Counting Sheep
by Kevin Freitas
One San Diego artist, two San Diego artist, three San Diego artist....
Art as Authority
mai 31, 2009
mai 30, 2009
François Huon deux fois
EXPOSITION AU PARC DU CHATEAU DE JEHAY (COULEURS 3)
Vernissage/Opening le samedi 6 juin à 16h. Expo du dimanche 7 juin au dimanche 4 octobre 2009
Quarantaine (en)
L’isolement n’est pas la solitude absolue, qui est cosmique ; l’autre solitude, la petite solitude n’est que sociale.
-- Eugène Ionesco
Cette œuvre clôt un territoire centré par un socle qui au lieu de présenter un vase décoratif évoque le vase clos, celui qui interdit toute communication. Rangés à plat, en sommeil, 20 carrés fendus ; les mêmes que les signes de la clôture qui sont carrés ouverts, dressés et vigilants.
Exposition chez P&M Martens
Des petites oeuvres seront visibles le samedi 13 juin et le dimanche 14 juin de 14 à 18 h
346, rue Hollebeek
1630 Linkebeek
Belgium
mai 28, 2009
On Derrick Cartwright Leaving SDMA
by Richard Gleaves
Phenomena
- In the past decade at least 20 different art museums have been without directors at any given time
- New directors are often recruited from other museums, creating new job vacancies
- Many sought-after museum director positions remain unfilled, some for as long as a year
Causes
- An unprecedented increase in the number of art museums
- A large number of museum directors reaching retirement age
- Little emphasis on succession planning by museum boards
Consequences
- Decreases in the average tenure of museum directors
- Increases in the time required to fill empty directorships
- Directors surfing the demand/supply asymmetry for prestige and higher pay
Satellite Ensemble II: An Event of Creative Transience
from the press release
May 30, 2009
Agitprop Gallery, 3:00-5:00 pm; 2837 University Avenue
Lui Velazquez, 4:00-9:00 pm; Calle Jose Maria Larroque #273, 2do Piso, Int. 6, Colonia Federal, Tijuana, Baja CA
Trolley Rides Every 30 Minutes to Tijuana
Bring Passport and $5 for Transportation
There are many spaces between neighborhoods in San Diego and Tijuana that resonate with stories from the personal to the universal. The everyday occurrences such as a daily commute are often dwarfed by stories that reach the world news about wall extension, immigrant rights restriction, drug cartels, or viral infection. However what is lasting though perhaps not spectacular and rarely news worthy, is the mundane, daily ritual completed by thousands.
Satellite Ensemble II is a multi-sited series of creative works by UCSD artists that explore border issues between San Diego and Mexico. There will be artwork on display at Agitprop, in North Park, and Lui Velazquez, in Tijuana; the transit between the two spaces will also showcase performance pieces from participating artists.
Crystal Z Cambell: Edible Borders is a two-cake, two-country, one-border work. A separate cake will be displayed in two destinations, one specifically at AgitProp in North Park, and the other at Lui Velazquez in Tijuana. The identical twin cakes are parallel in scale with a medley of artificial colors, artificial sweeteners and artificial flavors. The two cakes in Edible Borders are part of a larger conversation of sweet, yet guilty and ambiguous pleasures derived and consumed via an artificial boundary.
Chris Head, Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand, Katherine Sweetman, Felipe Zuniga and Camilo Ontiveros combine efforts in an ongoing collaborative piece, The Freephone Project. Through performative gesture Head, Cardenas, and Mehrmand aim at drawing attention to the Freephone that provides assistance to people in need who enter Tijuana.
The Satellite Ensemble was founded by MFA students in the Visual Arts Department at UCSD. It engages the San Diego community through multi-venue activities and exhibitions, encouraging new explorations in the field of contemporary art. This project strives to engage the public and contribute to a dialogue for visual art in the San Diego area. For more information about Satellite Ensemble please contact Claire Zitzow.
The Satellite Ensemble is sponsored and supported by UCSD's Visual Arts Department.
