the East Bay Express and have appeared on Fecalface.com, among other websites and magazines. Kevin Earl Taylor, Jake Watling, and Savanna Snow’s art has been covered in Juxtapoz and other media outlets.  Marcos LaFarga’s art has received kudos from Swee(t)art Magazine and from the Oakbook. 

All works are priced to sell from less than $100 to $300. Sold work is available for pick-up/shipping one week before Christmas. On Friday, December 11, expect a few holiday surprises and good company at Art@theOakbook and at Swarm Gallery, which is also having a holiday sale opening the same evening a block and a half away.

Art@theOakbook in Oakland’s Jack London Square is an art and culture gallery committed to showcasing Oakland's talented and diverse artists. This supports the mission of the OakBook to be a resource for Oaklanders as they explore our fascinating town.

Questions: Call Curator Theo Konrad Auer 510-282-2139, art@theoakbook.com, www.theoakbook.com       

Gallery Hours: Wednesday through Friday, 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday 10.30 a.m. – 1.30 p.m.

There are more than a 100,000 photos on Yahoo’s popular photo sharing site, Flickr, that have been taken with an iPhone. And most of them are way better than you expect pictures taken on a phone to be.

“A folk art form has unfolded where the depiction of reality and spontaneous events has been assisted not through the sophistication of the camera, but through its ubiquitous presence in our everyday lives,” writes Oakland-based architect Rae Douglass, who runs a local art gallery - Giorgi gallery.

With that in mind, he and Knox Bronson, a local musician/graphic designer/ photographer, are collaborating on a show that will only exhibit photos taken on an iPhone. "The iPhone's camera is a pretty basic camera," says Knox. "Other phones have more advanced cameras. So, in my mind, if you can take good photos with the constrains of an iPhone - it doesn't even have a zoom -that's interesting."

Here’s their call for submissions for Pixels at an Exhibition. They're inviting artists and non-artists alike to send in their iPhone photos. The deadline is January 15:

iPhone images are crude with low resolution, so they can only be judged by their basic composition and the manner at which they capture the moment. With this show, we are not looking for seductive images loaded with technique, but images that are alive with the ephemeral spirit of reality. Two hundred images will be printed and displayed in the gallery for the month of February 2010, and will be sold as individual works of art. A book will be published that will include all of the images along with names and a short bio of each iPhonetographer.  

We welcome all applicants and encourage amateurs, since there is no such thing as a professional iPhonetographer.  For many of the artists, this will be their first introduction to having their work shown in a gallery, and we look forward to the chance to discover new talent.   

For more information on submitting your iPhone pics, visit http://iphontography.org/

Carey Fay Horowitz playing the drums at the camp last summer.

Three years ago, Carey Fay Horowitz spent a week teaching young girls how to play the drums at a rock and roll camp for girls in Portland, Oregon. It was a life changing experience, recalls the founding director of the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp. “I wanted to bring that camp back to the Bay Area.”

Carey has been playing drums for the past 14 years, ever since she was a 14-year-old in Newton, Massachusetts. But growing up, she never knew any other girls who played the drums. She missed having a female role model to look up to. So a camp filled with girls playing musical instruments felt like something she’d wished for as a teenager.

Four years ago, Carey moved to Oakland, her birthplace and home to her mother’s side of the family.  She joined a band, Songs for Moms, and found supportive musical peers. But she found her true calling during that one week in Oregon.

“It was the first time that I’d been in an environment that was all women playing music,” said Carey.” It was a supportive environment. And it was really exciting to see girls encouraged to play music and more importantly, to express themselves and to be loud and not be hesitant to do so because boys are around --because boys take over.”

When it comes to rock music, the industry is male-dominated, and more often than not, it’s not the kind of music girls are encouraged to play. To do her bit to change that, Carey launched the Bay Area Girls Rock Camp in Oakland last year for kids between 8 and 18.

And she got an immediate show of support from the community. Her group, which has already drawn a hundred volunteers, holds three programs a year – and so far, they’ve all filled up.

“(The community’s) been supportive. The second I said out aloud, I’m going to start a girls’ camp here, people came out of the woodwork to help,” said Carey. “We collaborate with a lot of different organizations and do public events. We’ve grown really fast.”

The reason for the camp’s popularity is probably because it’s about more than music. “It’s the only camp that’s focused on building confidence. Music is a vehicle to build confidence,” says Carey. She sees girls learn, within a week, to be expressive about their creativity and to shed inhibitions they may have had about their music.

