Art

William Leavitt, Boyce/Greenlief duo and Karl Evangelista trio

I continue to work through the backlog of art and music reviews by presenting some of the openings and performances I saw on the particularly busy and fun evening of February 19 here in San Francisco. Although the evening included both musical performances and exhibitions of visual art, music was present as a central theme throughout.

First up, we visited Jancar Jones Gallery for the opening of William Leavitt: A Show of Cards. The exhibition featured “over 300 ink drawings on index cards” (though I only counted 248) arranged in three groups on the walls of the gallery.


[William Leavitt, A Show of Cards: Installation View. Photo courtesy of Jancar Jones Gallery. (Click to enlarge.)]

The gallery’s stark white walls presented a great surface for drawings, which were sometimes very sparse and sometimes quite detailed. Many featured musical elements, such as instruments or notes on a staff. There were also mathematical pieces (such as an x-y plot of a sine function), electronic circuit diagrams, architectural drawings, animals and abstract textures.


[Click photos to enlarge.]

It was fun to scan the rows of cards, picking out individual ones for closer inspection and comparison, particular the abstracts and the references to some of my own areas of expertise (e.g., music and electronics). It turns out Leavitt has a long-standing interest in electronic music, and was featured in this article at GetLoFi alongside circuit-bending godfather Reed Ghazala.

William Leavitt, Pyramid Lens Delta. Image courtesy of Jancar Jones Gallery. (Click to enlarge.)

In addition to being works of art in their own right, the cards serve as a source material for chance procedures that Leavitt uses in other works. In particular, a random subset of cards were used to generate a narrative that was incorporated into the text for his play “Pyramid Lens Delta” (the title came from the first three cards in the set). The script for the play was part of the exhibition. The back of the script contained the card set, and glancing through the text one could see where portions of the dialogue seemed to be drawn from the cards, particularly dialogue associated with Ivan, one of the characters in the play.

Leavitt has used chance processes for past works, including a theater piece The Radio which premiered in 2002. This piece includes not only dialogue but also an original score that included musique concrete. I would have liked to have seen this.

After Jancar Jones, we made a brief detour into that ambiguously defined area at the base of Potrero Hill to Project One for The Art of Noise, a visual exhibition coincident with the Noise Pop Festival. It featured large artistically altered portraits of well known musicians, as well as some installations, such Ted Riederer’s piece featuring drums covered in rose petals.

We finally ended up in the Mission District, and after a brief stop for tacos arrived at Bluesix for a pair of musical performances.

The saxophone duo of David Boyce and Phillip Greenlief. As noted in previous reviews, Greenlief’s virtuosic saxophone performances cover a wide variety of instrumental techniques. The duo weaved effortlessly between idiomatic jazz riffs and more free-form sections featuring multiphonics, noise production and vocals. The change between sections was both sudden and subtle; I was immersed in a jazz riff with long up-and-down lines or rhythmic patterns and only later would realize that we had moved to a more non-tonal (i.e., “noisy”) and arhythmic section. They demonstrate that these modes of music making need not be at odds (as they are sometimes portrayed on musician discussion lists) and can be part of a single piece of music. The performance did, however, inspire a short discussion with a friend about what is “experimental music” and why the performances this evening did or did not qualify as “experimental”.

Boyce and Greenlief were followed by the Karl Evangelista Spaceman Explorer Trio, featuring Karl Evangelista on guitar, Cory Wright on baritone sax, and Jordan Glenn on drums. Evangelista in his various groups blends jazz traditions with elements of late-20th-century experimental music. This of course led back to the question of whether or not this performance was “experimental”, particularly given strong jazz foundations on the pieces that we heard. The trio opened with loud driving rhythms and Evangelista and Wright trading long fast melodic runs. The piece “Hurdles” on Evangelista’s MySpace is quite representative. Another piece a somewhat slower groove with strong quarter notes (one might say a little bit “funkier”, more 1970s). Within this context, the melodies, riffs and one-off notes were often atonal, which helps to keep things moving forward. Overall, it was a fast-paced and virtuosic performance.

Anthony Discenza: Everything Will Probably Turn Out OK

With the month-long string of performances mostly behind me, I am trying to work my way through my backlog of reviews. Today we at CatSynth present a recent exhibition by artist Anthony Discenza at Catherine Clark Gallery entitled Everything Will probably Work Out OK. That phrase has become a bit of a mantra since the exhibit, and I keep the original card on my desk, reminding myself as I work on my music or other projects that “everything will probably work out ok.” It might not, but it probably will.  Additionally, the card, with simple black lettering on a white background, appeals to my interest in text-based art – indeed, the relationship between text and image was a central theme of the exhibition.

