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

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

Painter Philip Guston & poet Clark Coolidge are major collaborators in the tradition of poets and painters working together. In case you haven’t seen it, there’s a delicious new book from the University of California Press, Philip Guston... 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

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism*, and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—
Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #22 & 23 on explanatory style examples for artists.
See all Positive Signs to date.

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

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

Saâdane Afif

Born in Vendôme, France, in 1970; lives and works in Berlin

Untitled (More More, 2003 / Neon light, pile of photocopies / Dimensions variable), 2008; Installation view, Technical Specifications. Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam. Photo: Bob Goedewaagen

“My work today does not rely on the object: It is developed through the accumulation or interweaving of elements that can be more or less visible. One of t... More

In “I Dreamt I Was a Nymphomaniac,” Kathy Acker somewhat wryly describes the art world as “the bohemia of finances.” Still, questions of money and capital in the art world continue to transpire. Occasionally I will post discussions with artists and curators about the economics of their practice. This sixth installment is an e-mail conversation with the editor of local arts publication Art Practical, Patricia Maloney.

BB: Could you describe your practice for SFMOMA blog readers in broad terms?

PM: These days, my primary calling card bear... More

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism*, and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—
Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #19 & 20 on when to use optimism, and creative individuals’ relationships to pain and enjoyment.
See all Positive Signs to date.

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

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

“The practice of painting is much more a habit, rather than being something exquisite.”

Luc Tuymans

ODE TO L.T.

blank spots and

areas of color

where details are erased, left out—

particular areas of bold, deep color, [Orchid]

more quiet faded-looking color

or grays and

black but areas are filled

up with color

salient is the

puzzle-like quality

translations

of photographs,

drawings, translated

from reality

from somewhere else?

laterality, aqua or

cerulean, ultramarine

or navy

roses in a yellow sky

like a hangover from

witless seeing

darklit sun

from the awareness

of windows

areas like objects

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

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism*, and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—
Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #16, 17, & 18 on pervasiveness, permanence, and personalization.
See all Positive Signs to date.

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

Because April 2008 was when Open Space first appeared, I thought it might be nice to mark its third anniversary with an interview with the poet Jack Spicer from June 17th, 1965. It is published by Jacket magazine online. Click HERE to read it.

And to get a sense of the impact he has had on the San Francisco creative community click HERE to read a s... More

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

Speaking of rhyming and dreaming,

“That one image may recall another, finding depth in the resounding, is the secret of rhyme and measure. The time of the poem is felt as a recognition of return in vowel tone and consonant formations, of pattern in the sequence of syllables, in stress and in pitch of a melody, of images and meanings. It resembles the time of a dream, for it is highly organized along lines of association and impulses of contrast toward the structure of the whole. The impulse of dream or poem is to provide a ground for some form beyond what we know, for feeling ‘greater than reality’.”

Robert Duncan, The HD Book, p.99

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I6pOXjQLh7Y

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism* and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—

Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #14: Explanatory Style & 15: Learned Optimism.
See all Positive Signs to date.

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

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

Thinking “these clouds work well together,” I’m on a plane leaving Charles De Gaulle Airport coming home to San Francisco. In an idle moment over the Atlantic, just past Ireland, almost at Iceland, with 7282 km to go, I open Magazine Air France, and on the front page a snow scene. Moscou ( Moscow). Turning the page, I’m looking at a spread, a few sentences with the title “Moscou en hiver” [Moscow in Winter] on the left hand page, ... More

Looking down Woodward Avenue on a February morning, 2011

It was easier to tweet when I was in Detroit than it’s been to blog after returning home. It’s quite a stretch to fly from warm, wet and crowded San Francisco to cold, dry and quiet Detroit, and the minute you land in snowy Romulus and drive into town you are reminded of the Thre... More

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism* and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—
Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #11, 12 & 13 on optimists and pessimists.
See all Positive Signs to date.

On April 12th, 1861, Fort Sumter, a Union fort, was attacked, marking the start of the Civil War. The War would went on to claim over 600,000 lives and pit brother against brother, as they say.

In 1863, after centuries of institutionalized slavery, President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation created the legal framework for the freei... 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

In “I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac,” Kathy Acker somewhat wryly describes the art world as “the bohemia of finances.” Still, questions of money and capital in the art world continue to transpire. Occasionally I will post discussions with artists and curators about the economics of their practice. This fifth installment is an e-mail conversation with local artist Stephanie Syjuco.

