Art Competition Odds

Art Competition Odds: Southern Exposure’s Alternative Exposure

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.

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Art & Development

Reasons to Get Excited

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.

On the Ground, Southern Exposure poster. Design: Christine Wong Yap.

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!

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Community, Research

Points of reference

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

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Citizenship

Why bowing to censorship is a bad idea

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.

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Art & Development

City Reader is here!

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.

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Art & Development

Art Publishing Now & Critical Sources II

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.

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Community

I-Hotel, Angel Island

Jerome Reyes
Until Today: Spectres for the International Hotel
International Hotel, 868 Kearny, San Francisco, CA
Through Dec 4, 2010
Exhibition Curator: Julio César Morales

Bay Area artist Jerome Reyes’ long-awaited exhibition examining the I-Hotel in San Francisco’s Manilatown and Chinatown is on at 868 Kearny at the International Hotel through December 4th, 2010.

The I-Hotel is a rich, powerful part of San Francisco history; if your knowledge of it is cursory, a visit to the exhibition will be elucidating.

While I haven’t seen the show, I’m proud to play a small part in it, sharing photographs of screenprints produced at Kearny Street Workshop*, a free, drop-in community art center that occupied the I-Hotel’s storefront. I photographed the screenprints, which were in the California Ethnic and Multicultural Archives at UC Santa Barbara, for Activist Imagination, an exhibition at Kearny Street Workshop supported by the Creative Work Fund, the San Francisco Foundation and generous individual donors. It’s affirming to know that the documentation afforded by these past opportunities enables these historic posters to be made public again.

[*KSW is a fantastic non-profit, and I’m grateful for all the opportunities I’ve had to work with them. I am currently developing new works on paper to support KSW in an art sale this winter. Details forthcoming.]

Mary Walling Blackburn
Radical Citizenship: The Tutorials
Mary Walling Blackburn
Presented by Southern Exposure and Anhoek School at Angel Island (San Francisco Bay Area) and Governor’s Island (NYC)
Curated by Valerie Imus

In another quirk of timing, Angel Island (and NY’s Governor’s Island) will be activated with contemporary art events starting tomorrow. The historical significance of Angel Island includes its history as an immigration and detention center, especially for Chinese immigrants seeking economic opportunities in California. It’s one of the San Francisco Bay Area’s most under-represented stories, if you ask me. “Radical Citizenship: The Tutorials, a series of one-on-one tutorials for participants with artists, activists, ecologists, and academics from various disciplines.” For more info visit soex.org.

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Community

Southern Exposure: ART PUBLISHING NOW

San Francisco’s where it’s at! Wish I could be at this art publishing summit at Southern Exposure. It’s a convergence of three of my passions: DIY publishing, contemporary art, and criticism.

Southern Exposure: ART PUBLISHING NOW.

Saturday, October 9, 2010, 11 am – 10 pm
Sunday, October 10, 2010, 11 am – 6 pm

Southern Exposure
3030 20th Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
http://soex.org
http://artpublishingnow.org

Art Publishing Now is a two-day event dedicated to the investigation and showcasing of art publishing practices in the Bay Area. It includes a day of presentations and critical discussions, an after-party, an art publishers fair, library and archive.

Not to be outdone, NYC’s artist-thinkers have scheduled a meeting of the minds that same weekend…

The Creative Time Summit: Revolutions in Public Practice 2

Cooper Union’s Great Hall
October 9-10

The Creative Time Summit is a two-day conference that brings more than forty cultural producers together to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. Their international projects bring to the table a vast array of practices and methodologies that engage with the canvas of everyday life. The participants range from art world luminaries to those purposefully obscure, providing a glimpse into an evolving community concerned with the political implications of socially engaged art. The Creative Time Summit is meant to be an opportunity to not only uncover the tensions that such a global form of working presents, but also to provide opportunities for new coalitions and sympathetic affinities.

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