5 posts tagged “photography”
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.
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- 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.
Friday night, Swedish Hall:
As brooding singer/songwriters go, you can't do much better than Damien Jurado. He performed at the Swedish accompanied by cellist Jenna Conrad and multi-instrumentalist Eric Fisher. Jurado declared that he's no longer interested in playing by himself, and that Jenna and Eric make him feel much more comfortable onstage: "They're like a warm blanket." I have to say that a little bit of cello and drums is a gorgeous addition to Jurado's already-beautiful music, but he closed with a couple solo tunes that still had me sitting in the back of the hall with silent tears running down my cheeks.
After an early morning fundraiser shift at KALX Saturday morning, and fortified by fried-eggs-and-bacon-on-a-baguette from Meal Ticket, I made my way over to Fort Mason for the fourth annual Studio Nocturne, part of Open Studios weekend 3. The Nocturnes are a group of photographers who specialize in taking pictures at night, and I was highly impressed with the quality of work on display. I was especially drawn to Tim Baskerville's black-and-whites of old streetcars and his full-moon photography of Death Valley, and when he mentioned that he's taking a group out to Furnace Creek, Zabriskie Point, and Rhyolite in just a few weeks I almost signed up on the spot. But a weekend in Death Valley two weeks before Africa isn't really practical I suppose.
from the Booksmith:
"Best American Comics 2006 - the inaugural volume in the familiar 'Best American' series - collects thought-provoking, evocative stories culled from graphic novels, pamphlet comics, newspapers, magazines, mini-comics, and the web."
Editors Anne Moore and Harvey Pekar were on hand at the All Saint Church Saturday night as well as local contributors Justin Hall, John Porcellino, and Esther Pearl Watson. Each of the writer/artists did a quick slideshow presentation showing some of their work and Moore and Pekar talked about what went into getting the book put together. I especially loved Porcellino's tale of performing mosquito abatement inside a huge chemical plant. Chris Ware will be editing next year's collection...I can't wait!
Saturday night, the Fillmore:
I was so happy Tammy and Todd found me before the show got started, because not only were they able to share the joy of WHY?'s performance with me (imagine They Might Be Giants crossed with Neutral Milk Hotel with some seriously rockin' xylophone thrown in for good measure) but their mere presence kept me awake if not entirely alert during some of Yo La Tengo's more drawn-out reflective/stoner musical sequences. The show was outstanding, and Yo La played a wide range of material from their oeuvre and of course a ton of covers, including Bob Dylan and Lou Reed. After three encores the audience finally let them leave the stage and go to bed.
Seven Days at Minimum Wage:
Every day this week join host Roseanne Barr for a new segment of interviews about life at minimum wage.
Happy God: Ganesh enthroned. From the 12th cen. Pala period, India.
I would have liked to have made it to the Aesthetics of Suburbia lecture with photographers Bill Owens and Brian Urich last night at the Art Institute, as said aesthetics inspire in me a heady mixture of both severe nostalgia and total repulsion. But when I fell soundly asleep on the bus ride home and almost missed my stop I thought it might be unwise to drag my tired self back into the city before the Project Runway finale. Yeah and as for Project Runway itself...I don't want to talk about it.
The Day Habeas Died:
Keith Olbermann: Your words are lies, sir. They are lies that imperil us all. "One of the terrorists believed to have planned the 9/11 attacks," …you told us yesterday… "said he hoped the attacks would be the beginning of the end of America." That terrorist, sir, could only hope. ... These things you have done, Mr. Bush… they would be "the beginning of the end of America."
At SFMOMA - Mexico as Muse: Tina Modotti and Edward Weston. Modotti and Weston lived and worked together in Mexico from 1923 to 1926, and this exhibition overlaps their photographs from that time, showing how they influenced each other but how they also had their own distinctive voices. Modotti became interested in capturing the everyday people of Mexico, while Weston's work from the same time period feels more concerned with the formal and sculptural possibilities of picture-taking. Both artists were innovators, and their pictures are not only inspiring but drop-dead gorgeous.
At Soap Gallery - Eye Deal: An Exhibition of New Fish-Eye Photographs by Peter Holm. Sure anyone can buy a fish-eye camera from Lomo and take quirky photos, but Holm is a master of many lenses, applying his unique perspective to moments and objects that might otherwise pass us by. I especially liked a small photo of a signpost in England that was granted monumental proportions by the curve of the lens as each arrow on the post pointed off to a different possible destination. Holm was on hand at the opening last night to chat friendly-like in his British accent with a small but vivacious crowd, including one woman I overheard telling another, "Yeah I like to embroider obscenities on clothing."
I'm DJing this weekend!
Sunday night/Monday morning:
Matokie
1-3:30am PST, Monday September 25
KALX Berkeley 90.7fm
You're so sick of me posting these untenable hours.
To the people of Iran:
Jon Stewart joins the U.N.'s translation team to provide an interpretation of Bush's Tuesday address.
At Robert Koch - photographs by Nicholas Prior. The children that are primary subjects of Prior's gorgeous pictures seem wise beyond their years, their faces portraying all of the confusion and pathos of full adulthood. I loved how the youngsters are always in sharp focus, while background details (including adults) are decidedly more blurry. Slightly unsettling, but definitely amazing.
At SFMOMA - Matthew Barney: DRAWING RESTRAINT. Don't you just love how DRAWING RESTRAINT has to be in ALL CAPS? This is just the beginning of the utter pretension. It's no secret that I don't have a lot of patience for Mr. Barney's art, but even I was shocked at how much he bites from Joseph Beuys in this show, vitrines and all. The exhibit reminded me a lot of the Cremaster Guggenheim show, with the films playing on screens overhead and artifacts and stills from the films scattered about. It's worth going just to see the fourth-floor galleries with all of the walls removed, and to see Barney's vaseline sculptures slopped all over the floor. They're almost soothing in their tedium. I also never ever tire of gazing upon Bjork's radiant visage, and there are plenty of nice pictures of her. However, as ever I was left with the impression that all of Barney's posturing is so much empty noise, and that he's way more into his stature as artist-celebrity than he is about actually making meaningful art. I also picked up a note of reverence (or fetishizing?) toward Japanese whaling culture that really turned my stomach. I would argue that such a tone (or even a neutral one!) is downright irresponsible considering the debate raging right now about whaling. But I like art that engages with culture and politics in a complex way instead of standing above it or outside it.
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- Matthew Barney, in glory all his own
- Slippery sculpture oozes into SFMOMA
- Barney, Bjork and blubber
Yet to see:
At Catharine Clark - Chester Arnold: Backwaters, with Amy Hicks: Suspended Series in the video room.
Also yet to see:
At Lisa Dent - the summer group show Sean Horchy, Candice Lin and Tim Sullivan.
I missed the free Eco Film Night at Varnish last night (they were screening Walking the West), but it was because I was taking a very long nap before my DJ shift. Excuses, excuses.
Take the Apollo Challenge:
Achieve energy independence in 10 years, and create 3 million jobs for Americans in the process. Sound like a worthy challenge? Then learn more about it here.
