Tony Labat asks "what do you want?"

When: September 4, 2008 from 6:30 p.m. on
Where: Phyllis Wattis Theatre (SFMoMa)

TONY LABAT and SFMOMA are looking for performers, activists, artists (and just about anybody and everybody) to participate in
"POLITICAL CAMPAIGN PROJECT : I WANT YOU."
This project will target and coincide with the upcoming presidential elections.


Riffing on the iconic "I Want You" political campaign poster of the thirties and forties, artist Tony Labat invites you to make your own demands of the public and create your own slogan. What if you had one minute to seize the voice of authority, to be the finger-pointing Uncle Sam? How would you fill in the rest? I Want You... to do what?

We want you to present your demand/monologue/slogan in front of a (video) camera and a panel of judges on September 4. From these auditions, fifty finalists will be selected to return on September 11 to perform in front of a live audience. The audience will pick 5 winners whose images and slogans will be printed on posters to be displayed throughout the city to coincide with the presidential elections. A video of all auditions will premiere at SFMOMA on election night.

Thursday, September 4, 6:30 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater (SFMOMA)
One-Minute Slogan/Monologue Auditions (taped) in front of a panel of judges.
50 Finalists will be selected.

Thursday, September 11, 6:30 p.m.
Phyllis Wattis Theater (SFMOMA)
50 Finalists return and perform in front of a live audience.
5 Winners selected by the audience will be announced and photographed on site for their posters.

Auditions, finalists, and winners will be featured in Tony Labat's new video project, I WANT YOU, screening at SFMOMA in November.

WE WANT YOU TO SHOW UP SEPTEMBER 4 at 6:30 p.m.
Questions? email: tlabat@sbcglobal.net

Distracting Design

It's one thing to redesign MySpace, have known designers contribute to Target's fashions, but seriously museums might want to think more than twice before finding someone other than Herzog & de Meuron to enhance their buildings. Or at least communicate the full idea with the designer...




LOS ANGELES — The Latin American collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art is back on view after three years’ absence. And the reinstallation opens with a piquant flourish in a display of ancient pre-Columbian art that doubles as a solo show for a contemporary artist, and looks like a nightclub interior.



Monica Almeida/The New York Times
Entrance to the newly installed "Latin American Art: Ancient to Contemporary" exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
The artist, Jorge Pardo, who was born in Cuba, is well known for blurring the lines between art, architecture and design. Several years ago he turned the lobby of the Dia building on West 22nd Street in Manhattan into an all-over grid of brightly colored tiles: it was like a bathhouse conceived by Mondrian. The Mountain Bar, a music club he opened in this city’s gallery-packed Chinatown, is distinctive for its blood-red walls and a hanging garden of sculptural lamps.

In his design for the Los Angeles museum’s Mesoamerican collection, he has outdone himself in buzzy inventiveness. He has also, to some degree, done in the art consigned to his visual care.

For the new setting, Mr. Pardo, 45, has covered the lower walls of three galleries with units of stacked fiberboard sheets. The horizontal sheets, thinly cut, alternate with empty spaces of the same size to create a continuous light-dark stripe pattern running through the rooms. The sheets have in addition been shaped with curves and undulations, so the cavelike walls swell organically outward and recede into niches that become display cases. A few free-standing stacks suggest biomorphic sculptural forms that are also pedestals for other sculptures.

Finally, Mr. Pardo has accessorized the space with complicated colors (yellowish burgundy, electric green), zany little chandeliers and thick curtains of a taffeta-type fabric. All have counterparts in his bar design.

As an introduction to the rest of the more straightforwardly presented Latin American collection, Mr. Pardo’s extravaganza does what it is supposed to do: pull you in the door. The stripes and bulges grab and hold the eye. The colors and curtains are like cartoon versions of the faux-period embellishments we’re used to in museums. Here those conventions assume a goofy, festive air, which makes you realize how tacky the originals can be.

The trouble is that the pre- Columbian art gets lost in the décor. The museum’s collection, though relatively new, is very fine. It has superb holdings in ceramics from West Mexico and individual objects from across the Mesoamerican world that would shine in any North American institution. Virginia Fields, the museum’s curator of pre-Columbian art, memorably showcased the collection in “Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship” a few years ago, and has taken an intriguing thematic approach to it here.

But the logic of her arrangement becomes hard to follow because the art itself is hard to see. The stripes and curves distract from objects; the colors suddenly change their look. The green in particular leaches visually into terra-cotta sculptures, giving them a liverish cast. And why this green anyway? To evoke a primal jungle setting à la Quai Branly in Paris? If so, bad idea.

