Just released online, a few of Anthony Discenza’s older video works.

For one night only, on Wednesday, May 9, the Berkeley Art Museum presented In Protest, a collection of protest posters commissioned by a variety of artists and writers, including Zarouhie Abdalian, John Baldessari, Amy Balkin, Amy Franceschini, Doug Hall, Paul Kos, Tony Labat, Shaun O’Dell, Rigo 23, Piero Golia, Jordan Kantor, Kevin Killian, ... More

This week Off Label, the second feature-length documentary of former homeboys Donal Mosher and Michael Palmieri, had its West Coast premiere at the San Francisco International Film Festival. The film’s title refers to the legal practice of prescribing pharmaceuticals for a use not approved by the FDA, such as prescribing antidepressants that caus... More

I’ve come to enjoy the phenomenon of the digitally connected spectators which make up the modern museum audience. At times I want to be critical and stand on my imaginary podium to speak about this and the loss of our biological connection with our environment. But this loss is accompanied with an ease of communication with others via social netw... More

On Wednesday, April 11th, Wayne Koestenbaum spoke at the San Francisco Art Institute as part of the Visiting Artists and Scholars lecture series curated by Glen Helfand. That afternoon, on the other side of the city, and with one eye on the clock, Kevin Killian visited my Fundamentals of Creative Reading class at San Francisco State. To transmit th... More

Once I finally saw through that Easter Bunny scam, I determined never again to put my faith into any of the known rites of spring — that’s Easter, Passover, Nowruz, and Major League Baseball by my watch. But time heals all wounds. And with the arrival of a world class spring equinox event so close to my house that even I — who drives four... More

On March 5th I attended the artist talks/conversation between Catherine Lord and Moyra Davey at UC Berkeley as part of the “Still Pictures” lecture series on photography, curated by Anne Walsh. I came to the event an admirer of Catherine Lord — I love her cancer memoir The Summer of Her Baldness, and a couple of years ago I managed to ... More

One of my favorite things to do is muck around with the art historical canon. Now I intend to bring that spiteful energy to the world of planking, a leisure activity in which you turn your body into a plank in a public space and then document it for the internet so it can be shared with other planking enthusiasts.

Planking recently emerged from its... More

California Dreaming, an exhibition at the Contemporary Jewish Museum, pays tribute to Jews whose dreams have shaped the character of life in the Bay Area from the Gold Rush era to the present. This is not a pantheon-building exercise, though. While iconic figures do play prominent roles in CJM’s historical pageant, the exhibition commemorates their deeds without representing history as a procession of “great men.” Levi Strauss, for instance, is represented by examples of the things his company made, including a policy of nondiscrimination... More

When in the course of history it becomes necessary for people to dissolve the art which has connected them to one another, and to assume the making powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which they are entitled, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to separate from art.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, artists are among us, deriving their powers from the consent of others. That whenever any form of art becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish art, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that art long established should not be ch... More

Two public KAPSULS provide helpful context for upcoming exhibitions. They were also developed by two of the most active next-generation independent curators in the Bay Area: Christina Linden and David Kasprzak.

Will Brown‘s trio of Jordan Stein, Lindsey White, and David Kasprzak will open an exhibition on Saturday, March 17th, entitled A squ... More

The paintings currently in my gallery come out of the venerable tradition of “bad art.” It’s a dicey pedigree that includes people like Martin Kippenberger, John Waters, and Jim Shaw, who single-handedly stimulated a groundswell of interest in bad painting in the early ’90s when he published his collection of what he called ... More

At The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

In 1974 the San Francisco Museum of Art accepted an unusual exhibition proposal from Bay Area–based artists Robert Moon and Gage Taylor: along with artist friends Robert Fried, Gerald Gooch, Bill Martin, and Richard Lowenberg, Moon and Taylor would take a month-long expedition to Baja, Mexico, covering 2,500 miles in two vans and a pickup truck. ... More

Last month, I convinced a friend to come with me to an exhibition, Baldessari Class Assignments (Optional), at California College of the Arts’ Wattis Institute of Contemporary Art. Before I had a chance to visually make sense of anything in the exhibition I was greeted by an overpowering sweet smell of vanilla and pastry. The source ... More

