Cauleen Smith: Black Utopia LP
Curator, audiovisual performance on
May 21, 2020, SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater. (canceled and postponed)
The Los Angeles–based artist and filmmaker Cauleen Smith will present the audiovisual performance "Black Utopia LP: a cauleen smith movie" (2012), which synthesizes her extensive research on Afrofuturism and the innovative American jazz composer and musician Sun Ra (1914–93). Conceptualized as “a film without film,” Smith combines lectures with the accompaniment of an analog 35mm slide projection and her double vinyl record Black Utopia LP on a turntable. The ninety-minute soundtrack features a collage of lectures, rehearsals, and live performances by Sun Ra as well as commissioned contributions from Chicago artists Krista Franklin and Avery R. Young. At each performance of this work, Smith reworks the projected imagery to reflect the local context. For this Bay Area debut, Smith will update her pool of over nine hundred 35mm slides with materials drawn from Bay Area archives. As Smith describes, “The LP is not so much a literal document of the life of Sun Ra, but a proposal for possible futures in imagined spaces and places. The audio component of the LP movie is fixed and burned into wax. But the visual component is ever shifting and adapting to address the continued research of the artist as well as to involve the landscape and history of the spaces in which the LP is performed.”
In conjunction with "Future Histories: Theaster Gates and Cauleen Smith"
May 21, 2020, SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater. (canceled and postponed)
The Los Angeles–based artist and filmmaker Cauleen Smith will present the audiovisual performance "Black Utopia LP: a cauleen smith movie" (2012), which synthesizes her extensive research on Afrofuturism and the innovative American jazz composer and musician Sun Ra (1914–93). Conceptualized as “a film without film,” Smith combines lectures with the accompaniment of an analog 35mm slide projection and her double vinyl record Black Utopia LP on a turntable. The ninety-minute soundtrack features a collage of lectures, rehearsals, and live performances by Sun Ra as well as commissioned contributions from Chicago artists Krista Franklin and Avery R. Young. At each performance of this work, Smith reworks the projected imagery to reflect the local context. For this Bay Area debut, Smith will update her pool of over nine hundred 35mm slides with materials drawn from Bay Area archives. As Smith describes, “The LP is not so much a literal document of the life of Sun Ra, but a proposal for possible futures in imagined spaces and places. The audio component of the LP movie is fixed and burned into wax. But the visual component is ever shifting and adapting to address the continued research of the artist as well as to involve the landscape and history of the spaces in which the LP is performed.”
In conjunction with "Future Histories: Theaster Gates and Cauleen Smith"
Irene Dogmatic: Postcards and Zines
Guest organizer and speaker, public program with Irene Dogmatic, Wolfman Books, Oakland. April 19, 2020 (postponed TBA)
Join the artist Irene Dogmatic for a presentation and conversation around a selection of her artist postcards and zines since the 1970s. Hosted by Tanya Zimbardo, this public program will spotlight a rarely seen series of humorous photographic postcards made both individually and collaboratively by Irene Dogmatic and Patricia Tavenner (1935-2013). As neighbors in Oakland in the 1970s, both artists used this medium to explore performing for the camera, often in costume, and embraced the possibilities of self-publishing and distribution.
Irene Dogmatic’s satirical dog theme word play and cartoon imagery span a number of zines. Select mail art publications like “Your Self Portrait As A Dog” (1975) features a number of contributors such as Anna Banana, Ray Johnson, Les Levine, Cosey Fanni Tutti, among others. For the artist, “this xerox work was fun to do, since ideas could be quickly translated into images, easily and cheaply duplicated, and shared with other correspondence people, or in the case of the collaborations, involved a group effort.”
Adopting the moniker Irene Dogmatic in 1972, the Berkeley-based artist has worked since as a visual and performance artist in the Bay Area and New York. After coming across a fake newspaper flyer by Lou Carson and Pat Tavenner, the editors of Mail Order Art, Irene Dogmatic became associated with the Bay Area Dadaists and involved with the international correspondence art movement. The artist’s Dadamatic Mail Art collection was highlighted by Penelope Houston at the San Francisco Public Library and is now represented in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. In the 1980s Dogmatic was active in the local punk scene as part of the bands The Beautykillers, SST, and the Kahunas. In recent years, Irene Dogmatic’s paintings have been featured in solo shows at Pro Arts, Oakland, and Garage Gallery, Berkeley.
Join the artist Irene Dogmatic for a presentation and conversation around a selection of her artist postcards and zines since the 1970s. Hosted by Tanya Zimbardo, this public program will spotlight a rarely seen series of humorous photographic postcards made both individually and collaboratively by Irene Dogmatic and Patricia Tavenner (1935-2013). As neighbors in Oakland in the 1970s, both artists used this medium to explore performing for the camera, often in costume, and embraced the possibilities of self-publishing and distribution.
Irene Dogmatic’s satirical dog theme word play and cartoon imagery span a number of zines. Select mail art publications like “Your Self Portrait As A Dog” (1975) features a number of contributors such as Anna Banana, Ray Johnson, Les Levine, Cosey Fanni Tutti, among others. For the artist, “this xerox work was fun to do, since ideas could be quickly translated into images, easily and cheaply duplicated, and shared with other correspondence people, or in the case of the collaborations, involved a group effort.”
Adopting the moniker Irene Dogmatic in 1972, the Berkeley-based artist has worked since as a visual and performance artist in the Bay Area and New York. After coming across a fake newspaper flyer by Lou Carson and Pat Tavenner, the editors of Mail Order Art, Irene Dogmatic became associated with the Bay Area Dadaists and involved with the international correspondence art movement. The artist’s Dadamatic Mail Art collection was highlighted by Penelope Houston at the San Francisco Public Library and is now represented in the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley. In the 1980s Dogmatic was active in the local punk scene as part of the bands The Beautykillers, SST, and the Kahunas. In recent years, Irene Dogmatic’s paintings have been featured in solo shows at Pro Arts, Oakland, and Garage Gallery, Berkeley.
#MuseumFromHome - Online Screenings
Starting April 8, 2020, SFMOMA will screen each week a different work from the Media Arts collection. Films and videos include Bruce Conner's EASTER MORNING (2008), Suzanne Lacy's Whisper, the Waves, the Wind (1984), and Bill Fontana's WHITE MOTIONS (2017)
Tom Marioni: A Motion Picture
Guest curator, public program at Minnesota Street Project Atrium, March 28, 2020 at 4pm. (cancelled/postponed)
Conversation with Tom Marioni on his curatorial project "A Motion Picture" (2005). A selection of artist videos contributed to the original project will be shared and discussed. This public program in the Atrium is presented in conjunction with "MOCA: A Tight 13 Minutes," on view in the Media Room at Minnesota Street Project from March 11 through April 30, 2020.
Conversation with Tom Marioni on his curatorial project "A Motion Picture" (2005). A selection of artist videos contributed to the original project will be shared and discussed. This public program in the Atrium is presented in conjunction with "MOCA: A Tight 13 Minutes," on view in the Media Room at Minnesota Street Project from March 11 through April 30, 2020.
Merce Cunningham at Ghirardelli Square: Assemblage 1968 Screening
Co-curator, outdoor screening of "Assemblage" (1968, Merce Cunningham and Richard Moore) at film location of Ghirardelli Square, San Francisco.
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Merce Cunningham at Ghirardelli Square: Assemblage 1968 screening
Carillon, Ghirardelli Square plaza, San Francisco.
Saturday, November 2, 2019.
Presented in celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial.
In the fall sunshine of 1968, Merce Cunningham and his early dance company invaded the plazas, stairs, and rooves of Ghirardelli Square in an event that would become Assemblage. Staged for the camera, the performance was filmed and produced by KQED-TV for broadcast and represents a radical collaboration between director and editor Richard Moore; a soundtrack by John Cage, David Tudor and Gordon Mumma; the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the built environment of San Francisco. Dancer Carolyn Brown remembers the three weeks in October and early November: “Prancing around Ghirardelli Square like giddy grade-school kids let loose in a playground, we were euphoric.” In the final film, Richard Moore and film editor Bill Yahraus’s prismatic special effects unite Cunningham’s company with Ghirardelli’s former factory buildings: a mesmerizing collage of the joy, upheaval, and possibility of 1968. Rediscovered after Cunningham's death, Assemblage was transferred from 16mm and colorized by artist and filmmaker Charles Atlas.
Join us for a special presentation in the outdoor Carillon pavilion in Ghirardelli Square, facing the Ruth Asawa fountain. Assemblage will once again be reintegrated with its site, a testament to Cunningham’s groundbreaking and collaborative investigation of dance and movement within both actual and virtual space.
Saturday, November 2, 2019
Merce Cunningham at Ghirardelli Square: Assemblage 1968 screening
Carillon, Ghirardelli Square plaza, San Francisco.
Saturday, November 2, 2019.
Presented in celebration of the Merce Cunningham Centennial.
In the fall sunshine of 1968, Merce Cunningham and his early dance company invaded the plazas, stairs, and rooves of Ghirardelli Square in an event that would become Assemblage. Staged for the camera, the performance was filmed and produced by KQED-TV for broadcast and represents a radical collaboration between director and editor Richard Moore; a soundtrack by John Cage, David Tudor and Gordon Mumma; the Merce Cunningham Dance Company and the built environment of San Francisco. Dancer Carolyn Brown remembers the three weeks in October and early November: “Prancing around Ghirardelli Square like giddy grade-school kids let loose in a playground, we were euphoric.” In the final film, Richard Moore and film editor Bill Yahraus’s prismatic special effects unite Cunningham’s company with Ghirardelli’s former factory buildings: a mesmerizing collage of the joy, upheaval, and possibility of 1968. Rediscovered after Cunningham's death, Assemblage was transferred from 16mm and colorized by artist and filmmaker Charles Atlas.
Join us for a special presentation in the outdoor Carillon pavilion in Ghirardelli Square, facing the Ruth Asawa fountain. Assemblage will once again be reintegrated with its site, a testament to Cunningham’s groundbreaking and collaborative investigation of dance and movement within both actual and virtual space.
Lynn Marie Kirby: Collaborations with Etel Adnan
Guest co-curator with Courtney Fellion, Mill Valley Library, August 20, 2019.
