Southern Exposure’s annual fundraiser and art auction MEGA MEGA MEGA isn’t limited to a single fancy gala (though there is one on Saturday night) but is to include music, creative projects, and live and silent bidding. The roster of participating artists reads like a who’s who: Lisa Congdon (she of A Collection a Day), Libby Black, Todd Hido, Mel Prest, et al. Browsers and collectors alike can see the 160 pieces up for auction through Thursday, and the “famously fun” weekend gathering provides direct support for the organizations public art and education programs.
As the style site Refinery29 launches its San Francisco edition this week, it will play host to a “shop crawl” with drinks and deals at some beloved local boutiques. Gravel & Gold, General Store, and Harputs are on the revolving party list for this evening, and I can’t think of a better night to make the rounds. The site will be expanding to Miami, Washington D.C., and Austin next.
Two Berkeley-based companies are combining efforts on Saturday, April 30, in the name of cleaning up your underthings (and, of course, the Earth). Convert will host an in-store party to celebrate the launch of PACT’s Beyond Coal underwear collection, 10 percent of whose sales go to the Sierra Club’s campaign to leave asthma-inducing coal behind. Kick Ash bikinis and Bright Blue trunks with prints by Yves Behar’s fuseproject–not to mention snacks, drinks and goodwill–await.
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?
The no recording, no replays wonder of Pop-Up Magazine returns this week with a new live event series. Sidebar debuts at SFMOMA and will feature a party and drinks in conjunction with the museum’s exhibit How Wine Became Modern: Design + Wine 1976 to Now. KQED reporter Amy Standen and illustrator Wendy McNaughton will be co-presenting as part of the “smart collection of writers, documentary filmmakers, radio producers, photographers, and artists [who] will present Pop-Up Magazine’s signature mix of original stories and ideas, live on stage, in a 45-minute show about the culture, science, history, politics, and humor of wine.” Drink up.
The San Francisco Film Society will talking educational media and getting films into classrooms on Tuesday, and the speakers could hardly represent a better range of changemakers. They include directors (Marcia Jarmel, “Speaking in Tongues”), community managers (Annelise Wunderlich (ITVS engagement and education), and advocates (Sophie Constantinou, Love Lunch Community). The Film Society’s own work to get local students into theaters and generate media and cultural awareness will be shared, and in that spirit there will also be time for the “Laptop Shop” clip show-and-tell.
With a city of documentary lovers (witness the success of Kabuki and the January flocking to Park City), I’ve got high hopes for the first SF Green Film Fest this week. The festival opens with “BAG IT,” an examination of the life cycle of the 60,000 plastic bags that Americans alone use annually, and will include a screening of Miranda Bailey’s “Greenlit” about filming on environmentally friendly sets. Landmark Theatres at Embarcadero and the Bentley Reserve will host screenings, workshops, and the obligatory parties–here’s hoping for VeeV acai cocktails and sustainable eats.
Kelly Malone (she of great craft fairs in Potrero and the collaboration and creative space Workshop SF) is hosting a second Heavy Metal Aerobics show on Friday at Engine Works on Capp. Why shell out the $10, you ask? If the hair and heavy metal tracks aren’t enough to sway you, maybe weighlifting in the form of Workshop beers will. Think glam rock and awards for for those who dress the part and work hard (you’ll need to sweat off those Jack Daniels cupcakes with HIGHTOWER tunes, after all).
I’ll be taking a break from the regular Wednesday night plan of Humpday Happy Hour (a local get together with friends whose next location you can find by following @humpdayhapyhour; that’s right, one “p” in “happy”–this is an irreverent group, after all) for the International Museum of Women’s celebration of its “Focusing on Latin America” exhibit. It was fun to write about the great collection of images and essays the virtual museum is hosting, and raising a glass in the Audre Lorde Room of the Women’s Building on the 16th seems appropriate. (And free, for all you budgetistas.)
The event is a precursor to March’s Art Live Lounge, a cocktail party to celebrate women artists and social change. Terra Gallery on Harrison will host the fiesta and corresponding benefit dinner later this spring.
