San Francisco Fall Review Freak Out

San Francisco is haunted by illusions of Sarah Palin, icebergs, and the Wicked Witch of the West! This week, Brian and Patricia sit down with guest critic Clare Haggarty to discuss the new fall gallery
openings. Unfortunately, the political and economic Zeitgeist invades their thinking as they digress into conversations of conceptual economics, election politics, and The Wizard of Oz.

Galleries reviewed include the Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, Ampersand International Arts, Ping Pong, New Langton, Ratio 3, Marx & Zavattero, Jack Hanley, Haines Gallery, Southern Exposure, Queens Nails Projects, and more!
Sarah Palin
The Met
Clare Haggarty
CCA
Richmond Art Center
SFCMA
The New Yorker
Damien Hirst
Francis Bacon
The Wire
Jens Hoffman
ICA
Around the World In 80 Days
Jules Verne
The Wizard of OZ
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Rirkrit
Center for Tactical Magic
Alice Waters
Arts Commission
Buckminster Fuller
Ellen Babcock
SFAI
Charlie Callahan
Frederic Edwin Church
Tina Fey
James Heartfield
Ratio 3
Lydia Fong
Barry McGee
Outsidelands Music Festival
David Maisel
Haines Gallery
Dark Matters
The Colony Room
Tom Marioni
Erwin Wurm
New Langton
Anne Colvin
Tart
Tony Labat
Queen’s Nails
Mark Sanchez
Spencer Sweeney
Jack Hanley
Sean Odell
Conspiracy of Beards
Ornette Coleman
Tyson and Scott Reeder
Walter McBean Gallery
Kerry James Marshall

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YBCA’s fifth triennial exhibition of Bay Area art explores questions around how to re-imagine a regional survey in the midst of globalization. What continues to draw artists here and makes the Bay Area a unique place to live and work when more and more of us are traversing the globe and becoming international citizens? How does the physical geography of the Bay, both natural and constructed, influence the Bay Area as a site of artistic production?

How does the history of this region, including its legacy of social activism, shape Bay Area residents’ understanding of themselves and the rest of the world’s notion of this place? What are the contrasts between the myths, ideals and realities of the Bay Area and the aspirations of its residents? The Bay Area Now 5 survey exhibition asks these questions to explore the many ways artists are influenced by their experiences both inside and outside of the Bay Area.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Bay Area Now 5
Berin Golonu
Valerie Imus
Taraneh Hemami
Ian McDonald
Edmundo de Marcheno
Jonn Herschend
Kate Eilertsen
James Goode
Alison Pebworth
Michael Swaine
Reza Aramesh
Leila Pazooki
Gita Hashemi
Gavin Newsom
Mitchell Brothers O’Farrell Theater
Fatty Arbuckle
Frank Norris
The Vagina Monologues
Jessica Tully
Adrienne Rich
Paul Schiek
Neil Young
Ginger Wolfe-Suarez

Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_159-BAN5.mp3

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Recorded live in front of a studio audience at Triple Base Gallery on July 10th, 2008 as a part of the exhibition “Open for Business”. In this raw interview Brian and Patricia talk to René de Guzman about the cultural origins of art, how museums can be relevant in the 21st century, and Oakland’s future as an art center.

René de Guzman is the senior curator of art at the Oakland Museum of California. Previously, he was the director of visual arts at San Francisco’s Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (YBCA).

Triple Base Gallery
René de Guzman
Oakland Museum of California
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Mark Tribe
Rhizome
LACE
Creative Time
Angela Davis
César Chávez
Coretta Scott King
Howard Zinn
Paul Potter
Chicago Seven
Black Panthers
Mark Dion
MoMA
MoCA
David Wilson
Museum of Jurassic Technology
James Irvine Foundation
Dorothea Lange
Trevor Paglen
Charles and Ray Eames
Daniel Libeskind

Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_150_Ren_de_Guzman.mp3

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Robert Smithson’s widow Nancy Holt sent a letter out today to notify people that his masterwork Spiral Jetty is in jeopardy of being destroyed due to oil drilling.