“To be with Etel is to be walking under the linden trees, discussing an idea, feeling the light as it comes in through the leaves with her mountain in the distance—her spirit seeing too, not afraid to say something, meeting the big picture and its small shadow, and of her being her with us in these pages.” — Lynn Marie Kirby, Under the Linden Trees; Etel Adnan: Premonitions, Kelsey Street Press: Berkeley, 2014.
Artists and writers Lynn Marie Kirby and Etel Adnan formed a close friendship in the 1990s and have worked together on several art and writing projects. Join Kirby for a special presentation and reading that will touch on their various collaborations and forthcoming publication. Adnan is a Lebanese, Paris-based artist, essayist, and poet, who was a longtime resident of Marin County for several decades and is known for her works inspired by her relationship to Mount Tamalpais. From 1958 to 1972, Adnan taught philosophy at Dominican College of San Rafael, California.
The San Francisco-based Kirby will perform Transmissions (2017), a video and live reading inspired by her time spent with Adnan in Paris, incorporating their collaborative drawings and open-ended conversation about Mount Tamalpais, truth, ritual, coherence, and democracy. This program will also debut their collaborative short video artwork Under the Linden Trees (2001/2019), shot in Marin County.
Introduced and co-organized by Courtney Fellion and Tanya Zimbardo.
“To be with Etel is to be walking under the linden trees, discussing an idea, feeling the light as it comes in through the leaves with her mountain in the distance—her spirit seeing too, not afraid to say something, meeting the big picture and its small shadow, and of her being her with us in these pages.” — Lynn Marie Kirby, Under the Linden Trees; Etel Adnan: Premonitions, Kelsey Street Press: Berkeley, 2014.
Artists and writers Lynn Marie Kirby and Etel Adnan formed a close friendship in the 1990s and have worked together on several art and writing projects. Join Kirby for a special presentation and reading that will touch on their various collaborations and forthcoming publication. Adnan is a Lebanese, Paris-based artist, essayist, and poet, who was a longtime resident of Marin County for several decades and is known for her works inspired by her relationship to Mount Tamalpais. From 1958 to 1972, Adnan taught philosophy at Dominican College of San Rafael, California.
The San Francisco-based Kirby will perform Transmissions (2017), a video and live reading inspired by her time spent with Adnan in Paris, incorporating their collaborative drawings and open-ended conversation about Mount Tamalpais, truth, ritual, coherence, and democracy. This program will also debut their collaborative short video artwork Under the Linden Trees (2001/2019), shot in Marin County.
Introduced and co-organized by Courtney Fellion and Tanya Zimbardo.
Artist Talk: Alison O'Daniel in conversation with Tanya Zimbardo
Guest curator and speaker, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts, July 21, 2019, 3pm.
"The Tuba Thieves" is both a feature-length film in progress that Alison O’Daniel has been shooting and an expanding project of mixed-media installations, sculptures, and performances through which O’Daniel invites audiences and collaborators “to navigate, de-construct and re-imagine sound.” The Los Angeles-based artist, who is Hard of Hearing, collaborates with hearing, Deaf and Hard of Hearing composers, musicians, performers, and athletes in her work across mediums. Curator Tanya Zimbardo joins O’Daniel to discuss her unfolding project "The Tuba Thieves" (2013–ongoing), including the process of reimagining through film the punk show for the closing party of the Deaf Club in San Francisco in 1979.
"Alison O’Daniel: The Tuba Thieves" is on view daily in MFA’s Screening Room in conjunction with the exhibition What is an edition, anyway? which explores the traditions, conditions, and inventive expressions of the contemporary artist’s multiple.
The screening program repeats approximately every half hour.
This artist talk is offered with sign language interpretation.
"The Tuba Thieves" is both a feature-length film in progress that Alison O’Daniel has been shooting and an expanding project of mixed-media installations, sculptures, and performances through which O’Daniel invites audiences and collaborators “to navigate, de-construct and re-imagine sound.” The Los Angeles-based artist, who is Hard of Hearing, collaborates with hearing, Deaf and Hard of Hearing composers, musicians, performers, and athletes in her work across mediums. Curator Tanya Zimbardo joins O’Daniel to discuss her unfolding project "The Tuba Thieves" (2013–ongoing), including the process of reimagining through film the punk show for the closing party of the Deaf Club in San Francisco in 1979.
"Alison O’Daniel: The Tuba Thieves" is on view daily in MFA’s Screening Room in conjunction with the exhibition What is an edition, anyway? which explores the traditions, conditions, and inventive expressions of the contemporary artist’s multiple.
The screening program repeats approximately every half hour.
This artist talk is offered with sign language interpretation.
Collective Vision: the Los Angeles Independent Film Oasis
Curator, SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater, June 22, 2019.
Filmmakers Amy Halpern and Pat O’Neill in person
An “oasis in a film desert,” the artist-run Los Angeles Independent Film Oasis (1976–81) was a screening collective that fostered the presentation of experimental cinema in a city dominated by the film industry. This program centers on a selection of 16mm films — rarely shown in the Bay Area — by founding members including Morgan Fisher, Roberta Friedman, Amy Halpern, Pat O’Neill, Susan Rosenfeld, Grahame Weinbren, David Wilson, and Diana Wilson. Presented in conjunction with "Pat O’Neill: Three Answers" on view on Floor 7.
Introduced by Tanya Zimbardo, assistant curator of media arts at SFMOMA
Films include:
Amy Halpern, Invocation, 1982 and Filament (The Hands), 1972–75**
Morgan Fisher, Projection Instructions, 1976*
David Wilson, Stasis, 1976*
Diana Wilson, Four Corners, 1978*
Susan Rosenfeld, Picture Without Sound, 1976*
Roberta Friedman and Grahame Weinbren, Bertha’s Children, 1976*
Pat O’Neill, Sleeping Dogs (Never Lie), 1978**
*Prints courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive
**Prints courtesy Canyon Cinema Foundation
Filmmakers Amy Halpern and Pat O’Neill in person
An “oasis in a film desert,” the artist-run Los Angeles Independent Film Oasis (1976–81) was a screening collective that fostered the presentation of experimental cinema in a city dominated by the film industry. This program centers on a selection of 16mm films — rarely shown in the Bay Area — by founding members including Morgan Fisher, Roberta Friedman, Amy Halpern, Pat O’Neill, Susan Rosenfeld, Grahame Weinbren, David Wilson, and Diana Wilson. Presented in conjunction with "Pat O’Neill: Three Answers" on view on Floor 7.
Introduced by Tanya Zimbardo, assistant curator of media arts at SFMOMA
Films include:
Amy Halpern, Invocation, 1982 and Filament (The Hands), 1972–75**
Morgan Fisher, Projection Instructions, 1976*
David Wilson, Stasis, 1976*
Diana Wilson, Four Corners, 1978*
Susan Rosenfeld, Picture Without Sound, 1976*
Roberta Friedman and Grahame Weinbren, Bertha’s Children, 1976*
Pat O’Neill, Sleeping Dogs (Never Lie), 1978**
*Prints courtesy Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Film Archive
**Prints courtesy Canyon Cinema Foundation
Pat O'Neill: Contemporary Focus
Curator, video screening program, January 6-9, 2019. SFMOMA Gina and Stuart Peterson White Box. On loop during museum hours and free with museum admission. In conjunction with the exhibition "Pat O'Neill: Three Answers."
This weekend spotlight on film pioneer Pat O’Neill explores the Los Angeles artist’s recent moving image work and dynamic use of various animation techniques. Playing continuously in the Gina and Stuart Peterson White Box, this program includes a three-channel version of "Trouble in the Image" (1996/2015).
Schedule: Thursday, June 6 | An Extra Wander: for Chickie
Pat O’Neill, "An Extra Wander: for Chickie," 2016/2019, HD video, with sound, 7:37 min.; sound design: George Lockwood
Friday + Saturday, June 7 + 8 | Trouble in the Image
Pat O’Neill, "Trouble in the Image," 1996/2015, three-channel HD video, silent, 10:35 min.
Sunday, June 9 | Where the Chocolate Mountains*
Pat O’Neill, "Where the Chocolate Mountains," 2015, 35mm film transferred to HD video, sound, 55:35 min.; sound design: George Lockwood
*Program screens on the hour
All works courtesy the artist; Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles; Mitchell-Innes and Nash, New York; and Monitor Gallery, Rome.
This weekend spotlight on film pioneer Pat O’Neill explores the Los Angeles artist’s recent moving image work and dynamic use of various animation techniques. Playing continuously in the Gina and Stuart Peterson White Box, this program includes a three-channel version of "Trouble in the Image" (1996/2015).
Schedule: Thursday, June 6 | An Extra Wander: for Chickie
Pat O’Neill, "An Extra Wander: for Chickie," 2016/2019, HD video, with sound, 7:37 min.; sound design: George Lockwood
Friday + Saturday, June 7 + 8 | Trouble in the Image
Pat O’Neill, "Trouble in the Image," 1996/2015, three-channel HD video, silent, 10:35 min.
Sunday, June 9 | Where the Chocolate Mountains*
Pat O’Neill, "Where the Chocolate Mountains," 2015, 35mm film transferred to HD video, sound, 55:35 min.; sound design: George Lockwood
*Program screens on the hour
All works courtesy the artist; Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles; Mitchell-Innes and Nash, New York; and Monitor Gallery, Rome.
Barbara Hammer: Cinema of Intimacy
Co-curated with Susannah Magers.
April 25, 2019, Little Roxie, San Francisco. Co-presented with the Canyon Cinema Foundation.
Films:
Audience, 1982, 16mm, b&w, sound, 33 min.
Psychosynthesis, 1975, 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.
Dyketactics, 1974, 16mm, color, sound, 4 min.
Superdyke, 1975, 16mm, color, sound, 20 min.
In tribute to film legend Barbara Hammer (1939–2019), this program highlights a selection of the artist’s early films rooted in the Bay Area. Shot at the Roxie Theater, the beginning of Audience (1982) features Hammer’s fun, flirtatious, and thoughtful interviews with the audience line before her tribute screening as part of that year’s San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Recognized as one of the first lesbian experimental filmmakers, Hammer explicitly championed the perspective of women and the visibility of the lesbian and queer communities. As she observed, her work in the 1970s was “proselytizing my newfound place, my lesbian homeland.” In the witty Superdyke (1975), Hammer and an army of women take to the streets of San Francisco. The sensual and playful Dyketactics (1974) and Psychosynthesis (1975) feature Hammer as both director and subject. Hammer invites the audience into her films through exploring the connection of sight and touch, saying “it is a camera that goes to bed with me and another: a cinema of intimacy.” This program celebrates a body of Hammer’s work that epitomizes her joyful, unabashed experimental approach to self-representation.