These days, design is a mainstream art-world hobbyhorse and political correctness is seriously uncool. (It always has been; people are just more relaxed about dissing it now.) So we’re probably not supposed to ask questions like: How come self-aggrandizing designs like Mr. Pardo’s, which obscure rather than enhance objects and their meanings, end up being applied to non-Western objects but only rarely to their Western counterparts?

Would the museum hang, say, Rembrandt or Degas or its stunningly yawnsome Broad collection in Mr. Pardo’s clamorous setting? If the answer is yes, great. By all means do it. Truly break some museological ground. But if the answer is no, or if there’s even a hesitation, the problem becomes obvious.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, like other museums, has begun to invite artists to design and organize shows. This is a fantastic idea, and the results can be inspired. John Baldessari’s “Magritte and Contemporary Art” there was; so was Kara Walker’s “After the Deluge” at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. With Mr. Pardo the case is both less and more complicated. He was asked only to provide a visual context, not to choose what it would hold. This may help explain why his installation seems detached from the art it is meant to serve and overwhelms it, producing the equivalent of a Mesoamerican group show inside, and a subsidiary to, a contemporary solo exhibition.

None of this amounts to a crisis. It’s just revealing about where we are now on the politically correct front, and it’s part of one museum’s learning curve. I like Mr. Pardo’s vivacious sensibility; I just think it is misapplied here. And there are many models available for how it might have been done otherwise. The last few decades have seen a revolution in Western institutional approaches to presenting non-Western cultures. The Museum for African Art in New York has led the way. So has the Fowler Museum at the University of California at Los Angeles, one of the city’s major and undersung cultural resources.

The Fowler’s recent “Mami Wata: Arts for Water Spirits in Africa and Its Diaspora,” organized by Henry John Drewal, was an object lesson in how exhibition design can be visually magnetic, object-centered and idea-clarifying; how it can deliver both a big thrill and a hard think. The Los Angeles museum is aware of this gold mine of a resource — it recently invited a Fowler curator, Mary Nooter Roberts, to create its first African art display. Perhaps it will encourage its future artist-designers to pay the Fowler a visit. Artists, more than any art lovers on earth, will love what they see.

Jorge Pardo’s redesign of the Latin American galleries is on view at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 5905 Wilshire Boulevard; (323) 857-6000.

When Holy Were the Haunted Forest Boughs

Artist: Christine Shields
Gallery: Triple Base
Opening Reception: Friday, August 29th, 7-10pm
Exhibition Dates: August 28 - September 28, 2008
Address: 3041 24th street

"For Shields’s first solo show at Triple Base, she will create an eerie yet ethereal environment, exploring the idea of psychic homelessness. Through a mythological narrative, Shields ponders the impermanence of life and the human need to wander. The installation will highlight Shields’s signature illustrative drawings and paintings of ghosts, orphans, animals and spirits. The artist will also be the first to extend her installation down into the gallery’s cavernous “Triple Basement”, employing descent mythology to depict the soul's journey into darkness and then back into light. "


A pick on Flavorpill.

Death By Chocolate

Artist: Yvonne Lee Schultz
Gallery: Cain Shultz Gallery
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 28 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
Exhibition Dates: August 28, 2008 to October 4, 2008
Address: 101 TOWNSEND STREET, SUITE 207

Artist Statement:

"The shiny surface reflects the light, the structure of the handle piece provides a firm grip, and 100% chocolate as the main and only ingredient guarantee that guns and kids are “too sweet to kill”. At first sight, they seem authentic, due to details of screws, shadings and chasings. And once you come closer, the scent is quiet inviting.

Children don’t question the enjoyment of this sensuous toy in spite of the awful connotations. The question is if to bit or play first, where to bite, nibble or suck. Children quite simply put the run in the mouth, which is a very awkward sight for the viewer.

The kids get beaming eyes when they see them, they can barely decide between the object as toys or as a sweet. For girls it is an amusing sweet, for boys event more so. Men become curious, they study them thoroughly and admire the fine details, and women can be enticed by the sweet. It is the a little bit of the alternative chocolate figure.

Schokoguns are a tightrope walk between seriousness and play, sweet seduction and deadly power. A strange pleasure. A sweet that provides incredible fun, when one sees that it is harmless to play with despite the symbolic danger - a peace bringing activity to let a gun disappear by eating it.

It is pivotal to understand that I have given the kids NO directions.


Witnessing the play with the chocolates guns, it is remarkable how much influence the media has on the young actors. The kids used their own imagination for playing and re-enacting scenes they know from TV, movies, news and magazines: from special operations by police and military to scenes from James Bond, Western, super hero and action movies. The viewer’s perspective is influenced as well through the different interpretations and associations from their cultural surroundings.

