Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.
If you recall, back in September Tony Labat staged an event in the Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town next week. Congratulations Kali!
Kali Eichen has an extensive background in acting, dance, improvisation, and educational and technical theater. She is a writer who dabbles in short fiction, food blogging, and recipe development. Currently, she makes her living as a pastry chef – specializing in bacon desserts and caricature cakes.
Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.
Back on September 11th, Tony Labat staged an event in the Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town next week.
Hazel White is a poet, journalist, and author; most of her work addresses landscape and the poetics of habitation. More privately, until now—the mouse rushed to the email “send” button, next thing she was at the I Want You auditions—she’s a transracially adoptive parent, and a fledgling anti-racism activist. She thanks her partner, her son, and her son’s birthfamily, and The UNtraining organization for helping her to explore racism and to find her urgent new voice.
Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.
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Beth Lisick has published poems, essays, and a short fiction collection; she wrote a weekly nightlife column for SF Gate for eight years. Her stage and screen collaborations with writer/performer Tara Jepsen have yielded some uncomfortable moments, most recently the short film Diving for Pearls. Beth co-organizes the Porchlight Storytelling Series, a monthly show for amateur storytellers in San Francisco. Her book Everybody Into the Pool was a New York Times bestseller; her latest book about her adventures in the self-help biz is called Helping Me Help Myself: One Skeptic, 10 Self-Help Gurus, and a Year on the Brink of the Comfort Zone.
Tara Jepsen is a writer and performer from San Francisco. She’s toured extensively with the all-female cabaret Sister Spit’s Rambling Road Show, and the short film Diving for Pearls (in collaboration with Beth Lisick), won “Most Innovative Short” at the Seattle Lesbian and Gay Film Festival (2004). She co-curates and co-hosts San Francisco’s longest running queer open mic, K’vetsh, with Kirk Read. Tara recently completed the first run of her live stage show, written and performed with Beth Lisick, Getting in on the Ground Floor and Staying There.
Don and Phil, or R. Donald Nash and Phil Spalding, hail from San Francisco’s Castro neighborhood, where they have been running their boutique design firm for over thirty years. They’ve worked with princes and princesses, real and figurative, and aren’t afraid to nudge a client toward a more adventurous chair. Though they’ve never fallen on the same side of the great Hummel vs. Lladro debate, they do agree on Italian opera, convertibles (preferably silver and Mercedes), and their shih tzus Betty and Veronica.
Tony Labat, I WANT YOU, a project for Live Art at SFMOMA. Design by MendeDesign. Photography by George Westcot.
If you recall, back in September Tony Labat staged an event in the Wattis Theater, riffing on the iconic “I Want You” army recruitment campaigns, asking Bay Area residents to make their own demands of the public in live performances, with the audience determining the five winners via scantron-style voting. The winners have had their slogans—and their likenesses—transformed into posters which are going up all over town next week. And all over the blog in coming days.
This is Bird, a.k.a., Nicole Mills-Novoa:
“Hola, mi amo Nicole but my friends call me Bird. I love making puppets, singing the blues, writing short plays, I love mayonaise, falling in love, drinking earl grey tea with honey from sweet tea cups, whales, pandas, the Giant Saterniid Moths, Jazz, creating my very own personal mythologies, lasagna, speaking my mind, watching old Italian movies such as The Bicycle Thief, I love playing records, big wicker baskets filled with yarn, old log cabins that smell of wood burning stoves, true social justice, living by the Girl Scout Law, reading books in my over stuffed chair, glasses of Makers Mark on the rocks, going to rock shows, saying and hearing the things that no one wants to say or hear, living on sailboats, old ladies holding hands in the park, compasses, old suit cases with secret lives, hearing and telling stories, and bicycles with baskets.”
Greetings readers, this is Gina Basso, Public Programs Associate and semi-regular OPEN SPACE contributor. I’m about to delve right in to my first ever post….here I go…
You may have read Megan Brian’s post last week about the print traffic woes getting films from the China Film Archive for the films scheduled in the Rediscovering the 4th Generation series currently underway. And the saga continues: one of the films arrived sans subtitles (Mandarin, anyone?). Despite the myriad ways to handle such a predicament, we decided the print would have to be replaced with a subtitled DVD (thanks Facets Multimedia!) for two of the screenings. But don’t worry! the print didn’t come all this way for nothing and we’re showing it anyway, on October 30, in Mandarin, NO subtitles! Once you know the story, just relish in the opportunity to see a visually stunning work that captures the vivid colors of the costumes and the make-up, and the performative elements of Chinese opera.