Preservation prints of Audience, Psychosynthesis and Superdyke made in 2018 available from Canyon Cinema. These films were preserved by Electronic Arts Intermix and the Academy Film Archive through the National Film Preservation Foundation's Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.
April 25, 2019, Little Roxie, San Francisco. Co-presented with the Canyon Cinema Foundation.
Films:
Audience, 1982, 16mm, b&w, sound, 33 min.
Psychosynthesis, 1975, 16mm, color, sound, 8 min.
Dyketactics, 1974, 16mm, color, sound, 4 min.
Superdyke, 1975, 16mm, color, sound, 20 min.
In tribute to film legend Barbara Hammer (1939–2019), this program highlights a selection of the artist’s early films rooted in the Bay Area. Shot at the Roxie Theater, the beginning of Audience (1982) features Hammer’s fun, flirtatious, and thoughtful interviews with the audience line before her tribute screening as part of that year’s San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival. Recognized as one of the first lesbian experimental filmmakers, Hammer explicitly championed the perspective of women and the visibility of the lesbian and queer communities. As she observed, her work in the 1970s was “proselytizing my newfound place, my lesbian homeland.” In the witty Superdyke (1975), Hammer and an army of women take to the streets of San Francisco. The sensual and playful Dyketactics (1974) and Psychosynthesis (1975) feature Hammer as both director and subject. Hammer invites the audience into her films through exploring the connection of sight and touch, saying “it is a camera that goes to bed with me and another: a cinema of intimacy.” This program celebrates a body of Hammer’s work that epitomizes her joyful, unabashed experimental approach to self-representation.
Preservation prints of Audience, Psychosynthesis and Superdyke made in 2018 available from Canyon Cinema. These films were preserved by Electronic Arts Intermix and the Academy Film Archive through the National Film Preservation Foundation's Avant-Garde Masters Grant program and The Film Foundation. Funding provided by the George Lucas Family Foundation.
Artist talk: Martha Rosler
Guest speaker, conversation with Martha Rosler. Organized by / (slash). April 18, 2019 at Minnesota Street Project, San Francisco. In conjunction with "Martha Rosler / Eric Wesley" curated by Drew Heitzler at the nonprofit art space /.
Allan Kaprow: Pose
March 22, 2019
SFMOMA Library
Co-organized with Andrea Nitsche-Krupp and David Senior.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Allan Kaprow's Pose (1969) in Berkeley, we are convening a small gathering of Bay Area curators, artist educators, and other scholars for an informal discussion around a copy, published in 1970.
SFMOMA Library
Co-organized with Andrea Nitsche-Krupp and David Senior.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Allan Kaprow's Pose (1969) in Berkeley, we are convening a small gathering of Bay Area curators, artist educators, and other scholars for an informal discussion around a copy, published in 1970.
Edge of See: Twilight Engines
Guest speaker, in conversation with artist Vishal K. Dar, opening reception of "Edge of See: Twilight Engines," January 20, 2019, Headlands Center for the Arts.
Part of an ambitious global project by artist Vishal K. Dar, Edge of See: Twilight Engines uses site-specific light sculptures viewed through an augmented reality app to push our senses of vision, scale, motion, and time. Dar brings his primary question—what is the edge of sight?—to the landscape of the Marin Headlands, using technology to overlay former artillery batteries with abstract light sculptures, or “engines,” that spin, turn, and tumble in response to the environment. In addition, in Project Space at Headlands, Dar has installed wooden architectural models of the batteries, also activated through the augmented reality app, as well as maps, sketches, and video work.
Part of an ambitious global project by artist Vishal K. Dar, Edge of See: Twilight Engines uses site-specific light sculptures viewed through an augmented reality app to push our senses of vision, scale, motion, and time. Dar brings his primary question—what is the edge of sight?—to the landscape of the Marin Headlands, using technology to overlay former artillery batteries with abstract light sculptures, or “engines,” that spin, turn, and tumble in response to the environment. In addition, in Project Space at Headlands, Dar has installed wooden architectural models of the batteries, also activated through the augmented reality app, as well as maps, sketches, and video work.
Artist Walks in the Bay Area
Public talk, October 23, 2018
Part of SJSU Graduate Lecture Series.
Tanya Zimbardo will give an overview of contemporary artworks and exhibition projects since the 1970s that have centered on the act of walking. This San Francisco-based curator and writer will discuss a range of spatial practices and curatorial approaches to the urban environment of the Bay Area. The presentation will include examples of participatory works and events commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and a range of arts organizations and artist-led projects.
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This acclaimed weekly lecture series brings in artists, designers, and critical theorists from around the world. All lecture presentations take place 5-6pm in the SJSU Art Lecture Hall (Room 133), unless otherwise indicated. Free and open to the public!
Part of SJSU Graduate Lecture Series.
Tanya Zimbardo will give an overview of contemporary artworks and exhibition projects since the 1970s that have centered on the act of walking. This San Francisco-based curator and writer will discuss a range of spatial practices and curatorial approaches to the urban environment of the Bay Area. The presentation will include examples of participatory works and events commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and a range of arts organizations and artist-led projects.
————————————-
This acclaimed weekly lecture series brings in artists, designers, and critical theorists from around the world. All lecture presentations take place 5-6pm in the SJSU Art Lecture Hall (Room 133), unless otherwise indicated. Free and open to the public!
Tribal Vision: West Coast Video Vanning
Public talk, Prelinger Library, San Francisco, September 27 2018.
Part of PLACE TALKS Season 5.
Curator Tanya Zimbardo will bring us the story of how the new technology of portable video cameras intersected with social movements in California in "Tribal Vision: West Coast Video Vanning."
"A van outfitted with video recording, editing, and playback equipment toured the Pacific Coast in the early seventies... Loren Sears describes how the goal of his Tribal Vision Network (TVN) was 'to record lifestyle innovation happening in these communities, edit and feed it back as a way of providing connection and clarifying what was being accomplished – a kind of self-critical tool for cultural innovators.'"
PLACE TALKS is a series of visual lectures that occurs at the Prelinger Library in San Francisco. Bay Area artists, writers, designers, architects, archivists, librarians (and other curious people) share talks on location-related topics, illustrated by content from the library's collection. PLACE TALKS is organized by Nicole Lavelle and Charlie Macquarie.
Part of PLACE TALKS Season 5.
Curator Tanya Zimbardo will bring us the story of how the new technology of portable video cameras intersected with social movements in California in "Tribal Vision: West Coast Video Vanning."
"A van outfitted with video recording, editing, and playback equipment toured the Pacific Coast in the early seventies... Loren Sears describes how the goal of his Tribal Vision Network (TVN) was 'to record lifestyle innovation happening in these communities, edit and feed it back as a way of providing connection and clarifying what was being accomplished – a kind of self-critical tool for cultural innovators.'"
PLACE TALKS is a series of visual lectures that occurs at the Prelinger Library in San Francisco. Bay Area artists, writers, designers, architects, archivists, librarians (and other curious people) share talks on location-related topics, illustrated by content from the library's collection. PLACE TALKS is organized by Nicole Lavelle and Charlie Macquarie.
Arthur Jafa: Dreams Are Colder Than Death
Co-organizer and introduction.
Join us for a screening of Dreams are Colder than Death (2014), an experimental documentary/essay film by acclaimed filmmaker and artist Arthur Jafa that reflects on the legacy of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and offers a profound and nuanced rumination on the question: “What does it mean to be black in America today?” Jafa interweaves and layers disparate and haunting imagery with interviews with some of the most significant and influential contemporary thinkers about black arts, black studies, and black experience, including artists Kara Walker and Wangechi Mutu, poet Fred Moten, filmmaker Charles Burnett, professors Hortense Spillers and Saidiya Hartman, musician Flying Lotus, and more.
Following the screening, curator Deena Chalabi will be in conversation with cultural studies scholar Stephen Best to discuss Jafa’s work.
Arthur Jafa’s "Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death" is featured in "Nothing Stable under Heaven" on Floor 7.
Join us for a screening of Dreams are Colder than Death (2014), an experimental documentary/essay film by acclaimed filmmaker and artist Arthur Jafa that reflects on the legacy of Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech and offers a profound and nuanced rumination on the question: “What does it mean to be black in America today?” Jafa interweaves and layers disparate and haunting imagery with interviews with some of the most significant and influential contemporary thinkers about black arts, black studies, and black experience, including artists Kara Walker and Wangechi Mutu, poet Fred Moten, filmmaker Charles Burnett, professors Hortense Spillers and Saidiya Hartman, musician Flying Lotus, and more.
Following the screening, curator Deena Chalabi will be in conversation with cultural studies scholar Stephen Best to discuss Jafa’s work.
Arthur Jafa’s "Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death" is featured in "Nothing Stable under Heaven" on Floor 7.
Nam June Paik: Liner Notes
Co-organizer, SFMOMA,
November 30 - December 2, 2017
Public programs in conjunction with the exhibition "Nam June Paik: In Character."
"On Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, and the Electronic Superhighway"
Thursday, November 30, 2017
6–9 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
"On Nam June Paik"
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Floor 2
Artists, scholars, and curators share insights and personal reflections on Nam June Paik's wide-ranging work, including video sculptures, altered televisions, and an array of rarely exhibited drawings and ephemera.
Participants:
Rachel Jans, assistant curator of painting and sculpture
Laura Hyunjhee Kim, artist
John Sanborn, artist
Tanya Zimbardo, assistant curator of media arts
"Nam June Paik: Selected Works"
Thursday and Friday, November 30 and December 1
Phyllis Wattis Theater
November 30 - December 2, 2017
Public programs in conjunction with the exhibition "Nam June Paik: In Character."
"On Nam June Paik, Charlotte Moorman, and the Electronic Superhighway"
Thursday, November 30, 2017
6–9 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater
"On Nam June Paik"
Saturday, December 2, 2017
Floor 2
Artists, scholars, and curators share insights and personal reflections on Nam June Paik's wide-ranging work, including video sculptures, altered televisions, and an array of rarely exhibited drawings and ephemera.
