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.
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