I met Michael Horse at Gathering Tribes, the gallery/cultural center he and his wife, Pennie Opal Plant, operate on Solano Avenue in Albany. The name of the establishment might describe the man himself. Horse embodies contemporary intertribal culture. He tells me that Yaqui, Mescalero Apache, and Zuni blood runs in his veins, along with a drop or two of Hispanic and European. Born in Arizona, he moved to Los Angeles, “the biggest urban Indian community in the U.S.,” when he was ten. There, Navajo, Cheyenne, and Sioux families surrounded ... More

Lending art to an exhibit is a complex experience. It makes you feel like an insider, like you’re special, like you’re part of the show, even though you know that isn’t accurate. It isn’t you, but this object you somehow acquired that the spotlight shines on. When you lend a piece to an exhibit, the work seems to take on a life of its own. It doesn’t need you. It’s happy hanging or sitting in this new space bathed in perfect lighting and tended by professionals who really understand its needs. When you lend an artwork to an exhibit ... More

When I saw this sculpture, crafted out of handmade paper, hanging in an alcove at California College of the Arts a few years ago, it stopped me in my tracks. The piece, with its multiple formal, material, and conceptual references to cycles, exemplifies, for me, what a teacher of mine once described as “the peculiar poignancy of aesthetic ... More

As I made my way through the pantheon of exhibitions on display for L.A.’s current citywide retrospective Pacific Standard Time (PST), which celebrates the city’s fertile postwar period of art production, I couldn’t help but ponder: what of today’s many visionary young L.A. artists? What does all this history mean to them? Given the fifty-f... More

The enormous conceptual art project also known as Occupy Wall Street is in the news again, and this time it’s all about Oakland. Last week 409 people were arrested during confrontations with police. But in a march of 500 protesters that means almost everyone was arrested. And it’s weird because around the country, even in New York, where I am, the protests have all been nonviolent. So maybe it’s worth asking: Why is Oakland so different? Why are these kids throwing things at police when they know they might end up in jail? Mor... More

I figured I’d start out with a post that lets you know what you’re in for. So I’m endorsing the Republican candidate for president. Whichever of the two front runners it turns out to be. Probably Romney, but either one is good for the art world.

Wait, you’re probably thinking, most of the people I know in the art world are progressive and vote Democratic. A San Francisco artist, Matt Gonzalez, earned the VP spot on the Green ticket in 2008, after all. So what are you implying? That people in the art world don’t kno... More

More than a repository of objects or texts, the archive is the process of selecting, ordering, and preserving the past — in short, making history. Artists, scholars, and activists have been rethinking the politics of what archives preserve (thus, what constitutes cultural memory). A growing list of exhibitions, conferences, panels, seminars, and publications give play to archival practices. The most interesting initiatives, I think, depart from the premise that archives constitute that which they purport to document (that archives are, in a w... More

The institution formerly known as the Judah L. Magnes Museum reopened last Sunday in a new format. The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life invited the community to view its splendid new quarters in downtown Berkeley, a site once used by the university as a printing plant.

The 25,000-square-foot building is three times the size of the Magnes’s former home, a charming clinker brick house built at the turn of the last century on Russell Street. The old Magnes, although a scene of exceptional cultural vitality, was much harder to acce... More

The Joffrey Ballet in Le sacre du printemps (The Rite of Spring)

Choreography : Vaslav Nijinsky

Music: Igor Stravinsky

There are days that I need to remember that patience is a virtue. Times when I stay still and listen, giving the world a chance to wash over me with a pandora’s box of beauty. Today I was reminded by the volatile 1913 premier... More

Terry Berlier is an inveterate recycler and a committed anti-consumerist. Her sculptures repurpose and recombine outmoded technologies and salvaged materials to generate new patterns of perception. She is a perfect fit for Recology, where an unusual artist-in-residence program offers unrestricted access to the dump. (more…)

Occasionally, I find myself paying more attention to the visitors in a museum than to the works on view. Does this make me a voyeur? Maybe, but I doubt I’m alone. I don’t think there is any other art form that offers as much face-time with other people’s experiences — with the possible exception of the mosh pit at a rock concert. In the lat... More

