Posts archive: December 2001

While we’re on the subject, here’s what David Bonetti and Kenneth Baker have to say about the Bay Area’s “Top Ten,” 2001. They get a few things right, but could they have missed Irene Pijoan’s majestic cut paper works at the Bedford Art Center? Or Francesca Pastine’s sparkling abstractions at Rena Bransten Gallery? Or Adaline Kent’s stirring modernist works at 871 Fine Art? The Elmer Bischoff retrospective at the Oakland Museum of California will shape the understanding of this important artist’s work for decades; True Gritat the Mills Museum was a creative recasting of pre-feminist work, but the prize for an eye-opening show goes to the Berkeley Art Museum for the Teresa Hak Kyung Cha retrospective. Yes, Martin Puryear’s work was more fun to look at, and he deserves a spot on the list, but Cha’s work was a real discovery/recovery.

- Meredith Tromble [Monday, December 31st, 2001]

It’s time for “Best Art of 2001” lists. Peter Plagens passes judgment; Doug Harvey’s list, with an LA twist, is linked below. They don’t agree.

- Meredith Tromble [Saturday, December 29th, 2001]

While at a friend’s house for Christmas, I was exposed to that old social satire chestnut MAD Magazine whose January issue features a rather astute satire advertising the “Controversial Artist Instruction School”. It assesses your potential by asking such questions as “Do you frequently doodle, make sketches or finger paint with your own bodily secretions?” and so on. Damien and Traci all sent up proper. Very clever. Required reading for all freshmen art students arriving for the Spring semester.

- Dale Hoyt [Friday, December 28th, 2001]

Art Issues is gone but Doug Harvey writes on. His latest: 12 Art Moments. Too much happening in LA for a 2001 Ten Best list, apparently…

- Meredith Tromble [Friday, December 28th, 2001]

What’s more popular than chocolate, more Californian than the peace sign, and more future-enhancing than a great SAT score? Would you believe public funding for art? A whopping 90% of Californians are for it, according to a rigorous new study.

- Meredith Tromble [Thursday, December 27th, 2001]

from the Saturday sound panel at Bus
a fascinating project using the bell form—
see www.ausbell.com.

- amy berk [Saturday, December 22nd, 2001]

Those still intrigued by the hasty SFMOMA resignation of former director David Ross might find fodder in Dale Eastman’s thorough, if inconclusive, mild-on gossip article in the January 2002 issue of San Francisco magazine. They call it “The David Ross Affair.”

- Glen Helfand [Wednesday, December 19th, 2001]

this weekend.
Friday 21st at 8:30 features living on borrowed sound; no nuff’n;
snawklor; the emergency and soba ($8/$5)
Saturday 22nd 1 - 4:30 pm hear garth paine; ben harper; neil mcLachlan and
julian oliver speak to the problems surrounding sound installation practice (free)
Saturday 22nd 8:30 pm witness dworzec collaborations with chris smith; nicole
thibault; justin fuller; dylan krasevec; ai yamamoto + CD launch: MASH ($8/$5)

bus is an artist run space located at 117 Little Lonsdale St. Melbourne, Australia
for more info: t/f (03) 9662 2442 + bus@c4.com

- amy berk [Wednesday, December 19th, 2001]

Gay sex may gain visibility at the 2002 Burning Man Festival in a backlash against censorship, reports Brian Doherty.

- Meredith Tromble [Tuesday, December 18th, 2001]

Getty Images now owns the world’s largest collection of visual images, according to this report in Newsday.

- Meredith Tromble [Monday, December 17th, 2001]

founder Gary Kornblau tells why he done it and why he’s not doin’ it anymore…

- Meredith Tromble [Monday, December 17th, 2001]

The anticipated need for harder to come by funding has left California with one less art publication. Citing the desire to “be a model of how to bow out gracefully, and leave art to those who love it,” the Los Angeles-based Art Issues journal ceased publication on December 8.

- Glen Helfand [Thursday, December 13th, 2001]

It’s only for themed shopping, gaming and email.

- Ella Delaney [Wednesday, December 12th, 2001]

The artistic responses to the WTC collapse, as seen in “5,000 Trees,” the exhibition of works by Lower Manhattan residents Cheryl Dunn, Jacqueline Humphries, Tony Oursler, and Stephen Powers, at The Luggage Store, tend to be overshadowed by the cascade of media images we’ve all experienced. But Powers’ comprehensive collection of commemorative t-shirts and postcards cranked out for the street vendor tourist trade are truly fascinating, sometimes horrifying artifacts of the attitudes expressed during this singular historical moment.

- Glen Helfand [Monday, December 10th, 2001]

The anxious buzz among non-profit arts organizations is: Where’s the money going to come from in this bleak economy? Stretcher editor, Glen Helfand explores the impact the tech industry bust has had on the equation in his article High and Dry on SF Gate.

- Megan Wilson [Monday, December 10th, 2001]

because it is nothing to do with money and everything to do with love,” quoth the Material Girl before handing the 20,000 pound Turner Prize to minimalist Martin Creed yesterday. Creed graciously agreed that the Turner was “just a stupid prize.”

- Meredith Tromble [Monday, December 10th, 2001]

Could that English artist thought to be Jack the Ripper also answer to the name Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll)? This comes from a theory by Richard Wallace published in his book “Light-hearted Friend,” and excerpted in Harper’s, November, 1996. Wallace bases his assertion on a series of anagrams he’s pulled from Dodgson’s writings and letters received by Scotland Yard from Jack the Ripper. This one is for the annals of people with too much time on their hands.

- Megan Wilson [Saturday, December 8th, 2001]

Murder mystery millionairess Patricia Cornwell claims Jack the Ripper was an English artist and rips up a painting to prove it. And three USA Todaysports reporters are caught writing with their fingers in the “dust” on a Lita Albuquerque sculpture, a large blue sphere. They’re fired, their supportive colleagues don “blue ball” ribbons…

- Meredith Tromble [Saturday, December 8th, 2001]

LA Timescritic Nicholas Ourosoff approves.

- Meredith Tromble [Friday, December 7th, 2001]

should take this article from Nature and wave it under the noses of med school administrators.

- Meredith Tromble [Thursday, December 6th, 2001]

launch party for SFSU prof. Steve Wilson’s new book, Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science and Technology a celebration of the kind of cross fertilization of art with science and technology the author advocates, or a PR campaign aimed at promoting corporate funded art?

- Ella Delaney [Wednesday, December 5th, 2001]

predicts Reena Jana, in this preview of the exhibition.

- Meredith Tromble [Tuesday, December 4th, 2001]

A “smoking gun” document reveals one biotech company’s secret strategy. Jackie Stevens gives the details in PR for the ‘Book of Life’.

- Meredith Tromble [Sunday, December 2nd, 2001]

at the new gallery space Studio Z, 314 11th Street (at Folsom): “The guy who runs this space is a TOTAL asshole.” I guess that explains the $7 charge for a glass of cheap red wine in a plastic cup. The show runs through Wednesday, December 5th (news to the artists in the show—it was supposed to run through December 15).

- Megan Wilson [Sunday, December 2nd, 2001]

From the editors