A little history...
April 11th, 2009: Agitprop & Lui Velazquez
On April 11th at 4pm, artists, writers, thinkers, musicians gathered at Agitprop in North Park (University Ave & Utah St.) for a day of travel and discussion. With passports and exact change in hand we rode public transit bus and rail to San Ysidro and walked to the Lui Velazquez art space (Calle Jose Maria Larroque in Tijuana). This hour and twenty minutes of travel through a small cross section of southern California was inatended to be the catalyst for creative works to be showcased at and between both venues. With our freshly invigorated minds and energy, we spent the evening of the 11th discussing our visions for projects however ephemeral, immediate, or monumental.
And finally...
The Satellite Ensemble Presents our Inaugural Exhibition, “No. 1 2008”
June 3rd –June 23rd
The artists of Satellite Ensemble kick off the month of June with an array of events, exhibitions and workshops, which will be held throughout the downtown San Diego area.
Group exhibitions at AGITPROP and Kava Lounge will feature a diverse survey of contemporary art, running the gamut from behemoth crocheted creatures to miniature sculptural terrains. There will be process-based paintings, sprawling installations and hand-held, interactive sculptures that double as masks. Also on tap: videos, drawings and more.
You can expect crochet lessons, beer-making soirees and bio-diesel demos at coffee shops, bars and other sites around town. Please come and enjoy our inaugural exhibitions and events!
AGITPROP
2837 University Ave., San Diego, CA
June 3rd - June 9th
Weekdays 3pm - 7pm, weekends 1pm - 5pm
Reception June 6th, 7pm - 9pm
Featured artists at AGITPROP include:
Crystal Z. Campbell
Vincent Manganello
Jesse Mockrin
Clare Parry
Julia Westerbeke
Kava Lounge
2812 Kettner Blvd., San Diego, CA
June 17th - June 23rd
Weekdays 8pm - 11pm, weekends 1pm - 5pm
Reception June 20th, 7pm - 9pm
Featured artists at Kava Lounge include:
Susy Bielak
Leigh Cole
Nico Herbst
Zac Monday
Claire Zitzow
Workshops
Crochet Circle with Zac Monday
Rebecca's Cofee House
3015 Juniper St., San Diego, CA
June 14th, 7pm - 11pm
Memory Mapping and Magic
Rebecca's Cofee House
3015 Juniper St., San Diego, CA
June 21st, 7pm - 1am
Getty Perspectives - Cultural Rights-Past and Future
from the press release
Getty Perspectives
Cultural Rights-Past and Future
Tuesday, June 2, 2009, 7 p.m.
FREE. For reservations call 310.440.7300 or visit http://www.getty.edu/visit/events/selected_shorts_2009.html
The Getty Center
1200 Getty Center Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90049
info@getty.edu
http://www.getty.edu
Hours: Tuesdays - Fridays, 10am-5:30pm; Saturdays, 10am-9pm; closed Mondays and major holidays.
To view this announcement online: http://artscenecal.com/0509/Getty0509.html
Do artists have a right to a prominent and engaged presence in public life?
Ask Bill Ivey, who penned the Cultural Bill of Rights during his tenure as the chair of the National Endowment for the Arts. His advocacy for a greater role for culture and creativity in our national dialogue inspired President Obama to appoint Ivey to lead his transitional team on arts and the humanities.
Ivey is joined by cultural critic Lewis Hyde for a dialogue about the social value of the arts, of the cultural commons, and how policy and theory should ensure open access to creative work.
This program is the first installment in a new occasional series, Getty Perspectives, which will bring distinctive voices to the Getty to discuss the arts and the relationship of visual culture to our broader public culture.
About the Speakers
Bill Ivey
Bill Ivey was chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts from 1998 to 2001 and director of the Country Music Foundation from 1971 to 1998. He was twice elected Chairman of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences. His most recent book is Arts, Inc., which details "how greed and neglect have destroyed our cultural rights." He is also founding director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University.