The horizontal governance and DIY aesthetic politics of Occupy foster a visual culture of creative diversity — letting “a thousand flowers bloom.” (more…)

The Artist Bloc No. 1 zine is in circulation! This publication takes up the question of whether or not art is labor, and considers the contribution of artists to the current Occupy movement and social justice movements in general. It features contributions from Christian L. Frock, Joseph del Pesco (Open Space columnist), Julia Bryan-Wilson, Mary Christmas, Elizabeth Sims, Adrienne Skye Roberts, The Beehive Collective, Welly Fletcher, Morgan R. Levy, Hannah Gustavvson, Paulina M. Nowicka, Zeph Fishlyn, Leslie Dryer, and the Art Workers’ C... More

People always clap for the wrong things. — Holden Caulfield from The Catcher in the Rye, in Chapter 12

Although I am living in New York I still follow the news on SFGate, KQED, KGO, and other news outlets. What has surprised me is how completely wrong Bay Area media has been about the Occupy Wall Street movement, its motivations, its strategy... More

After observing a rehearsal, I am writing to protest the “entertainment” about to be provided by Marina Abramović at the upcoming donor gala at the Museum of Contemporary Art, where a number of young people’s live heads will be rotating as decorative centerpieces at diners’ tables and others — all women — will be required to lie perfectly still in the nude for over three hours under fake skeletons, also as centerpieces surrounded by diners.

On the face of it the above description might strike one as reminiscent of Salo, Pasolini’s controversial film of 1975 that dealt with sadism and sexual abuse of a group of adolescents at the hands of a bunch of postwar fascists. Though it is hard to watch, Pasolini’s film has a socially credible justification tied to the cause of anti-fascism. Abramović and MoCA have no such credibility — and I am speaking of this event itself, not of Abramović’s work in general — only a questionable personal rationale about the beauty of e... More

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO WEATHER FORECAST. STAY TUNED FOR RESCHEDULED TIME!

We are artists and art workers of the 99%. We are struggling to survive and sustain our creative practice in an economy that does not value us as workers, that privatizes cultural institutions and that continuously defunds art programs–from public education to government grants. We are putting our creative efforts towards this movement and considering our role in the fight for economic and social justice.

Join us for the Artists Bloc day at Occu... More

From Tanya Zimbardo, SFMOMA assistant curator of media arts:

If you had visited the waiting area of the directors’ offices at SFMOMA between 1975 and 1978, you would have encountered an exhibition not advertised on the museum’s official schedule: one of the 23 shows organized by Alberta Mayo under the auspices of the Manitoba Museum of Finds Art (MMOFA). Mayo, then assistant to Director Henry Hopkins and Deputy Director Michael McCone, directed her own museum within “the other museum,” turning her administrative space into the venue for... More

On this past Wednesday, November 2nd, Oakland continued its historical legacy by organizing the first General Strike in the United States since 1946 — the last one was also in Oakland. Fifty thousand people (or more) took to the streets and participated in many of the workshops, break-out groups, and strike blocs as part of the Occupy Wall Street movement and in defense of a city under attack by its police force and mayor. Solidarity marches were held in cities throughout the country, banks were closed in Oakland, the port was shut down, chil... More

The Art Workers’ Coalition was an organization of artists formed in 1969 to demand artists’ rights, museum reform, representation of women and artists of color in museums, and for museums to take a moral stance on the Vietnam War. As we consider artists’ stake in the current Occupy Wall Street movements, the Art Workers’ Coalition provides necessary historical context. Copied below is the Art Workers’ Coalition’s Statement of Demands made in November 1970 in New York City. How relevant are these demands toda... More

It is hard for me to focus on much regarding the Occupy movement other than the two consecutive nights of police raids and brutality at the Occupy Oakland camp. However, the artists bloc of the Wall Street West movement is slowly coalescing, and plans are in the works for events, workshops, and discussions regarding the stake of artists in this mo... More