The camp hosts two sessions in the summer, with 70 girls each. It also hosts an after-school program from January to March. Most of the sessions take place in Oakland schools. Half of the campers get some kind of financial aid.



A band from the first summer camp - Splash. Two of its members went on to form Poison Apple Pie, which will perform at Friday's event. 

The one year-old camp is funded through grants and individual donations (of money and instruments). It also raises money through its ladies rock camp, where women 18 and over attend a three-day camp and each pays the tuition for one kid's week-long session.

This Friday, the group is hosting a fundraiser at Local 123 gallery.

Art auction
7 p.m. to 10 p.m. Performance by Poison Apple Pie
Local 123 Gallery, 2049 San Pablo Avenue

For more information, please visit bayareagirlsrockcamp.org/

Shopping locally is always fun, but thanks to a few creative minds, shopping locally on Friday will be even more fun than usual. Meet Kerri Johnson, who's one of the directors of Blankspace Gallery and the Oakland Art Gallery, and who is now trying to convince people to shop at their neighborhood boutique instead of at the malls outside Oakland. She's one of the organizers of Plaid Friday, an alternative to Black Friday.

OB: What's with the plaid? It's cool and all, but why is plaid the theme?

Kerri: The idea of plaid came from us wanting an alternative name to "Black Friday," we (Lena Reynoso of the Compound gallery) wanted something that expressed the idea of the community and the diversity of the local businesses in the Bay Area. We kicked around other color names, but the plaid seemed to sum up the idea nicely, independent, interwoven colors working in harmony to create a whole image.

OB: Who came up with this idea and why? What was the inspiration?

Kerri: Myself and Lena Reynoso. We were working together to create our big annual holiday shopping event and wanted to open earlier this year. Once we decided to open the day after Thanksgiving, it seemed natural for us to try and promote ourselves as an alternative to the big box craziness. Drawing from the other great shop local campaigns happening in the area, we decided to try and
get the other small local businesses involved.

Once we got the ball rolling, we were so happy to get a lot of support from the shop local community advocates such as Oakland Unwrapped, Oakland Grown, OMLF (Oakland Merchants Leadership Forum) to get the word out. We were happy to get a generous donation of website and logo design from Nicole Neditch of Objet d'art and marketing sponsorship for the event from the EastBay Express and Yelp and yourselves.

We wanted people to wear plaid on this day because the connotation of plaid is playful and we think that November 27th should be a relaxing and enjoyable day, not frenzied and potentially hazardous. This is a fun way for people to be able to show their support for local business and in turn have the shop owners thank their customers.

OB: It's an east bay event... so which cities do you include in this event?

Kerri: This was all a grassroots effort, but we tried to reach out to as many businesses as we could, mostly drawing from our own connections to other local businesses and using the resources of the above mentioned agencies.  This year the participating businesses are centered around Oakland and Berkeley, but we do have shops from Emeryville, Richmond and Danville included on the online list.

OB: Are you expanding into a "shop local" advocacy body?

Kerri: I am excited to see how it goes on Friday and I would like to continue to work closely with the other year round shop local campaigns to create a larger, more expansive version of Plaid Friday for next year.  There are already ideas to expand to include more of the Bay Area and make it an ongoing event for consecutive Friday's during the holiday shopping season.

Find a participating local business at plaidfriday.com/

Full disclosure: the OakBook is one of the media sponsors of Plaid Friday.

Rene de Guzman, the Oakland Museum of California's Senior Curator (photo by Konrad Auer)

On Tuesday, the Oakland Museum of California hosted a press luncheon and a quick look at its $58 million dollar renovation, which will be finished next May. The museum’s public relations team has been touting the remade galleries as spaces that will last for many future generations. As the museum’s executive director Lori Fogarty says, “Just as California is not a ‘fixed place’ but constantly evolving, this museum is embracing change and new ideas. It’s in our DNA.”

The museum anticipated future generations when it was built 40 years ago. Long before the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park unveiled it’s variable surface, moving, living roof, Kevin Roche designed the Oakland Museum of California with a living roof, and the strongest outdoor sculpture garden of any Bay Area Museum.

It looks as if the updates overseen by San Francisco architectural firm Mark Cavegnero and Associates, which began in January 2008, are staying true to the museum’s forward-thinking tradition.

After lunch, senior curator René de Guzman led the press on a short tour of the expanded permanent art exhibition space, and one of three new, rotating multi-use exhibition spaces.

