JEWISH MUSEUM - FECAL FACE DOT - QUEENS NAILS - 1AM SF

CASKEY LEES TRIBAL ARTS - HEARTS OF SF

02.11.10

(with assistance from DeWitt Cheng, RWM and Pilar Vree)

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Contemporary Jewish Museum of San Francisco: Our Struggle - Responding to Mein Kampf.

Review and images by DeWitt Cheng: A la place d'un livre, faire une autre livre, recouvrir les pages... In the place of one book, create another book, cover up its pages...

Hitler's notorious Mein Kampf (My Struggle) and its shameful legacy need no introduction, but though few of us have ever actually read it, it is still important, unfortunately, even now. Anti-semitism is no more an issue of merely historical interest than are racism and religious intolerance. Our Struggle - Responding to Mein Kampf, presents an alternative book made by six hundred people of all nationalities, religions and walks of life who were willingly recruited for the project by Linda Ellia, a French Jewish painter and photographer. She experienced such horror in 2005 when her teenaged daughter showed her a French translation of the book ("She gives it to me as if it was a bomb about to explode.") that she spent the next two years organizing this international page-by-page Artistic Resistance. Ellia-- "I stopped perfect strangers. I would go into a café, and based solely on intuition, I would approach people that I thought could create an emotional, artistic page."

The results are now on display, beautifully but starkly arrayed so that each page, whether painted, drawn, collaged, wrapped, tarred, or burned, blazes forth as testimony and lamentation. While the results are artistically uneven (with non-artists and professionals alike contributing), the cumulative effect is powerful esthetic niceties rendered irrelevant in the larger historical and human context. The French lawyer and politician Simone Veil (not to be confused with philosopher Simone Weil), an Auschwitz survivor, writes in the Notre Combat catalogue (Seuil Editions) that Ellia has transformed the book into "a memory vector. ...This past is too burdensome to be silenced and whether we want it or not, the Holocaust is our common heritage and we must confront it. Linda Ellia's work... summons us to never forget what was." For Ellia, the project proves that "Art conceived of as an inclusive act can be a powerful and emotional response to collective trauma."

Along with the artwork are a video documenting the project and a slideshow depicting its various participants (who are named in the catalogue, though their artwork is anonymously presented, in general, in the exhibit).

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Fecal Face dot Gallery: Alex - Topher Chin.

Review by Pilar Vree: Despite the fact that there are only five pieces in this show, Los Angeles artist Tofer Chin's paintings pack a punch, their vibrant colors and kinetic lines rocking the gallery walls at Fecal Face. The stark compositions are modernist digestions of yellows, greens and blues-- spot on ultra-linear interpretations of a binary city.

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Queens Nails Projects: Artemio - Narco Mantras; Frankie Martin - Through the Vortex.

Comment by AB: I'm here a bit early, so can't check out Frankie Martin's video portion of the event, but up front are Artemio's wicked weapon mandalas-- frightening commentaries on the unbridled violence of the drug trade. Intense and worth a perusal.

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1:AM Gallery: The City.

Artists: Oliver Fader, Jon Fischer, David Fullarton, Mark Ellinger, Amos Goldbaum, Zachary Kirshner, Will Manville, Richard Nyhagen, Hilary Williams.

Review by RWM: Multicultural ideas explode in the urban jungle and deserted wastelands. There are images of the denizens who reside here, executed in a variety of techniques and styles. All manner of mediums explore the zeitgeist, which is frequently compromised in the urban blight. The deprived inhabitants and the poor town are also examined in decaying structures and spiritual wastelands out of the earshot of the music. The past has been forgotten, hidden beneath the decay of a city which knows its pain and has forgotten the possibilities of it's future.

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Caskey Lees Presents at Fort Mason, Festival Pavilion: The San Francisco Tribal & Textile Arts Show.

Comment by AB: This is without question one of my favorite art events of the year-- a world class show representing the finest in art, artifacts, antiques and antiquities of indigenous cultures. Over eighty top international dealers, from Italy, Belgium, Germany, Australia, Great Britain, and the good old US of A converge here in San Francisco for a weekend of showing, selling and wowing the populace. I love this show; the artworks are so exotic-- an enchantingly entertaining ethnographic exploration and education education. Exceptionally recommended.

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A Tent on Union Square: Hearts After Dark - Benefiting the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation.

Artists: Adrian Card, Michal Gavish, John Kraft, Keiko Nelson, Manisha Patel, Nancy Torres, Laurel True, Alfred J. White, John Haines, Sofia Harrison, Saul Levy, Jane Lidz, Tomas Nakada and Anne Verlandi, Reed Slater.

Comment by AB: Hearts of San Francisco centerpiece this high-test fundraiser in a "tent" smack dab in the center of Union Square. The recipient is SF General Hospital and Trauma Center-- an eminently worthy cause.

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