Lewis Hyde
Lewis Hyde is a poet, essayist, translator, and cultural critic with a particular interest in the public life of the imagination. He is the author of The Gift, which was recently reissued in a special 25th anniversary edition. A MacArthur Fellow and former director of undergraduate creative writing at Harvard University, Hyde is the Richard L. Thomas Professor of Creative Writing at Kenyon College.
mai 27, 2009
Freephone
from the press release
WHAT: Freephone Art Project Provides Deported People with a Phone Call
WHO: Chris Head, Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand, Katherine Sweetman, Felipe Zuñiga and Camilo Ontiveros
WHERE: Lui Velazquez Gallery, Calle José Maria Larroque #273, 2do Piso, Int. 6, Colonia Federal, Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico, C.P. 22 300
WHEN: Saturday May 30th, 2009, 1-6pm
CONTACT: Micha Cárdenas - mcardenas@ucsd.edu
The Freephone is an art project that aims to provide people just deported from the US with a free phone call. To achieve this, a group of UCSD Master of Fine Arts (MFA) students and graduates are coming together to present the phone at the Lui Velazquez gallery in Tijuana, just a few feet from the turnstiles where people who are deported are dropped off by the border patrol. The project is by the artists Chris Head, Micha Cárdenas, Elle Mehrmand, Katherine Sweetman, Felipe Zuñiga and Camilo Ontiveros.
The Freephone is an effort to use new media performance art or performance with technology to make the experience that people who are deported from the US a little bit less difficult. To make the phone, the artists bought a non working payphone casing from Ebay.com, wired it to a new $10 phone from a store and hooked that up to an adapter which would allow the phone to make calls over the internet. Then, the phone was installed outside of the Lui Velazquez gallery. On May 29th, the artists will do a public performance including posting signs, talking to people coming through of the turnstiles into Tijuana and sign spinning to direct people who may have just been dropped off by the border patrol towards the free phone.
"Every day at this gallery we see people being deported by the Border Patrol. We wanted to engage the public space outside of the gallery as well as inside," said Katherine Sweetman, director of Lui Velazquez.
"Art has the power to concretely improve people's lives. Artists can go beyond just representing or commenting on political issues and actually engage in political action as art," said Micha Cárdenas, recent graduate from UCSD's MFA program. "The Freephone is part of the tradition of Border Disturbance Art along with projects such as the Transborder Immigrant Tool from the Electronic Disturbance Theater", said Cárdenas.
The Freephone will be shown on Saturday, May 30th as part of the Satellite Ensemble II, a show by UCSD MFA students aimed at taking UCSD's artistic impact beyond the boundaries of the campus. The show will begin at Agitprop gallery in North Park and will take place along the path from that gallery to Lui Velazuez in Tijuana via public transit. In addition to the Freephone, the show will include work by artists including Crystal Campbell, Zac Monday, Clare Zitzow, Priscilla Lazaro, David White, and Anna Chiaretta Lavatellii.
"We want to not just make art with technology, but also show people how it was made, how they can use it and how they can make their own open source art projects," said Chris Head, about the Freephone. To accomplish this, the Freephone will be included in the ALTBIT open source art show later this year at Lui Velazquez. ALTBIT is a project to combine a number of open source and open hardware art projects together in one repository and present them in workshops in various locations in the US and Mexico.
Initiated as part of the Society of Molecules, the Freephone performance will be part of a distributed aesthetico-political event coordinated by the Sense Lab at Concordia University in Montreal including artist groups from around the world including Madrid, Naples, Boston, New York, Montreal and other cities.
For more information on the Freephone, contact Micha Cárdenas - mcardenas@ucsd.edu.
