OPEN SPACE

………………………………. "Only dull and powerless artists defend their art by reference to sincerity" —Kazimir Malevich……………………………………..

It may only a few weeks into the new decade but I’m a-gonna hop on the “top 10″ list trend and do so for the front part instead of at the end. Who knew there would be so much going on already? I know, I know, some of these aren’t exactly “new” or necessarily “news.” But hey. It’s MY column.

1. New York authorities denying the homeless a chance at designer labels.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/13/nyregion/13about.html?hp

What? Yes, believe it. There was a time when even the poor could get a shot at donning faux designer clothes — for FREE, even! According to the NYTimes, the common practice was to donate confiscated counterfeit clothing and footwear to local charities after “defacing” the designer parts of it. But now, no more. And they were still perfectly wearable and clothes, for god’s sake…

2. Anthony Discenza at Catharine Clark Gallery

http://www.cclarkgallery.com

His solo show that just opened last week, “Everything Will Probably Work Out OK,” is like Orson Welles meets Fragglerock meets Showgirls meets Stairway to Heaven. Go see it, and you’ll know what i mean. It gives your brain a mini-workout, in a good way.

3. The Future of San Francisco Transbay Terminal as designed by what seems to be the art directors from Gattaca and Battlestar Galactica (the new series, not the old one).

http://vimeo.com/3589710

Sleek! Sexy! No trash! No children! No old people! Omg! Crazy, eh?

4. Lego Fallingwater.

http://architectgiftsplus.com/learfrllwrfa.html

And while we’re on the subject of visionary architecture: I may just have to cough up the $99 price tag for one of these babies. I’m a total sucker for do-it-yourself modernism. Can’t get enough? Try Lego Guggenheim, ‘natch. And while you’re at it you can view someone’s loving YouTube hommage video. Not quite as hi-tech as The Future of San Francisco but awesome in it’s own D.I.Y. kinda way.

5. Daybreakers

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0433362/

In the very near future vampires have taken over the world and humans are a dying species. It also looks a hell of a lot like Bladerunner, fashion-wise. While this Aussie flick featuring Ethan Hawke does have it’s flaws, I would watch it again just for the slow-motion-vampire-army-orgy scene near the end. (Ooops, spoiler alert!) Not to mention that it’s a thinly-veiled critique on class divides and capitalism, fer real. And yeah, Ethan is still easy on the eyes, vampire boy or not.

6. S.C.R.A.P. (Scroungers’ Center for Reusable Art Parts)

http://www.scrap-sf.org/

Run by a wizened woman with the cutest French accent, this “scrappy” non-profit material re-use center sits in a back alley area of Bayview, nestled between industrial supply houses and lumber yards. Here you can find bolts of fabric, trims, papers, plastic gew-gaws, wood moulding, etc etc etc. Whatever gets donated to this place as surplus winds up on the store floor for your next art project. SCRAP has saved my pocketbook so many times I couldn’t even begin to count. CHEAP CHEAP CHEAP! DEAL DEAL DEAL! I was just there today and scored a bagful of art materials for an upcoming show for way less than what i would have paid if i bought them new. I <3 U!  If this place ever shuts down, i’ll join in the riot.

7. Jeffrey Deitch named as director of MOCA.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/arts/design/12moca.html?scp=2&sq=jeffrey%20deitch&st=cse

Not sure yet if this is “good” or “bad” but it’s interesting, for sure. Good to know he had to shutter his gallery to move to the helm because of that pesky conflict of interest thing. I wonder how painful that is for his artists, however. Does that mean they’ll get more shows at the museum now? Hmmmmm.

8. Colma, The Musical

http://www.colmafilm.com/

Although this funny little local gem of an indie film came out a few years ago, it’s taken me this long to finally watch it. Shot in that nether-world city-of-the-dead south of San Francisco otherwise known as Colma, it brought back for me brutally hilarious memories of what it was like to grow up on the fringes of the Big City (which I did). Consciously D.I.Y., Colma, The Musical wears it’s low-budget badge on it’s sleeve and delivers originality and fun. And who can argue with a movie that shows Serramonte Shopping Center within the first five minutes? Ah, local director makes good.

9. Facebook’s new “unlike” button

I hear it’s real but i haven’t installed it yet. Thank god, because i hated that my only option was to be terminally chipper and like everything. I’m glad the higher-ups have realized that there is much to unlike and the world is complicated.

10. Disgrasian.com

http://disgrasian.com/

Tongue-in-cheek Asian-themed cultural commentary blog from two witty gals who i’d love to share a cocktail with someday. Can you imagine the banter? God, what a party! Check out their dictionary, which carries such words as:

Gongbang: An assault on the ears of gonging sounds that occurs in movies and television whenever someone of something Asian appears on the screen. Example, Long Duk Dong in Sixteen Candles.

Mistasian Identity: Mistaking one of us for another; a result of believing we all look alike.

Panda-ring: Pandering to our people.

“You’re a disgrace. To the race.”  Yeah!

