San Francisco

Solo Electronic Set and Johnston-Nelson-Wright Trio at Luggage Store Gallery, September 16

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Today we look back at my solo performance at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco two weeks ago. This was part of the regular Outsound music series every Thursday, and on this night featured two very contrasting sets: my solo electronic work, and then an acoustic horn trio.

We being with a view of the setup:

My solo rig has slowly turned into a table from an Apple store, with an iPhone, iPad, and MacBook all in use. At the same time, I continue to blend old and new technology with the presence of the traditional Indian instruments, such as the ektar and gopichand, and Chinese instruments. I set up the monomer to mostly face the audience and provide interesting displays on the grid, unless I specifically needed to interact with it.

[Click image to enlarge]

From my perspective, as well as a couple of people I talked to in the audience, the most successful piece was the new string-centric piece that combined the guzheng model on the iPad with live sampling of the ektar and gopichand. This piece mixed traditional instruments of two cultures with advanced technology. In addition to the iPad, this piece used the mlr application with the monome for sample playback and looping. Most importantly, however, was how it came together musically with the harmonies and timbres of the instruments standing on their own to create a meditative soundscape.

The other piece that worked well was my update of the meditation with prayer bowl and DSI evolver, which also incorporated the Smule Ocarina on the iPhone. I used the feedback technique again where the iPhone is placed in front of a speaker and starts to play itself. Here is a video excerpt:

Overall, it was a good performance and provided an opportunity to try out new things. It was nowhere near as tight and polished as my set at the Quickening Moon Concert back in February, though (or as well attended).

I was followed on the program by the horn trio of Darren Johnston, Matt Nelson, and Cory Wright. Their improvised music moved back and forth freely between rhythmic avant-garde jazz, long drones and all-out skronking.

Although it was a completely different instrumentation and format, there were a few similarities between the trio and my set, particularly towards the beginning. The opened with a series of complex rhythms with pauses and odd time relations that reminded me a bit of the piece I did with the monome+mlr. Every so often, the rhythms came together into a uniform pattern and then into long notes that formed perfect intervals or occasional consonances with thirds. Then the drone broke apart. On the opposite end, there were noise elements, especially on the trumpet and more atonal harmonies. At one point, the sound was reduced to very soft breath noises, followed by a swell with staccato notes and warbles, getting ever busier and louder.

The next segment began with solo muted trumpet. While listening, I was thinking how muted trumpet always sounds “jazzy” no matter the style of music being played. The jazz feel was sustained as the other performers came in, building a texture that was both elaborate and nostalgic. The jazz feel gave way to more percussive sounds, such as rubbing the headjoint of the soxophone on the body of the instruments. The mutes themselves became percussion instruments, as did a beer bottle. The percussion sounds were loud and resonant, set against clarinet and saxophone headjoint.

The final piece opened with a nice strong baritone saxophone solo. At the same time, the other performers began dropping and throwing objects on the ground. Then everyone came in again on horns with fast and loud notes. The saxophone in particular kept the percussive quality going.

It was a short set, but overall quite good and kept my attention throughout.

2010 San Francisco Electronic Music Festival

A few weeks ago I attended two performances at the San Francisco Electronic Music Festival. I did live tweets at the time, and now present a more detailed and reflective account.

The performances took place at the Brava Theater in the Mission District. There was also a satellite event at the de Young Museum which unfortunately I was not able to attend.

The festival opened with a piece by Benjamin Bracken. The stage was set with a series of guitars each facing its own amplifier. The guitars were excited (i.e., made to resonate) by “a process of using feedback of specific sets of harmonic partials.”

[Benjamin Bracken. Piece for Unplayed Guitars.]

The piece began with a low rumble and drones. The sound grew denser, sometimes forming a minor harmony, and other times distinct beating patterns were audible between the long tones. Later on, the drones became higher in pitch and more “anxious” sounding and were mixed with other sounds, including something that sounded like metal objects being rubbed against one another, or bowed strings. The sound gradually became louder and more all encompassing, sometimes resolving back into a single harmony or pitch, and sometimes into a series of perfect intervals, along with some more more metallic and bowed sounds.