The biggest surprise was not the talk of “art lounges” where one can drink coffee in view of a Mel Ramos pop art nudie paintings, or the more inclusive and multicultural remaking of their once dated history section, or even the expansion into deep interactivity, but the complete and utter restructuring of their exhibition spaces. There will be two and half times more space for art than before the renovation.

The buzzword used in the press materials for what the museum is trying to get at is “malleable.” Every gallery section looks on into the next with large glass walls. White walls replace the old concrete. There are sections dedicated to local art movements such as the Bay Area Figurative Movement and Funk Art.

Less traditional and even more forward thinking is a section committed to portraiture, whether it be photographic, drawn or painted -- era and genre be damned – hung in the salon style most recently re-popularized by the artists of the Mission School like Barry McGee and the late Margaret Kilgallen. Each piece struggles for context in the clutter of several dozen pieces placed side by side. It works.

Integration becomes more than a trendy tagline in the new museum where art shares space with natural history exhibits, and sections of the museum gently lap into each other down newly built sloping walkways.

René de Guzman guided us through his vision for the museum, as his movements accented his passion for place, history and culture: “We are trying to make the postmodern moment real through a blending of history and art – we are trying to suggest a conversation through the placement of art.”

Two new additions to the museum’s permanent collection are emblematic of the new approach. The Date Farmers, two artists working under one name, who were featured in The Oakland Museum’s recent survey of Los Angeles based artists, have now found a home in a salon-style assemblage at the redone museum. 

In this collection, Mexican-American culture wrestles with issues of identity and touches on tropes of pop and street art. They are a favorite of popular underground art magazine Juxtapoz, having been covered there numerous times. As “hip” artists go, such a placing in a museum’s collection legitimizes both the artists and the museum’s new multi-cultural direction.

Another addition is the “The Fallen Easel” by John Baldessari. This piece is important and unusual, because irony isn’t as central to it as in his other works and represents, as the title playfully and pointedly suggests, the end of painting for a noted artist and the beginning of a more celebrated period as a conceptualist.

In it, framed multiples, seemingly static and yet also cinematic are placed into a form suggesting an easel fallen in what appears defeat and what is finally revealed as rebirth. It was the central, most pivotal piece in his print retrospective this summer at San Francisco’s Legion of Honor Museum.

De Guzman didn’t reveal much about future exhibitions, but he did say that one would be a major retrospective of the work of Emeryville-based Pixar Animation, which easily could be a nationally touring show, not to mention a big draw for visitors.

The second is an intriguing show from installation artist Mark Dion whose work was recently covered in the latest season of PBS’ Art:21. According to Brooklyn-based art consultant Christine D’Aleo he, “…will be creating multiple installations in all the galleries of “orphans” from the museum’s collections that don’t fit into any political or art historical narrative.”

De Guzman added that long mothballed objects such as model baby elephants and a large collection of Polynesian artifacts will find their way into installations.  These two shows auger well for the future of the museum. De Guzman has several well-received big shows to his credit such as the internationally touring “Beautiful Losers” and “Black Panther Rank and File.”

The results of all these grand plans remain to be seen, but it is clear from even this cursory viewing and teasing that this is a space well worth watching. You’ll get your chance in May 2010.
 

Photo Courtesy KQEDQUEST

The Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, a West Oakland non-profit is getting ready for its annual holiday art exhibit. For those of you that haven't been to the center, it's a two-story Victorian that was once used as a convent.

Tomye Neal-Madison, the center's Visual Arts Coordinator, is curating the group show that will be titled Bay Area Artists Collection. While the location doesn't encourage sculpture displays, the call to artists says the venue allows for every wholesome topic/technique of art that can be displayed on the building's walls.

Please send photos - jpegs or slides -- either to tomyegouache@sbcglobal.net or to 765 MacArthur Blvd., Oakland 94610. The images will be used for promotional materials about the exhibit.

Instructions from Neal-Madison: Please make sure your artworks have a wire across the back. There is a suspension from the ceiling's molding system in place. Holes in the walls will not be tolerated. Consider that among your viewers will be special guests, collectors, gallery owners and business people expecting professional works of art. There are two delivery dates, Thursday November 19, 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. or Sunday, November 22, 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

There will be a reception on Saturday, December 12, 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. The exhibit is scheduled from Monday, November 30 through Friday, January 22, 2010.

Walking through an art exhibit with the artist can be quite an exciting event for an art lover. While art is all about personal interpretation, the artist’s intent is a big part of the story behind any artwork. You can have your very own artist-guided tour at Swarm tonight.

