galen
At SFMOMA - Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth. I know I keep harping on this, but what an infinitely better use of the museum's fourth floor gallery space than the recently departed Matthew Barney nonsense. This exhibition includes work spanning the breadth of Kiefer's career as a painter and sculptor, including paintings done as recently as last year. Like Joseph Beuys before him, Kiefer's work includes symbolic materials such as clay, ash, and (most strikingly) lead. Kiefer says he likes to work with lead because it is neither light nor dark, but has its own unique luster somewhere in between. Man I love that. I was also struck by how he creates texture on his canvases, using paint to portray a scorched field or plowed earth. I like the idea of painting as burning, a holy fire. And always there is the striving toward heaven, represented by his wings and stars or even just how far you have to crane your neck to see to the tops of his paintings, at the same time that he conveys the human despair and melancholy of being completely bound by earth. It left me breathless.
- press images
- Kiefer's 'Heaven': "Anselm Kiefer: Heaven and Earth" at SFMOMA makes the museum look prescient in its acquisition of "Isis and Osiris."
At Lisa Dent - Matthew Cusick. Maps maps maps. Road maps incorporated into paintings of freeway interchanges. Country maps painstakingly cut out of atlases along the edges of their borders and then glued and pinned into new shapes, new Pangaeas, some spanning entire walls in the gallery. Love maps.
from Cody's:
"Bright Eyes. Death Cab for Cutie. The Donnas. Grandaddy. Modest Mouse. Rock photographer Peter Ellenby has captured candid moments both on stage and off of some of today's most innovative and independent performers. Once found only on college radio and small clubs, the indie rock scene has exploded from the underground phenomenon its name suggests to a major rock genre with arena concerts and major label successes. For over a decade, Ellenby has documented the bands and musicians that make up this radical evolution, and the result is Every Day Is Saturday, a visual tribute to a vital music scene. An impromptu shooter with a fan's eye, Ellenby employs the same sort of freewheeling, often chaotic techniques -using everything from plastic toy cameras to fisheye lenses- as the musicians themselves. Bursting with passion and energy, the 100+ portraits of live performances offer readers a you-are-there, front row seat to the artists that have changed the face of independent music. As a bonus, Every Day Is Saturday includes a 21-track CD featuring music by Death Cab for Cutie, Film School, Rogue Wave, American Music Club, The Court & Spark, Beulah, The Wedding Present, and many other bands. Peter Ellenby has been taking photographs almost his entire life. He lives in San Francisco and has been shooting the indie music scene since 1994. His photographs have been used by bands, labels and publications around the globe."
Ellenby was at Cody's Stockton last night to show off some of his awesome photography and tell the stories behind a few of his favorite shots. I can't tell you how many of my favorite musicians he's taken pictures of, in all of my favorite SF venues. And then Mike Drake and Bob Reed of Oranger played a few songs acoustic-like, including the one the book is named after, while Ellenby's wife, cradling new daughter Ruby, jokingly tossed dollars into their open guitar cases.
Last but definitely not least last night I swung by Garfield Park to see the Dia de los Muertos altars. I missed the procession with all of my other running around, but there were still plenty of beautiful tributes to life and death to see. Candles and skeleton face paint and marigolds. Heaven and earth, again.
Tonight: Marjane Satrapi at the Booksmith, and Mouse on Mars at the Independent.
I'm DJing tomorrow!
Saturday morning:
Matokie
6-9am PST, Saturday November 4
KALX Berkeley 90.7fm
The 2006 KALX fundraiser was a success...we raised $57,385. If you donated, you totally rule! If you didn't and you want to, you still can! Late pledges can be sent via postal mail. Now enough with the begging, back to the rocking.
What's at stake:
Renee Wilson, an actress and singer from New Orleans’ Ninth Ward, makes a personal connection between Katrina and the importance of voting on Tuesday.
Comments