[John Chowning.  Photo by Michael Zelner.  (Click to enlarge)]

Bracken was immediately followed by John Chowning, who came out to talk to the audience before his set began. Many readers are undoubtedly familiar with Chowning as a pioneer in sound synthesis,and his invention of modern FM synthesis. But Chowning is also an accomplished composer and his pieces are quite beautiful. Turenas made extensive use of both FM synthesis and his early work moving sound sources in 360-degree sound space. Indeed the piece seemed to be composed of tiny particles of sound that seemed both natural and synthetic at the same time, and which were moving very strongly around in space.

[John Chowning’s stria.  Photo by Michael Zelner.  (Click to enlarge)]

Chowning’s second piece stria was originally composed and presented in 1977 at IRCAM in Paris. It is based on the golden ratio, which plays a strong role in mathematics, visual art and also how we perceive narrative in music as well as storytelling. Chowning took this a step further by basing the ratios of frequencies in the sounds themselves on the golden ratio, and using a 13-note scale to express the resulting timbres. While this results in sounds that seem inharmonic (or “clangorous” as the program notes describe it), it also provides a certain order to the piece. The music was accompanied by a visual that should the spectral composition of the piece, as well as the golden section in the temporal development (bringing it back to its traditional application in narrative.)

[Maureen Chowning in Voices v.2. Photo by Michael Zelner. (Click to enlarge)]

The third piece was a more recent composition Voices v.2, and featured soprano Maureen Chowning on voice. Pitches from her voice were tracked by a program written in Max/MSP and used to control FM synthesized sounds that are then remixer the voice and spatialized into the auditorium.

As Maureen Chowning was singing the piece, the Max/MSP program plus the score were projected onto the screen behind her, where the audience could see the efforts of John Chowning cajoling the program into behaving itself in real time.

The final set featured another pioneer in synthesis, Don Buchla, who continues to mahis Buchla analog synthesizers to this day. He was joined by Alessandro Cortini (aka “blindoldfreak”), who may be familiar to readers for his sonoio project.

[Don Buchla and Alessandro Cortini.  Photos by Michael Zelner.  (Click to enlarge)]

They began the set with a piece for “dueling Buchlas” by Cortini entitled Everything Ends Here. It opened with low notes and filtered analog drones, followed by sounds that were more windy and wispy before becoming more defined. There was a pattern with suspending major harmonies, then loud noises, moments of massive distortion, and then very low “sub bass” tones.

The next piece, Buchla’s En Plein Vol began as a standard piece for percussionist (Joel Davel) with a marimba, cymbals, temple blocks, gongs and other conventional instruments. At some point during the performance, Cortini wandered onto the stage. He lingered nearby, and then very conspicuously walked off with one of the temple blocks. He and Nannick Bonnel continued to come by and remove instruments. However, as each item was pilfered, Davel continued to play the same sound in the empty space, as if it was still there. This trick was likely accomplished by using synthesized sounds controlled by a Buchla Lightning. The piece continued in comical fashion until all the instruments and eventually the performer himself were removed from the stage.

Buchla and Cortini returned to the stage in full Carnaval attire. Buchla set in motion a pattern with a frantic jumping rhythm and an out-of-tune sequence of soft analog waves. Gradually, the music became more percussive and rhythmic, and on the screen were scenes of Carnaval percussionists. A parade of masked performers began to descend into the theater from the back, often stopping to “play” with the audience (I’m pretty certain it was Gino Robair who had a little fun with me as I attempted to “live tweet” what was unfolding). The music became a combination of synthetic drumming sounds, whistles and noisemakers. After a few rounds that did truly resemble a mini Carnaval parade, the performers ascended to the stage and formed a large semi-circle for the final piece Parabolic Trajectories.

The performers all donned large comical sunglasses – which did elicit a bit of laughter from the audience. Buchla then started up the main instrument for this piece, an old fashioned popcorn maker. As the performance drew to a close, randomized percussive sound (and mildly burnt odor) of the popcorn filled the theater.

I also attended the Saturday performance, this time as a volunteer usher. In between my ushering duties (which mostly consisted of holding a really cool flashlight and occasionally asking someone not to bring their food or drink into the theater), I was able to see and hear the full show.

