Seattle and Jannausch calls the installation an “invisible gallery.” The small pieces are each presented to the viewer in small vitrines, similar to those seen in museums to protect the work. However, they are attached to stop signs, poles and other sidewalk spots to truly make the streets the artists’ gallery collectively. The concept is in line with the spirit of First Friday in general but without even having to enter a gallery. What’s left are the works themselves, bare for the viewer to see in an open-ended way.

B. Loakal: Between Paint and Light
For Loakal’s newest exhibit, photographer 2wenty and painter Gregory Siff are combining their distinct but city-influenced styles. 2wenty’s light photography “paintings” are the result of waving a light source, such as a glowstick, before a camera with a timed shutter release. But even if the technique behind 2wenty’s magical or Photoshopped-looking work is unveiled, the way he chooses to dance his light across the frame still endears viewers.
Siff’s jagged lines and use of color clearly speak the same language as Basquiat but can entertain a spectrum of audiences from subway riders to highbrow museum-goers. His portfolio consists of quick cartoonish figures with captions like “Trilla” but also includes more abstract, expressionistic paintings.

C. Swarm Gallery: Fictional/Familiar
Cybele Lyle, Leigh Merrill and Emma Spertus fabricate and rearrange images to create familiar scenes in Swarm Gallery’s group show, “Fictional/Familiar,” which opened last week. Billboards and streets stare back at the viewer blankly, making one feel as if they can induce deja vu. The effect is surreal, both from Merrill’s vibrant prints to Lyle’s three-dimensional interactive installation.

The three artists present differing versions of hyper-realities that aren’t always too far from the truth, pointing out how odd our surroundings can be. The title of the show itself demonstrates the paradoxical relationship that fiction and reality have — the two exist in tandem, although at times, they can have opposite meanings.

A.J. Kiyoizumi covers visual art. Contact her at akiyoizumi@dailycal.org. Check her out on twitter at @Ajkazoo.

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Pao’s statement directly reflects the exhibition as a whole. Inspired by the idea that the state of food is always in flux, most works of art on display are made from food products, resulting in the possibility of both visual and corporeal consumption. Lynne-Rachel Altman’s “Phantom Sugar Feet” is one such example. Her ghostly sculptures of feet made from sweeteners look like crumbling Roman relics — haunting and poignant. Though we may see her sculptures as an edible creation, Altman hints that the opposite may be true.

“Each year, Americans consume an average of 152.4 pounds of caloric sweeteners, and about 65,000 people lose a lower limb due to complications … One amputation every eight seconds,” Altman said. Her artwork evokes both the fleeting nature of food and the transitory condition of health.

The tone of the rest of the exhibit is not as solemn. One of the most compelling works is Paolo Salvagione’s “The Olfactory Narrative,” which weaves two separate stories relying on the viewers’ sense of smell. Sterile-looking test tubes with pumps attached to the wall allow for an interactive sensory experience. The first series of tubes tells a silent story of innocence. Scents of popcorn, cotton candy, Cinnamon Red Hots and Juicy Fruit invoke a tale of first love and childhood memories. On the other hand, the second series of tubes deals with the Old World, as gallery-goers are transported to the Age of Discovery with smells of clove and pepper, among other spices.

Continuing with the exploration of multiple senses, “Edible Ephemera” includes a corner in the gallery dedicated to taste and emotion. “Apothecary,” by Claudia Tennyson, includes two shelves stocked with mismatched glass bottles and decanters filled with jewel-toned drinks. These bottles are all labeled with various abstract concepts and feelings like memory, happiness, curiosity and delight. Visitors are encouraged to choose their own three to have mixed, so they are able to taste the intersection of their feelings.

“‘Apothecary’ is loosely based on the pharmacies in parts of Central Europe, where I lived for a couple years,” Tennyson said. “(They) seemed a kind of space held for public healing to take place in the midst of a hectic world.” Her work does indeed reflect this notion of communal therapy. Ordering your choice of liquid emotions is similar to collecting a personalized prescription, and drinking an individualized drink in the company of others is soothing. Tennyson’s isolated corner allows for quiet contemplation of emotions, taste and synesthesia.