BB: Could you describe your practice for SFMOMA blog readers in broad terms? Here it would be great to have an introduction to Shadowshop of course; but what other kinds of works have made up your practice over the last few years? How have these pursuits interpenetrated with the necessity of “making a living?” (say as much as you feel comfortable)

Stephanie Syjuco: My recent projects have been interested in how people relate to objects, with a focus on how things are crafted, traded, valued, and exchanged. I actually come from a fairly traditional sculpture background and feel strongly that... More

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism* and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—

Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #9 & 10 on distractions and the ambitiousness of tasks.
See all Positive Signs to date.

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

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

In Memoriam
Akilah Oliver 1961–2011

go

often now when i imagine life i think of what should

be finite, the guise of limitability, the desire for stop

are there greeters there [are you one] when we

former ghosts arrive

is this sea deceptive, as if alive or an

actor, the world masked

in my own way there was a time when i stumbled

over a tense: says/said

now, bereft, in anticipation of how night collapses

into its own effluence i conjugate o... More

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism*, and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—

Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #7 & 8 on the relationship between flow and happiness.
See all Positive Signs to date.

This may seem like a facetious question, but I’m really quite serious. Naturally, I’m not talking about the plastic soda bottle you’re kicking down the sidewalk or the paper cup you should be composting, but about physical items that are part of the cultural and historical record. The way we think about preserving cultural record... More

Regular readers of Open Space will surely have stumbled over one of my Maclaine posts — and if not, for shame! There are seventeen already, fer gawdsakes…  Now, after over a year of intensive research (preceded by 25 of contemplation) the semi-full story is about to be presented in a theatrical setting. Asked by S.F. Cinematheque‘s a... More

I don’t drink coffee, so let’s have a beer … My posts are always collaborations and are presented in two parts. Part 1 is a summary of a shared experience with my collaborator(s). Part 2 is a response, often in the form of a project created specifically for this blog.

A few weeks ago I sat down with my good friend, local fashion designer Jude Gabbard. We had a great conversation that ended with a promise to do a collaborative project engaging SFMOMA’s collection. The first step was for me to choose five works from the co... More

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

“In Iraq the new moon’s position in the sky is horizontal. In Sumer this appearance of the Moon resembled the crown or horns of Inanna. Correspondingly the shape of the ubiquitous boats, called in Sumerian mà-gur, the primary mode of transportation through the marshes of the delta, still copy the crescent shape of the new moon. Nanna was thought to ride the crescent moon-boat of heaven on its monthly course.”

Betty De Shong Meador, Ina... 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

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism* and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

Text, from bottom of pyramid to top: Training, expectations, resources, recognition, hope, opportunity, reward.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—
Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #6: The Nine Elements of Flow. See all Positive Signs to date.

This is the seventeenth in a multipart series unofficially conjoined to the publication of Radical Light: Alternative Film & Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, and the accompanying film series currently being presented by the Pacific Film Archive and San Francisco Cinematheque (in partnership with SFMOMA).

With my frie... 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.

this is not a poem

only a day to remember

I say the war is over…

the war is over…

H.D., “May 1943,” Collected Poems: 1912-1944

*

Window, National Lawyers Guild [photo: NC]

More

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism* and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—
Next Wednesday: Positive Sign #5: Seven Elements of the Social Milieu Necessary for Creative Contributions. See all Positive Signs to date.

I’m an archivist of what I call ephemeral films — films made for specific purposes at specific times, not intended for posterity. These include industrial and advertising films, home movies, and the occasional educational film. A few weeks ago, I drove down to Hollywood to move some film into our cold storage vault. Since we don’t ha... More

On rare occasions an event—a talk, a blog post, an exhibition—raises an issue that had been slowly making the local water hotter, but gone unremarked. Suddenly with this event the pot is boiling and everyone has something to say. It makes for a lot of fun; such is the case with Stephanie Syjuco’s Shadowshop, a “temporary, alternative store ... 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

I don’t drink coffee, so let’s have a beer … My posts are always collaborations and are presented in two parts. Part 1 is a summary of a shared experience with my collaborator(s). Part 2 is a response, often in the form of a project created specifically for this blog.

