Art

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.]

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.

First Thursday Art Walk, August 2010

Last week I went on the First Thursday art walk of downtown galleries for the first time in several months. August is a bit of a down month, and so there weren’t really many things opening, and for several exhibitions this was really more of a “last Thursday” as they close to make way for the fall openings. Nonetheless there were several things that caught my attention, and there were a few that I was glad I caught before they closed.

At A440 Gallery, I saw recent paintings by Peter Onstad. Of particular note was a large painting, mostly blue, with abstract geometric lines and shapes. However, on closer inspection (and with some guidance from the artist), one can see that it is in fact a very stylized map of San Francisco, with prominent representations of Golden Gate Park, the Panhandle, the Richmond District and North Beach. Once one becomes oriented, the grid of streets downtown and the diagonals of Market Street and Columbus Avenue become apparent as well. There is even a marker for 49 Geary. The exhibit will be coming down this Thursday, but the painting will soon be on display at Vesuvio’s in North Beach. As a side note, Onstad’s grandson also showed some of his work at the exhibition: small characters fashioned from wine corks and household items. One of these was sold to a friend.

At Robert Koch Gallery. I saw a series of photos by Czech photographer Miroslav Tichý. He spend decades from the 1960s to the 1980s photographing the women of his hometown Kyjov, often surreptitiously using homemade cameras and lenses made from everyday materials such as cardboard tubes and Plexiglass. The resulting images are quite grainy, and the female figures blurry or ghostly. They are also quite voyeuristic, with the subjects seemingly unaware that they are being photographed. Although many of the featured photos depict nude figures, I personally preferred the more mundane images of casually dressed woman walking, such as the two Untitled photos shown below (all of his photos in the exhibition are Untitled).  Although still grainy, these feel more like snapshots documenting fashions in a small town in Eastern Europe, but there also a bit of darkness to them. There was also a video of Tichý in which he demonstrated some of his homemade cameras and lenses and talked about his work.

[Miroslav Tichý.  Courtesy Robert Koch Gallery.]

Also on display were a series of photo montages by Hungarian artist Foto Ada. Her pieces combine various images depicting modern urban life in the 1930s. There is often urban architecture and industrial elements juxtaposed with whole or partial human figures, such as an areal photo of the New York skyline superimposed above a row of legs of sitting female figures; or the Untitled photo combining a large industrial building “Europahaus-Musterchau” with an attractively attired woman, a strange puppet and a bicyclist wearing a gas mask. The latter is one of many images that reference the pending world war and the rise of Nazism and Fascism alongside high-paced modern life. The images feel in a way vary contemporary and familiar, particular as someone enamored of modernism – and the references to Fascism are perhaps a warning of what could happen in our own modern times.

[Foto Ada.  Untitled, c. late 1930s-early 1940s.  Courtesy Robert Koch Gallery.]

Both exhibitions at Robert Koch Gallery are closing on August 21.

Photography seemed to be the featured medium in most of the exhibitions I saw, even at galleries where I usually see paintings or mixed media. Stephen Wirtz Gallery presented photographs by Michael Kenna. Kenna’s black-and-white prints are extremely detailed with high contrast, and combine natural and human-made elements. The quality of the prints and subject matter can be seen in Lake Bridge, Hongkun, Anhui, China, with the sharp black lines and curves of the lilies and bare trees against the stone bridge. The water of the lake is essentially invisible except for the reflections of the other elements, giving the image a more abstract quality.

[Michael Kenna. Lake Bridge, Hongkun, Anhui, China. Courtesy of Stephen Wirtz Gallery.]

In addition to several others from lakes and gardens in China, I also liked his architectural-detail images from Venice, such as Fondamente Nouve Poles, Venice. Again, the elements seem to be taken out of their aquatic context into a more abstract realm. The exhibition will remain up through August 21, and is worth seeing if one is in downtown San Francisco.

[Michael Kenna. Fondamente Nouve Poles, Venice.  Courtesy of Stephen Wirtz Gallery.]