Accolades for smart, creative people are rarely as glamorous or lucrative as the MacArthurs. I always get a little thrill when the annual “genius awards” are announced, as the idea of an artist getting five hundred grand is a wonderful thing, something akin to winning Best Picture at the Oscars. There’s pleasure even in begrudging a ... More

I do in fact have a job with fabulous perks: yesterday’s three-hour meeting-by-requirement was to attend a compelling set of presentations, in a closed-door session, by a fantastic group of artists from six cities around the globe. These artists have been instrumental in building artist organizations or collectives that continue to make dynam... More

Rule number one for BART cops: DON’T SHOOT THE PASSENGERS. Hell, you have my permission to beat the BART riders with billy clubs, handcuff them, arrest them, tase them, pepper spray them, but for God’s sake, DON’T SHOOT THEM! Everyone knows that when cops shoot you they aim at your head or your chest. Cops don’t shoot to wound or disarm, they shoot to kill. If I am wrong please enlighten me. And whatever happened to rubber bullets? If BART cops have the green light to shoot at riders, can’t they at least use rubber... More

One of the most enjoyable aspects of curatorial practice is research, following thoughts to discover how random or apparently unrelated artworks that strike one’s interest can often have a literal or metaphorical connection. I am currently enjoying one such serendipitous occurrence which I thought I’d share.

I have followed San Francisco artist Sean McFarland’s art since he was in graduate school at CCA, where I teach. At that time he was engaged with the work of such artists as Thomas Demand and James Casebere, both noted for their phot... More

I’m happy to announce our fantastic plan for a summer poets-in-the-galleries reading and talk series, organized by Small Press Traffic. Inspired by The Steins Collect, the series honors poet Gertrude Stein and her relationships with the visual artists of her day. Every Thursday evening a poet will give a reading, talk, or performance about a single artist or artwork on view. Please welcome SPT Director Samantha Giles:

In the famous Saturday salons of Gertrude Stein and her family, visual artists and writers exchanged ideas, argued, inspir... More

At this patriotic season, I have to admit, I’m more loyal to California than the U.S. of A. It is, after all, the blue state where I was born (the San Fernando Valley), and those sun-baked Fourth of July’s of my childhood — KFC and Shasta cola in Shoup Park for fireworks — are dry roasted into my memory bank. Barefoot, faded paisley bedspreads unfurled on brown crabgrass at a city-funded recreation area that right about now is probably facing serious service cuts, if not all-out closure. The memories aren’t erasable, but the sites the... More

When I was 14 I thought everyone was straight. So when I heard that Andy Warhol was gay, I freaked out. I mean, how did that happen? The teacher never mentioned it in my high school art class. But when I heard that Cy Twombly was also gay, I freaked out a little less. Then I heard Edward Albee was gay. OMFG! Then I heard a whole lot of artists and ... More

Ai Weiwei was detained for 80 days before being released yesterday: April 3–June 21.

From a Facebook tip by Sarah Hutchinson of the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum via the Hyperalerigic blog via the Chinese news service Xinhuanet.com:

Beijing government news outlet Xinhua has just announced that detained Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has been released on bail, having confessed to his tax crimes and stated his willingness to pay the taxes he is said to have evaded. “A chronic disease” that the artist suffers from was also a factor in his releas... More

The perennial complaint that SF is a sleepy, culturally deprived town isn’t really holding up these days. Sure, there are deficiencies, but lack of culture is no longer one of them. In fact, I’ve been lamenting the steadily increasing frequency of Saturday gallery openings — as someone working in the arts, having weekends off has its appe... More

“Every man has inside himself a parasitic being who is acting not at all to his advantage.”

William S. Burroughs

Last week Gil Scott-Heron’s death came and went, and then his name disappeared into the internet abyss. He seemed vaguely familiar to a lot of people, but aside from his song poem, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” his work was really known by few. As it turns out, the ones who knew the most about him were not the consumers of music so much as artists and performers and writers and people who make things. Gil Scott-Heron was what people call an “artists’ artist.” It is a designation given only to the rare few who make art with a high degree of integrity despite whatever difficulties might plague them — poverty & racism to name a few.

