San Francisco

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.]

CatSynth at SFEMF Eleven

Click to enlarge SFEMF poster

The 11th San Francisco Electronic Music Festival will be happening today through Saturday and I plan to be there for at least the performances tonight and Saturday. Once again, I will be live-tweeting and readers can follow on Twitter @catsynth or via the #SFEMF tag. So those not in the Bay Area can follow along vicariously – though I encourage local electronic-music enthusiasts to attend in person.

The performance tonight includes a collaboration of Alessandro Cortini, whose videos and images we have been featuring here on over the past coulee of months, with Don Buchla. Also performing are another synthesis pioneer John Chowning, and Ben Bracken. You can see the full schedule for the event here.

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It is a beautiful harsh sun this morning. Sitting out the patio with coffee, reading and writing.
As I contemplate whether to go on a sort trip, Maybe for photography or highway spotting, I realize I have everything I need right here. Our industrial and concrete surroundings. The geometric shapes from the structures and the artwork. The sounds from the nearby freeway like a gentle wind or waves along the ocean. The cadence of the trains coming to a stop.

Luna provides a bit of the wild and nature. The little black panther hunting in her native habitat.

I just read an article where the author derided cats for being so close to their natural cousins and thus I’ll suited to bring pets. I instead chose to celebrate how a creature can retain parts if her wild heritage and perfectly reflect the design of artificial surroundings.

And since it is Labor Day, it seems appropriate to reflect on the recent month I spent unemployed. I already had a new job lined up for August, and I had things pretty well mapped out with a combination of music, photography, time at home, and time just taking in the city.
The first Monday, I did one of my long walks through Chinatown, North Beach and along the Embarcadero feeling far more positive and optimistic than I had in a long time. I got sick that night. I am convinced it was all the toxic aspects of my previous job leaving my body. By the next evening it had passed I was feeling as healthy as i had all year. This coincided with the start of a yoga and meditation routine for prosperity and opportunity. And those did come. Lots of musical opportunities. Three different opportunities to do collaborate on photography. I rarely left the city during this period, preferring to take in everything i could by foot or by transit until the new job would force a new routine with a daily commute and sense of bring cut off from the things that make me feel most myself.

Which brings us back to today. My body needs a break from driving. It’s more important to edit and review and select from the photos I already have than make new ones. For music, i just need to spend time playing and exploring.

So staying here seems like the right choice.

Stella Zhang, 0-Viewpoint, Chinese Culture Center

A week ago I saw the exhibition 0-Viewpoint by Stella Zhang at the Chinese Culture Center here in San Francisco. Zhang is the 2010 featured artist in the CCC’s Xian Rui (”Fresh & Sharp”) series, which showcases “the work of an incredibly talented but under-represented Chinese artist in America.” This year’s exhibition also had a goal of pushing the boundaries of what is considered “Chinese art” and challenging more traditional viewers’ expectations. Zhang was schooled in classical Chinese art techniques, but the contemporary mixed-media installation eschews cultural tradition (except perhaps in some more subtle ways) and challenges the expectations many viewers might have of art and an artist identified as “Chinese.”. 0-viewpoint is also a deeply personal exhibition, in which Zhang “explores the constantly shifting inner landscapes of self and femininity.” Similar to heritage, gender comes with expectations. Confronting traditional expectations of both gender and heritage are topics of personal interest to me, which makes this an appealing exhibition to both see and reflect upon.

The main corridor is covered by a long undulating white canvas, which sets the overall tone for the entire installation: curving forms of white fabric. Indeed, the gallery and all the pieces were almost entirely white. The white seemed to cast a silence over everything, which is both simultaneously meditative and a bit “anxious”. Although the color was uniform, the textures and shapes were quite complex, and in a way the use of white helps focus one on these dimensions instead of on color. It also made it possible to detach from the question of challenging tradition and allow it to fade into the background while focusing on the pieces themselves.

[Stella Zhang, 0-Viewpoint, installation view.  Photo courtesy of the artist. (click to enlarge)]

The installation in the first room is a collection of tall rather phallic sculptures. They were slightly higher than human size, and one could walk amongst the irregular arrangement of columns. The irregular shapes suggested something organic, like a forest or sea creatures. But the metal structure underneath the cloth also gave them an architectural feel.

[Stella Zhang, 0-Viewpoint, installation view.  Photo courtesy of the artist. (click to enlarge)]

The second room contains an array of small cushion like objects suspended on wires from the ceiling but nearly touching the ground. The forms, which are again made of fabric, are soft and curving and body-like, but are covered in spines made from toothpicks. The combination suggests sea urchins or single-cell organisms. But the shape and texture also seems to play on and challenge stereotypical associations with feminine, e.g., soft curving shapes but then pierced by something more angry and aggressive. Along the edges of the room are small seats, again made from soft fabric but also covered in spines. (I would not be tempted to try and sit on one.)

[Stella Zhang, 0-Viewpoint, installation view.  Photo courtesy of the artist. (click to enlarge)]

Towards the end of the gallery, the long canvas that covers the corridor descends to the floor and then comes back on the floor ending in a somewhat mysterious hole big enough to crawl through. Nearby, a video was projected onto the ground showing an image of swirling smoke or vapor with ethereal dreamlike music. The music was mostly in a minor mode, but with slightly unsettling tones in the middle section.

Arranged along the corridor were a series of twelve panels suggesting the twelve signs of the zodiac (one of the few overt nods to Chinese tradition). Each of the white panels had a shape made of sand. Although the material was different the shapes seemed related to other parts of the installation: round curving but somewhat elongated with irregular holes.