Joseph Hammer opened the program with Road Less Traveled, An improvisation-based composition featuring sound loops and other found sonic material. The intention was to build in a senepse motion and narrative with the changing sound palette, a “journey with uncertainty as thr goal.” Musically, the loops at the beginning were more folk-rock samples (which in a tweet I suggested required the medical gloves that Hammer was wearing.) Over time, the source material incorporated more funk and classic R&B, which worked better for me.

Stephan Mathieu performed an extended version of Alvin Lucier’s Music with Magnetic Strings, in which the strings of an Ottavino Virginal, a small Renaissance clavier, were set into vibration by five electromagnets. The result was a sound image that was at once very Tarkington and simple, but also full of complex details such as beating patterns between sustained tones. There were also plucked strong sounds (at least as far I was able to discern) and also an ebow placed on top of the strings at one point in the piece. The very minimal structure and sound of this set may have been a challenge for some listeners. For me, I think I was in just the right mood to be receptive to something like this where I could completely defocus.

The final performance of the evening and of the festival was by Caroliner Rainbow.  The group describes itself as “an Industrial Bluegrass/Experimental/Noise conceptual art Costume Rock band.”  I am still not entirely sure what “industral bluegrass” is, but the aural and visual experience is certainly unique.  The first thing one notices is the large and elaborate stage set.

[Caroliner Rainbow]

The colors, shapes and textures seemed to be somewhere between psychedelic and urban graffiti, with bright fluorescent hues. For some of the performers, it was challenging to tell where the set ended and the costumes began, until one saw the performers’ motions, which ranged from standard performance gestures (e.g., guitars, drums) to odd back-and-forth rocking. The performers and stage did seem to function as a single entity.

Musically, the performance was something between noise and experimental punk rock, with big flourishes of piano, organ, drums, guitar and electronic noises. These seemed to come in bursts rather than as a single long phrase. Some friends of mine had seen them perform years ago, with one of the more memorable moments between a squeaking fiddle – this was present in this performance in between some of the other sounds and gestures.

After the festival concluded, there was still the challenge of dismantling such a large set. We close with a few of the staff and volunteers getting started:

[Post SFEMF.  (Click image to enlarge)]

New Topographics, SFMOMA

If one were to construct a photography exhibition for me to attend, it might look something like New Topographics at SFMOMA. Indeed, “construction” is an apt term, as most of the photos explore the human alterations to the natural landscape, particularly in the western United States but in other locations as well. Yet, the natural landscape does continue to play a central role in the environments and in the images. It shapes how the human-made structures are constructed and arranged, and how they decay. The exhibition was originally presented in at the Eastman House in Rochester, New York in 1975.

“A turning point in the history of photography, the 1975 exhibition New Topographics signaled a radical shift away from traditional depictions of landscape. Pictures of transcendent natural vistas gave way to unromanticized views of stark industrial landscapes, suburban sprawl, and everyday scenes not usually given a second glance. This restaging of the exhibition includes the work of all 10 photographers from the original show: Robert Adams, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Joe Deal, Frank Gohlke, Nicholas Nixon, John Schott, Stephen Shore, and Henry Wessel.”

It is hard to imagine that such a portrayal of landscape was new to art photography at the time. The ideas and subjects in much of the contemporary photography that commands my attention, as well as my own photographs that often appear on this site for Wordless Wednesday. But it was certainly a sharp contrast to the traditional views of landscape in photographs, especially view of the American West, which tended to be not just natural but a romanticized form of nature. One only need step beyond the exhibition to SFMOMA’s main photography collection to see the changing views of landscape and romantic imagery.

The desert tends to be my favorite natural landscape (along with the coast), and is prominently featured in many of photographs. It has a stark beauty, but it also acts as a vessel for human artifacts. Set in the desert landscape, one can linger on the contrasts and similarities between artificial and natural. The straight lines and simple textures don’t get lost in the landscape, and are in fact amplified by it. In Joe Deal’s Untitled View (Boulder City), the roads, buildings and the trailer are partially obscured by natural elements. In a sense, they are distilled down to the lines , which are emphasized by the wires and shadows that traverse the image. At the same time, the natural landscape also seems to follow the straight lines, and in turn the soft undulations of the terrain and reflected in shallow peaks of the partially hidden houses.

[Joe Deal (American, b. 1947), Untitled View (Boulder City), 1974, George Eastman House collections. © Joe Deal.]