It is no exaggeration that his first album, A New Black Poet — Small Talk at 125th Street and Lenox, exploded onto the music and poetry scene of 1970, tapping directly into the collective... More

I was chatting with friends near a makeshift bar at the opening night of the much-anticipated ArtMRKT fair, nibbling on a muffuletta finger sandwich, washing it down with complimentary tequila, when someone inadvertently knocked a fanciful floral welded metal sculpture from its pedestal. The surprisingly heavy artwork hit my lower leg before meetin... More

The Cannes festival reported today that convicted Iranian filmmaker Mohammad Rasoulof had been cleared by authorities to travel to France, but said it was awaiting confirmation. A court in December sentenced Rasoulof, along with fellow prominent director Jafar Panahi, to six years in jail and barred him from making films for 20 years. The two were released on bail pending an appeal but banned from travel abroad. “We are happy, if confirmed, that Rasoulof can come and then we will re-show his film, but we will only be really happy when his appeal and that of Jafar Panahi have been completed,” said Cannes Festival Director Thierry Fremaux. “When the love of art combines with the creator’s freedom, the festival is pleased to be able to contribute to this flowering,” said Festival President Gilles Jacob.

Cannes organizers have said Rasoulof’s film Good-bye, screened on May 14th, was made in “semi-clandestine conditions,” but his lawyer said Rasoulof had re... More

Last weekend, a friend offered me a ticket to see The Gurs Zyklus, a fully staged opera by Seattle-based, German-born, MacArthur-winning, musically inclined installation artist Trimpin. I accepted but had few expectations, though perhaps taste-based trepidations: I’d seen his sound-based installations in the past, just wasn’t sure it would be m... More

For about two years now I have been living away from San Francisco, and I am constantly being confronted by the stereotypes people have of the art scene in the Bay Area. Apparently there are a lot of people who are quick to dismiss the art and artists in SF as being maybe not as serious as they are out here in New York. But by serious they mean hard work. Politics. Professionalism. Attitude. Getting Paid. Stuff like that. So I find myself wanting to tell the people I meet it’s not so simple, that it’s an apples & oranges comparison and that artists in San Francisco are not the crude stereotypes they make them out to be.

Still, it’s hard to fight a stereotype — especially one that has grains of truth in it. For better or worse, the San Francisco brand was writ large by the 1960s counterculture movement. Consider how, in 1967 during the Summer of Love at the first “Human Be-In,” Timothy Leary told a crowd of 30,000 people in Golden Gate Park to “Tune in, turn o... More

The Cannes Film Festival announced on Monday that Iranian directors Jafar Panahi and Mohammad Rasoulof will be screening two films that were smuggled outside the country in recent days. Both directors have appealed their sentences of six years in prison and a 20-year ban on filmmaking.

Jafar Panahi wrote to the Cannes Film Festival Festival on May 5th: “Our problems are also all of our assets. Understanding this promising paradox helped us not to lose hope, and to be able to go on since we believe wherever in the world that we li... More

Spring, at art school, isn’t exactly about sunny days and waiting for the first heirloom tomatoes to show up at farmers’ market. It’s a frantic season of creative pushes, buffing edges, and occasional artistic breakthroughs. More often, it’s a season of anxiety levels spiking along with pollen counts. I’m in deep — thesis advising,... More

Five hundred people showed up on April 30 to hear Matthew Barney receive a film-related award, talk, and screen the 30-minute Drawing Restraint 17 during the San Francisco International Film Festival. The show was sold out.

I got the gig, at Barney’s request, to conduct the onstage interview. I was honored, though I knew through experience that ... More

This is the latest in a series of observations from the 10th Sharjah International Biennial, Plot for a Biennial.