Images here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/lotu5/tags/freephone/
http://luivelazquez.com
http://alt-bit.org
http://visarts.ucsd.edu
http://ucsdse2.blogspot.com/
http://senselab.ca
MFA 2009 - UCSD
from the press release
29 May > 28 June 2009
Opening Reception 28 May 6:00 > 8.30pm
Selected work by the graduating Master of Visual Arts students from the University of California, San Diego's Department of Visual Arts
Robert Becraft, Susannah Bielak, Micha Cárdenas, Matthew Coors, James Enos, Kael Greco, Nico Herbst, Esteban Martinez, Gretchen Mercedes, Clare Parry, Omar Pimienta, Yvonne Venegas, Julia Westerbeke
The University Art Gallery is delighted to present its annual exhibition of work by the completing class 2009-2010 of Masters of Visual Arts students, from the Department of Visual Arts, at the University of California, San Diego. The exhibition of these thirteen emerging artists reflects the culmination of their time spent at UCSD and ranges from painting and sculpture to video, photography and installation.
MFA 2009
29 May > 28 June 2009
Opening Reception 28 May 6:00 > 8.30pm
Selected work by the graduating Master of Visual Arts students from the University of California, San Diego's Department of Visual Arts
Robert Becraft, Susannah Bielak, Micha Cárdenas, Matthew Coors,
James Enos, Kael Greco, Nico Herbst, Esteban Martinez,
Gretchen Mercedes, Clare Parry, Omar Pimienta,
Yvonne Venegas, Julia Westerbeke
The University Art Gallery is delighted to present its annual exhibition of work by the completing class 2009-2010 of Masters of Visual Arts students, from the Department of Visual Arts, at the University of California, San Diego. The exhibition of these thirteen emerging artists reflects the culmination of their time spent at UCSD and ranges from painting and sculpture to video, photography and installation.
Robert Becraft assembles films from distressed images and footage of made objects and tableaux that look back to a time of stylized experimentation. Susannah Bielak's fascination with earthquakes and their effects are represented through text, documentation, staged simulations and carving images into domestic tabletops traversing the territory between human and geographic disaster. Micha Cárdenas' recent 365 hour performance "Becoming Dragon" immersed her in the online 3D environment of Second Life through which she explored issues of transgender and identity. Matthew Coors' composite photographs focus on elements of disquiet in our urban environment. Combining wildlife with architecture his images tap into our fears of the unknown. James Enos maps and animates the confluence of landscapes in sculptural and pictorial form. His three dimensional collages intertwine a range of different architectural forms with modes of transportation, tracts of greenery and the products of an industrialized society. Kael Greco celebrates the video gaming experience with colorful explosive videos that collapses the experience of a multitude of play scenarios into a single screen. Nico Herbst multi-screen video installations mix together created incidences and casual footage to create a space for sensual surrender. Esteban Martinez's fake cactus and ice cream cart proposes an alternative form of watching to the sanctioned U.S. surveillance of the San Diego/Tijuana border. Gretchen Mercedes video diptych unites contemporary footage of a helicopter approaching a boat out at sea and found Super 8 footage of an unknown island, thus allowing two different periods to come together. Clare Parry paints onto the surface of found wallpapers, proposing them as carrier of memory, a screen for reflection and site for the investigation of the possibilities of painting. Omar Pimienta fuses together American and Mexican culture in films and sculptural form that both speak to its origins while proposing the possibility of something new that exists between the imagination and the image. Yvonne Venegas' latest photographic series focuses on a powerful Tijuana family and the world they have created. Their framing speaks of the tenuousness of her relationship to them as well as her ability to move within and negotiate that space. Julia Westerbeke's twisting organic shapes that make up her creeping and sprawling installations are created through the manipulation of decidedly inorganic materials. Graphically present in black and white they propose a new form and order of beauty.
The University Art Gallery is free admission and open Tuesday to Sunday, 11am to 5pm. For further information please phone 858.534.2107 or email uag@ucsd.edu.
University Art Gallery, UCSD
9500 Gilman Drive
Mandeville Center
La Jolla, CA 92093 USA
858.534.2107
Distinction at 5
from the press release
Distinction is pleased to announce that we have managed to remain in business in Escondido for 5 years!!!