Woman Demon Human is the only film in this series to be directed by a woman, Huang Shuqin. It’s an imaginative bio-pic of famed Beijing Opera actor, Pei Yanling, who was best known for her portrayal of male roles and who stars in the film, playing a fictional version of herself, Qiu Yun. (Didn’t Richard Pryor do that in Jo Jo Dancer Your Life is Calling?) With the opera as its backdrop, the film follows the rise of the young opera star as she experiences love, loss, tragedy, and the trappings of gender conventions. In fact, the real drama lies backstage where tears flow, tempers flair, and performers share gossip with hushes, whispers, and knowing looks. The backstage scenes convey the frenetic energy of the opera’s inner-workings, from the laborious process of applying make-up and getting into costume to the “limbering up” (stretching and contorting)— painful reminders of the physical lengths the performers must endure for their art.
Qiu/Pei’s defiance of traditional roles in the face of public ridicule is at the heart of the story, and the catalyst that allows her to sink more deeply into her art. Cutting her hair short - “she looks more boy than boy” remarks a character - she raises suspicions from those who gasp at her will to no longer play female roles and to be “nobody’s bride.” Cross-dressing in Chinese opera is age-old (Yuan Dynasty), but it’s more common for men to adopt female roles (dan). This female-to-male reversal illuminates Pei Yanling’s real-life controversy as an opera performer. In the film, her onstage performances as the mythical Zhang Kui, the underworld god and vanquisher of ghosts and demons, act as a meta-text for her life off-stage, mirroring her desire to chase the ghosts haunting her life and challenging traditional customs in modern opera. Director Shuqin also uses the literal mirror, not only as a way to suggest the character’s identity formation, its fragmentation and merging of multiple selves into one, but also as a device to move the story along. Woman Demon Human spans Pei Yanling’s career from the late 1950s to the 1980s and each chapter in her life is signaled by her pondering her reflection in the mirror and seeing two selves - in costume as Zhang Kui and without. As she gazes into the mirror you’re whizzed off into the next dramatic epoch.
[Our regular feature, "Collection Rotation". Once a month I invite a local guest to organize lists, groupings, or 'exhibitions' from our permanent collection. Our guest this month is KALX DJ and local bloggerHeidi De Vries, who has spoiled us with a very personal look at some of her favorite works. She includes notes about her selections along the way. Thanks, Heidi! P.S.! Heidi! Thanks!]
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Liner Notes
For my Collection Rotation I picked artworks that I remember from my countless visits to SFMOMA over the last decade as having strong emotional resonance for me, and then linked those pieces to music tracks that summon similar feelings. The Janet Cardiff and the Christian Marclay (below) have their own integral soundtracks already, so those I left “blank”. Otherwise while I explain below why I selected a particular piece of art, I’m just going to let the accompanying music speak for itself.
It was in Barbara Hepworth’s sculpture garden in St Ives, England, at the very end of my teenage years that I truly connected to modern art for the first time, in a moment that was nothing less than epiphany. I still get a residual thrill down my spine every time I run into one of her pieces:
Barbara Hepworth, Landscape Sculpture, 1944/196. Bronze and string. Collection SFMOMA
Sigur Rós: “Glósóli” from Takk…, Geffen 2005
My awesome and super-smart physicist grandfather worked on the Manhattan Project during World War II, and since I’ve been old enough to reason I’ve been aware of the moral ambiguities surrounding what he was asked to do by his government. Chris Burden nails the horror and confusion of the birth of the atomic age at the same time that he tries to set some order to it. Victory is in there, but it’s pretty darn close to the bottom:
Chris Burden, The Atomic Alphabet, 1980. Photoetching, soft-ground etching, and watercolor on paper. Collection SFMOMA
Crystal Castles: “Untrust Us” from Crystal Castles, Last Gang 2008
I can relate to the worried faces of McGee’s sad sack characters, and as someone who loves to roam city streets the references in his work back to his roots in graffiti and street art make me very happy. His wife, the late Margaret Kilgallen, is also my favorite artist ever.
Barry McGee, Untitled, 1996. Mixed media installation. Collection SFMOMA
Tom Waits: “Widow’s Grove” from Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers & Bastards, Anti 2006
Marclay brings together three of my great passions: music, art, and film. And with some devastatingly good editing too. It almost seems cruel to include this one on a blog where you can’t see it in motion or hear it, so next time it goes on display I highly recommend making a special trip. In the meanwhile, there’s an unauthorized bootleg shot at Tate Modern over at YouTube.
