Nobody wants to get that call, but at 3:41 am this morning I got it. Carlos Villa had passed away. I didn’t want to write an obituary, and so I am not mentioning his numerous awards and such – so this is not an obituary – OK?

It’s just that I had worked with him at the San Francisco Art Institute and saw how he had been a role model and father figure for so many students in the Bay Area and not saying something about that doesn’t seem right.

Also – it’s worth noting that while a cast of colorful charact... More

Receipt of Delivery is a weekly series featuring Bay Area exhibition mailers selected from the SFMOMA Research Library’s collection of artists’ ephemera.

Works by Bruce Conner (1933–2008) and Jean Conner (b. 1933) are currently on view in the “Dreams and Reverie” chapter of Selected Histories: 20th-Century Art from the SFMOMA Co... More

Bay Area Ecstatic, my first programming effort for an SFMOMA film show, plays this Thursday, 7 p.m., in the Phyllis Wattis Theater. Note to followers of The THE END Tour: this week’s post has been preempted by this exploration of later forms of Bay Area ecstatic cinema. Please enjoy, and check back next week for your next Maclaine fix, the co... More

San Francisco-based writer Rebecca Solnit‘s forthcoming book Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas reimagines traditional map-making in 22 inventive maps, 7 of which SFMOMA is issuing this year in broadside copies linked to a series of Live Art events. The second program of the series is this weekend. Rebecca speaks here about what it meant, e... More

[Five questions to SFMOMA artists, staff, or guests.  John Davis is an artist and filmmaker who lives in the Napa valley. John's film Mark You Make Believe My Dear, Yes is currently on view at the museum as part of the Long Play: Bruce Conner and the Singles Collection exhibition. SFMOMA is also lucky to have John on-call as  projectionist, operat... More

My friend Timoleon Wilkins recently sent me an email conveying the dire news that Eastman Kodak has announced they will be eliminating production of their low speed black & white motion picture film, Plus-X, in both Negative and Reversal forms, and in all gauges (35mm, 16mm, and Super-8), and asking me to sign this petition which urges Kodak to reverse this shortsighted decision.  Tim makes a compact and trenchant argument:

“Kodak’s decision represents a serious blow to the film community because there is no equivalent substitute for the tonality and resolution of these films—many cinematographers agree, even the best digital methods fall short. These are the classic black & white films of Hollywood, independents and students. These are the films we cut our teeth on: Whether you are a filmmaker, preservationist or just a passionate film watcher, it’s important that our voices be heard. Decisions like this can have dire consequences for cinema culture and ou... More

Seeing Apsara DiQuinzio’s recent incredible post on Bruce Conner’s LOOKING GLASS (and other works) partially inspired the following recollections:

I first encountered BRUCE CONNER on a visit to the 90′s Dogpatch incarnation of Canyon Cinema. I was tagging along with my good friend, filmmaker Timoleon Wilkins, who had many legitimate reasons to be there, all of which provided me cover for the purposes of scoping out the facilities of this legendary distributor of truly independent cinema. Following Tim into the darkened chamber, I was forced to halt suddenly when a strange, yet friendly-seeming, wizened fellow approached Tim bearing a jar packed with a mysterious, dark substance. After a minute of conversation between my friend and this likely wizard, during which Tim kept referring to him as “Bruce”, it began to dawn on me (BRUCE?!!) — yes, this must be BRUCE CONNER. The proffered jar was a container of sugar-free jam someone had given him as a pres... More

[Alongside our weekly in-gallery curator "One on One" talks, we post regular ‘one on one' bits here on the blog. Follow the series here. Today's post is from assistant curator of painting and sculpture, Apsara DiQuinzio. I'm tipping you off now to the 'big reveal' in this piece: never-before-seen pictures of the back of Bruce Conner's LOOKING GLASS, bel... More

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 a... More

[from guest writer Julian Myers]

“I quit the art business in 1967 for about three years… At that time, whenever I’d get any letters about art related events, I’d send them back or throw them out. Sometimes, I’d write deceased on them. I was listed in Who’s Who in American Art and I sent back all their correspondence with “Deceased.” After three years, Who’s Who believed me… So the artist is definitely dead.”

On Monday, July 7, 2008, Bruce Conner died in San Francisco. It wasn’... More