Please help us celebrate this massive milestone with a very special anniversary featuring "The Journal Entries of Changing Tides": a solo show featuring new works by Andy Haynes. The opening reception with the artist and live music by The Band of Goodmen, Wiens Family Cellars wine, and Karl Strauss beer will be on Saturday June 13th from 6 - 11pm. Haynes is a personal gallery favorite and it is a true honor to hold his first solo exhibition.
For Artist Andy Haynes, creating visual art is an expressive outlet for internal emotions and energy. In essence, his art is a concentration of painting and drawing, focusing thematically around self-healing and contemporary moral issues. These issues portray both the dark as well as the beautiful sides of youth in the fast-paced society of modern America.
Gallery to Andy: Do you have a title picked out for your show?
"I am calling this body of work "The Journal Entries of Changing Tides." Since I began these pieces, I have been thinking a lot about what I would title the show....so after months of ups and downs, changes in techniques, and style, I began to develop a title. A lot of this work deals with the ocean. I think I just need to get back to it. So I have referenced it's theme throughout the series. That's where I came up with the "Changing Tides." Plus it portrays a great metaphor as to how my life has been these past 8 months (I think a lot of people may feel the same about their own lives). The "journal Entries" touches on how I approached my canvases throughout the body of work. As you can see there are a lot of small pieces. So, in order to pay the bills and all of that jazz, one needs to do some work here and there. From October through February, I took on a construction job under my father and worked 6 days a week for Habitat for Humanity. After I got home from work I would strive to complete one small painting a day. Somewhat like journal entries of what was running through my head each day. It seemed to work well for me. So there's the tip of the iceberg of what this series deals with."
Also on display will be over 50 artists in "The Alley" and over 100 works in the "Sub 1K Lounge". New works are added throughout the building every month. In addition most of our 14 studios will be open (and several are available for rent).
"The Journal Entries of Changing Tides." will be on display from June 13th to July 4th.
Distinction is a 7000 square foot building which houses a gallery and 14 artist studios ranging in size from 150 to 800 square feet. The Gallery features contemporary and cutting edge art work with a soft focus on Urban Surrealism. Distinction exhibits work by emerging and internationally acclaimed artists and is located at: 317 East Grand Avenue, Escondido, CA 92025.
A wide variety of art books and toys are now available for purchase. Custom framing is also available. This reception is made possible in part by Scion.
Coming in July "Mind Machine" curated by studio artist Roel Jovellanos
Artist Studios
Open Studios Featuring
Kelly Vivanco
James Ivey
Lindy Ivey
Catherine Lanzl
Kimmie Chung
Melissa Inez Walker
Roel Jovellanos
Julie Arroyo
Philipp Scholz Rittermann
Brady Beard
Nick Mikesell
Tracy Mikesell
Martita
Christopher Blaikie
Major Morris
Click here for links to the studios artists websites.
317 East Grand Ave
Escondido, 92025
760.781.5779
www.distinctionart.com
Wed-Fri 12-5,
Sat 10-5 & by appointment
Call for Art Historical Knowledge
from Artforum and e-flux
Artforum and e-flux
Call for Art Historical Knowledge
Artforum and e-flux are pleased to announce the launch of the Art & Education Papers archive and a call for scholarly articles from around the world!
Artforum and e-flux are pleased to announce the launch of the Art & Education Papers archive, a new global platform for sharing and distributing research and knowledge in the field of contemporary art.
A&E Papers aims to exponentially widen the accessibility and reach of art historical and critical discourse by hosting a free online platform for the publication and exchange of texts on modern and contemporary art. Art historians, students, critics, and artists alike will have the opportunity to gain access to a far greater and more focused readership than conventional publishing allows, while also enjoying unlimited access to a deep archive of scholarly writing by and for Art & Education's rapidly growing audience, which currently comprises an international network of more than 70,000 visual arts professionals and academics. At a time when the distribution of many forms of knowledge remains confined to small conferences, private seminars, or specialized academic journals, we believe that the broad distribution and exchange of ideas is key to increasing dialogue in all aspects of art production, criticism, and history.