My collaborator for the next two posts is San Francisco based f... More

Positive Signs is a weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism* and the lives of artists, published every Wednesday through June.

*Notwithstanding brief forays into the nature of space, stuff, experience, and cognition.

—
Next Wednesday: Positive Signs #3 & 4 on inspiration and what makes life full. See all Positive Signs to date.

In “I Dreamt I Was A Nymphomaniac,” Kathy Acker somewhat wryly describes the art world as “the bohemia of finances.” Still, questions of money and capital in the art world continue to transpire. Occasionally I will post discussions with artists and curators about the economics of their practice, today an e-mail conversation with the amazing American writer Eileen Myles.

BB: Thanks, Eileen, for having this discussion about money, art, and writing! I’m first of all interested in how you’re “making a living” these days.
EM: I wa... More

While poets and writers may wonder if anyone pays attention to their words, nobody can deny the power of images.

Just ask the religious right. They are, after all, the ones who object the loudest, push the hardest, punish the harshest, and pray the loudest. More than anyone, they know the value of symbols, signs and metaphors. Lest we forget – th... 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

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

In a letter, a recent heartfelt iteration of the old dilemma:

my question/concern for you, david, is a selfish one

lately i have been unable to write because i am unsure of poetry’s significance outside of the    “community” and i want what i spend my time doing to be socially/politically engaged.

why do i spend so much of my physical, mental and emotional energy on poetry, when it often seems that this energy would be better spent directly engaging the issues poetry talks about/around? is my engagement in poetry a sign of cynicism and escapism? am i running on bad faith?

so i guess my question for you, david, is how do you deal with these questions on your end? how do you think of poetry’s capacity to reach people besides poets and to maybe try to do something in the world?

–Alli Warren to David Brazil

And David writes a generous letter back, saying, a... More

A weekly series of interpretive diagrams, quotes, and speculations on creativity, optimism and the lives of artists.*

Positive Signs is an attempt to share my research into positive psychology with artists and art enthusiasts.

In the course of examining optimism, pessimism, and happiness in my art for the past few years, these themes have formed a feedback loop winding through my art, life, and attitudes. I have become endlessly fascinated with how individuals make their lives in the arts, and what keeps them motivated and resilient.

In my r... More

A warm first welcome, please, this morning to our fantastic new crew of columnists, who will be rolling out their maiden posts in coming days. I’m very excited to see what they will do:

Interdisciplinary artist Christine Wong Yap recently relocated to New York from Oakland. Her installations, sculptures, multiples, and works on paper explore optimism and pessimism, and major themes and touchstones are language, light and dark, and psychology.

Glen Helfand is an independent writer, critic, curator, and educator. His writing appears regularly in Artforum and at Artforum.com, and he’s contributed to the San Francisco Bay Guardian, ArtInfo.com, and many other periodicals and exhibition catalogues.

Norma Cole is a poet, painter, and translator. Her most recent books of poetry include Where Shadows Will: Selected Poems 1988–2008 (City Lights), Collective Memory (Granary Books), Do the Monkey (Zasterle), Spinoza in Her Youth (Omnidawn), and Natural Light (Libellum). Born in Toronto,... More

This is the sixteenth in a multipart series unofficially conjoined to the publication of Radical Light: Alternative Film & Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, and the accompanying film series currently being presented by the Pacific Film Archive and San Francisco Cinematheque (in partnership with SFMOMA).

With my friend... 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.

I don’t drink coffee, so let’s have a beer … My posts are always collaborations and are presented in two parts. Part 1 is a summary of a shared experience with my collaborator(s). Part 2 is a response, often in the form of a project created specifically for this blog.

After meeting my collaborator, Joshua Singer, at The Trappist a... More

Dear Louise Bourgeois,

You probably don’t remember me, but I met you on my very first trip to New York. I was staying with my friend Yael Bartana on St. Mark’s Place, and she was nice enough to let me stay for like two weeks. So anyway, one day I was with another friend who had gone to your house in Chelsea on a class trip. When we were walking... More

To make their friends jealous in the 19th century people would bring home souvenir photographs from their trips. Long before Kodak’s Brownie camera popularized the concept of the snapshot and before Flickr, Picasaweb, Photobucket, or Google, there was the cheap 8 x 10-inch albumen print. Back then you could pick them up in stores or from str... More

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

This is the 15th in a multipart series unofficially conjoined to the publication of Radical Light: Alternative Film & Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, and the accompanying film series currently being presented by the Pacific Film Archive and San Francisco Cinematheque (in partnership with SFMOMA).