Filed under:

• Columnists

Tags:

Anthony Discenza, catharine clark gallery, colma the musical, counterfeits, daybreakers, designer clothing, disgrasian.com, ethan hawke, facebook, fallingwater, Frank Lloyd Wright, jeffrey deitch, legos, moca, transbay terminal

5 Comments

In collaboration with Happenstand, last summer I compiled a provisional list of some of the most important living artists in the SF Bay Area to share with curator friends abroad and those visiting. It includes artists who have realized exhibitions at museums, solo shows at galleries, and experience outside California and in most cases the US. In other words it’s an attempt at a quantitative rather than qualitative survey. We called it Stance both as a play on the name Happenstand and the idea of taking a stance. Using the Stance artists as a starting point I searched YouTube, Vimeo and Google for videos related to these artists. Here’s what I found:

talks

Kota Ezawa
Odessa Staircase Redux (start at 3:28)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAbAuh15Abo

Ari Marcopoulos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBG1Iu1YWWg

Trevor Paglen
Blank Spots on the Map
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mApBa2qKVDM

Leslie Shows
Display of Properties
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-CIoZNkiDg

Aaron Gach
Center for Tactical Magic
http://vimeo.com/4585845

works

Anthony Discenza
Dream Home
http://www.vimeo.com/1488393

Chris Sollars
C Red Blue J
http://www.vimeo.com/1909936

Packard Jennings
Mussolini Action Figure at Wal-mart
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0JnmXq-k6g

Josh Greene
Consultation
http://vimeo.com/1198912

previews / overviews

Sam Green
Utopia, Part 3: The World’s Largest Shopping Mall
http://www.pbs.org/pov/utopia/

Kamau Patton
Glass House
http://vimeo.com/4073532

Bernie Lubell
Silent
http://vimeo.com/7396296

Stephanie Syjuco
COPYSTAND: An Autonomous Manufacturing Zone
http://vimeo.com/7409004

Future Farmers
Free Soil Bus Tour
http://www.futurefarmers.com/tour2/busvideo.html

Jonn Herschend
Embrace of the Irrational
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNKnHj6nldM

Lucas Murgida
(w)hole
http://www.vimeo.com/5835719

legacy

Tom Marioni
Freehand drawing
http://www.vimeo.com/2800446

George Kuchar
I, An Actress
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOXpDCkOiCo

Bruce Conner
Ten Second Film
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/2638467/bruce_conner_ten_second_film/

Les Blank
Herzog Eats his Shoe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSRN14ZcJQ4

Filed under:

• Columnists

Tags:

Aaron Gach, Anthony Discenza, Ari Marcopoulos, Bernie Lubell, Bruce Conner, Chris Sollars, Future Farmers, George Kuchar, Jonn Herschend, Josh Greene, Kamau Patton, Kota Ezawa, Les Blank, Leslie Shows, links, Lucas Murgida, Packard Jennings, Sam Green, Stephanie Syjuco, survey, Tom Marioni, Trevor Paglen, video

24 Comments

Last summer my friend Tony and I began watching feature-length films that portray artists. Growing up in the US, these films were our first models for what it meant to live and behave like an artist. Watching them again has been an exercise in nostalgia but also a critical investigation into the national image of the artist. A few weeks into our research a friend pointed us to an excellent survey of artists-in-film by Temporary Services called Framing the Artists. It includes Bucket of Blood (1959) and Color Me Blood Red (1965), two B movies we had already watched that cast artists as serial killers. These are just two of dozens of films we found that not only stereotype artists but cast them as sociopaths, idiots, misanthropes etc. This from Temporary Services: It is our contention that by continually watching, cataloging, and analyzing these portrayals, artists can also gain a better understanding of their own responsibilities to their viewers and how the stereotypes hurt their ability to effectively communicate their ideas.

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Filed under:

• Columnists

Tags:

Anthony Discenza, By Design, Chuck Connelly, Film, Framing The Artist, Kristi Zea, Life Lessons, Martin Scorsese, Painter, Paul McCarthy, Temporary Services

10 Comments

For the past year artist Anthony Discenza has been installing, without permission, a series of street signs attached to sidewalk poles on Minna Street, near SFMOMA. Last month I emailed him a few questions about the ongoing project:

Let’s start with some stats on the The Street Signs Project. How many signs have you installed? How many have been confiscated vs. stolen? When did you start the project?

I started the project a little over a year ago, back in May or June of 2008.  To date, I think I’ve put up 14 signs; of those, 6 have been removed—I know the city took down at least 2 of them and 2 were stolen. Of course, I’m not counting the 3 signs I put up in San Jose as part of the Rejection show at the SJICA. Those signs had a slightly different agenda, as they were made specifically around the idea of rejection. San Jose made us take those down as well, but they didn’t confiscate them.

With The Street Signs Project you’ve stepped away from the densely layered image-rich video work you’ve become known for into text. It seems your long relationship with Science Fiction narratives, which have ostensibly inspired much of the video work, plays a role here too. Signs like “Transported into a Realm of Remote and Delicate metaphor, Will we see Angels?” suggest an abstract landscape of fiction (if not of drug use). Other signs like “Coming Up: Greater Horrors” are more situational, as if placed there to speak in an uncanny way directly to the reader. Can you talk about how science fiction has influenced the language of these signs?

The Street Signs Project does seem like quite a departure from the video work, but they actually emerge from a tradition of working with text that goes way back in my practice, and in fact predates much of my video work.  For years I’ve played with fragmentary pieces of text that I either found or wrote myself. I think of this activity as kind of shadow practice, one that has been deeply tied up with my having worked in office environments my whole adult life.  Over the years I’ve accumulated entire drawers full of text-derived pieces, most of them printed or Xeroxed on 8 ½ x 11 paper, or scribbled on lined yellow legal pads. In many ways I think I’m influenced by things I encounter in language and literature more than purely visual things, and I’ve always been a big fan of text-based art, from Ed Ruscha up through David Shrigley.  I love the way that language can be an object, and the way that a small, enigmatic fragment can somehow invoke something much larger in the mind.

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Filed under:

• Columnists

Tags:

Anthony Discenza, Lost in Space, Minna Alley, Rejection Show, Science Fiction, signs, SJICA, The Excorcist

7 Comments