Other works include both large-scale paintings of watercolors with crystallized salts and framed portraits of citrus rinds. This association of food and ephemera is not a novel concept, however. Still-life paintings called vanitas, from the 16th and 17th centuries in the Netherlands, often played on the meaninglessness of earthly delights and material objects, such as lavish dining wares and ostentatious displays of extravagant food. Though the artists at Root Division may not have had this inspiration in mind, it is interesting to note that “Edible Ephemera,” like the vanitas paintings, indicates the delicate nature of life.

Using innovative displays to illustrate a traditional theme, the pieces seem to urge viewers to understand that what is eaten for sustenance and nourishment is ephemeral, very much like the consumers themselves.

Contact Addy Bhasin at abhasin@dailycal.org.

The post Eat Your Art Out appeared first on The Daily Californian.

On April 8, the campus department of art practice hosted a lecture by McMillian as a part of the Visiting Artist Lecture Series.

Daily Cal: I noticed that you got your BA in foreign affairs. What made you decide to go to art school after that?

Rodney McMillian: There were a lot of units towards my bachelors to an arts degree, but I love foreign affairs, and I’m still very much interested in the issues and politics around that. Basically, I deferred going to business school for one year to study art.

DC: I feel like a lot of kids now who are studying art feel obligated to double major or have a “backup plan.”

RM: I feel like anything that someone pursues with earnestness, passion and intellectual curiosity is valuable. So I guess my approach in terms of what one pursues … is more about an intellectual curiosity and to dive right in and give 106% of one’s interest.

DC: Do you think that being on faculty at UCLA has changed you as a person and an artist?

RM: I think everything changes us. So yes, it has. I think if we are open, we evolve with positions and the things that we do. In terms of me working at UCLA, I am very committed to being someone who shares my experiences and information with other people, so it has made me very conscientious about how I communicate with people. I read a lot more and am much more interested and engaged about what is going on in younger peoples’ lives. I am learning a lot from them, and I’m hoping that they are learning from me. It’s quite a ‘quid pro quo’ kind of experience — that’s what I find teaching to be, anyway. It’s really quite remarkable what everyone can learn when they are in the space to learn. ]

DC: Jumping into your work, politics and history are very clear in your works, especially a performative aspect. I found that you use speeches a lot, including from Reagan or Lyndon B. Johnson. What makes speech a powerful tool or technique in your art?

RM: (With) the speeches, I am very interested in how we understand and think about history. So much of history is a type of fiction in certain ways. One thing that the speeches can provide is a kind of context of a time period. I’m also interested in the aesthetics of the speeches, because it tends to speak to the culture in terms of what a person thinks a community or a society should hear or wants to hear — and also how they choose to speak to us as citizens. That really fascinates me, as well as the content, of course. The content is also quite cementing. With the “Great Society” speech, I was really moved by how the speech was written but also the content and the issues that were being addressed then — they are still issues that we are grappling with today.

… The Reagan speech again had the same kind of cultural word and … language that shapes those conflicts, (which) were very much present in his Neshoba County speech in Mississippi. A lot of that language was still used in the past election in 2012. I am interested in these speeches to see aspects that we’ve evolved and have learned from certain language, whether it is used to manipulate or used to inspire, also just to point out the policies have shifted, if they have at all. ]

DC: You pull out a lot of details that are forgotten in history. The example I am thinking of is that a lot of people don’t know that Gladys Knight co-wrote with Barbra Streisand “The Way We Were,” (which McMillian performed as part of his Michael Jackson Project in 2003 to 2004). Why focus on the details that are left out?

RM: My interest in the gaps, in terms of what perhaps is not known, comes from my interest in history. History is a top-down business. There are so many people who affect history on a daily basis, but their voices are only cited. Their actions or voices are helping form history that we know but aren’t always present. There are also a lot of perspectives omitted from history.

In terms of Gladys Knight, I thought it was important — that version I knew quite well — and also knew that she was quite instrumental in Michael Jackson’s career. So I thought that link was important, especially with the content of the song.

DC: So in your process, did you come across the song first or pick MIchael Jackson as a subject first? In your process in general, do you tend to pick a medium or technique first that inspires you to make a statement, or do you have a target first?

RM: I usually have a pretty good idea about what I am interested in communicating. From that interest, I do research. I also play around in the studio and things like that, but the work is often generated from an idea.