In order to build the A&E Papers database, we are now calling for either new or already existing (published or unpublished, recent or older) scholarly articles from around the world. Texts should be comprehensive, research-based articles focusing on topics in 20th century and contemporary art. Texts may be culled from conference papers, seminar papers, dissertation chapters, etc. We ask that you submit pieces anywhere from 2,000 words to approximately 10,000 words and include a 100 word abstract and full contact information (or publication information for previously published texts). All submissions will be considered for publication on the website.
Please submit articles by email to papers@artandeducation.net and consult the website for further information and updates: http://www.artandeducation.net/papers
Art & Education is a collaboration between Artforum and e-flux.
mai 26, 2009
Micha Cárdenas - "Becoming Dragon"
from the press release
"Becoming Dragon", the controversial art project by Micha Cárdenas which questions the possibilities of Species Change Surgery and the limits of merging the virtual and physical body, will be part of two exhibitions opening in Los Angeles and San Diego on May 28th and 29th. The project consisted of a 365 hour performance in Second Life, using a Head Mounted Display, motion capture and a stereoscopic projection and coincided with Cardenas' real life hormone replacement therapy. The project has been the subject of more than one controversy since it took place.
Micha Cárdenas - Photo by Elle Mehrmand
WHAT: "Becoming Dragon" opens in Los Angeles and San Diego, questions limits of gender and the virtual.
WHERE: Compactspace Gallery, 105 East 6th Street, Los Angeles, CA 90014 and the University Art Gallery, UCSD
WHEN: Thursday, May 28th from 6 - 8:30pm University Art Gallery
Friday, May 29th from 6 - 10pm at Compactspace Gallery Los Angeles
CONTACT: Micha Cárdenas - mcardenas@ucsd.edu
On Thursday, May 28th: the University Art Gallery on the campus of UC San Diego will be opening the show MFA 2009, highlighting the work of MFA graduating MFA candidates including Cárdenas and many others. The show will include a 25 minute video of "Becoming Dragon" as well as a number of digital prints from the virtual point of view of the performance.More information about the show is at
http://va-grad.ucsd.edu/~drupal/node/903
On Friday, May 29th: Compactspace in Los Angeles will be holding an artists' reception for the show "The Dark Tower", which includes photo documentation of "Becoming Dragon". The show also features the work of a other UCSD MFA artists and was curated by Cauleen Smith. More details about the show are at http://www.compactspace.com/
"Becoming Dragon" has been presented at the Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCIArc) in Los Angeles, Supersonic 2009 in the Los Angeles convention center, the Alexandria Contemporary Arts Forum in Alexandria, Egypt, the "Engineering Reality of Virtual Reality" conference in in the San Jose convention center, the Lui Velazquez gallery in Tijuana, Mexico, the Ars Virtua gallery in Second Life and the Pendergrast gallery at UCSD. The project will also be presented in Victoria, Canada at Ctheory's Critical Digital Studies Workshop in June. The project was featured on the cover of the San Diego Union Tribune and the San Diego Reader, as well as having articles published about it in San Diego City Beat, Dr Dobbs Journal Online, Secondlife.com, Brooklyn is Watching and numerous other art blogs.
"Becoming Dragon" questions the one-year requirement of 'Real Life Experience' that transgender people must fulfill in order to receive Gender Confirmation Surgery, and asks if this could be replaced by one year of 'Second Life Experience' to lead to Species Reassignment Surgery. For the performance, Micha Cárdenas lived for 365 hours immersed in the online 3D environment of Second Life with a head mounted display, only seeing the physical world through a video feed, and used a motion capture system to map her movements into Second Life. The installation included a stereoscopic projection for the audience. A Puredata patch was used to process her voice to create a virtual dragon's voice. The performance included public discussions with theorists Sandy Stone and Brian Holmes and the performance artist Stelarc.