Participants:
Rachel Jans, assistant curator of painting and sculpture
Laura Hyunjhee Kim, artist
John Sanborn, artist
Tanya Zimbardo, assistant curator of media arts
"Nam June Paik: Selected Works"
Thursday and Friday, November 30 and December 1
Phyllis Wattis Theater
Seth Price: Redistribution
Introduction and seminar participant.
People often want to hear what the artist has to say, what lies "behind" the work, yet at the same time it's taken as a performance.
But Seth Price's Redistribution (2007 - ) isn't an artist talk. It uses the artist's talk as a form and turns it into a video: the artist is at a lectern, giving an overview of his practice, but his explanations are called into question by the constructed nature of all the graphic effects, repeated sequences, voice-overs, or background music. After all, a video is just material in a chain.
When an image is filtered, you're mostly seeing the filter.
Price first made this work in 2007 but keeps re-editing it, adding new sections and altering others. This screening features his newest and most recent version, from 2017. Tanya Zimbardo, Assistant Curator of Media Arts at SFMOMA, introduces the screening.
This is the second event in our year-long season about and around the work of Seth Price.
People often want to hear what the artist has to say, what lies "behind" the work, yet at the same time it's taken as a performance.
But Seth Price's Redistribution (2007 - ) isn't an artist talk. It uses the artist's talk as a form and turns it into a video: the artist is at a lectern, giving an overview of his practice, but his explanations are called into question by the constructed nature of all the graphic effects, repeated sequences, voice-overs, or background music. After all, a video is just material in a chain.
When an image is filtered, you're mostly seeing the filter.
Price first made this work in 2007 but keeps re-editing it, adding new sections and altering others. This screening features his newest and most recent version, from 2017. Tanya Zimbardo, Assistant Curator of Media Arts at SFMOMA, introduces the screening.
This is the second event in our year-long season about and around the work of Seth Price.
Center of Gravity: Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley, program 2 - short films 1967-73
Guest curator, San Francisco Cinematheque. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novermber 16, 2017.
Dorothy Wiley in person.
Co-presented by San Francisco Cinematheque and Canyon Cinema Foundation.
Dorothy Wiley in person.
Co-presented by San Francisco Cinematheque and Canyon Cinema Foundation.
Center of Gravity: Gunvor Nelson & Dorothy Wiley program 1
Guest curator, San Francisco Cinematheque. San Francisco Art Institute, October 17, 2017.
Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob, 1971
Co-presented by San Francisco Cinematheque, Canyon Cinema Foundation, San Francisco Art Institute.
Dorothy Wiley in person
Gunvor Nelson/Dorothy Wiley: As friends living in Marin County, Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley began making films together in the 1960s that foregrounded their personal experiences while examining issues of family, parenthood, partnership and domestic life in the In the context of artist filmmaking in Northern California. Featuring original soundtracks, their collaborative and solo films explore the poetics of everyday life, from portraits of motherhood to close studies of various bodies. Nelson, who is now based in Sweden, and Wiley were among the earliest members of the cooperative Canyon Cinema. An influential force, Gunvor Nelson taught at SFAI from 1970 to 1992. (Tanya Zimbardo)
Gunvor Nelson/Dorothy Wiley, program 1: Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob
A personal tribute to artist friendship, this 1971 filmic collaboration reflects on a moment in time in the lives and careers of Bay Area legends William Allan, William Geis, Robert Hudson, Robert Nelson and William T. Wiley. These painters, sculptors and filmmakers and their circle associated with Funk art enjoyed a certain freedom on the West Coast to forge their own territory and forms of expression. Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley were drawn to documenting the spirit of how this close-knit group, affiliated with SFAI as students and faculty, were “working together, dreaming together, and had this unusual and interesting rapport. (Nelson)” Five Artists offers a collective portrait of the everyday life of these artists and their families in Marin County. Alternating between color and black-and-white footage, Nelson and Wiley interweave non-synchronous commentary by the artists and their acquaintances. (Tanya Zimbardo)
Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob, 1971
Co-presented by San Francisco Cinematheque, Canyon Cinema Foundation, San Francisco Art Institute.
Dorothy Wiley in person
Gunvor Nelson/Dorothy Wiley: As friends living in Marin County, Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley began making films together in the 1960s that foregrounded their personal experiences while examining issues of family, parenthood, partnership and domestic life in the In the context of artist filmmaking in Northern California. Featuring original soundtracks, their collaborative and solo films explore the poetics of everyday life, from portraits of motherhood to close studies of various bodies. Nelson, who is now based in Sweden, and Wiley were among the earliest members of the cooperative Canyon Cinema. An influential force, Gunvor Nelson taught at SFAI from 1970 to 1992. (Tanya Zimbardo)
Gunvor Nelson/Dorothy Wiley, program 1: Five Artists: BillBobBillBillBob
A personal tribute to artist friendship, this 1971 filmic collaboration reflects on a moment in time in the lives and careers of Bay Area legends William Allan, William Geis, Robert Hudson, Robert Nelson and William T. Wiley. These painters, sculptors and filmmakers and their circle associated with Funk art enjoyed a certain freedom on the West Coast to forge their own territory and forms of expression. Gunvor Nelson and Dorothy Wiley were drawn to documenting the spirit of how this close-knit group, affiliated with SFAI as students and faculty, were “working together, dreaming together, and had this unusual and interesting rapport. (Nelson)” Five Artists offers a collective portrait of the everyday life of these artists and their families in Marin County. Alternating between color and black-and-white footage, Nelson and Wiley interweave non-synchronous commentary by the artists and their acquaintances. (Tanya Zimbardo)
Conversation with Jeff Gunderson
Guest speaker; Athol McBean Gallery, San Francisco Art Institute, September 20, 2017.
The latest talk in the Ghosts of the Tower Salon Series will feature Head Librarian Jeff Gunderson in conversation with guest speaker and assistant curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Tanya Zimbardo. Zimbardo will reflect on a selection of exhibitions, expanded cinema, and performances that took place at SFAI in the 1970s, and which have been featured in her various curatorial and writing projects. Artists such as Eleanor Coppola, Howard Fried, Mike Henderson, Jim Melchert, Cherie Raciti, and Al Wong will be discussed. Zimbardo recently co-curated Nam June Paik: In Character and Soundtracks, on view at the museum. Her research interests include the history of artist-run spaces and microcinemas associated with SFAI alumni and faculty.
The latest talk in the Ghosts of the Tower Salon Series will feature Head Librarian Jeff Gunderson in conversation with guest speaker and assistant curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Tanya Zimbardo. Zimbardo will reflect on a selection of exhibitions, expanded cinema, and performances that took place at SFAI in the 1970s, and which have been featured in her various curatorial and writing projects. Artists such as Eleanor Coppola, Howard Fried, Mike Henderson, Jim Melchert, Cherie Raciti, and Al Wong will be discussed. Zimbardo recently co-curated Nam June Paik: In Character and Soundtracks, on view at the museum. Her research interests include the history of artist-run spaces and microcinemas associated with SFAI alumni and faculty.
Canyon Cinema 50
Interview on-camera with filmmaker Barbara Hammer for Canyon Cinema 50. Participant, Canyon Cinema 50 committee.
Bill Fontana: Total Eclipse
Curator, SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater, August 21, 2017.
Bill Fontana in person
On the historic occasion of the Great American Eclipse, SFMOMA offers an evocative listening experience — the sounds of a remote rainforest during a total eclipse of the sun. Be transported as a multitude of birds and other wildlife respond to the changing light before and after the anticipated climax of total darkness. The artist Bill Fontana, whose work is currently on view in "Soundtracks," made this early field recording for the Australian Broadcasting Commission over forty years ago. Don’t miss the chance to experience the first public U.S. presentation of "Total Eclipse, SE Australia, October 23rd, 1976" (1976) in SFMOMA’s Phyllis Wattis Theater through its immersive Meyer Sound Cinema Surround System
Bill Fontana in person
On the historic occasion of the Great American Eclipse, SFMOMA offers an evocative listening experience — the sounds of a remote rainforest during a total eclipse of the sun. Be transported as a multitude of birds and other wildlife respond to the changing light before and after the anticipated climax of total darkness. The artist Bill Fontana, whose work is currently on view in "Soundtracks," made this early field recording for the Australian Broadcasting Commission over forty years ago. Don’t miss the chance to experience the first public U.S. presentation of "Total Eclipse, SE Australia, October 23rd, 1976" (1976) in SFMOMA’s Phyllis Wattis Theater through its immersive Meyer Sound Cinema Surround System
White Box / Black Box
Panelist; 500 Capp Street,
September 28, 2017
Speakers: Darlene Tong (Board Secretary, La Mamelle / Art Com) for an evening with Nancy Frank (Artist Curator, La Mamelle), Tanya Zimbardo (Assistant Curator of Media Arts, SFMOMA) and Sharon Grace (Artist and Professor Emerita at the San Francisco Art Institute). Organized by Diego Villalobos.
White Box / Black Box will explore the historical milestones in the development of artist telecommunication projects, in relation to La Mamelle / Art Com, as well as other creative practitioners in the Bay Area. The evening will also celebrate the 40-year anniversary of the 1977 landmark project, Send/Receive, a live two-way satellite broadcast between New York and San Francisco. This groundbreaking art event, of which Sharon Grace and La Mamelle were crucial in organizing on the West Coast, was the first transcontinental artist TV project in the United States.
September 28, 2017
Speakers: Darlene Tong (Board Secretary, La Mamelle / Art Com) for an evening with Nancy Frank (Artist Curator, La Mamelle), Tanya Zimbardo (Assistant Curator of Media Arts, SFMOMA) and Sharon Grace (Artist and Professor Emerita at the San Francisco Art Institute). Organized by Diego Villalobos.
White Box / Black Box will explore the historical milestones in the development of artist telecommunication projects, in relation to La Mamelle / Art Com, as well as other creative practitioners in the Bay Area. The evening will also celebrate the 40-year anniversary of the 1977 landmark project, Send/Receive, a live two-way satellite broadcast between New York and San Francisco. This groundbreaking art event, of which Sharon Grace and La Mamelle were crucial in organizing on the West Coast, was the first transcontinental artist TV project in the United States.