I particularly liked his series of “street signs”, which featured cryptic and humorous messages in the familiar rectangular shape and sans-serif type of signs used in American cities.

[Anthony Discenza, KITTENS and DIRTIER, 2009.  Photographs courtesy of Catherine Clark Gallery.  Click to enlarge.]

In addition to the gallery presentation, several of the signs were posted on streets (prior to the exhibition). In the example presented here, A LAPSE INTO THE ROMANTIC, one can see how the signs really fit the part in terms of scale, design, layout and type.

[Anthony Discenza, Lapse into the Romantic, 2007.  Photo courtesy of Catherine Clark Gallery.  Click to enlarge.]

With just a peripheral glance one could easily assume this is just another sign explaining some parking or traffic rule. A selection of the street signs were also featured in the exhibition catalogue.

Another prominent series featured plays on the “Hollywood elevator pitch”, where someone attempts to summarize their idea as “A meets B”. In Sometimes a Great Notion (Part 1). Discenza presents a wall of absurd pairings drawing from pop culture, literature, history and other sources.  Examples include “It’s M.C. Escher meets Z. Z. Top”, “It’s Le Corbusier meets Chuck Norris”, “It’s Star Trek: The Next Generation meets The Indigo Girls”, and “It’s Twitter meets SARS”. You can see a full version of the text from the piece here. He also has some extended chains as light boxes:

[Anthony Discenza, Teaser #1, 2009. Photo courtesy of Catherine Clark Gallery. Click to enlarge.]

In addition to the visual pieces, there was also an audio installation Untitled (The Effect). In a dark room with low lighting, a disembodied female voice narrates a text describing visuals or instructions that seem disjoint but also seem to flow naturally. The text is based on fragments gathered by searching for a specific phrase on Google.

Although this quote from the press release seems to most describe the audio work, it could easily apply to the visual text-based pieces as well:

I’m very interested in text—in part because I’ve always drawn so much inspiration from literature—and specifically for the way that text can act as a kind of score, enticing the mind to construct things that don’t exist anywhere else. I’m curious about that peculiar fluidity of something experienced primarily in the imagination, and I’m fascinated by the way a small fragment of something—maybe only a few sentences, or even just a phrase—can, under the right conditions, conjure an entire narrative.

Discenza is also known for his past work which features meticulously edited and constructed video work. The exhibition does include one piece Charlton Heston: The Future Has Already Been Written in which he intersperses several Charlton Heston films on a frame-by-frame basis. It takes a moment to get used to seeing the rapidly changing images, but once one’s eyes and brain adjust, scenes and transitions become clearer (and I quickly recognized Planet of the Apes).

Preparing for Thursday’s performance: Luna’s video

Over the last few days, I have largely been absorbed by preparations for my next performance. This one includes a more ambitious element, a 10-minute video entitled 月神1 featuring clips of Luna as well as abstract elements reminiscent of experimental filmmakers such as Stanley Brakhage or Gerhard Richter. The video will serve as a backdrop for live electronic improvisation – it is mostly silent, though I did include some sound at various points so the audience could hear Luna’s voice.

Here are a few example frames from the video:



Some of the video clips of Luna were featured here on CatSynth in the past, including her chattering video, or playing with her blue fish toy. The abstract elements were done is a software package called Processing, a programming language for images, animation and interactions.

Musically, I will plan to focus on a mixture of the Evolver and the Octave CAT synthesizers, along with software on the iPhone and laptop. Indeed, this is the first time I will be using the CAT live, mostly because I am reluctant to move it too often.

Of course, this will only cover about one third of the full performance, so I will be drawing from my repertoire of electroacoustic improvisation to round out the remainder of the time. Although I reuse elements, there is always something new to discover in them.

For those in the Bay Area who may be interested in checking it out, the full information is below:

Full Moon Concert Series: Quickening Moon
Thursday, February 25, 8PM
Luggage Store Gallery, 1007 Market Street @ 6th Street, San Francisco.