During the year of research and development of this project, Micha began her real life hormone replacement therapy and wrote poetry about the experience which was included in the performance. The project was realized through a collaboration between Micha Cárdenas, Christopher Head, Elle Mehrmand, Kael Greco, Ben Lotan and Anna Storelli. "Becoming Dragon" was supported by the Center for Research in Computing and the Arts, Calit2, University of California Institute for Research in the Arts, Ars Virtua, the gallery@calit2, the b.a.n.g. lab and the Embodied Cognition Lab of the Cognitive Science Department at UCSD.
More information about "Becoming Dragon" can be found at:
http://secondloop.wordpress.com
http://secondloop.wordpress.com/2008/11/18/press-release-becoming-dragon-a-mixed-reality-durational-performance-in-second-life-opens-december-1st/
3 minute video at: http://vimeo.com/3874238
Photos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/azdelslade/sets/72157610992544600/
For more information, contact Micha Cárdenas - mcardenas@ucsd.edu
Artist/Researcher, Experimental Game Lab: http://experimentalgamelab.net
Calit2 Researcher: http://bang.calit2.net
Tree
by Richard Gleaves
mai 25, 2009
Sign of the Times
by Kevin Freitas
MILO SHOES
NO SHOES
After a tip from a friend that there was a "For Rent" sign prominently displayed in the window of 4Walls Gallery — located in the thriving arts district of North Park and specifically on Ray Street — I had to see for myself. Wow. "Another one bites the dust" to quote everyone's favorite rock band Queen. The comings and goings of galleries and artist-run studios on Ray Street is apparently nothing new or very surprising if you talk to some of the locals that have been around San Diego's arts scene watching it puff up its chest only to see it deflate a few years later. What is surprising is there's been a rash of gallery closings and downsizings voir replacements that have hit Ray Street in the last year or so.
Andre Rushing, Rubber Rose, and Spacecraft are some of the spaces that come to mind, and now it seems 4Walls is also sounding the gong. 4Walls is of particular interest, a strange mix of architectural offices in the back and vanity gallery in front that was recently managed by its director who has since mysteriously vanished — gone it seems from the face of this Earth. The downside to his disappearance is that he put on some of the most interesting and compelling contemporary exhibits in town, with a cast of heavy hitters the likes of Les LeVeque and local talent such as Steve Gibson and Kimberly Tomney. I guess there is no upside to his vanishing act — he left only a shell of the gallery's once innovative programming, stopping it as abruptly as it began. I remain puzzled to this day.
4WALLS GALLERY
But vanity is nothing new to San Diego (in my opinion) where the cult of an artist's personality and social-networking skills reign over any interest in the art produced or exhibited, resulting in many short-lived and soon-forgotten episodic personal fantasies. 4Walls also suffered from this to a certain degree when the idea was hatched to form an alliance between its director, Kinsee Morlan (the recently departed arts editor for CityBeat and co-founder of Adapta Project), Luis de Jesus (of Seminal Projects), and myself to "take over" the curation of the space and thus ensure its continued success. This resulted in exactly one exhibit featuring artist and AaA contributor Richard Gleaves, and artist Alfredo Gutierrez from Kinsee's Adapta Project. For several months afterwards 4Walls stumbled along, a departure having left a Captainless ship awash in the murky waters of uncertainy.
The end result: the gallery space is now up for rent. It's easy to state the obvious, to point fingers, to adopt a would of, could of, should of attitude but the result is the same: another gallery closes its doors in San Diego. What now? What does it say about the life expectancy of the art scene here? The point is this, there is no benefit to anyone — no artist, no gallery owner, no collector, no public, or the city's artistic livelihood — to have galleries closing or up for rent. It affects everyone involved.