The lines (no pun intended) between the natural and artificial aspects of the landscape are further blurred in Frank Gohlke’s Irrigation Canal, Abuquerque, New Mexico. Here we see a completely artificial environment, the concrete-sided canal with vegetation establishing itself at the edges of the water.

[Frank Gohlke (American, b. 1942), Irrigation Canal, Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1974, George Eastman House collections. © Frank Gohlke.]

At first glance, the mud and vegetation seem to mar the otherwise smooth and clean surface of the canal. But in reality, they are part of the environment, and thus part of the image as well. One could say the same thing about the reverse situation in Deal’s photograph, where the human-made elements have become part of the natural landscape.

Lewis Baltz takes the theme of straight lines to its aesthetic extreme in both the artificial and natural aspects of the environment. His images feature perfectly rectangular buildings set against the flat landscape in Orange County, California.

[Lewis Baltz (American, b. 1945), Jamboree Road Between Beckman and Richter Avenues, Looking Northwest, George Eastman House collections. © Lewis Baltz.]

Some of Baltz’s other photographs feature facades of rectangular commercial buildings either straight on or at angles. Close-up and with less context from the landscape, they begin to feel more abstract. This is particularly true of East Wall, McGraw Laboratories with its extremely high contrast black and white rectangles. In South Wall, Mazda Motors, 2121 East Main Street, Irvine, the landscape is seen only in the reflection of a window, once again a rectangle inside another.

The sharp contrast and combination of architecture, landscape and abstraction made Baltz’s pieces among my favorite in the exhibition. Similarly, my attention was also drawn to the work of Bernd and Hilla Becher. Their photographs featured industrial and mining buildings in Pennsylvania. Some of the buildings were in states of disrepair, such as Loomis coal Breaker/Wiles Barre, Pennsylvania (1974), or even seemed on the verge of collapse as in the image below:

[Bernd and Hilla Becher (German, 1931-2007 and b. 1934), Pit Head, Bear Valley, Pennsylvania, 1974
© Hilla Becher, 2009.]

The structure seems to melt back into the natural environment, and at the same time provides a series of straight (albeit somewhat distorted) lines and geometric shapes. Once again, the high contrast of the image allows one to focus on the abstract elements without completely losing the context that it is a building on a hillside. It would be easy to dismiss these photographs (and indeed many in the exhibition) as social commentary or socially-inspired art, but they have detached quality and the emphasis is on the visuals details – in particular those details that I look for in when viewing and evaluating modern art. The Bechers’ images in particular have a sculptural quality, something that comes out even more directly in their book Anonyme Sculpturen.

Nicholas Nixon (American, b. 1947), Buildings on Tremont Street, Boston, 1975; George Eastman House collections; © Nicholas Nixon

Nicholas Nixon’s work stands apart from the others in the exhibition in that depicts urban landscapes from Boston and Cambridge. His Buildings on Tremont Street, Boston depicts a classic 20th century vertical city image of tall and densely packed but quite detailed buildings. Nixon’s image Boston City Hall, Covernment Center Square and Faneuil Hall provides another type of contrast in the landscape that is particular to cities, a tension between modern and traditional architecture. Set against a backdrop of larger buildings, one see a popular older landmark contrasted with the modernist and rather controversial Boston City Hall. It’s a building I actually quite like visually, and it brings us back the rectangular shapes in Baltz’s southern California images.

I conclude with this quote from the exhibition catalog – a rather extensive volume that includes not only the images but a detailed discussion as well as a reproduction of the original catalog – that I find illuminating in thinking about the work of these artists as well as my own photographic interests:

Photography based on attraction to, even love of, the subject while neither revealing that motivation nor imposing it on viewers – it may confuse viewers accustomed to being seduced or sermonized. Adding another degree of complexity is the likelihood that the attraction and love were likely not pure, but instead joined to anxiety and repulsion. Reconciling these opposing forces was an exercise undertaken by each of the New Topographics photographers in different ways.

[New Topographics, copublished by Steidl Publishers and Center for Creative Photography in cooperation with George Eastman House, page 18.]

The exhibition will be on display at SFMOMA through October 3.

[All images used in this article were provided courtesy of San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Individual copyrights displayed in captions.]