Oakland artist Taro Hattori is showing "V" in Swarm’s main gallery through December 6. "V" consists of corrugated cardboard sculptures that represent five parts of a life-sized V-2 rocket, the world's first ballistic missile used by the Nazis.

Head over to Swarm tonight to hear him talk about his art practice and how it reflects his search for order in his life and his attempts to measure the distance between him and weapons of mass destruction.

Jordan Essoe, who has a two-part installation called "Living Room" in Swarm's project space and side gallery, will also be walking visitors through his work. His installation looks at the indifference of the universe and its facility as a container. The video in the side room, Myth of Sisyphus, (above) shows the artist vacuuming up and down a hillside.

Swarm Gallery
560 Second Street

November 11, 6 p.m.

It feels like fall has just arrived and the holiday shopping season is already very nearly  upon us. What better gift to buy than one made by our many talented local artists and craftspeople? This November offers up many opportunities to shop locally at Oakland’s art galleries. We’ve also got an intriguing two-man show at the ever consistent and compelling Hatch Gallery, and an exciting discussion among a group of eminent artists to look forward to. Here are my picks for November.

Mine Us One: New solo and collaborative works by James Kirkpatrick and Derek Weisberg
Hatch Gallery
492 23rd street
hatchgallery.org/
Reception: Friday, November 6, 2009

If you go by what the local press and art critics say, Adam Hatch’s eponymous space is becoming one whose name is synonymous with creative success. Last month, one of Stephanie Martinez’s tantalizingly interactive works had folks lined up to see it -- and try it. The lines rivaled those of folks looking to imbibe the free wine at the various art openings.

The work featured piano keys set to either make seemingly random or clumsily deliberate brush strokes upon -- and a rolling scroll moving across -- the gallery walls in a lightly curving “L” shape, playfully suggesting the prejudice of perception. It made for a fantastic show and Ms. Martinez’s work was well paired with that of Evan Holm, another artist adept at the culturally suggestive with his strange flowers abloom with vacuum tubes. This month, Mr. Hatch’s gallery features new work by Canadian artist/musician/curator James Kirkpatrick and Oakland sculptor/curator Derek Weisberg.

Sometimes, the best pairings of artists for an art show are the ones where broader themes are reinforced and overlap -- rather than shows where work is unimaginatively pegged. I believe art should make you think. I feel that firmly and deeply, to an almost religious degree. Whether those thoughts are deep, banal, provocative, it doesn’t matter. In other word, art should inspire. That is certainly the case with these two young artists. Weisberg’s sadly mythic figures effect towards darker aspects of the artist’s self while maintaining the simultaneously black and life affirming sort of wit one often encounters in the lower middle classes. At first glance, the denizens of his world appear downtrodden and perhaps defeated, but upon further reading they stand revealed as weary but hopeful, and at times, wise guides through an all too strange - and all too real - world.

In past works, cast off fabric was sewn and fashioned into pants, a colander became a crown, and used tea bags formed a ghostly bottom half of a bifurcated man. Herein lies the link which ties the work of Derek Weisberg and James Kirkpatrick. While both will work with the figure and are informed by Hip Hop culture, what ties them closer is the recontextualization of images and objects. Kirkpatrick’s works tend toward the abstract and the emotionally evocative. He is also a rap musician of considerable and substantial talent and has organized a music show at the cavernous West Oakland art space Lobot featuring his alter ego Thesis Sahib and Papervehicle, conveniently going off a hour after the opening. Both the music show and the art show get an advance thumbs up, based on the past history of these two artists -- of consistently showing compelling and innovative work.

jameskirkpatrick.org/paintdraw-1.html
derekweisberg.com

Ari Marcopoulos: White Room, Dizin, Iran, 2000; inkjet print; 30 x 40 in.; courtesy of the artist; Ratio 3, San Francisco; and The Project, New York

Ari Marcopoulos: Within Arm’s Reach
September 23, 2009 – February 7, 2010
University of California, Berkeley Art Museum
2626 Bancroft Way, Berkeley
bampfa.berkeley.edu/
Conversation — Ari Marcopoulos: Within Arm’s Reach, With Fred Brathwaite, Keith Hufnagel, Barry McGee, Ari Marcopoulos In Person: 3 p.m, Sunday, November 8, 2009

