My feature on artists staying or leaving the Bay Area is finally out in the current issue of Art Practical. Thanks to the interviewed artists—Michael Arcega, Pablo Guardiola, Stephanie Syjuco, Emma Spertus, and Jenifer Wofford—for their time and insight. And a deep bow to Editor-in-Chief Patricia Maloney, Copy Editor Victoria Gannon and the rest of the Art Practical team for their support and guidance!
“Should I Stay or Should I Go?”
Feature story published on
Art Practical, Issue 2.10
To be concerned with happiness is to risk the perception of frivolity. Happiness is not perceived as a subject worthy of serious attention, particularly in contemporary art, in my experience. But as positive psychologists argue, the search for happiness is neither common sense nor thoroughly understood; additional inquiry is warranted from this point of view.
For those who cherish their notion that art about pain is more weighty or more serious, have a look at Italo Calvino’s short story, “The Adventures of a Poet.” The author describes the struggle to write about pleasure, and the familiar ease of writing about ugliness. In this way, perhaps it could be said that making art about happiness is more challenging.
Emory University features an archive of Calvino’s writings on their website. Have a look around.
Amusement park ride + art materials + someone with serious means and a taste for adventurous art = Awesome drawing machine. Watch the video on Rosemarie Fiore’s website.
Though I first came across her Subway Window prints in the sadly now-defunct Art on Paper magazine in 2005, the idea of them is still marvelously exciting to me. How is it possible no one ever thought to ink and wipe, intaglio style, those scribed windows?
I love two-venue shows when the venues seemed previously unrelated. That collaborative spirit in San Francisco is so hope-inspiring. This looks like it’s going to be a great show. Lots of strong artists, and at two spaces with interesting—to say the least—programs.
CONTROL GROUP
CURATED BY Chris Fallon and Jasmin Lim
Partisan Gallery
JANUARY 28 – FEBRUARY 26, 2011
Opening reception: Friday 28 January, from 6 to 8 pm
ARTISTS
Nate Boyce
Joshua Churchill
Chris Fitzpatrick
Colter Jacobsen
Jennifer Locke
Sean McFarland
Keegan McHargue
Emily Prince
Paul Schiek
Leslie Shows
Margaret Tedesco
Paul Wackers
Lindsey White
David Wilson
Control Group is an investigation into the individual artistic process and the risks taken when directed to work outside one’s chosen medium(s). With the metaphor of the fish out of water, each artist will communicate their ideas and aesthetics through
unfamiliar means, allowing new variables to emerge.We intend to challenge the comfort zones artists sometimes inhabit by asking them to relinquish a degree of control over their creativity, while perhaps exercising it more completely than usual, invigorating the dialogue between artist and viewer. Control Group is an invitation to make mistakes. While this may seem counterintuitive, we see the threshold between success and failure as a space for progress.
NOMA Gallery
80 Maiden Ln. 3rd flr, San Francisco, CA 94108
Tuesday–Saturday: 11 am–6 pm and by appointmentThe Partisan Gallery
112 Guerrero Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103
Alexandre Singh’s The School for Objects Criticized
New Museum
Thru January 23
Alexandre Singh, _The School for Objects Criticized_, 2010, Multimedia installation, installation view: New Museum of Contemporary Art. Source: New Museum of Contemporary Art
Caught Free at the New Museum before it closes on January 23rd. By chance, I saved the best for last: Alexandre Singh’s multimedia installation, an installation as theatrical “play,” with inanimate objects as actors. Found objects were lent WASPy perspectives and political positions in surround sound audio tracks and theatrical lighting. It was entertaining, which made the fact of sitting in a room looking at common objects even more strangely compelling.Thankfully, Free is accompanied by an online catalog, with more info on the installation.
Haegue Yang’s Voice and Wind
New Museum
Thru January 23
This installation of colorful, rainbow-palette Venetian blinds and scents occupies the New Museum’s ground floor glass-walled installation space. It’s a fun installation that invites people to walk thru, dipping under portals and encountering semi-enclosed spaces to sniff different scents. I was most interested in the parallels I found with my own work; in the statement, Yang professes an interest in happiness, and colors “on the edge of taste.”
Walls & Bridges: Happiness
New York Public Library
Saturday, January 29, 2011
I’m looking forward to this dialogue about happiness and art, featuring Barbara Cassin, Daniel Handler, Maira Kalman, and Sophie Wahnich.
America considers the pursuit of happiness an inalienable right. But where is this pursuit taking us? How valuable is positive thinking? In arts, melancholia has long been a source of inspiration. Specialist of Ancient Greece Barbara Cassin will give a philosophical point of view on the topic, and historian of the French Revolution Sophie Wahnich will bring some insight on the conditions of happiness. They will be discussing with co-authors of 13 Words Lemony Snicket (Daniel Handler) and Maira Kalman, also New Yorker cover artist and author of the acclaimed And the Pursuit of Happiness.
About 10 years ago, I painted murals to support the youth-led juvenile justice movement in Oakland. The issues and activism are examined in a recently released book by anthropologist Jennifer Tilton, Dangerous or Endangered? Race and the Politics of Youth in Urban America (NYU Press, 2010).
How do you tell the difference between a “good kid” and a “potential thug”? In Dangerous or Endangered?, Jennifer Tilton considers the ways in which children are increasingly viewed as dangerous and yet, simultaneously, as endangered and in need of protection by the state.
Tilton draws on three years of ethnographic research in Oakland, California, one of the nation’s most racially diverse cities, to examine how debates over the nature and needs of young people have fundamentally reshaped politics, transforming ideas of citizenship and the state in contemporary America. As parents and neighborhood activists have worked to save and discipline young people, they have often inadvertently reinforced privatized models of childhood and urban space, clearing the streets of children, who are encouraged to stay at home or in supervised after-school programs. Youth activists protest these attempts, demanding a right to the city and expanded rights of citizenship.
Dangerous or Endangered? pays careful attention to the intricate connections between fears of other people’s kids and fears for our own kids in order to explore the complex racial, class, and gender divides in contemporary American cities.
The cover features one of my murals (Photography by Scott Braley).
In the San Francisco Bay Area, going to openings was a form of reciprocity for me. Showing up was a way to share my gratitude, interest, and participation. Running into friends and alumni was a common bonus. Some circles became as warm and familiar as an episode of Cheers.
New York is a different story. I bailed on a few openings last week. First of all, it’s cold. It’s 28ºF right now – bearable, but bundling up and braving the slippery, slushy, icy sidewalks is not exactly enticing. It’s also time-consuming in terms of transit—from my leafy borough to downtown takes 45-50 minutes (sometimes more with service changes). And, of course, I’m still very new here, which makes showing up sometimes feel like networking; I can’t wait until I gain a sense of community — that magical sense of participation and reciprocity…
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
R+D 