OPEN SPACE

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

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

While investigating various histories relevant to the Pickpocket Almanack program, Renny Pritikin pointed me to a rare publication surveying SFAI’s brave departure from business as usual, organized by Tom Marioni. It was a year-long series of weekly projects called The Annual or Annual Space. The series involved institutional partnerships and off-site locations including two events at SFMOMA.

SFMOMA director Neal Benezra, with Elaine McKeon, tending bar in the Koret Visitor Education Center, for last night’s Marioni salon:

Tom Marioni; SFMOMA exhibitions design manager Kent Roberts.

Tammy Fortin; Kent Roberts

All pictures: Chris Brennan.

Many many more pictures of last night’s salon are here.

For serious.

Tonight’s guest bartender at Tom Marioni’s salon is none other than SFMOMA director, Neal Benezra. And not only that, but Neal will be joined in his labors by long-time SFMOMA trustee and former chairman of the board, Elaine McKeon. It should be said that, among Ms. McKeon’s many leadership credits, it was she who recruited Neal from the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002. Also, she wears fabulous outfits.  I’m looking forward to seeing this pair’s prowess behind the bar.

Tonight’s all-star cast ALSO includes SFMOMA exhibition design manager & chief preparator of nearly thirty years, Kent Roberts, as the evening’s reader. Not to be outdone by Neal, Kent is bringing along his own sidekick, media arts assistant & Open Space regular, Tammy Fortin, who for certain won’t let herself be outdone by Elaine in the get-up department. Plus, she’ll be playing the drums.

ALSO on tonight: novelist Michael Cunningham and designer Martin Venezky will talk about their collaboration on a limited-edition double deck of cards (design by Venezky, text by Cunningham), commissioned by SFMOMA in conjunction with the exhibition Double Down: Two Visions of Vegas. They’ll be joined by Henry Urbach, Helen Hilton Raiser Curator of Architecture and Design. Free with admission; Wattis Theater, 6:30pm. SEATING IS LIMITED.

Hey all,

Just a reminder that tonight’s Tom Marioni FREE BEER Salon is featuring that famous local painter Robert Bechtle as guest bartender, and that famous local news & gossip maven Leah Garchik as guest reader.

Also on tonight in the D-Space, starting at 7pm when the salon closes, is a cool-sounding project developed by Stanford students as part of our experiment Group Work, a collaboration between three types of institution: an art school (CCA), a research university (Stanford), and a modern art museum (that’s us). Peggy Phelan at Stanford, and Brian Conley at CCA, have been leading courses on art education and participation, and as part of their coursework, each student group is producing projects related to those themes. Tonight the Stanford group presents, and next Thursday the CCA group will be here.

Details from the Standford students:

We imagine a lively atmosphere with eccentric sounds, people in puppet clothes, photographs (like at an amusement park), and occasional readings of esoteric materials. An art-town fair with three main elements:

Collaborative soundscape Two chalkboards with contact microphones attached placed on opposite sides of the room on easels. Chalk and erasers are provided. The sound will be amplified, and processed with effects like reverberation, distortion, and delay. The effects and prerecorded sounds will be controlled from two laptop computers stations operated by the students. The piece emerges from the collective writings and drawings of participants from the public, and momentary interventions or sound poems written by Stanford students. Other sounds such as erasing or directly touching the chalkboard will add nuance. In addition to the live sounds from the chalkboards, there will be some sporadic instances of prerecorded material, realized by the students &  emerging as performance cues. The audience is confronted with an object that is familiar as a pedagogical tool, but transformed into an instrument that invites creative personal visual and aural experiences while participating in an open sound piece.