It is interesting to look at the crispness (clean lines, sharp contrast) of these photos, even as small images in this article, in comparison to Tichy’s blurry and grainy images.  The former appeals to more to me as an aesthetic (and something I aspire to in my own work), although I did appreciate the latter as well, and having both as part of “evening of photographic exhibitions” worked well for me.

Modernbook Gallery presented an exhibition of photos by Fred Lyon of San Francisco from the 1940s and 1950s. There are iconic images such as the Golden Gate Bridge but also more esoteric locations, such as the detail of streetcar slots in Noe Valley or close-ups of people walking near buildings. The large prints are very detailed, and some such as Huntington Hotel, 1958 truly capture capture the fog against architecture. I also was drawn to a large image geometric grids, which turned out to be the interior of the Sutro Baths when it actually was still public baths and not stone ruins. The gallery was also playing host to photographers presenting limited-edition books of their work. One of these books, Chinatown By the Bay by Neeley Main caught my interest…and may be a subject of a future article.

[Fred Lyon. Sutro Baths Divers, 1953.  Modernbook Gallery.]

Haines Gallery, where I usually see paintings or mixed media work, also featured a photography exhibition. Youngsuk Suh’s Wildfiles explores the “myths of the American wilderness.” All the photographs were shot during the California wildfires of 2008-2009 – though severe wildfires are an annual event here and he could have chosen any year. His large-scale images depict wildness areas obscured by smoke, with human subjects incongruously going about their daily lives, as if the fire and smoke were just another part of the weather. We see people at leisure on a riverbank underneath a bridge, relaxing or wading into the water, with a thick haze in the background. In my favorite picture from the series, a lone chipmunk stands on an artificial lookout point on a hillside. Only in the picture of a fireman are the dangers and challenges of the fire apparent (ironically, he is smoking a cigarette). Also on display was Amy Ellingson’s Summer Frieze, which was composed of a series of abstract panels featuring uniform oval shapes in a variety of colors and transformations. In some cases, they were presented straight, with different combinations of solid colors, in others they were overlaid on textures made from disjointed pieces of the shapes. The panels were arranged in a uniform line stretching around all four walls of the room.

Photography even worked its way into the Cold+Hot exhibition at Micaela Gallery, which was primarily about glass sculpture. However, it was the abstract sculptures that drew my attention, such as the large towers of rounded handblown silver-mirrored glass by Michelle Knox and the curving steel-and-glass shapes by JP Long that would actually look quite at home in CatSynth HQ although they are completely devoid of any straight lines. Tim Tate’s installations combined stationary glass with abstract moving video. Silvia Levenson’s small bottles provided yet another, perhaps more intimate, interpretation of glass.

[Michelle Knox.  Installation view of silver-mirrored sculptures.  Also Silvia Levenson’s The Pursuit of Happiness.  Courtesy of Micaela Gallery.]

Finally Bekris Gallery surprised me with a series of cartoon-like drawings that featured a character that was basically a large nose on legs. It seemed quite familiar, and it only took me a moment to recognize it as William Kentridge, whose retrospective at SFMOMA in 2009 had been a surprise discovery for me. It’s not something I would pick out from an exhibition postcard by default, but everytime I see his work in person, whether still or moving images, it draws me in (no pun intended). I remember Kentridge’s 2008 animation piece loosely based on Nikolai Gogol’s The Nose, to which the still images in this exhibition are clearly related or derived.

Mission Arts and Performaning Project (MAPP), August 2010

Yesterday I attended the August Mission Arts and Performaning Project (MAPP), where various arts venues, businesses and private homes open themselves up to present artists in the community. This month was actually a lot smaller than the June MAPP, but there was still more than I could see in my brief visit.

I started, as usual, at the Red Poppy Art House, which serves as the hub for MAPP. Here, Red poppy Resident Artist Hersalia Cantoral from Chiapas, Mexico, was holding court in an informal discussion. Some of her drawings were on display alongside other artists.

We then wandered down Folsom Street to the “Blue House” and saw singer/singwriter Vanessa Valencia perform some of her songs. She was particularly focused on an ear infection she was suffering through, and even improvised a song about it with strong encouragement from the audience.

