the renzo piano designed california academy of sciences

opens the 27th of september.   the building is gorgeous.    and more ammunition for the piano-is-the-best-museum-architect-in-the-world argument.

it’s a $488 million “renovation” that essentially tucks the 400,000 square foot research and exhibition facility under an undulating 2 1/2 acre meadow of plants native within a 25-mile radius of the park.     the building houses a planetarium, aquarium and a spherical (rain forest) biosphere.    it heats/cools/ventilates itself and recycled 100% of the materials from the demolition of the old (earthquake damaged) building.

retaining the facade of the original academy appeased san francisco’s  perpetually problematic “preservationists.”

photovoltaic cells in the steel and glass sun screen:

the installing the biosphere -  photograph by richard barnes:

the academy of sciences could rival my all-time favorite museum design — piano’s  menil collection in houston — and his elegant  morgan library expansion…

ruth marten

ruth marten draws on antique etchings.   literally.  the etchings, often of scientific subjects, are of dubious accuracy.   marten’s interventions further propel the imagery toward the fantastic, though where one leaves off and the other begins is not easy to discern.   like a child’s game of “telephone,” or the surrealists’ “exquisite corpse,” the process yields delightful perversity.

goya’s ghosts

it took me a while to figure out what was wrong with “goya’s ghosts.”   it’s a “sweeping” historical film (released in 2007) about spain in late eighteenth / early nineteenth century that is ostensibly held together by the character and work of francisco goya.    i rented it based on the milos forman / saul zaentz collaboration and a couple of recommendations (david, whose taste i always trust, being one).      “amadeus” this ain’t.   like “amadeus,” the cinematography is artful.    unlike “amadeus” nothing, not even the completely fictional narrative, holds it together.

i’m afraid i’m going to have to summarize the plot if i want to keep bitching…     inés, a girl from a wealthy merchant family and goya’s muse, is ludicrously accused by the inquisition.   she is tortured and confesses.   while in prison she is raped by a priest, brother lorenzo.   her family attempts to free her and in the process discredits lorenzo (though they never know he raped their daughter) and embarrasses the inquisition.   lorenzo fleas.   fifteen years later, inés is freed by the invading french (who also murder her family).   goya attempts to help her find the daughter born while she was in prison and seeks help from lorenzo (not knowing he is the father of the child) who has returned to madrid with the french to prosecute the inquistors.

the simple truth is that this train-wreck-of-a-film bit off more than it could chew.    wanna make a movie about an artist?    make a movie about an artist.    wanna make a movie about the atrocities of the inquisition?    make a movie about the inquisition.    the corrupting force of power?     you get the idea…   the worst scene in the movie has lorenzo describing inés’ daughter, alicia, as a whore to goya.    the deaf goya believes lorenzo is calling him a whore and angrily returns the insult.    of course they are both as guilty of selling themselves as alicia.    who isn’t on some level?

there is a beautiful scene in which goya makes an etching, step-by-step.    and the film nicely borrows imagery from goya’s work.      but that isn’t done as well as “girl in the pearl earring” or derek jarman’s caravaggio or the way alfonso cuaron utilized imagery from contemporary news in “children of men.”

this one’s probably not worth seeing.

henry darger

the work of the author/artist henry darger was a major influence in curating “vocabularies of metaphor.”

born in 1892 and raised in orphanages and the lincoln asylum for feeble-minded children, for most of his adult life darger lived alone in a one-room apartment in chicago where he kept a six-volume daily weather journal, wrote an autobiography of 5,000 pages and two novels, most significantly, the 15,000 page “the story of the vivian girls, in what is known as the realms of the unreal, of the glandeco-angelininian war storm, caused by the child slave rebellion”  — or “the realms of the unreal.”    i’ve only ever been able to find a few excerpts from “the realms” —   here’s one:

Robert Vivian himself was the father of seven little Vivian Girls whose beauty could never be painted had they been seen for real. Of Violet, Joice, Jennie, and Evangeline, their beauty could never be described, but their nature and ways in goodness and soul was still more pretty and spotless. And no Evangeline St. Clare could beat them in their kind loving ways, and their love for God. They were always willing to do as they were told, keeping away from bad company and going to Mass and Holy Communion every day, and living the lives of little saints. The watchfulness of their parents made them what they were. They were Abbieannians by birth, but their parents, dreading the great Abbieannian storms, had left Abbieannia and first went to Angelinia. Hanson Vivian, who lost his wife and daughter, was their uncle and as pious as their father, but he was a Hercules for build, and a regular Samson for strength.