DC: You use a lot of different media. Is there a new medium or technique that you are looking to use next?

RM: I am working hard to expand my understanding about performance in certain ways and certain skills that can be used for performance. I am also just trying to push myself with whatever it is I am working on or with, in terms of materials, to figure out the most effective way to communicate them.

DC: Could you give an example of some of those performance skills?
RM: Like if someone uses their voice, it’s like, ‘How can I work with my voice as a tool?’ Or if someone uses their body — how do you use your body? If someone works with other performers, how does one become a more effective communicator in terms of what the ideas are and collaborating with them in that way? There are different ways that I am working to learn.

DC: What do you hope that your performances do to viewers?

RM: It really depends on the context or what the idea is. In each performance that I have done, there is a different interest that I am trying to tease out, which require a different skill set, intents and purpose.

With the Michael Jackson Project video, it was really important to have the affect of that song emoted. It required a lot of rehearsal and quite a lot of listening to the song — (to) the cadences of the voice and the timing of it — and really being present throughout that song. That was quite a contrast to something like a political speech, which is really about the effect of delivering a speech in a way that isn’t necessarily a representation of a politician but an embodiment of someone who is passionate about what they are trying to deliver to an audience.

DC: Have any audience reactions to your work surprised you? What has surprised you the most?

RM: I’m always surprised. I don’t have anything that surprises me the most. Maybe ‘surprise’ is not the proper word, but I am always intrigued in how different individuals or groups of people interpret the ideas that I have that are being presented in work.

DC: What is next for you?

RM: Right now I am working on a larger project that’s requiring a lot of research, and I am excited to be in the midst of that.

DC: Can you tell me what the project is about?

RM: I think that is about enough (laughs).

DC: What are your plans for Berkeley?

RM: The setup is that I give a talk Monday evening, and the next day I do about four to five studio visits. I am looking forward to meeting a lot of the students and seeing what they are up to — and any faculty there who I haven’t met before!

I’m just looking forward to being in the area for a skinny minute. I teach Monday and fly out after class, and Tuesday I fly out in the afternoon for a Wednesday morning class.

A.J. Kiyoizumi covers visual art. Contact her at akiyoizumi@dailycal.org. Check her out on twitter at @Ajkazoo.

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The museum boasts the MakeArt Lab room specifically for educational programming, such as the Etsy Meet and Make Program this Thursday, in which one can learn how to make mobile wire underwater creatures such as Arline Fisch’s luminous jellyfish on exhibit in the smaller gallery room. Though many of the programs are for families, the museum will also host monthly 21-and-over Meet-and-Make Nights.
MCD’s location matches its educational goals as well. Creating programming and exhibits that compel kids as well as adults can be tricky, but the MCD did so effortlessly. At the public grand opening, kids as well as adults, many of whom are artists and veteran patrons of the museum, enjoyed the exhibit. Though it took years and effort to find a location after moving from Union Square, the museum’s new spot could build a greater community beyond the more metropolitan and impersonal area where it once was.

The noncollecting museum’s modest size also influences its intimacy. One main gallery, which touted Michael Cooper’s mixed-media vehicles and furniture, takes up almost the entire museum. However, the placement of the large pieces created a zigzag path for viewers, removing the monotony of long gallery halls. A smaller room off to the side held Arline Fisch’s wire sea creatures, and the threshold quietly held Rebecca Hutchinson’s incredibly balanced clay and wooden branches.

The three installation experiences vary, lending much hope to the MCD’s future exhibits as well. Cooper’s polished structures themselves demonstrate a diversity of techniques, media and subjects. His style is unmistakable and demonstrates a level of craft and design beyond that of much contemporary art.

Many of Cooper’s other works are tricycles, racing cars and other vehicles that make up a category of their own, such as “Overarmed Wheelchair.” Three hands act as the supports for the vehicle, gripping the ground with the pads of their fingers as if they were the arms of a sprinter about to start. Laminated wooden swirls surround the central warped body with crossed muscular arms, surrounding bicycle wheels that tilt in harmony with the central figure.

Cooper’s works, however, aren’t just aesthetic wonders. His grandest work in the back of the gallery, “How the West Was Won, How the West Was Lost,” brings together lacquered cowboy boots, oil towers, wooden saddles, mechanical wires and levers, bicycle wheels, toy cars and more on top of the hood of a station wagon to make a statement about greed and violence and materialism. The sculpture was a project of more than 30 years, embodying in one way the title of the show, “A Sculptural Odyssey.”