[Bhi Bhiman at L’s Cafe.]

Later, we found ourselves at L’s Cafe listening to another singer songwriter, Bhi Bhiman. His performance was very polished and fun to listen to. I particularly liked his “White Man’s Burden Blues” (or “Rudyard Kipling Blues”), in which he wove references to various peoples around the world who have had…well, “challenging” experiences with Western colonialism into an up-tempo traditional blues song, much to the delight of the audience.  (I am not sure what the deal was with the red clown noses that several people were wearing.) He was giving away free CDs that I was eager but too slow to get – but someone was generous enough to offer me hers, so she gets a big “CatSynth thank you.” By coincidence, there were two paintings by Melisa Phillips on the wall.

[Melisa Phillips at L’s Cafe.  (Click image to enlarge.)]

I have reviewed her work from previous Open Studios, and would be remiss if I did not mention her again. Her works incorporates text, and in more recent pictures, body images into a unified space. Also on display was the work of RUBYSPAM, which I also recognized from a previous event.

Enrique Chagoya at Galería de la Raza. (Click image to enlarge.)

There was overall a good mix between performing art and visual art this time. Our next stop was Galería de la Raza, which was exhibiting YTREBIL, a solo exhibition featuring prints and drawings by Enrique Chagoya. Chagoya has quite an interesting biography, birn in Mexico City in the mid-1950s, studying at the San Francisco Art Institute, and now a professor at Stanford. His works on display included a mix of political, pop culture, cartoon and mythological references, often in surprising combinations. There were numerous caricatures of George W Bush (and at least one of Condoleeza Rice), as well less quickly recognizable references. The iconic image of the exhibit featured the title, here clearly visible as “Liberty” spelled backwards, with dinosaurs running amok in an otherwise comfortable looking living room. I particularly liked some of his longer works that combined mytholigical imagery with cartoon images and narrative structure that one might find in comics. This was featured in his “Illegal Aliens Guide” series, such as the Illegal Alien’s Guide to Critical Theory in which stereotypically attired figures from the US-Mexico border region discuss issues from academic critical theory beneath a large figure with that looks like a Central American mythological figure wearing a white T-Shirt and jeans lying on a platform. There is also the Illegal Alien’s Guide to Relative Surprise Value (maybe I should read that, given my general lack of interest in economics).

Our final stop was Area 2881 to see the latest incarnation of the robotic sculptures and “lumino-kenetic art” by Carl Pisaturo that I had seen at a previous MAPP in 2009. The robots and rotating mechanical pieces of light and motion were on display once again, and this time I got great photographs.

[Robotic and lumino-kinetic art at Area 2881. (Click images to enlarge.)]

There was at least one new piece, a sci-fi-ish floating contraption that was both fish-like and spacecraft-like. I was not able to get a good image of it. Overall, the objects were all impressive in terms of the technical expertise and discipline that went into their creation – it requires not only an understanding of electronics but mechanical and industrial design – as well as the mesmerizing aesthetic quality that kept us viewing them for quite a while when enjoying Area 2881’s signature cocktail. They also had a series of 3D photographs on view. Like a more advanced version of the 3D viewmasters I remember from the late 1970s, one could peer in and see scenes with depth and detail, such as a party in the Castro, and an organist sitting down to begin her performance, and a church with stained glassed windows and vaulted ceilings moving out into the distance.

Work completed: Flora Davis, For Luna

The piece I had commissioned from artist Flora Davis was completed in late June:

The metal surfaces of each box are glued and covered in a protective layer, and the sides are finished with a metallic paint.

The piece now also has a title: For Luna. It seems appropriate, as both Davis and I have cats named Luna. And of course it is a nice tribute.

You can see previous articles documenting the progress here and here.

It was exciting to see it complete and take it home. The final step will be to display the artwork. Combined with the companion cat painting Zeus, the five boxes can be arranged in any number of ways. Here are but a few examples:

I have yet to settle on a final arrangement.