Ari Marcopoulos was in the high profile international traveling exhibition, Beautiful Losers, and had also shown in Aaron Rose’s famed Alleged Gallery in New York, situated in the Lower East Side of the early nineties, where noted artists like Barry McGee, Margaret Kilgallen, Thomas Campbell and Phil Frost among many, many others had shown some of their earliest work – many eventually gaining fame and critical acclaim in worlds of art, film and music. His is work that is at times alternately informed by a raw as well as a skilled aesthetic, which has aimed successfully to capture the spontaneous moments that make up the seconds that collate into the minutes and hours of our days. This mid–career survey of the Amsterdam born, one-time printer of Andy Warhol’s photos is the biggest show to hit the East Bay in a while. He was part and parcel of the downtown New York art scene that gave the world artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Robert Mapplethorpe and continued to have a huge influence on folks like filmmaker and photographer Mike Mills (who like Marcopoulos was highlighted in Beautiful Losers). I have to agree with his press people when they say that his largely self-taught style brings his subjects in close and captures, without sentimentality or voyeurism, the intimate essence of their daily lives.

This Sunday, Ari Marcopoulos will join NYC-based hip-hop pioneer and historian and former graffiti artist Fred Brathwaite, skateboard legend Keith Hufnagel, and noted painter and graffiti artist Barry McGee in a freewheeling conversation that contextualizes the exhibition while exploring cultural intersections.

Besides Banksy, Barry McGee is the world’s highest profile graf artist and is famous for his shy nature. The rest of the panel members have had strong roles in the development of sub-cultural art in the last couple of decades. It should easily prove to be stimulating, though I’d get there early – with names like these in it – it’s bound be standing room only.
 

 
Holidayland Gift Sale
The Compound Studios and Gallery
6602/6604 San Pablo Avenue
thecompoundgallery.com/

Blankspace
6608 San Pablo Avenue
blankspacegallery.com/
Receptions: Friday, Nov.27, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday, Dec.4, 7 p.m.-10 p.m.

San Pablo avenue, at the very edge of the Art Murmur map and near the Oakland-Berkeley border, has become an art destination with two strong art spaces calling it home. The Compound Studios and Gallery and Blankspace gallery have again teamed up for their holiday art sale and celebration called Holidayland, which will feature two poles of art and entertainment on hand for your seasonal shopping and mirth needs. Blankspace co–director Kerri Johnson elaborates, “The idea behind this is to promote local artists and crafters. It is a way to put money in the hands of artists we’ve worked or plan to work with in the next year. We put a focus on emerging artists and conceptual ideas at Blankspace.”

This show features so many artists offering up “…original artwork, jewelry, handmade crafts, accessories, cards, ornaments, tote bags…” among other items that to list them all would take up a whole page of space easily. Among those on the list of artists for this year’s edition of Holidayland are several local names I’ve noted previously in this column: Ben Belknap, Crystal Morey, and Daniel Healey and other noteworthy folks like Bruk Dunbar, and gallery owners Kerri Lee Johnson and Jason Byers. According to the press materials, you’ll also have the opportunity to get, “ …your holiday photo taken in our themed photo booth (proceeds go to Art in Oakland Schools) and spin the Wheel o' bounty for prizes.” This sounds like a more interesting shopping plan than visiting a crowded mall filled with This Years Lame Trinket for your twelve year old made by a twelve year old on the other side of the world. Affordable art and crafts, drinks, entertainment? Sounds like my kind of shopping experience.

We've got a great new show with two very talented artists at art@the OakBook this weekend. Please join us for the opening reception on Saturday, November 7.

Re:design: art by Marcos LaFarga and Joel Scilley
November 7 to December 6
Opening Reception and artists' talk: Saturday, November 7, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m.
marcoslafarga.com, audiowood.com
Art@theOakBook, 423 Water Street, across from Barnes and Noble in Jack London Square.

Photo: Slate Gallery with work by Joanne Fox and Carol Inez Charney on the wall. Photograph by Evan Hultinen.

This recession has been brutal. Walk down any major shopping boulevard in Oakland and you’ll see empty storefronts. And you’ll see beautiful stores where the only people inside are the ones who work there. But try getting into one of Oakland’s many upscale restaurants without a reservation – and chances are that you’ll have a long wait. Danielle Fox had one such long wait earlier this year at a restaurant in Glenview. And it got her thinking. She realized that people obviously still had money to spend. And if they could spend it on food, perhaps they would consider spending it on art, which can potentially last a lifetime. She had wanted to open an art gallery for a while, and Oakland’s resurgence excited her. She’d returned from London, where she worked at Sotheby’s as deputy director of business development, five years ago. And all the new galleries in downtown excited her. “They were not there 10 years ago,” she says.

