Today the web-based International Museum of Women launchesMAMA: Motherhood Around the Globe, an online exhibition that I could hardly be more excited about. It will combine art, video documentary, and storytelling to explore the aspirations of a dynamic set of women (including but not limited to working mothers in China, the First Ladies of Africa, and surrogate mothers in India). Other topics including work, identity, advocacy, and modern fatherhood will be spotlighted throughout this year.
Novelist Aminatta Forna said it well when she explained that “to me there is no more pressing concern today than maternal health, and the global failure to save women’s lives is a human rights disaster. The IMOW’s timely exhibition highlights both the wonders and the terrible tragedy which motherhood can be.”
Christy Turlington Burns’ organization Every Mother Counts is partnering on the exhibit, but the body of community work is by no means intended only for new mothers. Instead, it’s created to be a resource for anyone who cares about mothers and children, who’s concerned about the health and leadership of women globally, who has a child, or who has been a child.
After collaborating recently with a few CS grad students who are focused on music visualization software, I was excited to come home from the Gray Area Foundation for the Arts’ benefit to play around with a tool the organization shared, Seaquence. The “experiment in musical composition” reminds me of projects that use knitted sea life-themed sculpture to demonstrate the physical world, this time through sound. Synthesized personal orchestras are easily shared, and the visuals are a lot of fun to try. Go GAFFTA.
I’m a little nostalgic about SF lately. Between moving to Palo Alto, buying a (lil red!) car, and leaving the local Humpday Happy Hour crew, there’s a lot to reflect on. Revisiting friend and artist @wendymac’s work helps. And I’m glad that Danielle, creator of The Jealous Curator, let me feature some of it as part of her summer series. That one reader said she spent a joy-filled day visiting Wendy’s website is no surprise.
I am jealous of Wendy MacNaughton, and not just because she uses pen and color so well, but because she is more incredibly perceptive. Her phrasing and observations about people–and our own psyches–makes her work feel familiar and positively pleasurable. What began as a daily routine of sketching fellow commuters in the Bay Area has launched into a more-than-full-time career of commissions, installations and other lovely “things” (as you’ll see if you carve out time to explore the work on her site; having been there more times than you might think possible, I promise that your time clicking will be worthwhile). San Francisco has been the lucky benefactor of illustrations about local outdoor swimmers, library goers, winemakers, cartographers, and other groups that inspire MacNaughton, and I’m hopeful for many more.
At this week’s ODC conference Women Who Frame the World: A Symposium on Creativity, I was deeply struck by the work of sculptor and creator Beverly Pepper. It takes a lot to stand out in a group of presenting artists that included novelist Carol Gilligan, sound artist Kui Dong, and documentarian Eleanor Coppola (even a sampling of the total group reads like a coffee table book about major creative contributors, no?).
Pepper’s talk–Monumentality, A Life in Art–at the B’Way Theater focused on her “amphisculpture.” It includes very large scale sculptures with watercolors (“Sol y Ombra,” Spain, top right), cast iron, stones (the Italian “Omphalon,” top left), and steel. She’s as humble–”when I think about bodies in conjunction with my work, it’s mostly how I can’t get hit by it during the construction”–as she is visionary.
How does she know when one of her large scale pieces is complete? “When you step away from it and the only reaction is ooooohhh.” The same went for her dialogue with local lady artists.
After the de Young Museum presented Vivienne Westwood’s fantastical work, I was gun shy about seeing another area haute couture show. How could it measure up? Who else could create to that scale? Those shapes?
Thanks to a friend who’s new to the Bay Area, I got back on the high fashion train this week to find that the presentation of Cristóbal Balenciaga’s styles isn’t better–it’s just different. More items–from tunics to gowns and bolero jackets–are presented this time around, and you’ll want to give yourself a while to study the folds and fabrics. The show’s themes were curated by Vogue’s European editor at large Hamish Bowles and include Spanish Art, Regional Dress, the Spanish Court, Religious Life and Ceremony, the Bullfight, and Dance. It was the first time since seeing Ms. V’s work that I went into a museum wishing I could walk out with a bag of goods off the mannequins–Balenciaga’s geometry and craftsmanship are that good.
What do you get when you combine the creative firepower of a sound designer/architect and a robotics professor? A lot of questions.
A collaboration between the Contemporary Jewish Museum, Gil Gershoni and Ken Goldberg, the new Are We There Yet? takes an audio approach to understanding the nature of inquisition. Visitors–including those shown in photographer Molly DeCoudreaux’s images from a Thursday exhibition event–are introduced to a sound installation that provides unique experiences based on their movements. Consider it intelligent cameras + acoustics + algorithms + religious and cultural questioning = custom interactions x exhibit interaction.
You have until the end of July to see it, but why wait?
Area creative type Jessica Moe and artist David Molesky seem like a dream curatorial duo, and I have high hopes for their collaboration at Contraband Coffee tonight. It will close “City Light,” a show that shares the tricks that local light plays on architecture, landscapes and fog. Molesky worked in Iceland and Norway–two places known for their ecological mystery–before returning to the Bay, and it’s better for having him.
This time last year, Cabinet Magazine developed the concept of bunk bed conversations to publicly explore private topics. Its first SF event this Thursday, “The Dream of Reason,” will feature writers D. Graham Burnett and Jeff Dolven–pyjama’d, of course–discussing sleep, knowledge, and art. The evening will coincide with the Exploratorium’s and National Science Foundation’s interdisciplinary Art as a Way of Knowing conference this week. Consider it intellectual theater, nightcaps and all.
This weekend the San Francisco Ballet opened Giselle, and I’m glad they brought it back to the stage after its local premiere in ’99. While the villager costumes in the first act felt overdone, they made the bride spirits in their white veils that much more striking at the start of the second act. Principal dancer Yuan Yuan Tan is fantastically dynamic to watch as the doomed protagonist, and you can see why she’s been the lead in Swan Lake, Romeo & Juliet, and The Sleeping Beauty among other area performances. You only have until Valentine’s Day to see her in action.