With Cooper, Fisch and Hutchinson’s art, one truly does find one’s self wondering at how the pieces were made. Contemporary conceptual art (think Tilda Swinton sleeping in a box at the Museum of Modern Art in New York) can often create more buzz, but it is easy to lose sight of the craft skills of an artist. MCD truly demonstrates its dedication to craft and design, offering a mature and awe-inducing experience of what the human hand is capable of. Its move and grand opening illustrate a revival of awareness of craft in high art.

A.J. Kiyoizumi covers visual art. Contact her at akiyoizumi@dailycal.org. Check her out on twitter at @Ajkazoo.

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Suffering from a mental illness can be a terribly isolating experience. Unlike cancer or diabetes, mental illnesses cannot always be objectively measured, and people unfamiliar with mental health problems often have a hard time understanding them. Last Thursday, the ASUC presented “Confessions,” a gallery of anonymously submitted stories from Cal students, intended to increase mental health awareness and understanding on campus.

Some of the submissions simply told of a painful experience — sexual abuse, suicide attempts and disillusionment were common — but quite a few had optimistic things to say. Phrases like, “It gets better,” and “You are not alone,” peppered the pages, though “anxiety” and “depression” were well-represented as well. Flyers with information about mental health and treatment were available throughout the lobby of Wurster Hall.

“In addition to telling the students [that] other people are going through the same thing, we’re trying to provide them resources in case they need help,” said sophomore Eric Liu, who worked on the ASUC-sponsored event. “It’s like, ‘Oh, I’m not alone on this campus.’”

Although the collection was called “Confessions” and seemed to be inspired by “Post Secret,” most of the students who submitted pieces were not “confessing” anything. The vast majority of stories were simply individual experiences designed to let readers know that their problems are not abnormal, and they were extremely successful as a collection. Stories echoed each other, and visitors found that the stories echoed their own feelings and problems.

Rather than matter-of-factly telling students how to spot and treat a mental health problem, the ASUC presented the information in the most powerful way possible: through the voices of students’ peers. Because the stories were anonymous, each seemed like it could have been written by anyone — a stranger, the quiet girl in your history discussion, your lab partner, your best friend — and the stoic, museum-like atmosphere of the lobby reflected the seriousness of that fact.

It was an incredible display of community. No one explicitly told visitors to be quiet, but the visitors carried themselves with implicit reverence. The solemnity pervaded the entire room. No one had to read every single piece to understand the point of the gallery, and that’s what made “Confessions” so powerful.

Liu added that, while a few submissions were obviously “trolling,” most took the project very seriously. The quality of the writing and relevance of the content in each piece was remarkable, and though all the pieces were unique, they worked together brilliantly to create an artistic and meaningful exhibit.

The only failure of “Confessions” was that few people were able to experience it. The event lasted only two hours on April 4, and though the turnout was impressive, many students who could have benefitted from it did not have the opportunity to do so. However, the event’s organizers are hoping to continue their efforts to increase mental health awareness.

“With the ASUC, we’re trying to make it an annual thing,” Liu said. “We’re really interested in putting this event on every year or every semester.”

The event’s potential continuity is important, because mental illness is an ongoing battle that simply cannot be won alone. It’s imperative that students understand that they are not strange or oversensitive or weak but sick, and the first step is to show them that there are others who understand and many who have gotten better. For many, “Confessions” has the potential to be that first step.

Contact Kallie Plagge at kplagge@dailycal.org. Check her out on twitter at @kirbyoshi.

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Each subject, paired with minimal surroundings, seems to envisage their futures or desires as realities, causing the viewer to dream for them as well. In “Soaring High,” an aviator rests below a soaring bird. A similarly titled piece, “Flying High,”depicts a handsome man mid-dive with nothing below him save for a shiny thin strip of graphite at the bottom of the canvas. The mid-century styled characters draw faint similarities to John Baldessari’s figures, but instead of amusing or shocking us, they gently endear viewers with their curiosity and earnestness.

The artist, who was named one of San Francisco’s Top 20 Artists by Asterisk San Francisco Magazine, will be present at the gallery from 3 to 6 p.m.