Danielle decided that it was time to follow her dream.  She was going to open an art gallery in Oakland.

“It gets so expensive to be in the big gallery business,” says Danielle. “And the gallery scene moves around. In New York, it was SOHO, then it moved to the village, and now it’s in Chelsea.  The gallery scene is often in developing areas that are not so expensive.”

Danielle Fox in front of a photo by Carol Inez Charney. Photograph by Evan Hultinen. 

Danielle lives in Oakland’s Crocker Highlands, and it’s made her very pro-Oakland. Someone suggested opening the gallery in Emeryville, but she decided against it. “If I’m going to say Oakland is important to me, I have to put my money where my mouth is,” she says.

So she put her money on a gallery in Temescal in April. She had a list of six artists she wanted to work with. Five said yes. “I think the work that I’m selling – a lot of it is fairly abstract—is aimed at a somewhat sophisticated audience,” says Danielle.

She’s clear on her goals with the gallery. She isn’t trying to showcase art that wins over the critics and only the critics. She wants to carry art by Bay Area artists that people want to live with. “One thing that differentiates me from other art galleries– I’m really carrying work that people can buy and take home and put on their walls.”

It’s not that she doesn’t like conceptual art or installations, but as she points out, not many people buy installations, video or conceptual art. “A lot of it is very beautiful and might seem obvious in some respects, but beauty is out of fashion. That’s my way of being counter-trend,” Danielle says. She wants to show art that has a balance between content and form -- something with aesthetic value, but with a degree of intellectual interest to back it up.

Whatever she’s doing, it does seem to be working for her. She says she’s faring better than she expected to. Part of it is that her overheads are low. And the other piece is that she works with emerging artists who are not as expensive as established artists. You can buy pieces off the wall for anywhere between $500 and $5000 dollars. She’s got something for bargain hunters, too. She keeps unframed photographs and prints in bins that range from less than $150 to $600. Her inspiration is Hang gallery in San Francisco, which works with emerging artists and through its rental programs, tries to make art more affordable and accessible to a broader cross section of people.  

Danielle has had a long theoretical and practical education in art and the art industry. She is the daughter of artists and holds a doctoral degree in Art History from Northwestern University. She’s worked in the art industry (though she did work as a server in Rockridge while pursuing her undergraduate degree at the University of California, Berkeley) for many years. But she’s still learning about things like pricing for a neighborhood gallery.

Sotheby’s might seem like a different world, but Danielle likes what Oakland has to offer. She misses the density of London, but she’ll take the great weather over it anytime.

Slate Gallery, 4770 Telegraph
www.slateartanddesign.com

Thursday, Friday & Saturday Noon – 5 p.m

First Friday of every month: 6-9  p.m.

Kathy Aoki, The Brazilian (2009), Solar-plate etching

Women artists figure prominently in our local art scene. From Viola Frey to Margaret Kilgallen, the Bay Area has a long and storied history of amazing women artists adding and expanding to the canon of essential art history. This month offers some great female artists in high profile shows, which offer evidence of a new generation picking up where the last left off. Here are some Oakland shows you will want to see.

This Long Road: Work by Derek Weisberg, Crystal Morey, and Ben Belknap”


Crystal Morey at work on "This Long Road"

Crystal Morey is one of the most exciting artists working locally in sculpture today. Her emotionally evocative dapnes, representations of the female figure seem to be at once autobiographical and a comment on the vulnerable nature of femininity in the modern world. She has organized a strong three-person show including two of her fellows from The New Bay Area Figurative Sculpture group. Derek Weisberg, ran the regrettably defunct Boontling Gallery.

For Ms. Morey everything lies in the process. Too much planning for her is “stifling.” She told me this while we discussing her collaboration with the show’s two other artists on a piece depicting an unnamed mythological deity. The god is shown impeding the progress of a young woman

about the process creating a collaborative piece involving all three participating artists depicting a mythological god, perhaps Zeus, impeding the progress of a young woman toward her inevitable future. Morey represents the future of Bay Area sculpture, and based upon this work, the outlook is promising.