All Over Sound
Panelist; Museum of Performance + Design, San Francisco.
In conjunction with Archive Live 2017, The Sonic Worlds of Performance on June 14, 6:30PM will bring together warren-crow+warren-crow with members of the Bay Area’s performance community for a public panel discussion about sound in performance. The particular make-up of the panel including warren-crown+warren-crow will create a path for a wide array of discussion topics. Of particular interest is considering the particular ways that sound engages spectators differently than the visual aspects of performance; the recent increase in the use of sound in dramatic performance; the difficulties around archiving the sounds of live performance; the challenges of writing about sound, and the relationship between the compositional and choreographic processes.
Panel:
Heather Warren-Crow, PhD, performance artist, Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts in the College of Visual & Performing Arts, Texas Tech University
Seth Warren-Crow, sound designer, composer, percussionist, Assistant Professor - Sound Design at Texas Tech University, USITT
Sheldon Smith, dance and music artist, Visiting Assistant Professor, Dance Department Head, Mills College
Tanya Zimbardo, Assistant Curator, Media Arts, SFMOMA
Derek Phillips, independent sound artist San Francisco
Alessio Silvestrin, free lance choreographer, composer resident in Japan, collaborator William Forsythe Cny
In conjunction with Archive Live 2017, The Sonic Worlds of Performance on June 14, 6:30PM will bring together warren-crow+warren-crow with members of the Bay Area’s performance community for a public panel discussion about sound in performance. The particular make-up of the panel including warren-crown+warren-crow will create a path for a wide array of discussion topics. Of particular interest is considering the particular ways that sound engages spectators differently than the visual aspects of performance; the recent increase in the use of sound in dramatic performance; the difficulties around archiving the sounds of live performance; the challenges of writing about sound, and the relationship between the compositional and choreographic processes.
Panel:
Heather Warren-Crow, PhD, performance artist, Assistant Professor of Interdisciplinary Arts in the College of Visual & Performing Arts, Texas Tech University
Seth Warren-Crow, sound designer, composer, percussionist, Assistant Professor - Sound Design at Texas Tech University, USITT
Sheldon Smith, dance and music artist, Visiting Assistant Professor, Dance Department Head, Mills College
Tanya Zimbardo, Assistant Curator, Media Arts, SFMOMA
Derek Phillips, independent sound artist San Francisco
Alessio Silvestrin, free lance choreographer, composer resident in Japan, collaborator William Forsythe Cny
Organic Logic: Terry Berlier, Bernie Lubell, Pamela Z
Guest curator, 500 Capp Stret Foundation. March 16, 2017, The David Ireland House.
The final segment in a series of three talks in conjunction with our inaugural exhibition in The Garage, centered on the theme of “organic logic.”
Terry Berlier is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is often kinetic, interactive and/or sound based and addresses themes of the environment and queer practice. Bernie Lubell makes interactive wood machines that visually construct the process of thought. Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video.
The final segment in a series of three talks in conjunction with our inaugural exhibition in The Garage, centered on the theme of “organic logic.”
Terry Berlier is an interdisciplinary artist whose work is often kinetic, interactive and/or sound based and addresses themes of the environment and queer practice. Bernie Lubell makes interactive wood machines that visually construct the process of thought. Pamela Z is a composer/performer and media artist who works primarily with voice, live electronic processing, sampled sound, and video.
Organic Logic: Amy Balkin, Sharon Daniel and Fieldworks Collaborative
Guest curator, 500 Capp Street Foundation. March 2, 2017, The David Ireland House, San Francisco.
The second in a series of three talks in conjunction with our inaugural exhibition in the Garage. Amy Balkin is an artist whose work involves land and the geopolitical relationships that frame it. Sharon Daniel is a media artist who produces interactive and participatory documentaries focused on issues of social, economic, environmental and criminal justice. Fieldworks Collaborative was founded in 2012 by artists/researchers Trena Noval and Ann Wettrich to invent new approaches to creative inquiry and collaborative systems that explore the world we live in.
The second in a series of three talks in conjunction with our inaugural exhibition in the Garage. Amy Balkin is an artist whose work involves land and the geopolitical relationships that frame it. Sharon Daniel is a media artist who produces interactive and participatory documentaries focused on issues of social, economic, environmental and criminal justice. Fieldworks Collaborative was founded in 2012 by artists/researchers Trena Noval and Ann Wettrich to invent new approaches to creative inquiry and collaborative systems that explore the world we live in.
Organic Logic: Jim Melchert, John Roloff, Stephanie Syjuco
Guest curator, 500 Capp Street Foundation. February 16, 2017, The David Ireland House, San Francisco.
The first in a series of three programs in conjunction with our inaugural exhibition in the Garage. This conversation was between artists Jim Melchert, John Roloff and Stephanie Syjuco, centered on expanded definitions of ceramics. They shared their perspectives on the intersections between ceramics, site, performance, and audience participation in the Bay Area.
The first in a series of three programs in conjunction with our inaugural exhibition in the Garage. This conversation was between artists Jim Melchert, John Roloff and Stephanie Syjuco, centered on expanded definitions of ceramics. They shared their perspectives on the intersections between ceramics, site, performance, and audience participation in the Bay Area.
Black Sun: Otto Piene and Aldo Tambellini
Lecture, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, March 6, 2017. Part of the Art & Technology Colloquium.
ATC speaker Tanya Zimbardo will discuss the resurgence of interest in the pioneering individual and collaborative work of artists Otto Piene (1928-2014) and Aldo Tambellini (b.1930). 50 years ago they co-founded the Black Gate theater for “electro-media” in New York. 1967 also marked the initiation of several key art and technology programs including MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies where both artists would become fellows and Piene served as director from 1974 to 1994. Her talk will encompass a range of historical and contemporary approaches to immersive and public installations, expanded cinema, and kinetic light sculpture.
ATC speaker Tanya Zimbardo will discuss the resurgence of interest in the pioneering individual and collaborative work of artists Otto Piene (1928-2014) and Aldo Tambellini (b.1930). 50 years ago they co-founded the Black Gate theater for “electro-media” in New York. 1967 also marked the initiation of several key art and technology programs including MIT's Center for Advanced Visual Studies where both artists would become fellows and Piene served as director from 1974 to 1994. Her talk will encompass a range of historical and contemporary approaches to immersive and public installations, expanded cinema, and kinetic light sculpture.
Amazing Rayday: Jeff Keen
Guest curator, Artists' Television Access, San Francisco. December 1, 2016.
Program includes:
Marvo Movie, 1967, col, sound, 5 min.
Rayday Film, 1968-1970 + 1976, col, sound, 13 min.
Day of the Arcane Light,1969, col, sound, 13 min.
The Dreams and Past Crimes of the Archduke, 1979-84, col, sound, 7 min
All files courtesy LUX, London
Program includes:
Marvo Movie, 1967, col, sound, 5 min.
Rayday Film, 1968-1970 + 1976, col, sound, 13 min.
Day of the Arcane Light,1969, col, sound, 13 min.
The Dreams and Past Crimes of the Archduke, 1979-84, col, sound, 7 min
All files courtesy LUX, London
Canyon Cinema Salon: Toney W. Merritt
Guest organizer and co-host; New Nothing Cinema, November 14, 2016.
Toney W. Merritt in person
Presented with Canyon Cinema Foundation.
Toney’s selection of his personal films span from his time at the San Francisco Art Institute to an excerpt of a current film-in-progress. Merritt and other local filmmakers were involved with the co-founding of No Nothing Cinema in 1982 at 30 Berry Street, San Francisco.
With special thanks to Rock Ross.
7:00pm – Reception
7:30pm* – Screening and discussion.
Program will include:
EF, 1979, 16mm, color, silent, 4 min.
Lonesome Cowboy, 1979, 16mm, b&w, optical sound, 0:5 min.
By The Sea, 1982, 16mm, color, silent, 2.5 min.
ASIAM, 1982, 16mm, b&w, silent, 6 min.
Conquest Piece, 1982, 16mm, b&w, sound, 5.5 min.
The Shadow Line, 1985, 16mm, b&w, sound, 13.5 min.
Not a Music Video, 1987, 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 min.
All prints courtesy of Canyon Cinema
Welcome To The House of Raven, 1982–1998, 16mm transferred to video, b&w, 3 min.
Vision Quests, 2006–2009, video, color, sound, 15 min.
A Dreadful Day (sample), 2016, video, color, sound, 3.5 min.
Courtesy the artist
About the artist:
Toney W. Merritt has been an independent filmmaker for close to 50 years, completing over 30 personal films and videos; experimental, narrative and documentary. His films have screened at various venues such as the La Cinémathèque Française, Paris, London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, Anthology Film Archives, New York, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, the Oakland Museum of California, the de Young Museum, San Francisco Cinematheque, New Nothing Cinema, San Francisco, and the Ann Arbor and Mill Valley Film Festivals. Canyon Cinema currently distributes over twenty of his film titles spanning 1970 to 1998 and included Merritt in the Canyon Cinema Pop-Up (2013) exhibition at Kadist, San Francisco. He taught film production and digital editing at City College San Francisco for 18 years, and screenwriting for the San Francisco State University’s Digital Video Intensive Program. He was invited to present as a writer/director at the 2007 Squaw Valley Community of Writer’s Conference, and invited in 2008 to serve as a screenwriting instructor. Merritt was the Program Director for the Mendocino Film Festival from 2014–2015 and curated the inaugural Healdsburg Flix Mix Short Film Festival in 2016. Merritt has served on several Boards of Directors including San Francisco Film Arts Foundation. He has also served as a panelist for various festivals such as the SF International Film Festival and as a grant panelist for Independent Television Service, (ITVS) and the Rockefeller and Jerome Foundations. Merritt received his MFA in 1979 from the San Francisco Art Institute. He is based in Healdsburg, California.
Toney W. Merritt in person
Presented with Canyon Cinema Foundation.
Toney’s selection of his personal films span from his time at the San Francisco Art Institute to an excerpt of a current film-in-progress. Merritt and other local filmmakers were involved with the co-founding of No Nothing Cinema in 1982 at 30 Berry Street, San Francisco.
With special thanks to Rock Ross.
7:00pm – Reception
7:30pm* – Screening and discussion.
Program will include:
EF, 1979, 16mm, color, silent, 4 min.
