Category: art
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When All Else Fails, Put in a Nude Woman
The Intersection of Market and Embarcadero as the Latest Site of Controversy To be naked is to be oneself. To be nude is to be seen naked by others and yet not recognized for oneself…. Men look at women, women watch themselves being looked at. – John Berger, Ways of Seeing Is the omnipotence of…
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Yuan Goang Ming – Everyday War
Yuan Goang Ming’s video exhibit at the Asian Art Museum reads like a movie theater with 5 films going at once. Shrouded otherwise in the darkness of a cement room painted dark brown-grey, there permeates something distinctly surreal. One pads softly around the room so as not to disturb the realm of another’s subconscious that…
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White Girl Over China
In a bid to initiate a relationship from the San Francisco Bay area with that of Shenzhen, China, the mayors of the respective bay areas signed an MOU officiating a cultural exchange relationship, recognized formally as a Friendship City in late 2024. Somehow, through the course of events at large and their inexplicable and continuous…
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Amy Sherald – American Sublime
This week, I visited the temporary exhibit currently on display at the SFMoMA, six rooms of paintings by artist Amy Sherald, entitled American Sublime. Sherald first gained national recognition for her iconic portrait of former First Lady Michelle Obama, which was unveiled at the National Portrait Gallery and the White House as Obama completed her…
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Two and a Half Men
A nobody dissects the big leagues I have been trying to put my finger on what it is that keeps us all coming back to some of the biggest names in art, the powerhouses that are Jeff Koons, Andy Warhol, and Damien Hirst. Personally, I find that the things that bore, repulse, and irritate me…
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SF Art Fair, Art Basel, Apples, Oranges
Asking rich people to perform culture, and whatever the opposite of that is A few months ago I visited the San Francisco Art Fair at Fort Mason, a four day event that drew mostly locals and included free la croix. Likely very few jets were involved, I heard no Italian accents and saw no Birkins.…
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Identity of a community; thoughts on Agnes Martin, Georgia O’Keefe and Raven Chacon in New Mexico
In recent months I have poured over a couple of biographies of famous female artists, two of whom happened to migrate from New York City to the area of the southwest which we now call Santa Fe, New Mexico, also known as the ancestral land belonging to the Pueblo and Navajo Nations. I made it…
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Resonance in Light at Heron Arts
This gallery is the first of the ‘blue chip’ variety (using that term loosely) that I have walked into with the intent to write a review. This is also probably the first time that I have ever made an appointment to view an art exhibit. I felt cagey about visiting, because I thought it was…
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Moving Clouds at Southern Exposure
A collection of strange, subtle and symbolic pieces spanning sculpture, video, quilting, painting, and holographic photography filled the cement floored and white walled gallery of Southern Exposure. I happened to walk past in the last hour of the last day of the exhibit, Saturday afternoon, March 7th, and was surprised to find this experience at…