Christian Marclay, Video Quartet, 2002. Four channel video projection with sound. Collection SFMOMA
I very much admire Hesse’s fearlessness, especially in her use of unconventional (and dangerous!) materials, and I love the metaphors she draws between architectural forms and the body. She is an absolute inspiration:
Eva Hesse, Sans II, 1968. Fiberglass and polyester resin. Collection SFMOMA
Magazine: “A Song from Under the Floorboards” from The Correct Use of Soap, Virgin 1980
Another piece to be experienced in person, Cardiff leads the listener into an immersive and wonderfully disorienting mini-tour of SFMOMA using her voice and a video camera as guide. I’ve done it many times and my heart still stutters during the part in the employee stairwell, as menacing footsteps approach…
Janet Cardiff, The Telephone Call, 2001. Audio and video walk through the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Collection SFMOMA
[Nota Bene: Janet Cardiff's piece will be available again as part of the upcoming Art of Participation exhibition, starting Nov 8--SS]
The voyeuristic aspect of watching Kiarostami’s film of a sleeping couple is completely seductive to me, as in real time they move together and then apart in a rhythm uniquely their own. Simultaneously sexy and sweet, part of the allure of the piece comes from the fact it is projected onto what looks like a bed, right on the floor of the gallery:
His Name Is Alive: “Where Knock Is Open Wide” from Mouth by Mouth, 4AD 1992
Everything Richter does is amazing to me, both his photorealistic paintings and his more abstract work. One of my cats is named Richter after him (the other one is named Cardiff after Janet):
Gerhard Richter, Lesende (Reading), 1994. Oil on linen. Collection SFMOMA
Angels of Light: “Kosinski” from Everything Is Good Here/Please Come Home, Young God 2003
A fellow Dutchwoman, Dijkstra’s photos of young people on the beach reference the lighting and poses of Renaissance painting at the same time that they capture that totally awkward moment between childhood and modern adulthood. My godchild Sophie is rapidly approaching this moment herself, so I’ve been thinking a lot about how best I can help her through:
Rineke Dijkstra, Hilton Head Island, SC USA, June 24, 1992, 1992. Chromogenic prin. Collection SFMOMA.
Caesars: “Fun and Games” from 39 Minutes of Bliss (In an Otherwise Meaningless World), Astralwerks 2003
No actual body here, just the imprint of Mendieta’s form. Her work always makes me think of the intangibility of what we leave behind after we’re gone:
Ana Mendieta, Untitled, from the series Silueta Works in Iowa, 1978. Gelatin silver print Collection SFMOMA.
Wire: “Ahead” from The Ideal Copy, Mute 1986
Time marches inexorably forward as Miyajima’s long line of LED-light counter numbers roll over, some fast and some very slow. You know what number will follow another number but not necessarily when, and it is totally my personality to stare at a particularly stubborn counter and will it to move:
Tatsuo Miyajima, Counter Line, 1997. 224 red LEDs, 6 aluminum rails, 6 transformers, and connecting wire. Collection SFMOMA.
k-os: “The Love Song” from Joyful Rebellion, Astralwerks 2004
This video consists of a single shot of a cat drinking a bowl of cream, absolutely brilliant in its simplicity. I don’t remember a soundtrack beyond perhaps a gentle lapping of milk; I thought here it would be OK to add a little Trenet. The first time I saw the piece there was a small boy in the room watching with me, and as soon as the cat finished its bowl he threw his hands up in the air and declared happily: “All done!”
Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Busi (Kitty), 2001. Single-channel video with sound. Collection SFMOMA.
Charles Trenet: “Boum!” from Y’a D’la Joie, Chanson Francaise 1997
[Heidi De Vries works in media production by day and spends all her extracurricular time soaking up art and culture in the Bay Area and cities around the world. She is also a volunteer DJ at KALX Berkeley 90.7fm and is currently on the air Sunday afternoons 3-6pm. You can also find her at her blog, Engineer's Daughter.]
[Hi. I'm Megan. I work in the education department and thought I'd introduce myself as I'll be a semi-regular contributor. I was interviewed here when I co-curated the staff art show, and have already written a little for the blog. It's a pleasure to meet you.]
We have a new film series on this month, Rediscovering the Fourth Generation, which includes four films from the post-Mao era in China.Gina Basso, our public programs associate, has been coordinating this series since July, working closely with a distributor in China to make sure the films got here on time. So when the prints still weren’t here a week before the first screening, and Gina couldn’t get her Chinese contact on the phone, everyone started to worry. As it turns out, it was Golden Week in China, EVERYONE was on holiday, and we had no way of knowing if the films would turn up.
After a few frantic days on the phone, we located the prints at SFO and had them rushed over, however by this time it was only one day before the first screening. Paul Clipson, our projectionist extraordinaire, generally has a week to look through the films, checking the prints to make sure they’re in good condition and learning each film’s personality. Last week he just had a day.To add panic to panic, the four films arrived in SIX boxes, sealed with thick metal wire, which Paul had to cut open with wire cutters.Those six boxes revealed over forty short reels, meaning that each film was divided up into at least ten sections which, of course, were all labeled in Mandarin.Paul spent the day matching Mandarin characters to each other in order to put each film together.
When I got a chance to see the prints and shipping materials I was fascinated by their personality and how tactile they were. Growing up in the digital age, I haven’t had much opportunity to see real film, especially real film in real canisters that have just traveled across the globe.The steel boxes and canisters are a reminder of the tangible and human aspect of film.
Paul Clipson, checking the reels for subtitles. Not all the films seemed to have them.
On Saturday Rick Danielson and Brecht Andersch, our projectionists for the day, arrived. I felt a wave of relief as the first scene began. The saga of putting together this film series reminds me that, as Paul put it, “Art isn’t convenient.The impracticality is part of its magic.”