Angela Oswald, Hilla Heuber, Valerie Scott at SoCha Cafe

A few weeks ago I attended a group opening at SoCha Cafe. It is in the far southern end of the Mission District in San Francisco (or at the edge of Bernal Heights). I usually don’t find myself in this area unless I am on the short San Jose Avenue Freeway, but that’s a topic for another time.

One of the artists whose work I specifically came to see was Angela Oswald.

[Angela Oswald. (click image to enlarge)]

Her paintings have a surreal quality, organic but other-worldly. She also tends to use dark colors with a few light elements, a palette that was quite apparent in her pieces in this show. The painting in the image above also evoked an underwater landscape. These themes can be seen in her other work as well.

I was immediately drawn to two very geometric architectural-themed paintings by Hilla Hueber.

[Hilla Heuber. Blue Moon (2008).  (click image to enlarge)]

I like the clean straight lines of the images, and how they evoke structures and spaces within an imagined city. There are small details beyond the abstract shapes, like the standpipe in Blue Moon that add the sense of an urban setting. At the same time, she uses the color and geometry to play with our sense of space – they seem to be simultaneously interior and exterior views. (Indeed, the title “Inside Out” suggests that this ambiguity is deliberate.)

[Hilla Heuber. Inside Out (2008).  (click image to enlarge)]

Although not included in this show, Hueber also does photography. I liked her “remixes” of Richard Serra’s sculpture in Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park as well as her images of the photogenic Contemporary Jewish Museum here in San Francisco.

I was also introduced to Valerie Scott, who presented several large-scale paintings in the front room of the cafe. Her paintings were very abstract but intended to convey her “joy, depression and sorrow”.

[Valerie Scott. Untitled.  (Click image to enlarge)]

Her largest piece Untitled featured amorphous areas of primary colors (red, blue and yellow) with fuzzy edges. Although it appears vertically online, it was hung horizontally at the show. By contrast, Can’t See the Forest For The Trees focused on shades of green and more minimal gestures.

[Valerie Scott. Can’t See the Forest for the Trees.  (Click image to enlarge)]

Although the shapes were more sparse, the painting itself had a strong texture. It looked a bit like an areal view of a landscape. Some of Scott’s newer pieces (such as Mo and Blowin’ in the Wind, which I don’t think were part of the show) are quite different, and have much more defined shapes and sharper contrast.

Transbay Terminal overpass demolition

I often walk by the overpasses that connect (or once connected) to the soon-to-be-defunct Transbay Terminal here in San Francisco, including the Fremont Street “bridge to nowhere” and the curving elevated road over Howard Street. Both have been featured in Wordless Wednesday photos on CatSynth the posts Fremont Street Overpass and Shine.

[Click the above images to visit the original posts.]

The bridge to nowhere used to connect the Fremont Street exit off of I-80 to the Transbay Terminal. The Fremont Street ramp, which included the last remaining pieces of the Embarcadero Freeway, was truncated and left this bridge hanging. It was a particular favorite “architectural feature” of mine in the city, and in fact qualified as a “Thomasson” or hyper art structure in that was present and maintained but served no purpose.

The elevated road over Howard Street continued to function as a bus entrance to the terminal.

This past week both structures were demolished, as part of the project to replace the entire Transbay Terminal with a new modern transit center. Thanks to a tip from a close friend, I went to shoot some photos of the demolition in progress.

The Fremont Street bridge is completely orphaned on both sides. Only the single arch remained.

In the second photo, one can see the “Buses Only” ramp that temporarily replaced the bridge. That ramp was completely gone already.

The Howard Street overpass was being dismantled in pieces.

One could see the metal skeleton amidst the remaining concrete sections.

Here is a short video of the Howard Street overpass demolition in progress:

By Monday, the Fremont Street overpass was completely gone. And Howard Street structure will be gone soon as well. It is sad to so them go. For me, they were landmarks, part of the architectural landscape of the neighborhood. However, in a city where people get upset easily about architectural changes and preserving landmarks, these seem to have gone largely unremarked upon. I am glad I got a chance to see the demolition and take photos before they were gone. Indeed, some of the images can be quite beautiful in their own way. There is something about aging and decaying urban infrastructure, even when it is being reduced to a pile of concrete rubble and twisted rebar. But I would have rather seen it preserved – I wonder if San Francisco can ever do anything as creative with its old infrastructure as New York did with the High Line.