Weekend Cat Blogging #265: Health and Creativity

The themes of this month here at CatSynth are health and creativity, and we reflect on those themes for Weekend Cat Blogging.

We have started a recent phase in our beginning yoga practice centered on opening up creativity, prosperity and opportunity.  It is of course also good exercise and helpful for health and well being.  Luna enjoys joining in, too:

Photography continues to be a central form of creative expression, even as I need to balance it with music, especially with several more shows coming up this month.  Luna obliged me earlier this week by posing in front of one of the patio sculptures on a warm afternoon:

I got several great photos from this session, one of them appeared earlier this week during Wordless Wednesday.  Here is a small version, but readers are encouraged to check out the larger version in the WW post.

Weekend Cat Blogging #265 will be hosted by Jules and Vincent. Because of the Independence Day holiday here in the U.S., the roundup will be up on July 5.

The Carnival of the Cats, will be up tomorrow, July 4, at Mind of Mog.

Nikita Cat will be hosting the monthly Bad Kitty Cats Festival of Chaos on July 4 as well.

And the Friday Ark is at the modulator.

Zecca and Frazier, Gallery 16 – and Views of the City at Artist Xchange

A few weeks ago I went out to a couple of openings on a night when I thought I wouldn’t. But after a little bit of rest I was ready to venture out into the still bright and unusually warm evening.

First up was Gallery 16 for the opening of an exhibition featuring the work of Alex Zecca and Suzanne Frazier.

Alex Zecca’s large scale works are composed of thousands of straight lines meticulously drawn in ink. The pieces emerge from the interactions among all the lines. As the artist states, “Color, mixing, reaction and saturation, as well as sequence and systems are the visual dialogue central to my work.” It is hard to imagine the amount of work (physical and metal) that goes into creating something like this.

Some of the works were single color, in which complex images emerge from the density of intersecting lines as well as the angles at which they cross. My favorite pieces in the exhibition were the monochromatic series JANUARY 26, 2010.


[Alex Zecca. JANUARY 26, 2010. Courtesy of Gallery 16, San Francisco CA. (Click to enlarge image)]

Each of the twelve sections contains 1260 lines out of which the overall geometric texture of diagonal lines and curves emerges, as well as a texture that resembles interference patterns in optics. Color adds an additional dimension to some pieces, such as FEBRUARY 5, 2010. In the piece, the interference patterns are the central element created by the lines, with complex and subtle color transitions at odd locations within the overall image.


[Alex Zecca. FEBRUARY 5, 2010. Courtesy of Gallery 16, San Francisco CA. (Click to enlarge image)]

The paintings in Suzanne Frazier’s Tidelog series with their thick curving shapes and bright colors seem very different at first, but they also follow a very meticulous (and time-consuming) process. Frazier was inspired by the entanglements found along the northern California coastline. She made photographs of masses and strands of kelp, projected the images onto the wall of her studio, and then traced the shapes onto acetate, which she then cut out and used as an “alphabet” from which to create the paintings. The results are paintings whose colors and overall composition are abstract, but whose components are shapes from nature.


[Suzanne Frazier. Tidelog #9. Courtesy of Gallery 16, San Francisco CA. (Click image to enlarge)]

While creating the paintings, she also found that the spaces between curves were themselves interesting, and filled these very various textures of dots, crossing lines, etc. Thus, just as with Zecca’s ink drawings, one is compelled to look closely at these paintings to see the detail. Indeed, it was the detail that particular drew me to certain works in the series, such as Tidelog 7 and Tidelog 9.


[Suzanne Frazier. Tidelog #7. Courtesy of Gallery 16, San Francisco CA. (Click image to enlarge)]

The exhibition at Gallery 16 will remain up through July 16.

Next, it was off to Artist Xchange for the “Views of the City” show. Regular readers know that views of the city (or of cities in general) are central to my own artistic output as well as what I look for in others. I do tend to look for more unique views of the city, less traveled neighborhoods, unusual perspectives, or spaces and details that are otherwise overlooked. It is too easy in a city like San Francisco to fall into the trap of producing postcard images or trite pieces that would look at home in a souvenir shop, and several artists in this exhibition did just that. But several artists did express unique views of the city that caught my attention.

