On Be(com)ing an Artist, Citizen and Arts Community member, by Christine Wong Yap
This year, Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure grant program received over 150 applications for 19 projects awarded.
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or about 1:8, or 12%
See all Art Competition Odds.
The art fairs are coming to NYC this week: Armory, Pulse*, Independent, VOLTA, Red Dot, Scope, ADAA, Fountain, and Verge [see Artcard.cc's Art Fair Google map] not to mention the slew of concurrent activity. But in the San Francisco Bay Area, I’m missing out on the solo shows of some dear friends. These are people who work super hard and are finally getting their due. See what they’ve been toiling at.
March 12-April 9
Pablo Guardiola
Jet Travel
Reception: Saturday, March 12, 6-9pm.
Romer Young Gallery
1240 22nd Street, San Francisco
Gallery hours: Tuesday & Thursday, 6-9; Friday & Saturday, 11-5, and by appt7
March 4-April 1
Charlene Tan
400%
Reception: Friday, March 4, 6:00-8:30pm
Ampersand International Arts
1001 Tennessee Street (at 20th. st.)
San Francisco, California 94107
Gallery hours: Thursdays and Fridays, noon-5pm, and by appointment
Details TBA: ~ April 1
Anthony Daniel Ryan
Lake Gallery, San Francisco
Plus, Weston Teruya has curated a show with some great artists…
March 11-April 23
On The Ground
Taha Belal, Gaye Chan, Sofia Cordova, Sergio De La Torre, Malak Helmy, Juan Luna-Avin, Jerome Reyes, Rene Yung
Reception: Friday, March 11, 2011, 7-9pm
Southern Exposure
3030 20th Street (@ Alabama)
San Francisco, CA 94110
Gallery Hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 12-6pm
I designed the poster… We were inspired by maps and blue lines.
Poster for Southern Exposure's exhibition, On the Ground. Design: Christine Wong Yap.
*Art in General‘s booth at Pulse to preview a new multiple by William Pope.L!
For artists and/or fans of Borges and Calvino:
Cynthia Ozick reading “In the Reign of Harad IV,” a wonderful short story by Steven Millhauser, about making, visibility, and recognition. On the New Yorker‘s fiction podcast.
For fellow cognitive science and psychology dabblers:
“Social Animal: How the new sciences of human nature can help make sense of a life,” by David Brooks (yup, that David Brooks, the NYT columnist), a summation of loads of psychological and cognitive science research, including thoughts about flow and happiness.
For those who need an optimism booster shot:
Born to Be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life, by Dasher Keltner (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009).
The UC Berkeley psychology professor’s theories on how to live a balanced life of “completing the good in others.” Interesting discussion of the intellectual lineage from Darwin to Ekman (a facial expression researcher profiled by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker). The author’s long hair + references to Eastern philosophy = high hippie dippy quotient, but Keltner is an informed and lively writer. Those seeking cynical, burdensome academic texts ought look elsewhere.
For those seeking art that touches on psychoanalysis:
Jonathan Solo: Shadow
Catherine Clark Gallery
January 8 – February 19, 2011
see also: Carl Jung, Shadow
For those obsessed with happiness and/or mapping:
Mappiness, an iPhone app that asks users to rate their level of happiness at random moments throughout the day. Developed by London School of Economics PhD candidates, it’s a fully realized, popular version of what I had hoped to do with Hedonimeter.net, a project I started in grad school and hadn’t yet returned to. My enthusiasm for visual and symbolic systems has not evolved into the motivation to learn more about statistics and programming… yet.
For art-seekers in San Francisco:
Works by friends and supporters:
Three solo exhibitions: Jaime Cortez, Kenneth Lo, and Ginger Wolfe-Suarez
Southern Exposure, 3030 20th St., San Francisco, CA
January 7, 2011 – February 19, 2011
For art-seekers in LA:
Collective Show
January 21-23 and January 27-30, 2011
995, 997 North Hill Street, Los Angeles, CA
For art-seekers in Liverpool:
Nam June Paik
Tate Liverpool
17 December 2010 – 13 March 2011
For typography nerds:
The flyer for the symposium at the Nam June Paik Art Center. Nothing wrong with type-based solutions, no.
For design-seekers in San Francisco:
A show curated by the super-talented, super-humble Jon Sueda
The Way Beyond Art: Wide White Space
January 20–February 5
CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art
The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts–a briliant funder of the arts–has demanded that the Smithsonian restore David Wojnarovicz’s censored artwork to its exhibition. If the Smithsonian does not comply, the Warhol Foundation will cease funding future exhibitions at the Smithsonian. In the past three years the Warhol Foundation has given more than $375,000 to the Smithsonian.
Cheers to the Warhol Foundation. Sometimes it seems like people in the arts are so consumed with etiquette, so afraid of offending someone or burning a bridge, they haven’t got any guts. Cheers to the Warhol Foundation for putting your money where your mouth is!
This follows a national grassroots movement to exhibit the censored works at alternative art spaces and galleries. Participating spaces include the San Francisco Bay Area’s Southern Exposure and SF Camerawork.
If you are able, please support the work of these amazing nonprofits by becoming members. They are only able to support the work of artists via risk-taking funders like the Warhol Foundation, and individual members like you and me. For further backstory on the homophobic, politically-motivated censorship of this work by a seminal American artist, please see Blake Gopnik’s articles in the Washington Post.
I contributed artwork to an artist’s publication curated and designed by Julie Clothier, a really interesting artist and designer. Featuring writing and art projects, City Reader is “a publication for the pedestrian intending to expand the frame we live within.”
The first issue of City Reader will be distributed for free on Friday, October 15th on public streets in San Francisco.
You can also view it in the Art Publishing Now, the summit happening this weekend, October 9-10 at Southern Exposure. The Art Publishing Now library will also be on view October 9 to December 2010 at Southern Exposure.
For more info about City Reader, visit Reading Conventions.
I am so proud to be involved with Art Practical. With its mission to cultivate and art critical writing and writers, Art Practical the result of the hard work and generosity of lots of bright, interesting people. I think the San Francisco Bay Area is lucky to have them, and that you should know about their programs and projects.
Art Publishing Now
October 9-10, 2010
Southern Exposure, San Francisco, CA
This coming weekend, October 9 and 10, Art Practical will participate in Art Publishing Now, a Summit, Afterparty and Library organized by Southern Exposure and a slew of publishing dynamos. The list of participants in the Fair looks killer. I love ‘zine fairs and I love art criticism (especially presented by writers and editors). Just go!
Critical Sources II
October 16, 2010, 12 – 4 p.m.
The Lab, San Francisco, CA
$25
Art Practical and The Lab are hosting Critical Sources II, the second in a series of workshops on art criticism. Among the workshop instructors is Kevin Killian, whose charming presence I spent many hours in while at CCA. His class on writing reviews was one of my favorites. (I once drove to Fresno for a field trip—a seven-hour round trip—but cut it short to get back for Kevin’s class.)
I’m sure all the instructors are great. At that price, it’s like they’re paying you to be there. [J.L.!]
It gets better: The class includes workshop-ing your reviews, and the two exhibitions you can choose to write about include Huckleberry Finn at the CCA Wattis Institute. I previously exhibited artwork and worked at the Wattis; I’m very fond of the literary series. I’ve heard very sharp critics say that this is the best of the series so far. Judging by last years’ no-holds-barred Moby-Dick, it must be impressive.
So, not only are they paying you to improve your art writing, they’re giving you an excuse to make it out to Dogpatch and see an amazing exhibition.