I may post more images in the near future.

Four Squared, Arc Studios

A couple of weeks ago I visited the Four Squared exhibition at Arc Studios and Gallery – I attended the opening and also visited again later when it was quiet. I present some of my thoughts and observations before the exhibition closes tomorrow, September 18.

The basic idea of the exhibition is that each artist contributes 16 pieces, no larger than 10 inches apiece, that can arranged in a four-by-four grid. The pieces stand on their own as individuals or as a whole, but in each case they 4×4 collection follows some coherent theme. Keeping the numerical theme going, there were a total of 16 artists, so there were a total of 256 (4 x 4 x 4 x 4) pieces in the exhibition.

There were artists whose work I was already familiar with, such as Silvia Poloto, Kristina Quinones and Rebecca Fox, and others who I discovered for the first time. Among the discoveries was Sidnea D’Amico:

[Sidnea D’Amico, installation view.]

Her pieces feature high contrast color and iconic elements representing household items, female figures and firsts.  Keep Out, Private, which its geometric and urban feel, particularly caught my attention, as did Still Life 4 for its simple shapes and color.

[Sidnea D’Amico. Keep Out, Private and Still Life 4 (2010)]

The pieces among D’Amico’s set that I particularly liked shared a sense of color and contrast with the purely abstract pieces by Silvia Poloto, whose work I have followed for many years.

[Silvia Poloto. Abstraction in Motion series (2010). Installation view.]

Hers were among the smallest in the exhibition, each one a miniature version of the elements that appear in her larger works such as concentric circles, soft-edged color fields, and tangled lines. The were very inviting, and I had to resist the desire to simply take one and put it my pocket. I doubt I would be invited to any more art openings if I did that.

Rebecca Fox is another artist who usually works on a larger scale. Her large metal sculptures have both a strength and simplicity, with the geometric shapes and smooth textures. Like Poloto, she has brought the quality of her full-scale works to these miniature panels:

[Rebecca Fox.  Installation view]

Each panel focuses on shapes that are round but not perfectly circular – both organic in terms of curved shapes but also mechanical in terms of the metalwork.

Molly Meng’s work in the exhibition is about as contrasting to the previous artists as one can get. Her mixed media panels feature found objects with a weathered quality, placing intimate personal objects, photographs and clips from newspapers and magazines, inside of weathered wooden boxes:

[Molly Ming. La Premier Phase #3, Phase Deux #3, and Phase Deux #4.  Images from Arc Studios website.  (Click to enlarge.)]

Meng used the arrangement of the grid to form a narrative, with each row representing a different phase of life. Each of the three images above were from a different phase.

Mitchel Confer’s series, entitled “IOU or not”, also is focused the stages of life, and in a very serious way. This summer, while preparing for the exhibition, he was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and the focus of his life changed to focus on taking care of himself and spending time with his family. He abandoned his original plans for the exhibition, and instead created 16 blank wooden panels:

[Mitechel Confer. IOU or NOT.  Installation view.]

Each panel is an “I.O.U.” of sorts. The buyer may keep the panel as is, or exchange it at a future time for a completed panel based on a series of sketches. If he does not recover, the panels become his last works of art. There is a very morbid quality to the project – but one I am not in a position to judge given where I am in my own life. But one cannot help but reflect on life after seeing it. I did like the sketches he did present, with their urban architectural elements.

[Mitchel Confer]

I went to review his website and saw that architecture and cityscapes are a prominent theme in his work. He also did a series based on freeways. Seeing that his visual interests seem to have so much in common with mine makes this story all that more poignant.

Other series that I did notice in the exhibition were those by Brian McDonald and Fernando Reyes. Both artists mentioned dreams as an influence and although quite different, their work immediately brought cartoons and comics to mind.

[Brian McDonald. Slippy (2010).  (Click image to enlarge.)]

[Fernando Reyes. Details XIII (2010).  (Click image to enlarge.)]

There will be a closing reception and artists’ panel tomorrow, September 18, at Arc Studios, 1246 Folsom Street, San Francisco, between 10AM and 3PM.

The Fisher Collection at SFMOMA: Calder to Warhol

I have been meaning to write reviews on some recent exhibitions I have seen set SFMOMA: the selections from Fisher Collection and New Topographics photography exhibition, both of which I have actually seen multiple times. This article covers the Fisher Collection, which will be closing this coming Sunday, September 19.