Lonesome Cowboy, 1979, 16mm, b&w, optical sound, 0:5 min.
By The Sea, 1982, 16mm, color, silent, 2.5 min.
ASIAM, 1982, 16mm, b&w, silent, 6 min.
Conquest Piece, 1982, 16mm, b&w, sound, 5.5 min.
The Shadow Line, 1985, 16mm, b&w, sound, 13.5 min.
Not a Music Video, 1987, 16mm, b&w, sound, 7 min.
All prints courtesy of Canyon Cinema
Welcome To The House of Raven, 1982–1998, 16mm transferred to video, b&w, 3 min.
Vision Quests, 2006–2009, video, color, sound, 15 min.
A Dreadful Day (sample), 2016, video, color, sound, 3.5 min.
Courtesy the artist
About the artist:
Toney W. Merritt has been an independent filmmaker for close to 50 years, completing over 30 personal films and videos; experimental, narrative and documentary. His films have screened at various venues such as the La Cinémathèque Française, Paris, London Film-Makers’ Co-operative, Anthology Film Archives, New York, Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, the Oakland Museum of California, the de Young Museum, San Francisco Cinematheque, New Nothing Cinema, San Francisco, and the Ann Arbor and Mill Valley Film Festivals. Canyon Cinema currently distributes over twenty of his film titles spanning 1970 to 1998 and included Merritt in the Canyon Cinema Pop-Up (2013) exhibition at Kadist, San Francisco. He taught film production and digital editing at City College San Francisco for 18 years, and screenwriting for the San Francisco State University’s Digital Video Intensive Program. He was invited to present as a writer/director at the 2007 Squaw Valley Community of Writer’s Conference, and invited in 2008 to serve as a screenwriting instructor. Merritt was the Program Director for the Mendocino Film Festival from 2014–2015 and curated the inaugural Healdsburg Flix Mix Short Film Festival in 2016. Merritt has served on several Boards of Directors including San Francisco Film Arts Foundation. He has also served as a panelist for various festivals such as the SF International Film Festival and as a grant panelist for Independent Television Service, (ITVS) and the Rockefeller and Jerome Foundations. Merritt received his MFA in 1979 from the San Francisco Art Institute. He is based in Healdsburg, California.
Long Shadows: Gary Beydler / Terry Fox / Al Wong
Guest curator, Artists' Television Access, August 28, 2016.
Al Wong in person
Artists: Gary Beydler, Terry Fox, Al Wong
Al Wong, Same Difference, 1975, 16mm transferred to video, color, sound, 17.5 min., soundtrack: Terry Fox, courtesy the artist.
“Same Difference (1975) was filmed in my kitchen window over an entire year. I had one person, Ursula Schneider, sitting there in a particular position so that while the sky and seasons are constantly changing, she appears to hardly be moving. Terry Fox made the soundtrack by looking out my kitchen window and drawing his violin bow over the edge of a large bowl that he had found on Market Street. It was beautiful.” –Al Wong
Terry Fox, Lunedi, 1975, video, b&w, sound, 21:23 min., camera: Bill Viola, courtesy NIMK / LIMA
“Alchemy plays a major role in Terry Fox’s work. His performances are mystical scientific experiments with various objects. Lunedi is one of these experiments.” –LIMA
Gary Beydler, Venice Pier, 1976, 16mm, color, sound, 16 min., courtesy of Canyon Cinema
“I wanted to make a film that was exactly one year in the making. I love the ocean, and I decided to shoot on the Venice Pier, which was about a quarter mile long. About every ten feet, there are divisions in the pier, which I decided to use as the shooting points. I made a drawing of the pier on vellum, marking out these divisions. I started shooting maybe in November or December, and shot it all the way through to the following year, finishing on the same date. I shot in all the different seasons, different times of day, filling in the blanks on the drawing I made of the pier. It was shot out of order: watching the film, you’re moving forward every so slowly, through different times, different seasons, different situations. Sometimes you get the feeling of movement, sometimes you don’t. No need for staging, I just shot things that were happening.” –Gary Beydler
Al Wong in person
Artists: Gary Beydler, Terry Fox, Al Wong
Al Wong, Same Difference, 1975, 16mm transferred to video, color, sound, 17.5 min., soundtrack: Terry Fox, courtesy the artist.
“Same Difference (1975) was filmed in my kitchen window over an entire year. I had one person, Ursula Schneider, sitting there in a particular position so that while the sky and seasons are constantly changing, she appears to hardly be moving. Terry Fox made the soundtrack by looking out my kitchen window and drawing his violin bow over the edge of a large bowl that he had found on Market Street. It was beautiful.” –Al Wong
Terry Fox, Lunedi, 1975, video, b&w, sound, 21:23 min., camera: Bill Viola, courtesy NIMK / LIMA
“Alchemy plays a major role in Terry Fox’s work. His performances are mystical scientific experiments with various objects. Lunedi is one of these experiments.” –LIMA
Gary Beydler, Venice Pier, 1976, 16mm, color, sound, 16 min., courtesy of Canyon Cinema
“I wanted to make a film that was exactly one year in the making. I love the ocean, and I decided to shoot on the Venice Pier, which was about a quarter mile long. About every ten feet, there are divisions in the pier, which I decided to use as the shooting points. I made a drawing of the pier on vellum, marking out these divisions. I started shooting maybe in November or December, and shot it all the way through to the following year, finishing on the same date. I shot in all the different seasons, different times of day, filling in the blanks on the drawing I made of the pier. It was shot out of order: watching the film, you’re moving forward every so slowly, through different times, different seasons, different situations. Sometimes you get the feeling of movement, sometimes you don’t. No need for staging, I just shot things that were happening.” –Gary Beydler
Susan Mogul: Comedy As a Backup
Guest curator of talk and conversation, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, November 15, 2015.
Los Angeles-based artist and filmmaker Susan Mogul presents and discusses her performances and performance-based videos made in the seventies and eighties that borrowed from the strategies of stand-up comedy and cabaret. Mogul’s work in this period often spoke to the financial situation of artists and the anxieties and desire for recognition that that produces. The talk is called "Comedy as a Backup".
Andrea Fraser’s performance Men on the Line was originally commissioned as part of a performance series inspired by the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles. A key participant in the feminist art movement on the West Coast, Mogul was a member of the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman’s Building, the subject of her 2010 short documentary film commissioned by Otis College of Art and Design.
This was the fifth event in a year-long season about and around the work of Andrea Fraser.
Los Angeles-based artist and filmmaker Susan Mogul presents and discusses her performances and performance-based videos made in the seventies and eighties that borrowed from the strategies of stand-up comedy and cabaret. Mogul’s work in this period often spoke to the financial situation of artists and the anxieties and desire for recognition that that produces. The talk is called "Comedy as a Backup".
Andrea Fraser’s performance Men on the Line was originally commissioned as part of a performance series inspired by the Woman’s Building in Los Angeles. A key participant in the feminist art movement on the West Coast, Mogul was a member of the Feminist Studio Workshop at the Woman’s Building, the subject of her 2010 short documentary film commissioned by Otis College of Art and Design.
This was the fifth event in a year-long season about and around the work of Andrea Fraser.
FILES: Things That Are Kept And Why
Guest curator, research residency, Krowswork,
May 1 & 2, 2015,
Henry S. Rosenthal and Anthony Gnazzo in attendance.
Produced and hosted by Henry S. Rosenthal, the San Francisco Bay Area-based public access television series "FILES: Things That Are Kept and Why" (1975‒76), featured various guests from his social milieu who were invited to share stories about objects from their personal collections. The program is an interesting precedent for more recent curatorial projects that foreground the importance of artists’ archives, source materials, and collections.
This presentation at Krowswork revisits for the first time in a gallery context through three select episodes: Charles Amirkhanian, composer and then-KPFA music director, Anthony Gnazzo, composer, and Tom Marioni, artist and director of the Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA, 1970-1984) in San Francisco.
Guest curated by Marioni, the thirteen-part series "Conceptual Video Minute" (1976), later compiled as "A Tight 13 Minutes," appeared during the original broadcasts between the programs and commercial breaks.
"FILES: Things That Are Kept and Why" appeared on Viacom Cable television, first on the cable access channel and then on Channel 6, which allowed Rosenthal to sell advertising to support the show.
Executive Producer: Henry S. Rosenthal
Series Host: Henry S. Rosenthal
Director: David B. Doty
Production Coordinator: Carola B. Anderson
May 1 & 2, 2015,
Henry S. Rosenthal and Anthony Gnazzo in attendance.
Produced and hosted by Henry S. Rosenthal, the San Francisco Bay Area-based public access television series "FILES: Things That Are Kept and Why" (1975‒76), featured various guests from his social milieu who were invited to share stories about objects from their personal collections. The program is an interesting precedent for more recent curatorial projects that foreground the importance of artists’ archives, source materials, and collections.
This presentation at Krowswork revisits for the first time in a gallery context through three select episodes: Charles Amirkhanian, composer and then-KPFA music director, Anthony Gnazzo, composer, and Tom Marioni, artist and director of the Museum of Conceptual Art (MOCA, 1970-1984) in San Francisco.
Guest curated by Marioni, the thirteen-part series "Conceptual Video Minute" (1976), later compiled as "A Tight 13 Minutes," appeared during the original broadcasts between the programs and commercial breaks.
"FILES: Things That Are Kept and Why" appeared on Viacom Cable television, first on the cable access channel and then on Channel 6, which allowed Rosenthal to sell advertising to support the show.
Executive Producer: Henry S. Rosenthal
Series Host: Henry S. Rosenthal
Director: David B. Doty
Production Coordinator: Carola B. Anderson
Mike Henderson: The Shape of Things
Guest curator / researcher in residence, Krowswork, Oakland, May 1-2, 2015
Artist: Mike Henderson
The Shape of Things, 1981, 16mm film transferred to video, b&w and color, sound, 8 min., camera: Mike Henderson, Michael Rudnick, courtesy the artist
Henderson's The Shape of Things (1981) is a filmic meditation on artistic process, its successes and failures within and outside form. The artist nods to his various literary, musical, and cinema influences at the time in this inventive performance in the studio.
Reflecting an unusual synthesis of his music and painting backgrounds, the films span audiovisual compositional experiments, absurdist musings on creativity, and blues-driven performative pieces about Black identity, all rendered in a powerful and unadorned DIY directness.