Sonja Navin was back with her views of familiar highways such as I-280 and side streets around the city. We have reviewed her work before, including her exhibition back in March. Complementing Navin’s work was Zue Acker, who presented her own highway painting as well as images of downtown city blocks were familiar to me as a resident. Indeed, her painting empty downtown – long shadows is exactly the same location as one of my Wordless Wednesday photos!


[Zue Acker. Installation view at Artist Xchange. (Click image to enlarge)]

Paul Kirley captures the city in mid motion, such as his painting Clay Bus showing a Muni bus moving along Clay Street. He refers to these works as “Mixed Photo / Paint Dreamscapes”, blending expressive paint and photographic compositions together on a single canvas. Rather than paintings of blurred or modified photographs, the painting itself becomes the process that causes the photographic images to blur and disintegrate in places.

Elizabeth Geisler’s cityscape images included locations or views in the Bay Area that I did not know well, such as the Richardson Bay Bridge near Sausalito.

[Elizabeth Geisler. Twilight (Richardson Bay Bridge)]

Finally, Joaquin Sorro’s Dolores was a fun piece with buildings and trees at add angles, and seemingly in mid-motion as one might find in a comic book. In fact, his image reminded me of some of the experimental comic art I have been reading about recently, but which will remain a topic for another day.

Emergency (X)tet, Meridian Gallery (and The Candy Store)

Last Saturday I attended a performance of the Emergency (X)tet at the Meridian Gallery. Unlike a normal string quartet or quintet, the number of performers in the (X)tet is variable. And on this particular evening X was equal to 7, with Adria Otte, Angela Hsu, and Jonathan Segel on violin, Bob Marsh and Doug Carroll on cello, Kanoko Nishi on bass koto, and Tony Dryer on contrabass.

All Emergency (X)tet performances involve free improvisation. But like all good free improvisation, a structure emerges within each piece. Some sections focused on short tone bursts, others on long harmonics, and others on extended techniques such as striking the body of the instrument. I particularly noticed the use of “prepared violin”, in which objects were inserted between the strings of the violin to change the timbre and performance characteristics (similar to a prepared piano). At various points the violins as well as the contrabass were all performing with various rods inserted in between the strings.

In the second half of the performance, the string (X)tet was joined by Kinji Hayashi performing butoh dance. Butoh dance emerged in post-World War II Japan. Most performances of butoh that I have seen involve very slow and deliberate motion, usually in white make-up and has an overall dark or absurdist theme. As with the purely instrumental pieces, the dance movements were improvised in response to the music, but it had an overall structure. Hayashi first emerged from the hall covered in newspaper, forming a sort of a sort of “newspaper monster” or large mass moving slowly. Every so often, one could glimpse his hands or face underneath.


[Click to enlarge image.]

The slow movements were punctuated by dramatic or even comical fast motions (at one point, an audience member’s purse was pulled underneath the newspaper). As the piece unfolded, more and more of the newspaper was cast away to reveal the dancer in full traditional costume, with dramatic movements along the full length of Meridian’s performance space. As with many improvised pieces, the ending came at an unexpected moment.

On display at the Meridian Gallery during the performance was the exhibition The Candy Store featuring the work of John deFazio and Leigha Mason. DeFazio’s 100 Xerox collages based on cantos from Dante’s Divine Comedy was on display in the music room, and was probably the closest aligned to my artistic interests, featuring graphic and text images in black and white. Some were abstract, some featured cultural or historical references, others included disturbing imagery. He also designed several large funerary urns with very whimsical designs dedicated to mythical figures as well as popular culture. The title piece for the exhibition was Mason’s life-size candy shop installtion. The resin and sugar objects are bright and translucent, and seem very inviting, until one gets closer and sees the hair and fingernails embedded within. Mason seems to play upon this mixture of invitation and revulsion, which also was apparent in her accompanying drawings that featured children with grotesque faces expressing joy, perhaps that of “kids in a candy store”.

