Owen Smith

Building the Iron Horse

On May 27, the Golden Gate Bridge turns 75. If you were one of the 300,000 who walked across the bridge when it turned 50, you remember the unsettling sway, and the later reports that the convex profile of the bridge had been flattened by our collective weight. And you remember that it didn't matter. Euphoria was high. Dianne Feinstein (who was mayor at the time) tossed the $800 Fedora of Willie Brown (who was speaker of the Assembly) into the sea like a Frisbee. Half a million people pushed together on the waterfront to see the bridge turned into a golden waterfall; even with advances in pyrotechnics, few fireworks displays have been as lovely. Why? Because the bridge is gorgeous.

That's the only reason an art exhibit titled "Artistic Visions of the Golden Gate Bridge" could be anything but cheesy crafts-fair death. That is the title of the exhibit at George Krevsky Gallery -- the show opened just this week and is one of 75 tributes to the bridge -- and it's in good hands. (Remember this is the same gallery that brought us "The Art of Baseball," which was far more than just a rah-rah for the hometown nine.)

More >>

Sylvia Sleigh

The man's exposed ankle in Lawrence and Susanna Delagado in an interior (1968) is more significant than it looks.

Cultural institutions in San Francisco continually search for new acquisitions. Alexis Coe brings you the most important, often wondrous, sometimes bizarre, and occasionally downright vexing finds each week.

In one painting, a nude man poses as a reclining odalisque, a female slave in an Ottoman seraglio. In another, a man's bare back meets the viewer as he directs his attention to five male companions. Sylvia Sleigh (1916-2010) had no problem challenging art history in her paintings, exposing traditional themes as stereotypical at best, and degrading at worst. Women had too often been "painted as objects of desire in humiliating poses," Sleigh once said. "I don't mind the 'desire' part, it's the 'object' part that's not very nice."

Sleigh's subjects were no gods of antiquity favored in Renaissance art, but rather their human counterparts, resplendent with body hair and contemporary apparel. By inserting the male figure into the traditional female role in the 1970s, Sleigh criticized traditional gender roles.

Many of Sleigh's works, however, sought to equalize the genders on canvas. One such example, Lawrence and Susanna Delagado in an interior (1968) was exhibited in November at the SOMArts Gallery, to be placed at a Bay Area cultural institution upon the show's conclusion. Sleigh's estate tasked the Women's Caucus for Art with placing the oil painting, and group president Janice Nesser-Chu contacted Dr. Stephanie Hanor, the director of the Mills College Art Museum.

More >>

"Moonlight Topaz"

Between 1942 and 1945, 11,200 Japanese-Americans were sent to Topaz Camp. It was located in a parched stretch of desert about 125 miles southwest of Salt Lake City. Most of the prisoners were from San Francisco. Some were forced to live in horse stalls at Tanforan Race Track before being shipped there. Two-thirds were U.S. citizens. None had been charged with a crime. Kids lucky enough to turn 17 while at Topaz were administered a two-question loyalty test, which could win them "freedom" through the draft; resistors came to be known as the "No-No Boys" and were immediately shipped to another camp.

Amazingly, in the midst of this madness, an art school was born. Boasting 600 students, the school offered classes in watercolor, architectural drafting, oil painting, and anatomy, taught by 17 reputable instructors. One was professor Chiura Obata, who found his own UC Berkeley students similarly interned. Because writing and photography were forbidden, these images became the only record of camp life, and its primary pastime.

More >>

Trina Robbins returns to San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum this week to discuss another comic book heroine -- not a fictional character, mind you, but a woman who was crucial in comics in the early 20th century. Robbins' previous book is on Tarpé Mills and her comic Miss Fury. Her new volume is a graphic novel about Lily Renée.

Born to a wealthy Jewish family in Vienna, Renée had her first work displayed in a gallery at age 6. Following up on this success, her mother submitted a photograph by the gifted child to a contest where the first prize was a showbiz contract, which her father forbade her from accepting. In 1938, at age 13, Renée's life took a dramatic turn: Austria was annexed by Germany, and her family sent her to England to live with a pen pal to escape the persecution.

More >>

Remedios Varo

Useless Science or the Alchemist

A woman sits in shadows, wrapped in a great checkered cowl. Behind her, golden light pours from a contraption of cogs, bells, tubes, and funnels that reach into the clouds. The conduits draw rainwater into small elixir bottles. It's Useless Science or the Alchemist, a painting by Remedios Varo. "Indelible Fables," the first exhibition of her work held in the Western U.S., is at Frey Norris Contemporary & Modern.