I have been spending some time thinking about what it means to write “CatSynth reviews” for a major exhibition like this about which so much has already been written. In the end, it’s about personal significance. It was really a microcosm of many of the exhibitions and artists that I have followed or discovered over many years – indeed, the exhibition included artists that i had first discovered through retrospectives at SFMOMA including William Kentridge and Chuck Close, or artists such as Ellsworth Kelly and Sol LeWitt whom I have gotten to know better through the museum’s programs. It is also an opportunity to explore what does (and does not) captivator me with modern art.

One of the things I find most compelling about modern art is the simplicity and sense of calmness I can feel in its presence. This is particularly true of the more minimalist and geometrically inspired works shown on the upper floor of the exhibition. This included those labeled formally as minimalism like Sol LeWitt, but also the large monochromatic panels of Ellsworth Kelly and Richard Serra’s geometric metal sculptures.


[Installation view with Janus by Gerhard Richter (1983) and multiple pieces by Richard Serra. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.]

There is something about this type of art that I find very comforting, especially in a large scale presentation like this. I can focus on lines and curves and colors and nothing else. I can get absorbed into the repeating variations in Sol LeWitt’s drawings and sculpture, or allow my mind to go blank in Ellsworth Kelly’s simple series of panels. (Perhaps this is what made the placement of Anselm Kiefer’s straw-infused works inspired by the Holocaust in the middle of the same gallery all the more jarring.)


[Ellsworth Kelly, Blue Green Black Red (1996). San Francisco Museum of Modern Art]

Even Alexender Calder’s more organic forms fit into this category and were placed together with the others on the upper floor of the exhibit. It would be interesting to consider Calder’s curving but solid mobiles next to the intricate and delcate straight lines in LeWitt’s Hanging Structure 28c and Antony Gormley’s Quantum Cloud VIII.


[Alexander Calder, Eighteen Numbered Black (1953) . Sol LeWitt, Hanging Structure 28c (1989).]

LeWitt also touches on my interest in mathematics and algorithms (and technology) in art, and conceptual art, most notably in his Wall Drawing, which was created directly on the wall of the gallery in colored pencil from the artist’s specifications.

Gerhard Richter was a bridge between the minimalist and geometric art and the other parts of the collection. His Farben 256 with its array of solid-color rectangles was closer to the previously described works (and although I liked it I couldn’t help but think of a paint chart). Other pieces were more photographic – my favorite of these was Verwaltungsgebaude with its modern arctecture and motion.

The other direction that my artist interests tend is towards urban environments, including graffiti or industrial scenes. Cy Twombly’s large paintings in the exhibition feature repeated curving scribbles that remind me of the graffiti that I often photograph. The white scribbles on gray background in Untitled (Rome) reminded me specifically of walls I saw shooting photos in Warm Water Cove.

Twombly was placed along other works from the middle of the century. A large-scale piece by Lee Krasner was prominently featured (I have yet to see a solo retrospective of her work). A canvas with bright blue by Sam Francis caught my attention. The permanent collection of SFMOMA prominently features works by Richard Diebenkorn, and I think I liked those more than his work in this collection.

In addition to minimalist and geometric works, I also tend to notice art with a playful or surreal nature, or things that are particularly unique. William Kentridge’s installation based on Mozart’s The Magic Flute falls in this category. He built an entire miniature stage with archival photographs and moving images set to selections from the opera. While much more elaborate and complex than the previous works, the performance was still very arresting.

Strictly speaking, there was relatively little photography in the exhibition (although many of the paintings seemed derived from photographic sources). Of the few photographs, the strongest was an image by Sophie Calle which depicted a decaying bed in a courtyard of an apartment building, and was accompanied by a rather morbid story. Another of the featured photos, John Baldessari’s Blue Moon Yellow Window, Ghost Chair was quite painting-like with its extreme contrast and colored overlays.

I certainly did not touch upon everything within the exhibition in this brief review, so those who are interested are encouraged to check out the online exhibition page, or visit if you are in the area in the next five days.

[The photos in this article can be seen on flickr.  You can also see photos by others tagged SFMOMA on flickr or via SFMOMA’s online communities page.]