The Full Moon Concert Series is an experimental music series offered by Outsound Presents, in partnership with the Luggage Store Gallery. Each concert explores the traditional lore of the Full Moon, and in January, the second annual “Quickening Moon” will feature new music springing to life. First up will be Amar Chaudhary in a solo electronica set (collaborating with his wonder-cat, Luna), followed by the world premiere of a new work for twelve improvisers by Polly Moller, entitled Genesis.

Joshua Lutz Meadowlands, and First Thursday SF

Initially, I had not planned to attend First Thursday this month, given all the music shows and such. But at the last minute I decided to venture out on a very rainy evening and found some surprises.

First, I visted Robert Koch Gallery, where I have found several interesting photography exhibitions over the past year. This month they were featuring the Meadowlands series by photographer Joshua Lutz.

The Meadowlands is a sprawling area of marsh and landfill in northern New Jersey, just across the Hudson River from New York City. Growing up in New York, it was a place I passed by countless times on the New Jersey Turnpike, but really did not know. This is an experience that many New Yorkers have had with the Meadowlands, including Lutz. His photographs are part of a decade-long project that features both the natural and artificial landscape of the area (and how the two are irrevocably intertwined) as well as portraits of its residents.


[Photos by Joshua Lutz, provided courtesy of Robert Koch Gallery. Click to enlarge.]

The are the highway structures over the marsh, familiar to the “drive by” experience, but also small-town storefronts and businesses, and portraits of individuals. These people and places are only a few miles from New York City but are a completely different world. And as Lutz points out, it is relatively challenging to get into and out of the Meadowlands from the highways, and easy to get lost inside. (I have my own experience taking wrong turns off the roads near the George Washington Bridge and having a hard time finding a way to get back on). One photograph I picked up on featured an older Indian man sitting among some plants near a truck stop, which was an interesting mix of subject, and seemed at once posed and spontaneous. Some of the places seem quite natural, with streams and trees, but there is always something from the human world that intervenes, a highway in the background, train tracks, the remains of a car, etc. Many of these images are reminiscent of decaying urban (and suburban) landscapes that tend to get my attention when I travel on my own. Lutz has turned his similar interest to other locations beyond the Meadowlands, and the exhibition also featured several photographs from his recent series Am✡Dam. You can see more examples at his or the gallery’s exhibitions page.

As a side note, we realized that we both grew up in the same town just north of New York City at about the same time. Small world indeed!

James Castle. Courtesy of Gallery Paule Anglim

Across the street at Gallery Paule Anglim, I saw their exhibition of the work of James Castle. Castle was born deaf, never learned signing or lip reading, and apparently lived a very quiet and somewhat isolated life in a rural homestead near Boise, Idaho. He created unique works on small found objects and materials, such as bits of paper, matchboxes, and soot. Many of the pieces include both drawings and text, as in Unititled (3 Z $). The content, text and small images reminiscent of icons, feels very contemporary, although the materials and the texture of the work give it a more aged feel.

Jack Fischer Gallery featured Josedgardo Granados’ incredibly intricate drawings. Although one can see many examples on his website, it is really impossible to see the detail except in real life. Even at full scale, one needed a magnifying glass (conveniently provided by the gallery) to see the individual lines of the drawings, which placed natural and sci-fi elements against detailed skies and landscapes.

Mark Wolfe Contemporary Art presented “State of the Union”, a group exhibition in which artists presented images and interpretations on “events of the present and recent past at home and abroad.” Francesca Berrini’s maps of imaginary places, including Tributary and Lazy River, are created from torn maps of existing places – I was able to pick out some locations in North Africa and the Middle East.
Alessandro Busci’s Rosso is an image in red featuring construction cranes over what appears to be a ruined landscape.

The (now closed) exhibition Five Year Plan at Steven Wolf Fine Arts included large representation of a crossword puzzle by Kent and Kevin Young that caught my attention. The clues are missing, which of course makes the puzzle all but impossible to fill out.

SF Thomassons Performance Tour

Two Saturdays ago, I attended the SF Thomassons Performance Tour, a collaboration by Kearny Street Workshop and Kaya Press that paired live performance art and installations with examples of hyperart, otherwise known as Thomassons, around San Francisco.

