Art

Carnival of the Cities, March 12 Edition

Something new for us at CatSynth: we are hosting the March 12, 2008 edition of Carnival of Cities. We have been participating recently with our posts on art and photographs from our new neighborhood, so we are happy to be hosting this week.

We start off in our home city, San Francisco, where CalebL presents Use your Useless Knowledge posted at City on a Dime.

Kara Williams presents The Arts in New Orleans – Part I posted at Traveling Mamas, saying, “Beth Blair, DesertMama, wrote this post after she visited New Orleans last week!” I recall enjoying some of the artistic opportunities in New Orleans when I visited in 2006 (a little over a year after Katrina), but I did not see the Ogden museum. Sounds like the atrium is itself worth a visit.

Mary Jo Manzanares presents This Seattle Bar Will Suit You to a Tea posted at The Seattle Traveler, saying, “A hot “cuppa” and free wi-fi, what more could you want?” She makes a good point.

Amanda Milne presents a travelog from Orlando, pretty much everything except for a certain resort with a mouse. Posted at Value For Your Life.

In honor of Tavern Day,Jul presents a little post about drinking in Munich posted at Europe String. “There?s drinking in Munich??

Marsha Takeda-Morrison presents American Idol: Welcome to Hollywood, Dawg! posted at Kango Blog, saying, “You know the part where Randy shouts out, ?Welcome to Hollywood, dawg?? Well they actually do come to Hollywood, believe it or not. So if you’re thinking of coming to L.A. to scope out a live taping, read this first…”

One of the great things about hosting a carnival is finding articles like this next one. Heatheronhertravels presents Graffiti tourism in Bristol posted at Heather on her travels, saying, “Take a look at the street-art explosion that’s happening in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol, UK. Every builder’s hoarding has become an opportunity for artistic expression and the residents and shop-keepers are getting in on the act. You can see the piece by famous Bristol born street artist Banksy too.” Do check it out. The artworks, both on the street and in the galleries, are at least as good as some of what I have seen recently in New York and San Francisco. I would love to check this out, if I ever found myself in Bristol.

Karen Bryan presents Free Berlin walking tours posted at Europe A La Carte Blog. Like Karen, I generally prefer to go at my own pace around a city. And that is what I did when visiting Berlin. However, a guide at specific locations like the Holocaust Memorial (illustrated in the post) would have been good.

Thursday Thirteen meets Carnival of the Cities, as
Amy @ The Q Family presents 13 Things to do in or around Atlanta posted at The Q Family Adventure. Looks like a decent list to keep in mind, especially if you find yourself in Atlanta and get tired of family or your business conference (and admit it, we all do).

Jon Rochetti presents The New Newseum Opens April 11th posted at The DC Traveler ? Washington DC travel & tourism information, saying, “The new 250,000-square-foot, seven-level museum dedicated to news and the press, covers five centuries of news, news history and reporting with up-to-the-second technology and hands-on exhibits.”

Another great find in this weeks carnival. I am a Frank Lloyd Wright fan, but I don’t think I have ever seen one of homes photographed in the snow before.
Machione presents A Good Day To Shoot Frank Lloyd Wright In Canton posted at The Lives and Times… of Anthony McCune, saying, “There aren’t many towns the size of Canton with three Frank Lloyd Wright designed homes.” Of course, Canton, like much of Ohio, has received record snowfall this March. The dark and spare linear forms of Wright’s architecture are a great contrast to the bare trees and snow.

Well, that concludes this edition. If you would like to participate in the the next edition, submit your blog article
using our
carnival submission form.
Past posts and future hosts can be found on our

blog carnival index page.

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A few photos from recent shows

Some photos from our Polly Moller and Company shows earlier this month. The first is from the Luggage Store Gallery:

This was our “trio format”, with myself, Polly and Bill Wolter on guitar.

There is always an art exhibition going on at Luggage Store, something that I generally welcome during music performances, as long as it is not in the way. There was an eclectic mix of works on display that evening (isn't there always?), and I particular liked this piece:

Next, we have a couple of photos from 1510 8th Street in Oakland:

These photos are from Les Hutchins, who played an electronic duo with Matt Davignon in the opening set.

I need a haircut.

Basilico and Eliasson at SFMOMA

It has been an incredibly warm summer-like weekend here in San Francisco, and I took advantage to explore both my neighborhood and the surrounding areas on foot. Today those wanderings included another visit to the SFMOMA (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art).

The featured photography exhibit of Gabriele Basilico was incredibly in turn with my own recent experience in San Francisco, and my interest in highways and industrial landscapes as expressed here on CatSynth. Indeed, it was the perfect exhibition to complement this weekend – it was been incredibly warm and summer-like, and I have been exploring my neighborhood and the surrounding areas on foot. And the title image of the I-80 and US 101 split, shown to the right, is very similar to a photo from Wikipedia that I cut from my recent Super Tuesday article:

The exhibition includes several other photos of San Francisco highways as well as other familiar images from my SOMA neighborhood, and from the towns in Silicon Valley. From the museum’s statement:

This exhibition presents a series of nearly 50 black-and-white and color photographs taken by Basilico at the invitation of SFMOMA during a monthlong residency in the Bay Area last summer…This exhibition will be the first of an ongoing project focused on Silicon Valley, in which artists will document the area on film. Basilico?s objective style and affinity for observing marginalized urban settings in a classical mode promises a compelling counterpoint to future installments in the project.

This of course inspires me to do more of my own work along these lines. I could probably fill Worldess Wednesday for the rest of the year just with photos of the city.

The next exhibition takes us from the amazingly timely to something “out of time.” Indeed, the title of Olafur Eliasson’s “Take Your Time” exhorts us to suspend our sense of time and enter a world purely of color, light and geometry. The tunnel (on SFMOMA’s fifth-floor catwalk) sets the tone for the exhibit, with color planes, plays on light, and complex but analytical geometric figures.

Challenging the passive nature of traditional art-viewing, he engages the observer as an active participant, using tangible elements such as temperature, moisture, aroma, and light to generate physical sensations.

Eliasson’s pieces also include a room entirely of yellow lamps reminiscent of the sodium street lamps used in places like San Jose, a screen of rippling light that responds to viewers’ movements on the floorboards, and a walk-in geometric figure of mirrors. To really get the most out of these works, one has to “suspend time” and explore them in detail, even though they are devoid of what we usually think of as “detail” (and what I usually try to avoid in art and design). Of course, that can be challenging on a crowded Sunday afternoon. But not impossible, if you take your time.

This article is included in the February 13 Carnival of Cities.