Adel Abidin‘s Their Dreams is based on drawings from and interviews with children from various locales, including Iraq, Palestine, Switzerland, Jordan, and Finland, who were asked to illustrate their dreams and what they hope to ... More

The San Francisco International Film Festival and Pacific Film Archive’s film series became one of the most awaited events of the year for the Iranian American community in the Bay Area in the ’90s. Having lived through the absence of reports from Iran except for the state-controlled, sanctioned news, we were eager to find ways of rec... More

With the death of perhaps the greatest conspirator of our era, Osama bin Laden, and all the discussion surrounding him, it struck me that America has always been haunted by conspiracy theories and by conspirators. Coincidentally, two nights ago I went to see the film about the so-called Lincoln Assassination Conspirators aptly titled The Conspirato... More

Spring, at art school, is an emotionally schizophrenic season. The weather tends to be glorious (and pollen-filled), as it was today, and campuses pulse with alternating currents of stress, anxiety, hope, exhaustion, and celebration as everyone lurches to the finish line. That was definitely the mix at SFAI this evening, when the campus was buzzing... More

As previously stated on this blog, arts institutions and concerned citizens are calling for the release of artist Ai Weiwei, who was detained by Chinese authorities.

Ai’s whereabouts are still unknown. According to FreeAiWeiwei.org, today marks the 22nd day since Ai disappeared.

Readers seeking additional perspectives might see “Release... More

The 10th Sharjah International Biennial — cocurated by Suzanne Cotter, curator at Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, and Rasha Salti, creative director at ArteEast, with associate curator Haig Aivazian — is titled The Plot for a Biennial. The exhibition draws on the idea of “a treatment for film, replete with a plot, characters and motives,”... More

After noticing, on Facebook, natch, that Jerry and Roberta were out demonstrating in New York, I cruised down Geary on Sunday afternoon looking for the chair-themed Ai Weiwei protest to witness the determination of SF art folks. I ran late — though not that late — and by the time I got there, the only crowds I saw nearby seemed to have taken their seating to the Cherry Blossom Festival across the road. Perhaps the the concurrent events were ill-timed, there being crowd control officials already in the neighborhood who chased them away beca... More

FROM THE GUGGENHEIM:

In response to the recent arrest and detainment of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in Beijing, the Guggenheim has launched an online petition to express concern for Ai’s freedom and call for his release.

In response to the recent arrest and detainment of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei in Beijing, the Guggenheim has launched an online petition to express concern for Ai’s freedom and call for his release. Leading museums around the world have joined and launched the online petition through their Web sites, Twitter, and Facebook sites,... More

Any artist that points out injustices or asks hard questions about society is going to make enemies sooner or later. That’s because nobody likes a critic — especially repressive governments. All critics ever seem to do is complain, and artists are sometimes the worst offenders. Their views take the form of paintings, photographs, writing... More

Artist and human rights activist Ai Wei Wei was detained at Beijing Airport as he attempted to board a plane to Hong Kong. China’s best-known artist, he is an outspoken critic of the government. The international community seeks more information on the detainment and disappearance of Ai Wei Wei, and calls for his release.

The steady, Saturday night precipitation on March 19 did little to deter droves of SF art lovers — myself included — from hitting the coordinated gallery openings in an increasingly vital zone east of Harrison Street. Dubbed Lunar Mission in honor of the moon’s uncharacteristically close proximity to the earth that evening, perhaps the audie... More

Following a weekend when nearly 500,000 protestors were reported on the streets of London to voice their opposition to the UK government’s massive budget cuts, Arts Council England (ACE) has announced this year’s funding recipients.

The UK Guardian offers extensive coverage, including a table comparing last year’s to this year’s funding per organization and a map of arts organizations who completely lost funding. You can even download the raw data, if you’re skeptical about the spin inherent to information graphics, or you’d like to create your own. (This is a historic year for UK budgets, but this amount of coverage in non-arts news outlets would be welcome every year, I think, in the UK, as well as here regarding the NEA.)

I’ve been very lucky to have exhibited and produced artwork with organizations who received funds from ACE. In my travels in the UK, I was absolutely astounded with the vibrance of contemporary art across the country, from ... More

Airports are, potentially, an ideal venue for art. There are captive, often repeat audiences with plenty of time on their hands (especially when planes are socked in by fog). But of course, there’s also the fact that public spaces, particularly airports, have certain conditions attached that may not always foster the most adventurous creative end... More

Go to art shows in San Francisco and you’ll hear people brag drunkenly about how much sex they’re having. You’ll hear all about who’s dating who, who cheated on who and so forth. But what you won’t hear is people bragging about how much money they’re making from their art. The ugly truth is that most artists in San Francisco carry an outrageous amount of student loan debt yet nobody wants to talk about it because, well, it’s unpleasant.