The tour was inspired by the book HYPERART: THOMASSON by Japanese conceptual artist and writer Akasegawa Genpei. Genpei and his colleagues began discovering instances of architecture, structures and objects that exist (or persist) outside of the original intended function, such as an inaccessible door leading out of an upper floor of a building, or a staircase leading to nowhere. Gempei named these objects “Thomassons” after the baseball player Gary Thomasson (incidentally, a member of the 1978 World Champion New York Yankees). Thomasson was recruited by the Yamamuri Giants and apparently paid quite well, despite the fact that during his tenure his bat almost never made contact with a ball. In addition to publishing an English translation of the Genpei’s book, Kaya Press maintains a Thomasson website that allows people to upload examples from around the world. We at CatSynth have actually presented several Thomassons in our Wordless Wednesday photographic series, including these stairs leading into the San Francisco Bay.

Our tour started at the Mint Mall in SOMA (South of Market). In the men’s bathroom in the basement, we were introduced to our first Thomasson: a small door in the wall of one of the stalls.

[click to enlarge]

The door purportedly opens to nothing, and contains nothing. Of course, we had to open it to make sure. It turns out that the door was not quite empty after all, and actually contained artist (and model-turned-actress) Philip Huang, who emerged bearing sake and assuming his role as host for the remainder of the tour.

We then boarded the official tour bus and proceeded to our next stop, the 3rd Street drawbridge (not far from AT&T Park), for a performance of a “living sculpture orchestra” by artist Anthem Selgado. In this piece, the familiar boxes for dispensing weekly newspapers become the members of a classical string quartet.

[click to enlarge]

The 3rd Street drawbridge crosses Mission Creek, you can see some previous photos from nearby sections of the creek here and here.

Our next stop was along 16th Street in Mission Bay (near the new UCSF campus), where a series of rusting pipes rise from the sidewalk. A sculpture and performance, again by Anthem Selgado, consisted of large balloons tied to the pipes.

[click to enlarge]

One set of balloons was attached to an old tape recorder with clips from the infamous “Balloon Boy” incident. The balloons (along with the Balloon Boy and family) were set aloft and last seen drifting towards the Pacific.

En route to the next stop, Philip taught us the Korean rabbit song “San toki toki…” complete with choreography.

We next found ourselves in a warehouse-heavy section of the Dogpatch neighborhood (not far from Pier 70), standing outside a loading dock that really no longer is a loading dock, given that it is completely blocked by plywood. This site served as stage for a dance/movement performance by Christina Miglino and Adderly Bigelow.

Although the piece contained moments of bold movement, I particularly liked this moment of stasis, with both dancers balancing against the former loading dock. With their pose and dress, they seemed to become architectural elements of the site itself.

We then moved on to what was advertised as “the largest Thomasson in San Francisco”, the former St. Joseph’s Church at the corner of Howard and 10th streets in SOMA. The church building has been vacant and closed for quite some time, although the gardens are still tended. Whether or not an entire building can count as a Thomasson was a subject of some discussion on the bus. Nonetheless, the next performance was in an alley behind the church grounds, and featured Rob Trinidad as a priest inviting the audience to confess their sins.

Our final stop was in the Mission, at the site of some large unused beams jutting out from the back of a warehouse – actually, this was the back side of the building complex housing Cellspace.

Kennedy Kabasares, an aerial artist specializing in static trapeze made good use of these beams with his impressive aerial choreography and gymnastics.

[click to enlarge]

Although the tour officially ended at this point, there was one more “bonus” stop that took us across the city to Crissy Field in the Marina District, not far from the Golden Gate Bridge. Here we found ourselves in the midst of a large pro-life rally and were treated to an impromptu performance of Philip “testifying”. You can see the full video here, or in the clip below. Incidentally, I think that is probably me shouting “l’chaim” at the end of the video.

Our actual destination was the Wave Organ, a sculpture along the waterfront where the action of the wave interacts with a series of pipes to produce very musical sounds. Although the pipes and architecture of the Wave Organ suggest a splendid ruin, this is a fully functional piece of architecture and thus is not technically a Thomasson. But it did make for a nice coda to the afternoon. Look for an image of the Wave Organ to be featured in our upcoming Wordless Wednesday photo.

Weekend Cat Blogging: Roll

Luna obliged with some cuteness for this photo series. She really is a fantastic photography model, when she chooses to be.

Weekend Cat Blogging #243 is hosted this week by Jules and Vincent at Judi’s Mind Over Matter.

The Carnival of the Cats will be hosted on Sunday at Kashim, Othello and Salome.

And of course the Friday Ark is at the modulator.