SOUL RYDE
And so it goes. To what degree things are changing on Ray Street can be seen by the types of businesses moving in or leaving. One thing is for sure, galleries are not on the list. Of note, Soul Ryde, a custom skateboard shop, has recently opened and — judging from the number of people in their store during Ray at Night — has managed to out-socialize Planet Rooth as the preferred venue of entertainment. Directly across the street in the former dwelling of the Sierra Club, Le Wax Boutique has opened offering facials and manicures. And finally Milo Shoes, a custom sneaker boutique offering hand-painted footwear, has closed and left an empty space with a "For Rent" sign in the window. A call to the telephone number listed on their website led to an operator's pre-recorded message stating the number was no longer in service or is disconnected.
LE WAX BOUTIQUE
Speaking of Planet Rooth, rumor has it that its owner, Ray at Night co-founder Gustaf Rooth, may have hit upon a future enterprise which will insure not only the gallery's continuation but its financial success as well.
Life is what you make it, and so is art.
mai 19, 2009
GARAGES
by Richard Gleaves
May 22, 2009
6:30 — 9:30 PM
3139 First Ave
San Diego
GARAGES is a one-night exhibit of art, performance, spoken word, and experiments in five garage spaces in the Bankers Hill neighborhood of San Diego.
Artists
Tom McDermott
M.A.G.N.U.S. & THOR
Kelly Schnorr
The Illuminauts
Kevin Oberbauer
DJ Unwell
Chris Warr
Nathan Gulick
The San Diego Poetry Slam Team
James Gielow
and more...
For more information contact the curators Erica Overskei and Alexander Jarman.
mai 18, 2009
Car Art
by Richard Gleaves
In its current ad campaign BMW is working harder than ever to elevate its product by association with visual art.
But this begs the question of whether visual art wishes to be associated with fossil-fueled personal-transport dinosaurs on the verge of extinction.
Which in turn begs the further question of whether — in a global future of greater population, scarcer resources, man-made natural disasters, and the sustainable practices that will necessarily follow — visual art itself, at least as currently practiced, will go the way of the BMW.
How do we move toward a sustainable practice?
mai 14, 2009
Jennifer Rockage @ Garage
by Richard Gleaves
Mapping the Hood @ Art Produce
by Richard Gleaves
Voices: Mapping the Hood
A Multimedia Interactive Collaborative Installation
May 17 — June 28
Art Produce Gallery
Opening Sunday May 17, 10 AM — 6 PM
In conjunction with the North Park Arts Festival
Envisioned as an interactive collage, the installation is a giant pop-up book which tells a story you can walk through and contribute to. The idea is to physically, metaphorically, and cognitively “Map the Hood” of North Park and City Heights with all our various collaborating partners, including architecture students, professional artists, children, teens, and community members.
Stone Paper Scissors, Eveoke Dance Theatre, TranscenDance Youth Arts Project, North Park Main Street, and the Cultural Worker have collaborated to create Art @ the Core: Building Community, with the goal of increasing access, engagement, and participation in the civic process through community cultural development.
mai 12, 2009
Seth Tegardine @ Art of Framing
by Richard Gleaves
Seth Tegardine
Paintings, sculpture, and mixed media
May 16-30
Opening Saturday May 16, 6-9 PM
Art of Framing
3333 Adams Ave
www.theartofframing.net
La Ronde
by Richard Gleaves
The work of San Diego’s top-tier contemporary artists hasn’t been seen in the same place at the same time since 1985, when the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art presented “A San Diego Exhibition: Forty-Two Emerging Artists.”— Quint Gallery promotional copy
Quint's low profile among the non-cognoscenti should prevent a recurrence of the grand community stink that was raised over that museum show: irate artists, impromptu salons des refusés, and coverage of the controversy in the local family paper.
mai 01, 2009
Intertextuality? Or interchangeable parts?
by Richard Gleaves
Answer: the latter, as a factory cost-saving measure.
The technique of rotoscoping enables an animator not only to create animation from live-action film by tracing over individual film frames, but also to recycle existing animation by tracing over individual cells. The only costs incurred are for redrawing — the movement comes for free.
ART THEFT IN SAN DIEGO
by Richard Gleaves
Estimated value $5,000 to $10,000.
If you have any information regarding this artwork please call the San Diego Police Department at (619) 531-2000.