With my friend Brian Da... 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

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

So, how do you feel about Paris Hilton?

It’s a funny question, I know. Funny, because largely I find no one has much of any feeling at all “about” Paris Hilton. Especially these days. When I put the question on the Facebook, “So, how do you feel about Paris Hilton?” OPEN SPACE blogger Scott Hewicker responded wisely, “Who?”

And yet w... More

This is the fourteenth in a multipart series unofficially conjoined to the publication of Radical Light: Alternative Film & Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, and the accompanying film series currently being presented by the Pacific Film Archive and San Francisco Cinematheque (in partnership with SFMOMA).

With my friend Brian Dar... More

Up in the Yukon they say that you can freeze to death in less than an hour. It’s especially true when temperatures drop to 48 degrees below zero — like they did last week. So if you don’t dress right or your car dies and you get stuck outside, things can get bad really fast. The cold does violence to the skin first, signaling your capil... More

John Koch’s solo debut, Interpenetrations at Right Window Gallery closed a little over a week ago, but it was such a joyous surprise of a show that I wanted to share it with those who may have missed it.  Consisting of a large high-contrast photograph blown up to fit the full frame and right angle of the window and back-lit with fluorescent ... More

I don’t drink coffee, so let’s have a beer … My posts are always collaborations and are presented in two parts. Part 1 is a summary of a shared experience with my collaborator(s). Part 2 is a response, often in the form of a project created specifically for this blog.

“Interdisciplinarity is not the calm of an easy security;... More

This is the 13th in a multipart series unofficially conjoined to the publication of Radical Light: Alternative Film & Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945–2000, and the accompanying film series currently being presented by the Pacific Film Archive and San Francisco Cinematheque (in partnership with SFMOMA).

With my friend Brian Darr, ... More

Yesterday, I woke up to the tragic news that Trish Keenan, frontwoman for the UK band Broadcast, had passed away from complications stemming from pneumonia contracted while on tour in Australia. She was 42. Since becoming a columnist on Open Space, I had hoped to bring in musical topics to the blog. While I would never have wished this to be that ... More

In 2004, I really wanted to try and watch 1 Night In Paris, or at least to try and see what it looked like. The stills that accompanied news articles about its release made it seem like a painting: the scene seemed so green, filthy, the Rembrandt-light of surveillance footage. Not real sex with real bodies, but colliding glass and Black American Ex... More

If you want to find out what’s going on in the San Francisco Art World don’t go to the galleries — go to the bars. That’s where all the artists are. I know because I drank a lot when I lived there. It was easy to do because anywhere you could swing a dead cat — bam — you’d hit a bar! In North Beach alone you have Kennedy’s, Specs, Vesuvio, Mr. Bing’s, Tosca, Grant & Green, the Saloon, Savoy Tivoly, Gino & Carlo, 15 Romolo, O’Reilly’s, Sweetie’s, Hawaii West, Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store, and that’s just half the places I can remember.

Now I know some of you might say “Oh what a shocking admission of guilt he’s just made!” but rest assured, I am a quiet drunk, not the loud kind like others you may know. Besides, way too much emphasis is placed on career and not the act of  creation or the environment where ideas have a chance to get tossed around among friends. Art school is just one place where that happens. It’s worth noting that there a... More

Jack Spicer was an American poet, born in 1925 in Los Angeles, and something of the grit and the gold of Southern California clung to him throughout his life, even after moving to Berkeley, then San Francisco, when the Second World War ended in 1945. There’s supposed to be a giant feud between LA and SF, but I can’t say I’ve seen it in actio... More

I don’t drink coffee, so let’s have a beer … My posts are always collaborations and are presented in two parts. Part 1 is a summary of a shared experience with my collaborator(s). Part 2 is a response, often in the form of a project created specifically for this blog.

In early December my son Sam and I sat down to watch Rivers and... More

On red-letter days in the gastronomic calendar, from harvest home (“thanksgiving”) to the saturnalia at the turning of the year, the issue of “food miles” has become a staple of conversation around Bay Area dining tables — a ritual culinary mea culpa which no tithing by gourmet penitentes at local farmers’ markets c... More