OPEN SPACE

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

In January, at the opening of the Anniversary Show at SFMOMA, artist Colter Jacobsen and I found ourselves standing in the doorway of the SECA/Mission School room, which was kind of comical since Colter himself is frequently associated with the Mission School. Well, maybe not “comical.” Maybe “awkward” or “ironic” would be better. I pointed to the signage and said, “I guess the Mission School is official.” Colter nodded toward the Barry McGee assemblage bulging from the wall and said, “Yes, it’s pregnant and giving birth to itself.”

Barry McGee, Untitled, 1996

A few weeks later, when I return to take a better look at the works of Leslie Shows, Simon Evans, Barry McGee, etc., my feelings are mixed. It’s great that the museum is supporting younger local artists, but does this art with its found materials (a.k.a. garbage), skateboard images and graffiti, want to be there, all gussied up and crowning the walls of gallery 204B? I remember openings for these artists at Jack Hanley’s gallery on Valencia, Adobe Books on 16th Street, and Rick Jacobsen’s short-lived Kiki Gallery (1993-95) on 14th Street—musician friends or the artists themselves tormenting electric guitars, art lovers spilling out onto the sidewalk, swilling canned beer, smoking and talking a mile a minute, the crowd so dense that passersby had to walk in the street to get around them, neighbors calling the police. I remember the wooden fort-type structure Chris Johanson filled Jack Hanley’s with, how we had to climb on it and bend our bodies and peek through crevices to view the pictures he’d affixed to it. I remember the stench of cat urine at Adobe, the dust, the labyrinth of scenesters sipping red wine from plastic glasses amidst book-laden tables that prevented anyone but the most devoted from making it to the tiny back room to view the art. I remember the art serving as a backdrop to plays, poetry readings, and acoustical music sets—and Jerome Caja taking a bubble bath in a claw-footed tub during his opening at Kiki. I turn around and around in gallery 204B and no matter how hard I try, I can’t feel the aura of those raucous nights clinging to this work. This art, I think, has lost the battle. It is now one with the impenetrable cleanliness of the institution.

Chris Johanson, Untitled (Figures with black presence), 2002

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Adobe Books, Barry McGee, Chris Johanson, Colter Jacobsen, Donald Allen, Jack Hanley, Jennifer Sonderby, Jorge Fick, Kiki Gallery, Leslie Shows, Mission School, Simon Evans

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I remember when Tomo was only in one band. It was [Hey] Willpower first, or wait, Window Window, and then Tussle and then Coconut? Maybe his two solo albums came first. I’m not sure that’s right, but I do remember that I was never worried as he was joining up with group after group. He just seemed to snowball into a force that was needed simultaneously by three groups with three distinct sounds. The kind of role I would ordinarily ascribe to a producer or arranger. Not to even mention other pairings that lasted a show or two or were just revived whenever the stars were aligned. He plays guitar for Coconut; bass, keyboards and percussion for Tussle; and keyboard for [Hey] Willpower. I used to read about the old big bands (Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington and later Sun Ra) playing upwards of 280 one nighters per year, and I think Tomo would do well with that life, one of his bands dropping him off in Providence and then another picking him up there, trading him out as needed.

The first time I visited Tomo’s apartment he had a small hand-held recording device. The kind you set on the table between two people during an interview. It was the two of us as well as Nathan Berlinguette. Tomo asked if we wanted to make a sound piece, or maybe he said “a noise piece.” He waited until we were quiet, pressed ‘Record,’ and leaned back hard in his chair. I took a roll of pennies that happened to be at arms’ length and cracked it against the counter. I forget what Nathan did. The playback was very much like a crude Xerox of those few seconds. The recording came back with a rough loud edge I did not expect. We made several more that night, and each one turned out perfectly. It was like collaborating on poetry or an exquisite corpse drawing. It seems more about what the room wants when things are going well. Like when mute television is blending perfectly with music left on in another room.

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Coconut, Colter Jacobsen, Daft Alliance, David Wilson, Lart Cognac Jr., Nathan Berlinguette, Simon Evans, Tomo Yasuda, Tussle, [Hey] Willpower

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I have been waiting all summer long for the Mantles’ debut album. They had the party/performance October 1st at the Eagle Tavern, sharing the bill with Grass Widow and Yellow Fever. It is a vinyl-only release with a download card tucked inside. I love this, as it seems that music has gone so far away from being something we can hold onto and consult (like a map). There is some music that I think of foremost as mystical object: the Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request, Pharoah Sanders’ Live At the East, and anything by Thee Oh Sees. The Mantles’ LP has an inner sleeve graced with a beautiful drawing by Colter Jacobsen. As for their sound, I always think of race horses bucking around in their stalls just before the gun sounds and the doors burst open. I am typing this from Vancouver. I attended this show the night before I left and played the record as much as I could the next morning before taking off. I can’t wait to come home to it. Please do not sleep on the Mantles.

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Colter Jacobsen, Thee Oh Sees

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San Franciscans have but a few days to scurry down to Ratio 3 on Stevenson Street, there to check out “Liberation Upon Contact,” new work by gallery artists including Jose Alvarez, Sam Gordon, Jordan Kantor, Ruth Laskey, Barry McGee, Mitzi Pederson, Ara Peterson, and Jonathan Runcio. (Show closes May 30.) For those of you who have never been there, Ratio 3 and its director, debonair, saturnine Chris Perez, ”bring vastness to the mind.” That’s their slogan, and I always wince when I hear it first, then I think a little, forced to acquiesce.

A year ago I got a package in the mail with a few DVDs in it, each one an excerpt from Sam Gordon’s project “The Lost Kinetic World,” a 24 hour video montage of his wanderings through the art world. I scanned the accompanying press materials and was surprised to see myself listed among the hundreds of art figures appearing in the film. Dodie Bellamy too. She was on disk 4 and I was on disk 9 or something like that. Naturally we were curious to see what we were doing! The instinct was to fast forward through all the other chazzerai and find ourselves, and yet the rhythm and the fantastic juxtapositions of the material slowed us right down, and we wound up watching for hours. In New York last week I went to visit Sam Gordon in his studio and find out more about the man who had made us immortal with his roving eye. (more…)

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Chris Perez, Colter Jacobsen, Kiki Gallery, Ratio 3, Rick Jacobsen, Sam Gordon

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