Friday, October 2, 7 p.m.- 10 p.m.
The Compound Gallery, 6604 San Pablo Ave

"It's Gonna Be Awesome: New work by Narangkar Glover”


"One Way..Or Another", 2009, wool embroidery and acrylic on jute, by Narangkar Glover

Narangkar Glover is one half of the husband and wife team that run the uncommonly consistent and innovative Temescal artspace Rowan Morrison. What many regular attendees of their openings might also know is that she is an accomplished painter. Her strongest work has been her embroidered pieces, which are painterly and deeply insightful. I recently had a chance to interview her regarding about this work: “Process-wise, my embroidery is informed by Crewel work, and this particular piece is inspired by the Abigail Pett bed-hanging, which is a Jacobean tapestry from the 18th century.  It currently resides in the Victoria and Albert museum.  And with this piece, I’ve incorporated painting on to the fabric – it ties it into my own practice, and sort of brings the medium up-to-date.  Earlier this year I experimented with some techniques involving painting or sizing the actual needle-work and it just kinda got mucked up, so I decided to stick with keeping the two separated on the canvas.”
   
I asked Narangkar about her relationship to her materials, Narangkar had this to say: “…I musn’t ever negate the relationship to the materials, and how integral it is.  Oil paint is visceral, and I’m thoroughly moved when I get right down to the nitty-gritty of the stuff.  I like to work wet on wet – it’s a feeling of real involvement and presence.  When I can say what I want to say in as little fussing with the medium, that moment in time is going to be conveyed successfully.  The only perspective I truly have is my own, so I work with what I’ve got.  It’s what makes it universal.  Empathy is, I guess, part of it.”
   
In Narangkar’s new show, narrative overshadows the figurative elements. This makes for an interesting and gentle tension. The nature of memory is what is at question here, and as a subject it is a damned compelling and time tested one. Come to your own conclusions at the opening. The artist will be there and I imagine she will welcome any and all thoughtful inquiries into her process and aesthetic inclinations. The great thing about art openings is that they democratize the insular nature of the art world. There are reasons other than sales that folks have them, and critical dialogue is certainly one of the best.

Friday, October 2, 7 p.m.-10 p.m.
Blankspace, 6608 San Pablo Ave

"THE MUSEUM OF HISTORICAL MAKEOVERS," New Work by Kathy Aoki

To say this show is huge is an understatement. It takes all but one of Swarm’s three gallery rooms and takes excellent advantage of it, filling the airy expanse with sculptural works, etchings, and other media by Kathy Aoki. The risky scale pays off.
   
But what’s it about? This is what the press release has to say: “Creating a pseudo-museum experience, Aoki presents us with imagery that looks antique, but addresses current beauty and pop culture concepts.” Here’s the artist’s take: "I want the artwork to help explain why we are so obsessed with beauty and pop consumerism. Obviously (from these mock documents), it's been that way traditionally throughout history."
   
With all that well-meaning propaganda out of the way, here’s my spin: Even though we live in a greening world filled with hybrid cars and biodegradable utensils made of corn that melt in the presence of hot food, ours is still a culture where “pop” reigns supreme and the whole notion of subculture has become outmoded in our post – postmodern age. As The Clash once sang in 1977, before my birth, “…ha you think it's funny/Turning rebellion into money.”

Subcultures don’t hold the power they once did. Everything is seen and sold to you faster than ever in Urban Outfitters or on Amazon. All is the monoculture, as I imagine rock musician and blogger Momus would say. When humanity is gone and all that is left is WALL – E and cockroaches, the worst and most banal elements of our culture shall remain. That is what this show satirizes with mock museum-style placards, painstakingly detailing the past of our strange old world from an imagined future anthropological perspective.
   
We get a bit close to Jeff Koons territory here. The show has snark to spare, and, in this case, it is certainly called for. Insipid pop icons like Gwen Stefani are enshrined for being successful at doing bad copies of the acts they have emulated (in her case the Fun Boy Three with Bananarama).

These artificial artifacts seem all too real, hyperreal, really, and manage to present a wonderfully warped mirror for our twisted age.

Artist’s Talk: Wednesday, October 14, 6:30 p.m.
Swarm Gallery, 560 Second Street
 

“ANIMAL, Work by Sunaura Taylor”

Sunaura Taylor, Untitled, 2009, oil paint on photocopied paper

The art business puts a premium on youth and its perceived appeal, which is an odd thing to do because few artists mature early in their careers. Still, as Robert Hughes once said, “More students graduate every year with art degrees in the USA, than lived in Florence at the height of the Renaissance.” In this overheated milieu the role of the critic is required more than ever. Who else, after all, will help sort skillful, compelling, and relevant work from art that that does not meet that is not? It also is our job to help highlight worthy artists.