In my observance, I thought that the children reacted very differently from each other to the guns. Some rushed towards the large amount of chocolate, which some devoured with pleasure and others with a bit of disappointment because of the bitter taste of dark chocolate. Others simply expressed joy about the toy and laughed when it melted in their hands. It seemed most difficult for the kids to decide whether they should first play with it or rather immediately bite into it.

The average life span of a chocolate gun is about 10 minutes. Then it is no longer recognizable as such because it is nibbled on from all sides. Every child searches for a different place on the gun to initiate the first bite, leaving the viewer with ones own interpretation.

This project was create in Berlin, Germany: it is up to the viewer’s imagination to picture how children would play with chocolate guns in the ghettos of South America, Africa, in cities and rural areas of the middle east, in American suburbia and cities, or in any small town where the weapon is part of a daily life."

Check the 7x7 article.

Leslie Burns

I had to share this.
Thanks Kevin Taylor

Artist:Seth Armstrong
Gallery: Rowan Morrison
Opening Reception:Saturday August 30th, 7pm - 10pm
Exhibition Dates: August 30th - October 4th
Address:330 40th Street (at Broadway), Oakland

"Seth Armstrong produces narrative paintings. Exactly what these narratives entail, however, is not definitive, but included is the drama, mystery, and humor that accentuate the theatrical and fictitious characteristics that he believes are apparent in everyday life.

The actions of the subjects and the circumstances of their environments are often vague, only hinting at the motives or story lines that are inherently taking place. Because of an interest in portraiture and a fascination with the use and manipulation of photographic elements, a heightened sense of reality is given to what otherwise might be considered awkward or outlandish. "

Mike Maxwell & Crystal Barnes Clothing Design

The opening was pretty great last night at Gallery Three. The usual suspects came by along with a new crowd.

I found out too, that Mike and Crystal designed some hoodies and t's for Lewsader.

You can buy them online here. They might me available through Gallery Three in San Francisco soon as well.

Mike Maxwell Tonight at Gallery Three

Artist: Mike Maxwell
Gallery: Gallery Three
Opening Reception: August 21, 2008 from 7-11 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: August 21, 2008 - September 6, 2008
Address: 66 Sixth Street (btwn Market and Mission)

Ron English at 111 Minna

Ron English is at 111 Minna today for his Abraham Obama Mural west coast tour.



Boston Globe article

The World Is Our...

Was able to visit a friend's office last week to check out Andrew Shoultz' mural, "The World Is Our..." from a couple years back. The office has the most serene work environment that I've been in for a tech company. And they are loosing their lease mid Fall for the city to revamp the interior and turn it into a clinic. I'm all for positive health and services, but it's hard to know this place won't exist in a few months.

Bryan Schnelle Opening Tonight

OK, it's time to check out Bryan Schnelle

Tonight, DA Arts
Counter culture images, questioning what our physical identity means, is, and tells us.

Great Work Andrew Schoultz

These are all sold, as you can imagine.

Ryan Furtado at Photo Epicenter

Artist: Ryan Furtado
Gallery: Photo Epicenter
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 14, 2008 from 5-9 p.m.
Address: 26 Lilac Street

"Ryan Furtado presents a collection of over 30 photographs taken between 2002 and 2008. These pictures explore a variety of contrasting people, places and situations through out the United States and abroad. Edited from years of various assignments, trips, and journeys down the rabbit hole, it is subjective glimpse into the kaleidoscope of humanity."

Cynthia Tollesfrud

I found Cynthia on The Alcove's website, a gallery located in Georgia. Her subjects possess such frivolity and self involvement. I can't help but laugh, while being reminded of absurdities in day to day life.








"Cynthia Tollefsrud was born in California, raised in the Midwest and came to live in Knoxville, Tennessee in 1991. She is a self-made artist. Her artistic desires were realized when her parents gave her a John Gnagy Drawing Set on her tenth birthday. With charcoal smudged hands, she learned the basics of drawing. Art classes throughout her school years were always a requirement."

Two Favorites at The Lab Tomorrow

Artist: Eunkang Koh
Gallery: The Lab
Opening Reception: Wednesday, August 13, 6-9 PM
Exhibition Dates: August 13 - September 6, 2008
Address: 2948 16th Street


Eunkang Koh, who recently showed at Varnish Fine Art is opening a show at The Lab tomorrow. I first saw these pieces at Varnish Fine Art and loved them! It was a fantastic find.

"Humanscape is an ongoing series of experimental prints, drawing, and book art, which presents Eunkang Koh’s social commentary on the human condition. Koh considers how we as humans view ourselves as dominant creatures, with little consciousness of how we are also a part of a larger ecological system. Koh’s work acknowledges that humans are also animals with many of the same instincts. Using satirical and metaphorical representations, she depicts humans as hybrid creatures existing in an imagined, illusionary world. These characters contain ironic gestures that simultaneously evoke humor and the grotesque."