“Vintage Esoterica”
Those looking for an excellent photography exhibit will find one at PHOTO’s new group show, “Vintage Esoterica,” which features iconic photographers such as Walker Evans and Annie Liebovitz. Masters of the last century’s shots will please both newcomers and those with veteran knowledge of photography.

The show demonstrates the visual power of light, shadow and simple subject matter before the dawn of Photoshop’s effects. Both straight and surreal photography, among other styles, make up the relatively new history of photography, and “Vintage Esoterica” celebrates that diversity and reminds us of the possibilities of photography’s future.

“Gathering Gravity”
Mari Andrews’ works demonstrate the paradox of fragility and power that lies in nature. Though she uses wire in many of the sculptures which she describes as “three-dimensional drawings,” much of her art incorporates the environment with its physical use of pods, leaves and reeds, but also more subtly reflects shapes and textures of wild flora.

At her solo show “Gathering Gravity” opening on Friday at Chandra Cerrito Contemporary Gallery, Andrews’ small works as well as larger installations combine the hardness of metal and nature but point out that the harsh metallic materials originate from the earth as well. In “Collected Topography,” iron pockets speckle the wall filled with different-hued soils. We are able to slow down and appreciate a quiet dynamism that we are so accustomed to ignoring.

“Lucky”
Luck is an unexplained phenomena that we both love and hate. Whether we can possibly change our luck or not is a question that eludes our grasp, but in Dave Meeker’s show “Lucky,” about to close at Mercury 20 Gallery, we see the objects of luck and invisible force made tangible.

Meeker manipulates and adds humor to tokens of luck such as clovers, wishbones, lucky charms and dice. “This is Not a Ladder” features three ladder structures lined up with the title phrase carved out of each step, playing with the concept of a ladder a la Magritte.

Though we can sometimes curse luck in the way it can ruin plans, Meeker shows us that without the surprise of chance, the world would be less hopeful, more predictable and less fun.

A.J. Kiyoizumi covers visual art. Contact her at akiyoizumi@dailycal.org. Check her out on twitter at @Ajkazoo.

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Upon entering the exhibit, one sees a giant taxidermied deer’s head with golden bazookas for horns standing guard over the center of the large room. On one wall, a silhouette of the late artist Jean-Michel Basquiat is filled in and colored with pharmaceutical pills — a kaleidoscope only visible upon closer examination. Another canvas shows what looks like a standard anthropological-looking layout of vases and urns contradicting with their psychedelic colors and patterns.

The group show touts street-art icon Shepard Fairey as its headliner for the layman street-art fan, but his piece, though monumental in size, doesn’t spark the same interest as the more interactive and multimedia work of the other artists.

Russell Young’s multiple five-foot-tall prints of hot-pants-clad Kate Moss posing with a teddy bear compete with the also seductive but more inexplicably creepy print by Sean Murdock of a ballerina with a cartoon rabbit’s head. We see convergences between media, subjects and styles of different artists within the show, but it is truly the variety of the show that makes it outstanding.

All of these pieces both harmonize and repel each other but essentially offer a wide-lens look at the different progressions of street and graffiti culture in contemporary art. Stencils and spray paint are present but not as the groundbreaking media they once were decades ago and usually are not used alone.

Gregory Euclide pays homage to the power of paint in his “Capture” series. He turns a paint can on its side and uses the solidified blue puddle that spills out as a backdrop for nature dioramas, adding miniature  trees, brush, rocks and moss around it. One finds oneself bending down to peer past the pondlike puddle and into the paint can, searching for what else lies in the delicate forests.

These mini-ecosystems made from industrial material sit on a pedestal in front of ROA’s piece, smaller than his usual paintings of wild animals that span multiple stories on buildings. He has taken a large segment of wood painted with a scaly armadillo, and he demonstrates his talent for manipulating space and architecture for visual effects. From a purely frontal view, the armadillo seems content, perhaps a little sleepy. But once one walks to the right, the wood reveals itself not as a solid block but a half-pipe segment on its side. You also discover what’s painted on the curve — a gaping wound in the middle of its torso, oozing intestines and spider-webbed with shredded muscle fibers.