- Mark Toscano, Academy Film Archive
Artist: Mike Henderson
The Shape of Things, 1981, 16mm film transferred to video, b&w and color, sound, 8 min., camera: Mike Henderson, Michael Rudnick, courtesy the artist
Henderson's The Shape of Things (1981) is a filmic meditation on artistic process, its successes and failures within and outside form. The artist nods to his various literary, musical, and cinema influences at the time in this inventive performance in the studio.
Reflecting an unusual synthesis of his music and painting backgrounds, the films span audiovisual compositional experiments, absurdist musings on creativity, and blues-driven performative pieces about Black identity, all rendered in a powerful and unadorned DIY directness.
- Mark Toscano, Academy Film Archive
Ericka Beckman: The Broken Rule
Guest curator; part of research residency, Krowswork, Oakland, April 17, 2015
Artist: Ericka Beckman
Ericka Beckman: The Broken Rule
1979, Super-8 film transferred to video, color, sound, 23 min., courtesy the artist>
Produced, directed, shot and edited by Ericka Beckman; Starring: Mike Kelley; Featuring: Jim Casebere, Matt Mullican, James Welling, Jim Isermann, Diane Buckler, Kirby Dick, Tom Radloff, David Fick
"The Broken Rule is my reaction to the American education system, where learning blocks must be acquired by the group before any individual can progress to the next level. My film pictures learning blocks as relay races conducted by male players, where the girls are scores, and the goal is to enter the working world by the end of the game. Mike Kelley, the lead player in my film, makes a ritual out of his mistakes to escape the consequences of his mistakes.”
— Ericka Beckman
Artist: Ericka Beckman
Ericka Beckman: The Broken Rule
1979, Super-8 film transferred to video, color, sound, 23 min., courtesy the artist>
Produced, directed, shot and edited by Ericka Beckman; Starring: Mike Kelley; Featuring: Jim Casebere, Matt Mullican, James Welling, Jim Isermann, Diane Buckler, Kirby Dick, Tom Radloff, David Fick
"The Broken Rule is my reaction to the American education system, where learning blocks must be acquired by the group before any individual can progress to the next level. My film pictures learning blocks as relay races conducted by male players, where the girls are scores, and the goal is to enter the working world by the end of the game. Mike Kelley, the lead player in my film, makes a ritual out of his mistakes to escape the consequences of his mistakes.”
— Ericka Beckman
Judith Barry: Casual Shopper
Guest curator/researcher in residence, Krowswork, Oakland, April 25, 2015.
Judith Barry: Casual Shopper
1980‒81, video, color, sound, 6 min., courtesy the artist
“Shopping is an activity that consists of predictable yet indeterminate activities where, like the cinema, what we go to experience over and over again is our own desire.” — Judith Barry
Judith Barry: Casual Shopper
1980‒81, video, color, sound, 6 min., courtesy the artist
“Shopping is an activity that consists of predictable yet indeterminate activities where, like the cinema, what we go to experience over and over again is our own desire.” — Judith Barry
Stephen Laub: Switch
Guest curator; Krowswork, Oakland, April 25, 2015. Part of research residency.
Artist: Stephen Laub
Stephen Laub, Switch, 1981, video, color, sound, 3:46 min., courtesy the artist;
Voices: Susan Alexander and David Robinson
"Switch was a response to concepts in early computing. I was thinking about how its language was reduced to either 1 or 0 without anything in-between, like a switch that is either on or off. It seemed a natural extension to wonder if our responses would also evolve into 1 or 0, or "yes" or "no"." — Stephen Laub
Artist: Stephen Laub
Stephen Laub, Switch, 1981, video, color, sound, 3:46 min., courtesy the artist;
Voices: Susan Alexander and David Robinson
"Switch was a response to concepts in early computing. I was thinking about how its language was reduced to either 1 or 0 without anything in-between, like a switch that is either on or off. It seemed a natural extension to wonder if our responses would also evolve into 1 or 0, or "yes" or "no"." — Stephen Laub
Howard Fried: The Burghers of Fort Worth
Guest curator; Krowswork, Oakland, April 17, 2015
Part of research residency.
Artist: Howard Fried
he Burghers of Fort Worth, 1975‒77, 16mm film transferred to video, color, sound, 34 min., courtesy the artist
“Attempting to recreate the dynamics of art school education where one interfaces with numerous masters almost simultaneously, I took a lesson from four golf professionals at once.” — Howard Fried
Part of research residency.
Artist: Howard Fried
he Burghers of Fort Worth, 1975‒77, 16mm film transferred to video, color, sound, 34 min., courtesy the artist
“Attempting to recreate the dynamics of art school education where one interfaces with numerous masters almost simultaneously, I took a lesson from four golf professionals at once.” — Howard Fried
Conversation with Mike Henderson + Screening
Guest curator; research residency, Krowswork, April 11, 2014
Mike Henderson in person
Join us for an informal conversation between Mike Henderson, renowned East Bay filmmaker, painter, and blues musician, and Tanya Zimbardo, assistant curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and Krowswork's third guest resident of 2015.
The program will include a screening Henderson's 12-minute film Down Hear (1972, 16mm transferred to video, black-and-white, sound). This work powerfully contends with the story of slave ships through a charged performance by Henderson and his brother Raymond. The inspiration for the accompanying blues soundtrack came to Henderson after observing a police conflict with neighborhood kids in the projects across the street from his home in San Francisco's North Beach. Henderson notes that he made the film with an audience of African American youth in mind, offering "a possibility for living with this ambiguity that life gives us, with the courage and understanding that we all could find an outlet for our hopes and dreams . . . what makes life worth living down here."
From 1970 to the mid-1980s, Henderson made more than two dozen solo and collaborative films with artists such as Robert Nelson, Michael Rudnick, and William T. Wiley. Henderson's short experimental films have recently been the subject of a major preservation project by the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles, led by Mark Toscano; Toscano also has curated a number of screenings of Henderson's work, including a spotlight program last year at the Exploratorium, copresented by the Exploratorium's Cinema Arts program, SF Cinematheque, Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), and Haines Gallery. Henderson's moving-image work has been highlighted at such venues as Indiana University at Bloomington; Cinema Project, Portland; Los Angeles Film Forum at LA MOCA; Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; No Nothing Cinema; Canyon Cinema; San Francisco Art Institute; SFMOMA; Phoenix Art Museum; Crocker Art Museum; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, among others.
Born in Marshall, Missouri, Henderson moved to California to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, the first racially integrated art school in the United States, where he received his BFA (1969) and MFA (1970). He was hired shortly thereafter to teach filmmaking at the University of California, Davis, where he currently is professor emeritus of the Fine Arts Department (he served as a professor there from 1970 to 2012). Henderson lives and works in San Leandro.
Mike Henderson in person
Join us for an informal conversation between Mike Henderson, renowned East Bay filmmaker, painter, and blues musician, and Tanya Zimbardo, assistant curator of media arts at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) and Krowswork's third guest resident of 2015.
The program will include a screening Henderson's 12-minute film Down Hear (1972, 16mm transferred to video, black-and-white, sound). This work powerfully contends with the story of slave ships through a charged performance by Henderson and his brother Raymond. The inspiration for the accompanying blues soundtrack came to Henderson after observing a police conflict with neighborhood kids in the projects across the street from his home in San Francisco's North Beach. Henderson notes that he made the film with an audience of African American youth in mind, offering "a possibility for living with this ambiguity that life gives us, with the courage and understanding that we all could find an outlet for our hopes and dreams . . . what makes life worth living down here."
From 1970 to the mid-1980s, Henderson made more than two dozen solo and collaborative films with artists such as Robert Nelson, Michael Rudnick, and William T. Wiley. Henderson's short experimental films have recently been the subject of a major preservation project by the Academy Film Archive in Los Angeles, led by Mark Toscano; Toscano also has curated a number of screenings of Henderson's work, including a spotlight program last year at the Exploratorium, copresented by the Exploratorium's Cinema Arts program, SF Cinematheque, Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), and Haines Gallery. Henderson's moving-image work has been highlighted at such venues as Indiana University at Bloomington; Cinema Project, Portland; Los Angeles Film Forum at LA MOCA; Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley; No Nothing Cinema; Canyon Cinema; San Francisco Art Institute; SFMOMA; Phoenix Art Museum; Crocker Art Museum; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; and the Ann Arbor Film Festival, among others.
Born in Marshall, Missouri, Henderson moved to California to attend the San Francisco Art Institute, the first racially integrated art school in the United States, where he received his BFA (1969) and MFA (1970). He was hired shortly thereafter to teach filmmaking at the University of California, Davis, where he currently is professor emeritus of the Fine Arts Department (he served as a professor there from 1970 to 2012). Henderson lives and works in San Leandro.
Lowell Darling's Last Videotape
Contributor; Krowswork, Oakland, February 6-7, 2015
Guest contributed Lowell Darling's Last Videotape (1984) to Jasmine Moorhead's "Overture: Krowswork Residency Preview"
Guest contributed Lowell Darling's Last Videotape (1984) to Jasmine Moorhead's "Overture: Krowswork Residency Preview"
Headspace: Conceptual Film and Video
Guest curator;
UC Berkeley, September 23, 2014
Artists Jim Melchert and Mark Thompson in person
This public program features short film and video work by four UC Berkeley alums associated with Bay Area conceptual art and performance in the 1970s: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Stephen Laub, Jim Melchert, and Mark Thompson.
Inspired by Eadweard Muybridge’s motion studies, Jim Melchert’s "Untitled" (1973) features a series of water splashing attacks and counterattacks in slow motion. Extending out of Stephen Laub’s live performances with slide projection, "Spheres" (1980) projects an orbit of the solar system on an eyelid. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha appears in a single frame of her structuralist film "Permutations" (1976), which features her sister as the subject. Mark Thompson’s "Immersion" (1973-76) explores the spatial qualities of bees in flight as they swarm the artist’s body.
co-hosted by the Department of Art Practice and Department of Film & Media Studies in conjunction with "Scores for a Room: David Haxton and Jim Melchert."
UC Berkeley, September 23, 2014
Artists Jim Melchert and Mark Thompson in person
This public program features short film and video work by four UC Berkeley alums associated with Bay Area conceptual art and performance in the 1970s: Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Stephen Laub, Jim Melchert, and Mark Thompson.