Way before Robert Vivian’s children were born, Hanson had a pretty daughter by the name of Violet Vivian. She herself was a regular Eva St. Clare and also died at the same age as Little Eva did. She was killed by the great typhoon which swept Abbieannia, as already described in the first few pages of this chapter.

By the time our story opens, twenty-seven years after Hanson had left Abbieannia, three of Robert’s other daughters, Daisy, Catherine, and Hettie, had been caught out in a large woods just as a terrific typhoon broke loose, sweeping a portion of the eastern coast of Angelinia. The frightful storm had lasted over two days, devastating a good many forests, and wrecking many cities and towns in its path. After the great storm, the little girls could not be found, though close searches had been made everywhere. Many days had passed, and still they had not been found. Robert had to give up the search in grief, though he, being a Catholic, did not give up prayer. He telegraphed the cities of Jennie Richee, Mic-Hollester, and Jennie-Wren-Town, and even Marcucian and Vivian Wickey, but no trace of them could be found.

— from Volume I, pp. 14-17.

darger made hundreds of works on paper illustrating his saga and they are what established his reputation.   the paintings/drawings along with the manuscripts were discovered by his landlord (an artist) shortly before darger’s death.     the landlord/artist realized he’d stumbled on something extraordinary and it’s due to the efforts of he and his wife that darger’s work was preserved and is now well-known.   i first saw his work at yerba buena center in 1997.  it was staggering and bizarre.  an epic battle between good and evil fought by naked little girls with penises…

we’ll exhibit one of the large two-sided paintings as well as two small character studies.   darger’s work will be the only work by an artist who is no longer living.     it will also be the only work that was made without the intent that it be publicly exhibited.    an interesting thing to keep in mind…

yuka yamaguchi

i love yuka yamaguchi’s work.    it’s what frieda khalo would be making if she were alive and japanese.    gorgeously rendered colored pencil (often self) portraits that are seemingly innocent and disarmingly brutal.

i’m reproducing “my favorite neckless” 2008 colored pencils on paper, 11×14 inches.     beyond the play on words, jay brought the phrase “turtles all the way down” to my attention.     the story, in this case, as told by stephen hawkings in “a brief history of time” goes like this:

a well-known scientist (some say it was bertrand russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy.  he described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. at the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: “what you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise” the scientist gave a superior smile before replying, “what is the tortoise standing on?” “you’re very clever, young man, very clever,” said the old lady. “but it’s turtle all the way down!”

the story is used to illustrate religious/mythic myopia, but can also be read as meaning that you can never get to the bottom of a difficult question.

and of course there seussian reference to yertle the turtle…

more reading…

“vocabularies of metaphor” will include a series of readings of short stories by their authors.    the series is curated by my friend pam feinsilber and will include yiyun li (september 10th), daniel alarcon (september 24th), jodi angel (october 8th) and eric puchner (october 15th) and barry gifford (october 29th).    see “what i’ve been reading.”

the program is free and open to the public.  all readings will be held at 6.30p in my san francisco gallery at 430 clementina street between 6th and 5th and folsom and howard.

rachell sumpter “the commons” 2008 pastel and gouache on paper, 16×22 inches (click on the image and check it out).

more stories…

yelena yemchuk is one of the “discoveries” i’m excited about including in the upcoming exhibition.    born in kiev, she moved with her family to brooklyn when she was 11.     she’s a photographer and videographer and makes inspired paintings on paper.

“dream wife” (watercolor and graphite on paper, 24×36 inches)   “when florence dyed her hair red, everything changed.  her fox collar began to bark.  the neighbors, leaving their wives, only had eyes for her.  the trouble was, she lost her desire to walk.”

it’s the stuff of eastern-european folk tales and bad dreams.   akin to marcel dzama’s work, i immediately thought of bulgakov’s masterpiece “the master and margarita” when i saw this work.  it’s audacious and ferocious.

in “husband” (30×90 inches), “a woman of eighty wakes up one day and discovers she is now young and being carried away by a large bird.  “how fantastic,” she thinks, “i’m beautiful again!”  and, “who’s the rabbit?”

more stories

i’m working on a group show called “vocabularies of metaphor:  more stories” that will open in our san francisco gallery after labor day.   it’s an exhibition of works on paper by fifteen international artists exploring narrative through symbols.  i’m interested in visual languages that are highly personal and lyrical.  the “stories” are also original to the artists and open to interpretation.