Border piece: Built on the fourth wall of the D-Space between the two front columns, approximately 4 feet high, this element constitutes a barrier/border fabricated out of fine, breakable threads, yellow DO NOT ENTER, DANGER, CAUTION tape, tie-line, clothes pins, & “surveillance” cameras. The barrier will have rotating on-duty “staff.” Participants have a few choices for passing through: 1. ­ pass trough this border by making an offer, write a poem, make a small drawing, a dance movement, etc., OR 2. ­ create a new identity by using provided elements for a new kind of identification card. Once realized the ID constitutes a “legal” document and can be used as a pass, OR 3. ­ do none of the above and find a way to “cross” the barrier/border “illegally,” by crawling or jumping over. On the other side of the border lies the FUTURE, a place for play and display of inclusion and exclusion, of exploration of all six senses.

Polaroid piece; Three Polaroid cameras, three disposable cameras, and two photosticker cameras will be placed around the room. Each camera will have instructions or a prompt such as, “with this camera shoot the person you find the most attractive tonight,” or “make a political statement with this camera” or “please take home the picture you took with this camera and send it to a person who does not know what collaborative art is” or perhaps simply “capture participation.”

If all this isn’t enough (or is too much) for you, there’s also a screening of Derek Jarman’s Edward II, starting at 7pm in the Wattis.

Dear reader, this is Tammy.

Last night, as part of the ongoing exhibition The Art of Participation, SFMOMA hosted the first in the series of the Tom Marioni salons: The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art. Bringing this simple act into a museum setting required the building of a bar (which I am petitioning to keep well-stocked beyond the show) in the Koret Center, ordering twelve cases of Pacifico beer from the local Bevmo, the completion of many pink and green logistics forms, the administration of drink tickets, and the acquiring of a bartender for each night. Last night’s barkeep was Curator of Media Arts, Rudolf Frieling. It was a special occasion, as it is the only time I’ve ever ordered a beer from my boss.

The place filled up quickly with friends and we all drank (with gusto). We were doing it! We were creating art and I could feel it: tiny carbonated bubbles and a general loosening of the seams. The game of quarters was not attempted, but the idea was bandied about. Tom Marioni walked to the podium and gave his address. He was loaded–with jokes. And read with a slight impish nature. A poet appeared on the scene. He had a sign that read “Poems for Sale.” I handed him a dollar. He asked, “What would you like a poem about?” I thought and said “A dark window.” He licked his lips, took a glug from the bottle and began typing on his little typewriter. He finished and handed me a slip of paper with my poem on it. It read:

mac
book
night
dot com
aka wall

Well worth every cent!

The next salon will be Thursday, November 20th at 5pm. Anne Colvin is bartending, Bill Morrison is the guest reader. I hope you can make it.

For serious, I have been waiting to post that headline for over a year.  Starting tonight! and for the next three months, we are hosting Bay Area conceptual artist and sculptor Tom Marioni’s weekly salon, The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art. If you’re not familiar with this work, Tom has been organizing these salons, where friends and artists can convene, converse and drink beer, in his studio and elsewhere, for more than two decades.

Each week we’ll have special guest bartenders and readers, & I’ll try to keep you apprised: tonight’s bartender is Rudolf Frieling, Curator of Media Arts, and the reader is Mr Tom Marioni himself. Do come by! It’s free, with museum admission of course; keep in mind that space is limited (see below). Entry will be on a first-come, first-served basis. Like any drinking establishment, you must be over 21 & carrying vaild ID.

Here’s Tom’s FREE BEER sculpture as we have it in our collection (and as you can see it on view now on the fourth floor as part of AoP)—the piece is made from the detritus of the salon as it was exhibited/hosted here at SFMOMA in 1979:

Tom Marioni, FREE BEER (The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art), 1970-79; refrigerator, framed print, shelf, beer bottles, and lightbulb, installation view at SFMOMA; collection SFMOMA; photo: Ben Blackwell; © 2008 Tom Marioni

Here’s the bar set-up in the Koret Vistor Education Center, ready for bartenders to dispense FREE BEER and for art lovers and friends to drink it happily and I hope noisily together:

And here are the still QUITE EMPTY (as of today) shelves which will hold and store our many emptied bottles of beer:

No one lacks expertise in this particular form of art, or if you do, now’s a great time to hone your skills. Come on by, or, we hope to see you soon!