Inspired by Eadweard Muybridge’s motion studies, Jim Melchert’s "Untitled" (1973) features a series of water splashing attacks and counterattacks in slow motion. Extending out of Stephen Laub’s live performances with slide projection, "Spheres" (1980) projects an orbit of the solar system on an eyelid. Theresa Hak Kyung Cha appears in a single frame of her structuralist film "Permutations" (1976), which features her sister as the subject. Mark Thompson’s "Immersion" (1973-76) explores the spatial qualities of bees in flight as they swarm the artist’s body.
co-hosted by the Department of Art Practice and Department of Film & Media Studies in conjunction with "Scores for a Room: David Haxton and Jim Melchert."
SECA Art Award public programs
Co-host and speaker, with Jenny Gheith and Education and Public Practice. Off-site public programs in conjunction with the award exhibition, November 13-17, 2013.
"Notes from the Columbarium on Art, AIDS, and Activism with Josh Faught"
On the occasion of SECA Art Award winner Josh Faught's site-specific installation on view at the Neptune Society Columbarium, we host an afternoon of micro-talks and a pop-up cinema co-presented with Frameline. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore the Columbarium's niches and passageways as speakers, including Faught, meditate on the building's history, AIDS, activism, and craft and art making. The program includes short films by David Weissman and a special screening of Ben Van Meter's short film The Saga of Macramé Park (1974), which recounts the creation and installation of a children's playground of macramé in Bolinas, California designed by Alexandra Jacopetti Hart. The afternoon concludes with a live performance by Luciano Chessa.
Journey to our special SECA Art Award-inspired event unlike any other Family Day we've thrown before. Join SFMOMA Families and artist David Wilson for a day of discovery, hands-on projects, and an artist-led sing-along at the final site of his commission Arrivals.
Screening, Roxie Theater
Join us for this special evening, SECA Art Awardee Jonn Herschend — artist, filmmaker, and cofounder of THE THING Quarterly — presents his SFMOMA-commissioned film Stories from the Evacuation, which continues his ongoing investigation of narrative and genre, truth and fiction, chaos and structure, and how they facilitate our perception. He is joined in conversation by director/actor/writer Alex Karpovsky (of HBO's Girls fame), whose quasi-autobiographical Red Flag has been creating a buzz on the film festival circuit.
Panel, SFJAZZ Center
Hear from the latest winners of the SECA Art Award, SFMOMA's biennial award honoring Bay Area artists. For the first time in the history of the award, recipients were commissioned to create works outside the traditional gallery context. Join us as the artists discuss their site-responsive projects ― currently on view in Oakland, San Francisco, and online ― and engage in a broader conversation about public art with writer Michelle Tea.
Introduction by Jenny Gheith and Tanya Zimbardo, 2012 SECA Art Award curators.
"Notes from the Columbarium on Art, AIDS, and Activism with Josh Faught"
On the occasion of SECA Art Award winner Josh Faught's site-specific installation on view at the Neptune Society Columbarium, we host an afternoon of micro-talks and a pop-up cinema co-presented with Frameline. Visitors will have the opportunity to explore the Columbarium's niches and passageways as speakers, including Faught, meditate on the building's history, AIDS, activism, and craft and art making. The program includes short films by David Weissman and a special screening of Ben Van Meter's short film The Saga of Macramé Park (1974), which recounts the creation and installation of a children's playground of macramé in Bolinas, California designed by Alexandra Jacopetti Hart. The afternoon concludes with a live performance by Luciano Chessa.
Journey to our special SECA Art Award-inspired event unlike any other Family Day we've thrown before. Join SFMOMA Families and artist David Wilson for a day of discovery, hands-on projects, and an artist-led sing-along at the final site of his commission Arrivals.
Screening, Roxie Theater
Join us for this special evening, SECA Art Awardee Jonn Herschend — artist, filmmaker, and cofounder of THE THING Quarterly — presents his SFMOMA-commissioned film Stories from the Evacuation, which continues his ongoing investigation of narrative and genre, truth and fiction, chaos and structure, and how they facilitate our perception. He is joined in conversation by director/actor/writer Alex Karpovsky (of HBO's Girls fame), whose quasi-autobiographical Red Flag has been creating a buzz on the film festival circuit.
Panel, SFJAZZ Center
Hear from the latest winners of the SECA Art Award, SFMOMA's biennial award honoring Bay Area artists. For the first time in the history of the award, recipients were commissioned to create works outside the traditional gallery context. Join us as the artists discuss their site-responsive projects ― currently on view in Oakland, San Francisco, and online ― and engage in a broader conversation about public art with writer Michelle Tea.
Introduction by Jenny Gheith and Tanya Zimbardo, 2012 SECA Art Award curators.
Al Wong: Twin Peaks
Curator;
SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater, May 7, 2013
Al Wong in attendance
San Francisco native Al Wong recorded this meditative film over the course of a year. Taking the idea of the journey as its form, Wong's camera is set inside the car as he slowly drives the infinity loop road that winds around Twin Peaks in San Francisco at different times of the day. In one part the film image splits in half and becomes out of sync synthesizing Wong's interests in perception and the illusory nature of reality. A masterpiece of subtle shifts in light and tone, Twin Peaks was last screened at SFMOMA in 1977. This title will be shown as continual loop over the course of the day, mirroring the structure of the film.
Related SFMOMA Open Space blog post: "Sunlight and Shadows: Al Wong in Conversation," 2013.
SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater, May 7, 2013
Al Wong in attendance
San Francisco native Al Wong recorded this meditative film over the course of a year. Taking the idea of the journey as its form, Wong's camera is set inside the car as he slowly drives the infinity loop road that winds around Twin Peaks in San Francisco at different times of the day. In one part the film image splits in half and becomes out of sync synthesizing Wong's interests in perception and the illusory nature of reality. A masterpiece of subtle shifts in light and tone, Twin Peaks was last screened at SFMOMA in 1977. This title will be shown as continual loop over the course of the day, mirroring the structure of the film.
Related SFMOMA Open Space blog post: "Sunlight and Shadows: Al Wong in Conversation," 2013.
Newport Beach Revisited
Curator;
SFMOMA Koret Visitor Education Center
March 4 - May 28, 2013
Director: George Bolling, Newport Beach Revisited, 1979
Traveling with a group of San Francisco artist friends in a 15-passenger airport limousine, video curator and videographer George Bolling recorded their 1972 road trip to show at the Newport Harbor Art Museum. Organized by Tom Marioni, director of the Museum of Conceptual Art in San Francisco, the trip itself and its documentation (by Bolling and Larry Fox) were considered to be works in Marioni's exhibition The San Francisco Performance, which included Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Paul Kos, Mel Henderson, Sam's Cafe, and Bonnie Sherk. Several of the artists drove down together, making stops along the way to Baldasare Forestierre's Underground Garden in Fresno and Chris Burden's Bed Piece in Venice, California. One sequence features Henderson talking to the police about his intervention of spelling out ATTICA in Christmas lights on a ravine hillside. Art critic Charles Shere narrates the film, discussing key aspects of the significant work being made in Northern California at that time. Bolling produced this documentary in 1979 on the occasion of SFMOMA's Space / Time / Sound-1970s: A Decade in the Bay Area, the first major museum survey of Bay Area Conceptual art and performance.
Related SFMOMA Open Space blog post:
"George Bolling: Invisible is the Medium"
SFMOMA Koret Visitor Education Center
March 4 - May 28, 2013
Director: George Bolling, Newport Beach Revisited, 1979
Traveling with a group of San Francisco artist friends in a 15-passenger airport limousine, video curator and videographer George Bolling recorded their 1972 road trip to show at the Newport Harbor Art Museum. Organized by Tom Marioni, director of the Museum of Conceptual Art in San Francisco, the trip itself and its documentation (by Bolling and Larry Fox) were considered to be works in Marioni's exhibition The San Francisco Performance, which included Terry Fox, Howard Fried, Paul Kos, Mel Henderson, Sam's Cafe, and Bonnie Sherk. Several of the artists drove down together, making stops along the way to Baldasare Forestierre's Underground Garden in Fresno and Chris Burden's Bed Piece in Venice, California. One sequence features Henderson talking to the police about his intervention of spelling out ATTICA in Christmas lights on a ravine hillside. Art critic Charles Shere narrates the film, discussing key aspects of the significant work being made in Northern California at that time. Bolling produced this documentary in 1979 on the occasion of SFMOMA's Space / Time / Sound-1970s: A Decade in the Bay Area, the first major museum survey of Bay Area Conceptual art and performance.
Related SFMOMA Open Space blog post:
"George Bolling: Invisible is the Medium"
The Projected Self: Performance-Based Videos from the Media Arts Collection
Curator; SFMOMA Koret Visitor Education Center
January 7 - March 3, 2013
Daily screenings
Artists: Peter Campus, Joan Jonas, Stephen Laub, and Steina
January 7 - March 3, 2013
Daily screenings
Artists: Peter Campus, Joan Jonas, Stephen Laub, and Steina
Demonstrations
Curator; SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater, November 6, 2012
Curator; Artists: Mircea Cantor, Öyvind Fahlström, Carey Young
This program on Election Day considers performances that have held a mirror to society by adopting the visual language of protest.
Curator; Artists: Mircea Cantor, Öyvind Fahlström, Carey Young
This program on Election Day considers performances that have held a mirror to society by adopting the visual language of protest.
Guest talks
Class visits and guest lectures in the Bay Area at the California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, and Stanford University.
Manitoba Museum of Finds Art
Panelist, with guests Alberta Mayo and Lowell Darling. Hosted by Will Brown in their storefront space in conjunction with the exhibition.
Related: "Interview with Alberta Mayo," SFMOMA Open Space, November 7, 2011
Related: "Interview with Alberta Mayo," SFMOMA Open Space, November 7, 2011
SECA 50th Anniversary Artist Talks
Co-organizer with Suzanne Stein, SFMOMA. Artist-on-artist gallery talks and related Open Space post series featuring past SECA awardees David Best, Rebeca Bollinger, Squeak Carnwath, Chris Finley, Jordan Kantor, Hung Liu, Shaun O'Dell, Maria Porges, Josephine Taylor, Kathryn VanDyke.
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