Sunaura Taylor is another such breakout talent. I first saw her work in a group show one year ago at The Compound Gallery in Oakland and her oil painting in it, “Culled Male Chicks In A Dumpster,” rocked me like good and bad news delivered simultaneously.

It is evocative and literal, depicting the waste and vulgar sacrifice entailed in our daily omelets. I consider where my food comes from a whole lot more now because of that painting. No news story did that for me. Art made me think and stop to consider. That is the power art holds.
   
“Animal,” Ms.Taylor’s current show, “Explores two themes that have preoccupied my art for many years: the oppression of disabled people and the oppression of animals.” Animal rights and disability rights through the eyes of one of the most talented artists working in the Bay today? I’m there.

As the artist says, “The work in this show examines these intersections by exploring various photographic discourses of animals and disabled people, including butcher diagrams, medical photographs and sideshow images. Through painting I explore these photographic histories and the theoretical and social concepts that have evolved with them. With this work I ask controversial and challenging questions about rights, responsibility, independence and what it means to be compared to an animal.” Her work has found beauty and transcendence in the terrible and that is truly something.

The show runs from October 24 - November 28
Rowan Morrison Gallery, 330 40th Street





 

Authors Ishmael Reed and Tennessee Reed (Photo courtesy: Red Room)

Josh Keyes "Evacuation I" (2009) Acrylic on panel 

This last month Oakland had what was perhaps the largest and most diverse gathering of folks for a First Friday Art Murmur ever. It was a beautiful sight. Zach Houston held down as usual on his 23rd Street curbside perch, crafting witty, short improvised poems typewritten live on the spot for fans lined up to buy them for prices too low for me to mention here. He even works in requests – give him a word or two or three and you’ll find a poem built around a theme with every single word included in mere minutes. Across the street, a vendor sold miniature bouquets filling up tiny lab beakers from a bicycle basket for lovers on a budget. Later in the evening, in front of the venerable Mama Buzz Café, a DJ started spinning vintage garage house music, funk, hiphop, and Michael Jackson for a crowd of pulsating, gyrating hipsters, college age mooks, drag kings, a few hippies and even several leather daddies.

Frankly, it was brilliant. I cannot neglect to mention the few rather thuggish looking fellows who completely got on peacefully with their fellow dancers and thoroughly held it down. It was Oakland's elusive promise made manifest, if only for an evening. I saw a culturally diverse society innovating and moving things forward, utilizing the lessons and locales of the past to forge a brighter future. It was a party, and one that often overshadowed the art, but it is sadly all too rare when Oakland can get busy in a truly diverse fashion. How long can such a thing last? Well, at some point in the dance party, things got a little crazy. Someone set a fire in the street, folks dancing in the street started getting hyphy blocking traffic, etc, etc. For a full report on the night, check out my blog post on fecalface.com.



This last Friday, I spoke to local art dealer and Art Murmur member Kimberly Johansson and she told me that the organization, after some consideration, plans to continue the 23rd street closure for the art murmur – albeit with some significant changes. The plans are still being formulated, but it appears that a more “curated” and safer street scene is on the way. If it is anything like the programming that Johansson Projects and Swarm Gallery provided for the recent Uptown Unveiled street festival, then that is a welcome change that I look forward to.

We're in a strong month of shows, including a show curated by Steven Barich and former Oaklander and current rising art star, Josh Keyes. Now on with the art picks for The Month Ahead In Oakland Art.

‘Natural Selection: Josh Keyes and & Vaughn Bell'
Swarm Gallery
560 2nd Street Oakland, CA 94607
swarmgallery.com/
Reception: Friday, August 7, 6 p.m.- 9 p.m.

The best curators and art dealers have a knack for pairing artists that complement each other's strengths while revealing new thematic threads.

Svea Lin Vezzone is one such curator/gallerist highlighting forward-thinking and innovative artists, such as Casey Jex Smith and John Casey, former and current (respectively) resident artists at the Marin Headlands Center For The Arts, evidence. I have also picked, for spotlight shows, many of her past combinations such as last November’s Erik Friedman, Reuben Margolin and Gareth Spor, among others.

This time out, Ms.Vezzone has set Vaughn Bell’s gentle yet somehow earnestly provocative installations of earthen civilization with the work of  internationally popular painter Josh Keyes. Bell aims to satirize the  “…human desire to make the landscape knowable and controllable…” For those of you in the know regarding the work of a certifiable “art star," one-time art teacher, former Oaklander, and now Portland resident Josh Keyes,  I couldn’t think of a better fit. T