So people talk about other things instead – Sex. Parties. Drugs. Music. Shitty jobs. Survival. Art. Facebook. In fact there’s an endless amount of things to discuss and almost anything is more interesting than debt. Besides, in ... More

Yes, that’s right – the F-22 Raptor can literally fly faster than a speeding bullet! Think about that. While an average bullet flies between 500 and 1,000 mph, the Raptor is capable of flying at speeds between 1,200 and 1,500 mph. Since the F-22 is one of the fastest aircraft flying today, it is also one of the most expensive. According to the the Government Accountability Office the F-22 costs $361 million per per jet. All those millions in tax dollars translate into an airplane that is super stealthy, supersonic and almost invisib... More

“Palimpsest i.e. a parchment from which one writing has been erased to make room for another.” H.D.

“Romantic as it is, I still believe it’s the role of the artist — to question and redefine.” Aaron Levy

I first met Aaron Levy because of Marjorie Welish. The Slought Foundation in Philadelphia was organizing an event around her work as ... More

The second I got my turn at the box office for a Sunday night Sundance Kabuki screening of Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives, Thai director Apicatpong Weerasethakul’s latest, Palme d’Or winning film sold out. It’s heartening to see that the work of an uncompromisingly peculiar filmmaker and artist filling the art house in the same m... More

Anticipating my entry into Open Space has been an unexpectedly thoughtful (i.e. anxiety producing) experience. Agoraphobia is a tempting word for its literal meaning, but it’s not quite the condition I’m experiencing. It is related to a different, yet equally vast space, of open opportunity as well as overwhelming cultural and political shift. ... More

UPDATE: Last April, I posted here about a travel grant for Bay Area artists. Almost a year later, in collaboration with The Present Group, we’ve produced The Present Prize, a new yearly grant that leverages the profit margin from web-hosting services to support artists. The focus of the grant will change from year to year, but this year’s travel grant is being voted on now. You can view the 9 nominees here or start voting.

No one ever thinks they will get killed for using Twitter. Or beaten for taking a photograph. Or arrested for making a video. Or for making a sign critical of the government. But apparently such things have been happening in Egypt. According to Human Rights Watch, about 300 people have been killed since the anti-government uprising began two weeks ago. It’s hard to say for sure how many have been arrested or “disappeared.” One thing is for certain, it’s an all-out technology war with one side using internet tools as a means of expressio... More

On January 18th, the University of San Francisco, in a complex and underhanded backroom deal involving the University of Southern California and Entercom Communications, sold the 33-year-old San Francisco independent radio station KUSF, without any notice to its staff and volunteers or the community it serves. On that day, armed USF security enter... More

Twitter began as a revolutionary social networking tool for the over-caffeinated, but now it can genuinely claim to have started a real revolution. Over the weekend numerous accounts have emerged detailing how the text-based microblogging service allowed Egyptian protesters to connect with one another and organize. Their goal was ambitious by any standard: to challenge a 30-year-old dictatorship by orchestrating massive nonviolent demonstrations. It also must have been quite a shock to Americans who are constantly bombarded with images of Musli... More

For more than half a century the three main employers in Parsons, Kansas, were all in the chemicals business — the Army Ammunition Plant, Dwayne’s Photo, and the Parsons State Hospital.

Between 1942 and 2009 the Kansas AAP produced artillery and mortar shells for the bombardment of Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, assorted Latin Ame... More

As a revolution tries to unfold in Egypt, many Americans who have watched the Antiques Roadshow know why soldiers and citizens alike were seen guarding the Egyptian Museum. It’s because they know that old stuff can be valuable! It’s not just a bunch of crusty statues, drawings, coffins, jars, paintings and old jewelry in there, hell no, some of it is made of real GOLD! And right now gold is worth $1,337.40 an ounce!

Just one mask alone weighs 24.5 pounds. Do you know how much gold that is? Let’s do the math: there’s 16 ounces in a pound for a total of 392 ounces. OMG that means King Tut’s mask is worth $524, 260.00! Maybe more at auction. They also have a big collection of ... More