Green Room Now
Bay Area Now 4
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
July 17 – November 6, 2005

Green Room Now is the second in a series of interlocking virtual/social/physical spaces created by Stretcher to intensify dialogue about art in the Bay Area. For Bay Area Now 4, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ triennial survey of Bay Area artistic activity, Stretcher orchestrated significant conversations using a variety of social frames including interviews, talk shows, and dinner parties, to enhance connectivity within the Bay Area and beyond. Video highlights of each event were on view in the Resource Room at Yerba Buena Center during the course of the show and are archived here. Viewers were invited to join the conversation by attending the live events or participating in virtual space using the “comment” buttons at the close of each piece published on Stretcher.

– Amy Berk, David Lawrence, Cheryl Meeker, Ed Osborn, Meredith Tromble

		Friday, July 15, 2005 - Opening Night Party 8-11 pm Stretcher takes the question of Bay Area Now to the street, asking a variety of artists, curators, and the art viewing public to tell us what creative work they're most excited about in the Bay Area.
		Thursday, July 28, 2005, 6:30-8:00 pm, Resource Room (FREE) René de Guzman and Berin Golonu in conversation with Stretcher co-publisher Meredith Tromble René de Guzman and Berin Golonu, the curators of Bay Area Now 4, will join Stretcher Co-publisher Meredith Tromble for an on-stage conversation about the exhibition and curating as a creative practice. How did they choose the artists? What changes in the cultural climate did they find from previous Bay Area Now exhibitions? What are their influences as curators, and what influence do they hope to exercise with this exhibition?  Stretcher asks the curators what the Bay Area wants to know, now.
		Thursday, August 18, 2005, 6:30-8:00 pm, Resource Room (FREE) Bay Area Not Now - Artist team Dan and Cheryl host a talk show formatted evening in which guest artists address the title topic Bay Area Not Now through their  work. Seeking a critical distance from the pervasive here and now, looking beyond the local, and acting outside or in contrast to the context is the working concept for this evening's program. Special Guests: Karla Milosevich, a San Francisco based video artist. Wayne Smith, a San Francisco-based visual and sound artist. Musical guest: Torsten Kretchzmar, a German electro pop performer. Hosts: Dan Spencer is an artist and Associate Dean of Students at California College of the Arts. Cheryl Meeker is an artist and Stretcher co-publisher.
		Thursday, September 1, 2005, 6:30-8:00 pm, Resource Room (FREE) Dan and Cheryl at Home in the Green Room: The Arcades Project and Empire - presenting Antonia Juhasz and Miryam Sas - Conflating studio, home, and talk show, Dan and Cheryl moderate a discussion about the context in which Bay Area Now is set. The significance of Walter Benjamin's Arcades Project and the global reach and aesthetic influence of commodity and empire will be touchstones for discussion. Special Guests: Antonia Juhasz is Director of the Chevron Program at Global Exchange, and is a policy-analyst, author, activist, and author of The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time, Regan Books, November 1, 2005. Miryam Sas Ph.D Yale University is Associate Professor of Comparative Literature and Film Studies at UC Berkeley, and author of Fault Lines: Cultural Memory and Japanese Surrealism, Stanford University Press, 1999.
		Thursday, September 29, 2005, 6:30-8:00 pm, Screening Room (FREE w/gallery Admission) Okwui Enwezor in conversation with Stretcher co-publisher Meredith Tromble Okwui Enwezor, a Nigerian-born curator and critic best-known for organizing Documenta 11 and his writings on contemporary African art, will become the sixth dean of the San Francisco Art Institute July 1. Stretcher presents an on-stage conversation introducing Enwezor to the Bay Area audience, covering a wide range of topics from curating and teaching to poetry.
		Thursday, October 20, 2005, 6:30-8:00 pm, Resource Room (FREE) Stretcher Writers Speak Out: Connecting the Dots - Panel discussion featuring stretcher contributors Marcia Tanner, Jordan Essoe, and Dale Hoyt, hosted by Stretcher co-publisher, Ed Osborn. Stretcher is made up of a network of artists, writers, and curators who contribute content to the site. Hear the people behind the words speak out, discussing a variety of topics including the problematic nature of survey shows like Bay Area Now, the import of politics on and to the arts, what makes "good" and "bad" writing, the role of the internet in publishing and artmaking, and much more.
		Thursday, November 3, 2005, 6:30-8:00 pm, Yerba Buena Lobby (FREE) Interdisciplinary Dreaming: Art, Writing, and Curating across Disciplines - Dinner salon hosted by Stretcher co-publisher Amy Berk with participants Apollonia Morrill, Kate Pocrass, Ted Purves, Courtney Fink, Anne Walsh, and Jon Winet For the closing Bay Area Now 4 event, please join Stretcher for a lively discussion-filled dinner salon. ALL participants will be served a meal to fuel the provocative conversation on and by artists, writers, and curators who cross disciplines in engaging and oftentimes surprising ways. Salon will be videotaped for a future home on stretcher. Please rsvp to secure your seat at the table.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to everyone involved in the making of Green Room Now:

Lighting, sound - Adolph Gasser Inc.
Camera - Eliza Barrios, Mail Order Brides
Furniture - Steven Cabella, eamescollector.com

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Staff:

Visual Arts:
Rene de Guzman, Visual Arts Curator
Berin Golonu, Associate Visual Arts Curator
Valerie Imus, Exhibitions Manager
Shane Montgomery, Senior Preparator
Wren Coe, Vinyl Installation Preparator
Sasha Eckes, Vinyl Installation Preparator
Tim Simons, Vinyl Installation Preparator

Community Engagement:
Joël Tan, Community Engagement Manager
Cicely Sweed, CE Assistant, Public Programs & Community Outreach

Film/Video:
Kara Herold, Film and Video Technician

Facilities:
Gerry Socco, Facility Manager
Gibson Cuyler, Facilities Technician
Jason Mykra, Facilities Technicians