[Stella Zhang, 0-Viewpoint, installation view.  Photo courtesy of the artist. (click to enlarge)]

The afternoon included a dialog with the artist, in which we learned a bit about her journey that included growing up in Beijing in a family that encouraged her to pursue art; the culture shock and growth of her time studying and working in Japan; and then settling in the United States. I also had a chance to view the documentary on the making of the exhibition, which was presented as part of a dialog and discussion with the artist. An excerpt of the documentary is online, and presented below:

Stella Zhang, 0-Viewpoint from Jim Choi on Vimeo.

It was interesting to see the physical process that goes into making the work, welding metal frames, gluing fabric and manually inserting the skewers into cloth. The full documentary also explores the tensions of the work, such as there was between Zhang and curator Abby Chen around the piece with the suspended cushions and wooden skewers. There was also a phrase that Zhang applied to herself, “trapped in a box”, that a viewer in the video later ascribed to Chinese art and culture as a whole. This phrase intrigued me, but there wasn’t a chance to follow up further.

0-Viewpoint will be on display at the Chinese Culture Center through September 5.

Instagon 543 and Richard Bonnet, Luggage Store Gallery

Last Thursday I participated in Instagon 543 at the Luggage Store Gallery in San Francisco. Instagon is an improvising ensemble where the personnel change every time, i.e., no two performances contain the same group of people. In addition to myself and Lob, the group’s founder, this version included Lena Strayhorn, Mark Wilson (aka “Conure”), Alan Herrick, Martin of Vernian Process, and Blancahillary (aka Hillary Fielding).

I had brought instruments from opposite ends of the size spectrum: the Nord Stage and the iPhone 4, on which I played the Smule Ocarina and Leaf Trombone apps, as well as Bebot and Nlog which I have used in previous performances. Lena Strayhorn had acoustic instruments (to be played into a microphone) including a flute and a large one-of-a-kind kalimba-like instrument. Mark Wilson had a large array of electronic sound sources and effects, Alan Herrick performed via laptop, Martin and Blancahillary played guiltar; and Lob played bass and the main mixing board.

[Photo by Yvette Lucas, via Lob]

Basically, everyone was improvising independently, with Lob controlling levels via the mixing board. As he brought performers in and out of the mix, everyone was (presumably) listening and adapting their performances, which turn may or may not be presented in the mix. Thus there was a complex feedback loop with the live mixing and the instrumental improvisations.

Musically, the overall the theme was “drones and creepy.” As such there were lots of long, drawn-out tones from everyone, with periods of noise and static, heavy distortion or large tone masses. I used the electric piano on the Nord to contribute to the “creepy” theme, with augmented chords and effects that resembled a 1970s horror-film soundtrack. It was in fact hard to sometimes hear who was performing what, although Lena Strayhorn’s acoustic instruments were quite distinctive, and Blancahillary’s guitar playing was more staccato. I found that the Ocarina iPhone app was picking up and responding to the ambient sound from the speakers, so I spent a fair amount of time with it, bring the iPhone closer to the speaker to manipulate the sound. Its output was of course then fed back into the overall mix.

[Photos by Yvette Lucas, via Lob.  Click images to enlarge.]

An additional level of “chaos” was Blancahillary’s “performance” with aluminum foil. She unrolled a large sheet, first using it as an acoustic sound source by shaking and crumpling it. She then tore off pieces which were lobbed at audience members and at other musicians, and finally she fashioned a large piece into a mask (covering her nose and mouth) that matched her silver pants.

As one might expect from a complex non-linear feedback system, there was quite a bit of chaos, relatively controlled chaos. There were many moments there in fact quite loud, and the overall texture was quite dense. But there was still a lot of variation and an overall structure to the set.

At the very end, Lob introduced each of the musicians and provided an opportunity for everyone to play a momentary solo so that the audience could hear his or her contribution to the overall performance.

We were preceded on the program by a solo performance by aris-based guitarist Richard Bonnet.

[Click image to enlarge.]

The first pieces in his set were based on more conventional musical techniques, but very well done. He opened with a series of percussive and harmonic tones that moved between more dissonant (seconds, tritones) and consonant harmonies. He used some delays that produced rhythmic patterns that gradually disintegrated. From these pieces, he built up a big cloud of sound that narrowed to a lone almost pure high tone. The second piece was more virtuosic in terms of finger work. It felt “bluesy” in terms of slide technique and vibrato, but the harmonies were very different from any standard blues. The third piece was more of a minor ballad with lots of melodic material and implied harmonies. It resolved into something that sounded more latin but then suddenly became more abstract with back-and-forth between fingerwork and chords.

In the remainder of the set, Bonnet brought in more experimental techniques. The next piece was darker, with lots of low tones and real-time manipulation of the tuning pegs, and use of an e-Bow for long drones. The overall tone with more “electric” between the use of the e-Bow and distortion. The melodic lines were more abstract and interspersed with sustained lines, timbral effects and harmonies. Some of the sounds seemed more synthesizer-like, but his conventional guitar technique continued at the same time. The piece ended with darker and grainier sounds, a long high note coming out of a dark cloud, and then fading out.

[Click image to enlarge.]

The final piece explored “prepared guitar”, in which various objects are placed in and around the strings to alter the sound and behavior of the instruments. Some of the objects included a bottle, a metal slinky that produced very scratchy sounds, and a chopstick under the strings. This was combined with delays and other electronic effects. The overall sound was eerie and haunting with sliding notes, like an old suspense film, with percussive and scratching sounds that not surprisingly reminded me of a prepared piano. From the delay lines and loop emerged that became a background jazz riff, but some buzzing and other complex sounds. This was probably the most fun piece of the set, and a good conclusion.