Richard Allen Morris and Jon Pittman together at the opening of Morris' retrospective exhibition "Richard Allen Morris: Retrospective 1958 - 2005" held at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego from May 5, 2005 through Aug 28, 2005.
Photo: Anonymous
Some reviews:
Robert Pincus - San Diego Union Tribune
e-flux
by Kevin Freitas and David Fobes
If San Diego’s beginnings can be traced back to Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo and the 16th century, can we as easily trace its art history? It would seem like a daunting task for anyone. It is likely though; that this has already been accomplished and archived for the remotely curious to peruse. One such example exists to my knowledge; it is the history of the San Diego Art Guild. Founded in 1915 by a group of artists, it has over the decades, evolved into the San Diego Visual Artists Guild. While the Guild takes a specific view of itself and history, Re-collections: Art in San Diego since 1980 is then, a modest attempt to categorize that history into a broader re-collection of the past 30 years of San Diego’s contemporary art world and artists. Grammatically speaking of course, it is the subject of our interest and a noun — person, place, or thing — brought together in an informal yet personal biography of those individuals who have participated in, contributed to, and shaped San Diego’s rich artistic life. Why is this important?
The short answer is that I’m simply unfamiliar with the city’s cultural history. Over the last five years, I’ve met quite a number of artists and art activists who have relayed this history back to me in bits and pieces. They all speak of a “Golden Era” during the 1980’s when San Diego was a much more dominant figure in the cultural scene than it appears to be today. My specific interest in contemporary art, its artists, and its practices, has given me the desire to document this particular moment in time. Parallel stories encompassing many diverse voices can help shape a broader and stronger artistic community.
The long answer is David Fobes. David is an accomplished artist, furniture designer, and currently a lecturer at the School of Art, Design and Art History at SDSU and has been for the last 15 years. He has also been witness to San Diego’s past artistic heritage since the early 1980’s not only as a musician and visual artist, but as a shaper of its destiny through a variety of gallery design projects and the building and design of the now defunct JAVA coffee house with collector and arts advocate Doug Simay. David is a key element and piece to the puzzle we would both like to put back together. In a recent conversation, I expressed my interest in having him help me to accomplish this task. I’m grateful he has accepted.
photo: Lynn Murphy
Continue reading "Re-collections: San Diego Art since 1980 — A Survey" »
by Kevin Freitas
I spent a few hours the other day with Jay Johnson, a sculptor and respected artist here in San Diego, reminiscing about his humble beginnings, the Pawn Shop Gallery, the punk scene, and the myraid of friends and encounters Johnson made in the early 80's downtown - one of which was Harold Gee.
photo: Harold Gee
Johnson who was on the verge of ending his Californian surf and ceramic-clay throwing days and looking for a change, found himself downtown on occaison just as the seedy underground life of peep shows, dive bars, clubs, and winos were about to experience a new wave of artistic and musical punk rock birthing, unlike anything San Diego has seen since. Johnson met Harold Gee in one of these start-up clubs, called the Skeleton Club, its short-lived existence (until the city apparently shut it down) was began by Laura Frazier and Tim Mayes of now Casbah fame.
"Xterminators, Fall 1979" (at the original Skeleton Club located in the basement of the Keating Building - photo: Harold Gee
by Doug Simay
Doug Simay - portrait by Stuart Burton
Six years ago, I retired from the practice of medicine. For 23 years I was a family practitioner in La Jolla. In addition, in the first 13 years of my medical career I practiced emergency medicine at Paradise Valley Hospital in a high trauma, high acuity setting.
by David Fobes
Intro
The 1980’s in San Diego, especially in the arts, and specifically downtown, was an exciting, vibrant and expanding community culture. I lived and worked at 5th and Island, next to the Nan King Café, for several years, and observed the gas lamp redevelopment from a front row seat.
Installation Gallery, run by Gary Ghirardi and his wife, was just around the corner and for a moment the hub of the cutting edge, downtown arts scene. A few years later, Mark Quint, Doug Simay, Java Coffee House, ABC Books and Patty Aande, moved their galleries to 9th and G, and for a time, that area became the new arts hub.
Those of us that lived downtown also worked downtown, walked downtown, ate downtown, and poked around downtown. If any of us had computers, they were probably the early Macs, with about 180MB of memory. The Internet was not accessible. We met face to face, not on Facebook. There was no blogging, no record keeping, no postings, and no e-mails. We found out about events through word of mouth or photocopy postcards.
At that time played I saxophone in original music bands, performing with the likes of Mojo Nixon, Joey Harris, Paul Kamansky, Mitchell Cornish, Donald Strandberg, Skid Roper, and a host of talented and creative musicians. The duality of Art and Music, kept me on the pulse of the scene, and I loved it. I had no responsibilities to anyone. I lived as destitute and decadent as I wished, making due with what was available and at hand. We all did. We made it work for us. It made for good, cutting edge, and risk-taking work.
The Re-Collections project is a community project, really only possible by the inter connectedness of the Internet. I will be posting “chapters” as I finish them, and look forward to any comments or corrections. I realize how malleable memory is, but with many people participating, the history will become more rich, nuanced and “accurate”.
I met Kevin Freitas only recently, and we hit it off instantly. He is an engaging, thoughtful and provocative man. Our conversations about art, and art in San Diego some how led to me volunteering to re-collect my most inspiring moments of living in the Arts of San Diego for the last 35 years.
Today is November 2, 2009, Dia de Los Muertos. I will be turning 56 in a few days, and I arrived in San Diego when I was 21. The memories of art making, construction projects, learning, loving, making friends, traveling and living in that span of time, has mostly been lost to the hinter regions of my cerebellum.
What does remain is a collection of poignant moments, from a much larger narrative. These moments are conversations, discoveries, psychedelic trips, first meetings, rock and roll performances and memorable projects. Forgive me some of the details.
David Fobes
Continue reading "Re-Collections: San Diego Art since 1980 — "Arriving in Oz"" »