Her fanciful allegories -- rivers that flow out of wineglasses, troubadours who play music on strands of women's hair, men's coats that become boats -- are frequently inured by themes of isolation and confinement. Not surprising, given that the Spanish anarchist fled Europe before the start of World War II. Though it was not Varo's intention, Mexico City became her lifelong home. And while her strongest artistic influence remained her tutelage by French surrealists such as Andre Breton, it was in Mexico where she delved into studies of alchemy and sacred geometry, which set her work apart. At the time of her sudden death at age 54, Varo was tremendously popular within the exile community, but despite her inventive and inspired body of work, she is strangely absent from art histories.

"Indelible Fables" continues through Feb. 25 at Frey Norris Contemporary & Modern, 161 Jessie (New Montgomery), S.F. Admission is free.

Click through to see more of her work.

More >>

On the left is Val Britton's Burst Apart, and on the right is Tucker Nichols' Untitled (mp1111).

Thanks to advances in technology (hello Google), the definition of "map" has evolved oh so radically in the past decade. Not surprisingly, visual artists are utilizing these high-tech tools to reconfigure cartography. The result -- at least in this exhibit, "Here Be Dragons: Mapping Information and Imagination" at Intersection for the Arts -- is almost orgasmically delightful.

Exhibit A: The Magic Story Table by JD Beltran and Scott Minneman, who purpose an interactive globe with audio stories from everyday people. Spin the table, zero in from space to the edges of a neighborhood, and listen in as men and women spin yarns about money, school and other central issues. There's nothing quite like it.

More >>

Yoshi Sodeoka

Evil Erector

"It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine." We like that line from REM, but we understand it more now after seeing this exhibit. It's called "Remains in the End Times," and it might sound pretty dark - as in, the remains of living things and objects. But "remains" can also be a verb, as in "[The Human Race] Remains in the End Times." And that's closer to what organizers of this group show at the Popular Workshop had in mind. They theorize that the end of the world is not impending, as many people insist, but rather that "society is already immersed in this so-called doomsday" - that we've slowly adapted to accept (and even embrace) things such as smog-ridden skies and omnipresent white noise from always-on televisions, computers, and smartphones. This vision is expressed through video, audio, sculpture, and prints.

More >>

Camille Pissarro

Apple Harvest

"Pissarro's People" at the Legion of Honor contains nearly 100 works of art, paintings as well as works on paper. These show the artist's family and friends, farmers markets in the French countryside, and workers in the fields. The show concentrates on figures rather than the landscapes that Impressionists are known for. Camille Pissarro, who considered himself an anarchist, shows workers' individuality. Local curator of the show James Ganz talks about how Pissarro would have been right at home in San Francisco, how the painter's images of bankers resonate now, and how Pissarro saw himself as a rural worker.

More >>

Todd Berman, et al.

At Sunday Streets in the Mission, a participant shows off her self-portrait for Todd Berman's painting.

Mission Pie is our favorite kind of local business. Not only is its walnut pie (with a dollop of fresh whipped cream on top, natch) among the world's perfect desserts, but since day one the shop has been devoted to sustainability and supporting regional food producers. Patrons gather around communal tables to discuss community issues, or sit by a window and watch the Mission on a Saturday afternoon. A San Francisco without Mission Pie just wouldn't be as cool a city, and we might even go so far as to say the shop is full of awesome. Appropriate, then, that Mission Pie presents the new exhibition by local artist Todd Berman: "City of Awesome." Its opening reception is Thursday.

More >>

On a recent Saturday, art enthusiasts went to SOMArts looking to expand their collection and left with a little bit of good karma. Visual Aid auctioned off walls full of works from local artists, including paintings, photographs, and even pillows. It was all part of Big Deal, the nonprofit's 18th annual charity art auction benefiting artists living with AIDS and other life-threatening illnesses. Each year, Big Deal consists of a silent auction, a live auction, and a numerical system where interested buyers wait their turn to choose one of the various pieces all at a fixed price of $165. We snuck in to Big Deal this year and got a glimpse at all the great work on display. Here are some of our favorites (for more photos of the event, check out my personal blog).

More >>