This jarring viewing experience underlies many of the pieces in the show. Even the most mainstream-successful artist of the show, Shepard Fairey, taps into morbidity with his large-scale canvas of a baby-faced child soldier equipped with both a machine gun and a red bow. This piece is titled “The Duality of Humanity.” It would be a generalization to say that street-influenced art is always dark. However, some of of the most successful pieces have never been afraid to question and transform their specific surroundings both physically and psychologically.

One of the pieces by the duo Herakut titled “So You Really Fear Me ‘Cause I’m Different?” also accurately describes the show’s attitude. Flirting with an interest in the sublime has pushed these artists to defy our eyes, question our society and make us squirm. White Walls has already dubbed these artists as the “backbone” of their success in the past 10 years, and looking at both the authority of its anniversary show, as well as the other shows now on display, one can be convinced that the gallery will continue to encourage dynamic artistic progress in the coming decade as well.

A.J. Kiyoizumi covers visual art. Contact her at akiyoizumi@dailycal.org. Check her out on twitter at @Ajkazoo.

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But these assemblages of miniscule cutout vintage ads, holographic and felt stickers of mini pizzas and other food we loved as kids aren’t kitschy or haphazard. In fact, one doesn’t even realize the pieces are mixed media at first.

Aaland poses the piles of objects and flora in spaces without regard for classic perspective. The resulting flatness is awkward, quirky and is what makes her pieces unique. She combines ridiculous details of a brick cell phone in a potted plant, jarring one’s expectations of an interior scene while also reminding us of the hilarity that such a large object would ever be a mobile device.

In “Point of Entry,” a pair of eyeglasses only a little larger than a fingernail clipping rest on a quilted leather chair, but the scene surprises overall because nearby lies a cartoon cat’s face getting squished by a trashcan.

Another piece, “A Way In,” involves the image of a landfill of Roman warriors mixed with Life cereal boxes, retro televisions and Nike cleats, topped off with the cheerful mixture of flowers, which seems to be Aaland’s signature touch. These images aren’t nostalgic subject matter like the glorified ’90s Nickelodeon shows that we get from Buzzfeed daily, but are the toys from Grandpa’s house that weren’t the best but still held value.

Aaland writes on her website to describe another one of her series, “Sometimes the person you need the most to talk with is yourself.” The reflection and nostalgia experienced when sifting through the details in each of her canvases are gentle and cute, reminding us of childhood’s inexplicable phases such as obsessions with smiley faces and desperation to win a blue ribbon. Most importantly, we are reminded of the imagination paired with the era of those objects.

Aaland describes these as “accumulations,” which is literal in one sense but in another sense explores what we accumulate due to our physical location, sexuality, gender, religion and ability. “A portion of what we accumulate is tangible, but most of it is not,” she writes on her website. What we choose to do with what we compile in our lives matters, and Aaland’s new material demonstrates a coupling of mild regret with optimism about recovering what we have decided to reject, forget and mark unimportant in our past.

The title of the show talks to these objects of our history as if they knew we had forgotten them but would return to them eventually. Now we remember these images and feel ashamed to have forgotten them in the first place. All we can express is our unexpected gratitude that they stayed the same despite our selective and fading memory.

Perhaps we are glad for these objects’ unchanging facades, which contradict the instability in our lives. So again the unusual title comes to mind: “Thank you for your waiting.” It’s a cluttered phrase that doesn’t make sense grammatically, at first. But this space that we live in doesn’t make sense all of the time either. The question of how and why we surround ourselves with things is one that Aaland politely, but cleverly, points out to us.

Many of her pieces seem to be the imagined dream interior design of a sticker collector and often include chairs. These chairs seem to ask for someone to fill them and be still for just a moment. We can finally look at what we may have missed and what we have forgotten a bit too easily and a bit too hastily.

When: Through April 21
Where: Swarm Gallery in Oakland

A.J. Kiyoizumi covers visual art. Contact her at akiyoizumi@dailycal.org. Check her out on twitter at @Ajkazoo.

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The current year’s subscription includes objects by David Shrigley, Tauba Auerbach, author Ben Marcus, and ending with the iconic John Baldessari.

The Daily Californian: Why is The Thing so closely linked with text and/or word?
The Thing Quarterly: We started The Thing because we wanted to publish a magazine. Through an organic process, it became an object, not a magazine. One thing that we connected on when starting this project was the idea that writing on objects changes objects. We also wanted to find a way to imbue everyday objects with a sort of specialness.