Elaine Buckholtz, Jars Filmed Inside

During Carnaval a few weeks ago, a friend and I took a break and visited Triple Base in the Mission District, where we saw Elaine Buckholtz’s solo show Jars Films Inside. For this exhibit, Buckholtz has turned the entire gallery into a single immersive work of art that is simultaneously a performance space. Visitors can interact with the objects in the gallery and use them to create their own experience of the work.


[Elaine Buckholtz. Gallery installation view.
Photo courtesy of Triple Base Gallery. (Click to enlarge)]

The first thing one notices upon entering the gallery is the large curved mirror in the center, and the lined with small glass jars, beakers, vials of all sorts filled with various objects. They seem like specimens from a “scientific” collection of a previous century, pretty or interesting things trapped and preserved in jars. The mirror was rotating slowly, and the reflection of the bottles on the wall create a black line that undulates across the surface, and occasionally breaks into two lines that then reconnect.


[Elaine Buckholtz. Installation view with mirror. (Click to enlarge)]

On close inspection, the vessels contain photographic film, glasses, pebbles, tiles and other objects. It seemed they were all selected to play with the light that passes through the glass, obscuring or modifying it.


[Elaine Buckholtz, Jars filmed inside.
Photo courtesy of Triple Base Gallery.]

Indeed, the installation as a whole seems to be about playing with light, both directly an indirectly. There is the light through the jars, the often translucent objects in the jars, and the large central curved mirror reflecting the jars and the viewers. There are also a number of handmade optical devices that viewers can pick up and use to view the light of the installation in even more ways.

This was an exhibit that invited exploration and play. This can be a bit surprising for regular gallery visitors who are used to the tradition of “look but do not touch” in art, and I probably would not have picked anything up without having been invited to do so by the staff and thus missed out on the full experience.

In the basement of the gallery (which is accessed via a trapdoor and a ladder) was Hunter Longe’s installation entitled Perception Projection Delay. It consisted of a large drawing of spiral, with similar moving image projected onto it, given a sense of constant and somewhat disorienting motion.


[Hunter Longe, Perception Projection Delay.]

The clean curves of the spiral, flatness of the screen were a contrast to the rough surfaces of the basement, but the silence and overall darkness seemed to fit together. Especially coming after the vibrant colors and crowds of Carnaval, the calmness of the environment and the patterned motion of the image seemed very inviting, at once meditative and a canvas for fun and imagination, and it captured our attention for some time.

The exhibition will remain on display at Triple Base through July 3, so do check it out if you are in the area.

Theano’s Day

We at CatSynth are participating in Theano’s Day, an event to celebrate women in Philosophy. It is named in honor of Theano, the wife of the Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras but also a scholar in her own right. In addition to promoting the work of Pythagoras, she put together her own work on mathematics, art, and beauty, all topics that are a regular part of this site. She is often credited with developing the Golden Mean, one of the most well-known ideas in aesthetic theory in which art, whether spacial (painting, sculpture, architecture) or temporal (music, drama) include structural elements based on the golden ratio φ, which is the ratio a / b such that a / b = (a + b) / a.

The number appears in the Fibonacci series as well, and in the well-known spiral that is used to describe proportions in nature and in architecture:

Theano is also credited with writings about child rearing and gender (although I am having difficulty finding a reference to this). Gender identity seems to permeate the work of many female philosophers over the centuries, indeed it seems to be an inescapable topic. The seventeenth century scholar and artist Anna Maria van Schurman published Whether the Study of Letters Is Fitting for a Christian Woman? in which she argued in favor of women’s education. In the modern era, there is of course Simone de Beauvoir whose writing is considered foundational for contemporary feminism. But I am personally more interested in the treatment of gender as it relates to other philosophical and intellectual topics rather than social, political or biological. How does the concept of “the feminine” relate to existentialism in de Beauvoir’s novels, or to Schurman’s art or Theano’s mathematics? This is not a topic that can easily be covered in a single post, or on a single day, but relates deeply to some of the directions I am exploring in visual art (i.e., photography) and perhaps later on in music as well. So perhaps the best way to see this day is as a beginning…