Here is Holt’s full letter and a way for people to voice their concerns.

Yesterday I received an urgent email from Lynn DeFreitas, Director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake, telling me of plans for drilling oil in the Salt Lake near Spiral Jetty. See Attachments. The deadline for protest is [today] Wednesday, at 5PM. Of course, DIA has been informed and are meeting about it today.

I have been told by Lynn that the oil wells will not be above the water, but that means some kind of industrial complex of pipes and pumps beneath the water and on the shore. The operation would require roads for oil tank trucks, cranes, pumps etc. which produce noise and will severely alter the wild, natural place.

If you want to send a letter of protest to save the beautiful, natural Utah environment around the Spiral Jetty from oil drilling, the emails or calls of protest go to Jonathan Jemming 801-537-9023 jjemming@utah.gov. Please refer to Application # 8853. Every letter makes a big difference, they do take a lot of notice and know that publicity may follow. Since the Spiral Jetty has global significance, emails from foreign countries would be of special value.

They try to slip these drilling contracts under the radar, that’s why we found out so late, not through notification, but from a watchdog lawyer at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, the group that alerted me to the land leasing for oil and gas near Sun Tunnels last May.

Thank you for your consideration of this serious environmental matter.

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It has struck me as strange that while people continue to delight in talk of an art market crash, the number of Art Fairs just proliferates. It is a bit like watching the Cold War Arms race. Just keep building them till you bankrupt the smaller spaces and smaller economies. (A race which seems to have already contributed to the demise of one Chicago gallery with another 4 or 5 being rumored to be closing sometime in ’08.)

Last year in Miami there were 13 fairs. 2007′s fair boasted 23?

WTF is going on? And WTF is up with the Merchandise Mart?

Supposedly they’re planning the purchase or start up of an LA fair?(According to LA Weekly) And they have just bought the Toronto Art Fair? (according to the Chicago Trib)

We, as Chicagoans, continue to worry about our “Art Chicago.” As the fair approaches it has begun to feel like the only two things people want to say about it is that the main fair is again expected to disappoint despite the “improved” gallery list/the return of some of the major past contributors, and people seem to feel both nervous and hopeful about the official smaller fair Kavi Gupta and Christian Viveros-Faune specially selected NEXT fair.

So what is going on with the purchase of all these new venues? Will it help the “Mart” shake the perception that they are just “wealthy trade show people” muscling into the, currently very buoyant, art market? Or will extend their ability to attract great dealers to their home fair?

Hopefully, the mistakes and half-baked elements of last year will be corrected and NEXT will fulfill its promise to bring challenging and emergent culture/ideas to town, because the alternative seems to be the further getto-ization of Chicago’s art world. The Mart will either prove their commitment to culture or use their deep pockets to permanently taint the reputation and profile of Chicago’s art world. We are waiting to see.

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A few years ago a “You Tube” video made its way around to the younger faculty at the art schools across America. The clip was called “Roland is God” and showed (via hidden camera) a particularly brutal critique given by Young to a group of students at Art Center. Now the video (in expanded form) can be seen on a site called (surprisingly) “Roland is God.” It has been accompanied by the release of an all new “You Tube” video displaying Professor Young’s unorthodox critical stylings.

Get it while it’s hot.

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Brian and Marc recently collaborated on a review of Tony Lebat’s Bulk at Queens Nails Annex for Shotgun Review. Here’s an excerpt:

“Tony Labat’s exhibition Bulk opened to throngs of art students, smoking and drinking on the sidewalk. At first, the event seemed like any other gallery reception. However, as a show focusing on the manifestation of social relations in an art event, the students hadn’t come to see anything in particular, but to rather simply be with one another. With the gallery’s main space converted to a bar, complete with amateur bartenders, swill cocktails at criminal prices, and makeshift wooden tables; Bulk turned Queens Nails Annex into a speakeasy, one built like a cheap theatrical set.