DC: Was there a single event that inspired you to create The Thing Quarterly?
TQ: No, there were a lot of events. We were influenced by the history of artist publishing.
We wanted to publish something here in the Bay Area where Art Forum and Rolling Stone started, but we wanted it to stay here and have something of the Bay Area in each issue. We also were inspired by McSweeney’s, and their junk mail issue: Issue 17. We liked how it was unwieldy once it was open. The reader had to figure out a way to contend with it. We wanted to make it affordable.

DC: Do you have a personal past favorite object?
Will: “The Hodges Meteorite.”
John: “The Rock My Daughter Gave Me.”

DC: What kind of reactions do you get from subscribers?
TQ: People are in general very supportive and appreciative – sometimes excited beyond words.

DC: The objects you curate are interactive and useful. Do you think that all art should be functional?
TQ: We think all art is functional. We just want people to be able to live closer to art, for it to be in people’s everyday lives.

DC: What piece are you most excited for in the future?
TQ: The next year is for sure the most exciting issue cycle yet for us. The next issue by David Shrigley is going to be so great that we cannot stand it.

DC: Do you have a dream artist/musician/filmmaker/writer, dead or alive, that you would want to create for The Thing?
TQ: Stephen Malkmus or Samuel Beckett. ([Beckett] would be hilarious … and serious … also dead). George Perec (same problem as Beckett in terms of being dead).

A.J. Kiyoizumi covers visual art. Contact her at akiyoizumi@dailycal.org.

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It is in honor of both the man and his photographs that the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art has recently debuted an extensive Winogrand comprehensive retrospective guest-curated by Rubinfien on the life of the famous artist. What sets apart this show from all others, however, is the inclusion of more than 100 never-before-printed photos by Winogrand.

The exhibit catalogues several different periods in Winogrand’s career. Starting with the advertising work he did on the East Coast, it later moves on to his Guggenheim Grant-funded personal collections across the Midwest and in California. The show is divided into three sections. In one room you’re in 1950’s New York at a Nixon Campaign Rally or perhaps spending a late night at the Stork Club. In another room thematically titled “A Student of America,” you’re jumping from beaches to hotel swimming pools, at strip clubs and cattle auctions, touring the everyday avenues of Littleton, Colo. and Dallas, Texas. And finally, you’re in the third room, “Boom and Bust,” witnessing the final days of an artist whose inspiration was intimately tied in with the idealism of America. When the national optimism waned, so did he.

The organization of Winogrand’s prints on the walls may at first seem haphazard, but after a while, the prints present a larger thematic portrait of the photographer. Through several surprising contrasts and juxtapositions from one frame to the next, you get a sense of Winogrand’s ever-roving eye and diversity of material. During his prolific period in the 1960s, it was well established that he was in pursuit of capturing what was newly referred to as the “American Dream.”

Not too far into the exhibit, certain trends in Winogrand’s subjects begin to emerge. One thing captured his attention like no other: people in motion. Whether it’s the citizens of New York clambering to gaze into storefront windows or the slow trajectory of a solitary sailor walking down misty night streets, there is a wandering desire in Winogrand’s subjects. It is insatiable, incalculable and represents a deeply held longing for change. This transformation would come soon as the black-tie glamour of the 1950s, which gradually dissolved into the free love and civil rights struggles of the 60s.

Winogrand depicts the creatures of America as they almost leap out of their frames on the wall, burning to tell the stories behind the gleam in their eyes. As a further testament to Winogrand’s skill, his later prints seem like elegantly composed paintings, favoring the individual. Where a painter uses a brush, Winogrand uses the lights, colors and people of the world around him. There is no doubt that while in his later years he may have been less prolific, his art was still evolving.

The exhibit is not one to pass up and must be caught before it moves to its next location. His photos capture the kinetics of emotion that normally happens too quickly for the eye. Winogrand quietly freezes them for you and shows you the moments that compose a life. Whether he succeeded in finding the “American Dream” in a post-war era fueled by social revolution may never be clear. What is left behind is the evidence of a life lived through the lens of a camera.

Contact Ryan Koehn at rkoehn@dailycal.org.

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