Ana Teresa Fernández: The artist behind the sculptures (and the stilettos)
For her, the most rewarding moments are when spectators of her art come to her with a simple reaction, a show of empathy: “I get it.”
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Category Archives: Visual Art
BAMPFA’s Hans Hofmann exhibition is culmination of its celebrated benefactor
“Hans Hofmann: The Nature of Abstraction” offers a fresh perspective on one of the great American abstractionists. Placed in such extensive, near chronological order, “The Nature of Abstraction” fashions Hoffman as benefactor, teacher and radical.
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Beauty in pain: How art therapy works in rehabilitation
In the context of rehabilitation, art therapy is a tool for clients who are not entirely ready or completely able to articulate their emotions. It offers them a palette and a platform to represent their thoughts without having to string together words and without fear of saying the wrong thing.
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Asian Art Museum’s eye-opening ‘Kimono Refashioned’ is a comprehensive study of cultural influences
“Kimono Refashioned” takes fashion enthusiasts and art lovers alike on an immersive tour of the evolution of the kimono and its influences on Western fashion. This exhibition highlights the cross-pollination of artistic values and the mechanics behind fashion between countries all over the world.
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Walt Disney Family Museum’s ‘Fresh Starts’ uncovers the artist as human
In “Fresh Starts,” an arts exhibition at Richmond’s Nurturing Independence Through Artistic Development, or NIAD Art Center, anybody who creates art is an artist — including incarcerated young men.
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Thomas Schiff’s ‘The Poetics of Distortion’ both achieves its goal, falls flat in exhibition
Cincinnati-based photographer Thomas R. Schiff has dedicated an exhibition to this exact medium and its implications: showing the wide angle, distortion or not. In his “The Poetics of Distortion,” Schiff strives to show the bigger picture while at the same time narrowing in on the details.
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At OMCA, ‘Black Power’ reminds community of Oakland’s history of activism, prejudice
The collection showcases the complex ways Oakland — as both the birthplace of the Black Panthers and the site of an incredibly active network of Ku Klux Klan members — is situated within Black Power.
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At Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Masako Miki’s MATRIX 273 gets playful with perspective
Miki draws inspiration from Japanese folklore, and her mixed media pieces are also known for reflecting Shinto beliefs. Miki is not afraid to be experimental, and her art successfully pushes past the boundaries and limitations of a static frame.
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Mercury 20 Gallery’s ‘Self-Portraits in the Age of Selfies’ expands the scope of self-portraiture
In its latest exhibit, “Self-Portraits in the Age of Selfies,” Oakland’s Mercury 20 Gallery seeks to complicate the definition of a selfie. The exhibit is not a critique of the practice by any means but rather an expansion of what a selfie can be — beyond both the cell phone screen and traditional forms of self-portraiture.
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Arthur Jafa exhibits whiteness at BAMPFA
'What white people saturated with Blackness look like'
Situated in BAMPFA’s Matrix 272 room, filmmaker Arthur Jafa’s latest exhibition, “The White Album,” turns his lens to whiteness. Following acclaim for his seven-and-a-half minute video “Love is The Message, The Message is Death” (2016), Jafa has taken Black aesthetics to task on white identity. “The White Album,” commissioned for
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