the artists’ choice of exploring the intimacy of drawing/painting on paper (and my choice, as the curator) is about giving the viewer a voyeuristic glimpse into private moments.  i’m exhibiting between two and six pieces by each artist to give the viewer the opportunity to observe mutating idioms and to decipher the lexicons of each.    while the show didn’t start to be about work by women, almost all of it is.    i’m including amy cutler, fay ku, shahzia sikander, ruth marten, liliana porter, yuka yamaguchi, yelena yemchuk, baseerah khan, rob matthews, henry darger, sara stites, charlotte schultz, rachell sumpter, crystal liu and seonna hong.

i’ll do a series of posts over the next few days about the art in it and how/why i chose it.

work in this post all by fay ku.   above, “stuck going nowhere.”     below,   “women who love horses”

6 September-18 October, 2008
Reception: Saturday 6 September, 4-6 pm

hudsucker proxy

we netflikt the 1994 coen brothers comedy last night.    a swell film.    gorgeous visuals.    great performances by tim robbins (the well-meaning hick plucked from the mail room to be ceo of  a tremendously successful corporation), paul newman (the conniving businessman), jennifer jason leigh (the katherine hepburn/rosalind russell-style single girl reporter) as well as supporting characters playing corporate receptionists, taxi drivers and elevator operators.

there are clever references to film noir and the romantic comedies of the 1940’s and 50’s as well as to fritz lang’s metropolis.     it’s a riot.   see it.

peter schjeldahl on jeff koons

in the june 9/16 new yorker is brilliant.    dianne is right –  he’s the best art writer out there.   reveiwing the koons retrospective at the museum of contemporary art in chicago he succinctly outlines each of koon’s “thematic series, or product lines” before describing  a dozen or so pieces.   90%  of art critics could get that far, though 10% as well.    for fun he tosses a couple of juicy bits about koons and the ex-porn-star-and-ex-wife.   but it’s the rest of the article that’s so gorgeous.     he grants koons the title “genius” saying “the fifty-three-year-old american enchanter and provocateur is a major artist, in the old sense of one who edits the past and sketches the future of art –  in this case, sculpture.”   and goes on to beautifully describe why the best koons work but what’s wrong with even the best of it.

can you dislike “balloon dog (orange)” (1994-2000), a ten-foot-high representation, in chromium stainless steel with a coppery tint, of a cartoony canine formed with twists in a long balloon? ( a yellowish twin of the work is one of three koonses currently installed on the roof of the metropolitan Museum, where it gathers funhouse reflections of viewers and the surrounding city, under blue skies turned velvety green.)    if you manage not to enjoy the lustous pooch, i don’t understand you.  but if you’re afflicted by an attendant feeling of intellectual free fall, in a vacuum of identifiable emotion, we can talk.   koons is hugely significant…   while finally signifying precious little.     that’s my nightmare:  an intimation that intelligence is obsloete in a world where things are either blazingly obvious or pitch dark.

schjeldahl is a really smart guy who’s not afraid to have (or admit having) a visceral response.    nor is he above making fun of himself.

i remember my first encounter, in germany, in 1992 , with koons’s famous “puppy,” the forty-three-foot-high scottie dog enveloped in living flowers.  as i was judiciously taking descriptive and analytical notes, a bus arrived bearing a group of severely disabled children in wheelchairs.   they went wild with delight.   abruptly feeling absurd, i shut my notebook and took instruction from the kids’ unequivocal verdict.

he ends describing “hanging heart (blue/silver)”

an immense steel heart in dreamy blue with steel ribbons in glittering silver, which greets visitors to the show.   passing beneath it, you sense its great weight, perhaps with a touch of physical dread like that stirred by richard serra sculptures.   it looks (and is) incredibly costly — and as sweet as dime-store perfume.   it apostrophizes our present era of plutocratic democracy, sinking scads of money in a gesture of solidarity with lower-class taste.   noblesse oblige, never mind that noblesse isn’t what it used to be.   (neither is obligation.)  we might wish for a better artist to mainfest our time, but that would probably amount to wanting a better time.

god, i wish i could write like this guy.

in the same issue:    the nabokov short story, “natasha” is not brilliant.     and the story by annie proulx “tits-up in a ditch” is heinous.    i don’t need to be coddled, but i was offended by her throwing everything horrible she could think of at a character and expecting me to take it.    enough already.