… Bulk’s events have drawn together those who share in a common perspective – art students, gallerists, curators, etc.- participating in their prescribed roles of social exchange and power dynamics, as if the events had a written script. The exhibition doesn’t challenge itself to compose the audience, who provide its labor, or translate their efforts into meaning. Any examination into the relationship between the mechanics of audience as a means of production, and how it conditions the possibilities of interpretation, is absent. Without intervention, the events emerged as expected; codified and rigid. Creating work that fosters social relations shouldn’t reduce an event to the calling together of a coterie, turning the artist into a socialite of aesthetics whose practice would be a chain of well-hosted shin-digs. Bulk is emblematic of this festivalist, lackadaisical attitude that’s far too common in contemporary art.”

The full review can be found on Shotgun Review. This writing is an extension of a survey of the San Francisco art scene Brian wrote for Artnet.

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This week Book Reviews and West Coast News! Terri Griffith and Joanna Topor
review Miranda July’s book No One Belongs Here More Than You. Worked in
to the commentary is discussion of the Mackenzie’s sex life and Oprah’s
use of the phrase Vah-Jay-Jay.

Brian Andrews and Marc LeBlanc talk to curator Joseph del Pesco and artist
Scott Oliver about the Collective Foundation.

The Collective Foundation (CF) is a temporary organization. The concept of
curator Joseph del Pesco and artist Scott Oliver, CF relies on the contributions
of numerous people who are working to advance art in the Bay Area. During the
organization’s launch at YBCA, The Foundation will set up temporary headquarters
in our galleries. They will hold think-tank discussions, how-to sessions for
navigating the CF Web interface, and Shotgun Review Second Saturdays where participants
will review as many Bay Area art shows as possible. The furniture for the Foundation’s
headquarters will be borrowed from local individuals, modified for the exhibition,
and returned at the close of the show—a generous illustration of the benefits
of networking. Find out more at www.collectivefoundation.org.

Duncan makes a funny noise at the end of the show.

Miranda July
Joseph del Pesco
Scott Oliver
the Collective Foundation
Philip Von Zweck
Tony Tasset
Gaylen Gerber
Wesley Kimler
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Dave EggersBridge
Amy Hempel
Fence
Paris Review
Harvard Review
Sundance Film Festival
William Pope.L
Amy Balkin
Josh Green
The Reader
Shotgun Review
Alexander Rodchenko
Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_89_Collective_Foundation-books.mp3

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Reviews, reviews, reviews!!! Our London correspondents Ben Tanner and Christian Kuras make their fabulous debut and review the UK version of “Universal Experience: Art, Life, and the Tourist’s Eye,” which began its life on this earth at our very own MCA. Brian Andrews, our West Coast rep, is back to tell us what is wrong with the art scene in San Francisco. Duncan and Richard review “On the Scene: Jessica Rowe, Jason Salavon, Brian Ulrich,” and then they check out The Museum of Contemporary Photography’s new shows “Jeffrey A. Wolin: Inconvenient Stories” and “Stages of Memory: The War in Vietnam.” And if THAT weren’t enough, Duncan and Richard argue about whether or not Rodney Graham is full of BS after sitting through his lecture. The last song in this week’s show goes out from Richard to Scott Speh.

On the Scene: Jessica Rowe, Jason Salavon, Brian Ulrich
On the Scene: Jessica Rowe, Jason Salavon, Brian Ulrich
The Museum of Contemporary Photography
Rodney Graham
Universal Experience
SF links are to follow.
NEXT WEEK:

We lied last week. THIS COMING WEEK, we will chat with our West Coast correspondent Brian Andrews and Britton Bertran from Gallery 40000. We’ll do some other stuff too, who knows! Soon our New York City reporter, the lovely and talented Cassie Thornton, will check in with her first report, maybe next week.

REAL SOON:

Duncan and Richard save the holidays! We have put together a wacky collection of funny and non-funny holiday songs. Hate the holidays? I know I do, so we’ll make sure you are filled with the milk of human kindness by these jolly little ditties. Also we would like to throw out an open call to anyone who has funny Hanukah and/or Kwanza songs. Let us know–there is a serious lack of said genre of songs, and we’d love to give equal time.

Direct download: Bad_at_Sports_Episode_14.mp3

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