Artist: Zachary Royer Scholz
Gallery: The Lab
Closing Reception: Friday, September 5, 6-9 PM
Exhibition Dates: August 13 - September 6, 2008
Address: 2948 16th Street

Zachary's work was part of one the first shows I went to in San Francisco, a group exhibit at Southern Exposure. I was there for the closing reception, where each artist talked about the origin of their work. The exhibit was pretty complex, so the explanations were helpful and often lightened the intellectualism.


"Zachary Royer Scholz's site-specific installation directly engages the physicality of the Lab's main gallery space. Deviating from the typical installation-exhibition-deinstallation cycle, Scholz's show opens shortly after he arrives in the space and closes just as the work reaches completion. Allowing the site to act as a collaborator, the artist will produce objects and situations using the Lab's unique architecture and objects found there as a starting point. The audience can view the work in a static state when the artist is absent or come while he is there and witness the work in a state of flux. Viewers are encouraged to visit and revisit the space as this collaboration evolves."

Werner Deutsch

Continuing my hunt for enthralling collage work, I discovered Werner's myspace page and had to share.







His images take me on time traveling adventures through nonparallel universes. Science, fantasy, history, mythology.... with incredible colors of course.

Packard Jennings at Mission 17

Artists:Packard Jennings, Seth Lower, Alice Shaw, and Lee Walton
Gallery:Mission 17
Opening Reception: Thursday, August 14, 2008 from 7-9 p.m.
Exhibition Dates:August 14 - October 31, 2008
Address:8th floor, Suite 838, The Merchant's Exchange, 465 California Street

"Aristotle made a distinction between chance (operates in nature) and luck (operates in the mind), the latter being a phenomena reserved only for man because it requires choice. We credit some events to luck because we have a specific idea of how the world is supposed to work--it is only an outcome because we have created the rules.

"Numbers Game" is an exhibition of works that meditate on chance and luck. Packard Jennings' project "Lottery Tickets" is a series of hand-drawn lottery tickets that were placed in convenient stores around the Bay Area, and instead of big money, the scratch-off reward is an intimate story or perspective on this place and daily life. Seth Lower uses photography, drawings, and text to ambiguously narrate a series of chance encounters, and as a collective whole, the work functions as a chronicle of his life documented through minute incidentals. Similarly, Alice Shaw's series of photographs "People Who Look Like Me" venerate personal coincidences that would otherwise go unnoticed. Lee Walton, in a jovial battle of luck-vs-skill, has produced a new work based on the result of his golf game. He has created a color chart to correspond to each putt, bogie, and par result played through 18 holes. The outcome of the game will yield a custom-mixed gallon of paint that will replace the color on the office walls."

Mike Shine 8 Tracks and Wallbangers

Artist:MIke Shine
Gallery:Fecal Face Dot Gallery
Opening Reception: Friday, August 8, 2008 from 6-9 p.m.
Exhibition Dates: August 8 -August 31, 2008
Address: 66 Gough Street

"The gallery is covered in Mike Shine's harmonously colored drift wood paintings which are hung on his site specific wall murals. We will be serving "Harvey Wallbangers" (OJ, vodka, and galliano- disgusting) along with Tecate and wine at the opening. The artist will be present. Good times shall be had.





Mike is a painter who mixes driftwood, reclaimed house paint, Nordic mythology, insomnia, 1970's pop culture, absinthe, Teutonic philosophy, his wife, and woodworking skills leftover from a previous life- to make art that is one part uplifting and two parts disturbing. His coastal art/surf shack was recently featured in Fecal Face's Art Mondays (view it), and intrigued us to bring his work into the Fecal gallery for a closer look. "

Ping Pong Gallery's Ping Pong Night

"As the Olympic games open in China let this be a reminder to always play fair and respect your opponent...even if they see the world from a different perspective. "

Ping Pong Gallery link

Surviving Sixth Street

I find that about this time of day, when I've been sitting at a desk facing Sixth Street since 11am, sick almost deathening street culture has saturated my mind. For that, I've got to find some new energy.

Erik is reorganizing his studio in the back of the gallery, making space for some additional artists, and added a bookshelf. I picked up one of my favorite books, Passage, by Andy Goldsworthy.

Here are some images but I think the video above might just be all you need. (featuring coco rosie)

Trashboy on Flickr

I've been following Trashboy's Flickrstream lately. These pieces with the different shades of red are my favorites. They remind me of working with wax, dyes, and aliens! There's a sense of emptiness in the figures and intellect in the insects and birds.













Buy prints and originals on Etsy.