Forget G.I. Joe: Yue Minjun’s battalion of smiling men at the Berkeley Art Museum are action figure-ready. (All photos by Gay Swan.)
I had visions of China as I strolled through Mahjong, the exhibit of contemporary Chinese art currently on display at the Berkeley Art Museum. Maybe even visions of Chinatown, of commodities bought and sold. Personally I was relieved. I did my time with Chinese art chaperoned by my parents. The natural shanshui landscapes and watercolors were a yawner. The historical and spiritual implications were so vast, I just couldn’t get into it. But here at Mahjong was a consumer vocabulary I could understand. There were fun clothes and bright constructivist posters and plastic tchotchkes, all sensationally over-obvious in their message. I wanted to buy, buy, buy!
Then I began to get bored. And a little panicky. That spiky-haired, black-shirted Chinese museum security guard who busted me taking pictures didn’t help matters. I suspected Triad ties. So I escaped to the Urban Outfitters next door for some retail therapy. As I chilled out on the Anywhere Sofa ($325), under a speaker blaring rap as if it were nationalist slogans, I realized that the wares that surrounded me were all made in China. I had left the Mahjong exhibit, only to find myself in its American mirror image. Heck, the museum and Urban Outfitters even sport the same warehouse chic. And all I could think was, ’Wow, these faux vintage tees and graphic bedspreads would look great with Chanel No. 5 by Wang Guanyi or Mao/Marilyn by Yu Yuhan printed on them.’
The show is up until Jan. 4th, 2009.
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Continue reading ‘Photos: Mahjong at the Berkeley Art Museum.’
Having Fong at Ratio 3. Baby not included. (All photos by Gay Swan.)
Barry McGee serves up his signature urban flavors, topped with a few new sprinkles in a surprise show at Ratio 3 in San Francisco. (Bring your own funky glasses to view the infinitely precise 3-D hand drawings in more than one dimension.) The rest is classic McGee…or “Lydia Fong,” as his current alias goes. Color exercises crawl aggressively up three walls like deboned Rubik’s cubes. Contrast that with the sad faces, a gaggle of meticulously rendered masks, hair monsters, and framed napkin doodles. In between the human and the abstract, other urban detritus bubbles up: surfboards, cardboard, a decomposing orange with fruit fly, a baby in bubblegum pink. Oh wait, the baby’s mine.
But what’s outside the Ratio 3 Gallery is just as cool as what’s inside. It’s a one-way alley in McGee’s own Mission Street neighborhood. Next door a woman rescues half-wolf dogs that shelters won’t take. Down a ways, murals and motorcycles take up the sidewalk. All around, there’s weed smoke and freeway noise, Chinese dollar stores and taquerias amid super-eco-chic shops. Welcome to Barry’s world.
The show runs through October 18th.
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Continue reading ‘Photos: Lydia Fong (a.k.a. Barry McGee) at Ratio 3 in S.F.’
Reeds, by Dale Chihuly. (Photos by C-M.)
Last week, Kenneth Baker at the San Francisco Chronicle gave the Dale Chihuly exhibit at S.F.’s De Young Museum a serious inverted atomic drop. I figured that if the show was truly that bad, then I definitely had to check it out.
It was, indeed, a saccharine-fest. But it’s so over the-top that it’s worthwhile if you happen to be in possession of some Grade A Cali medicinal. There is so much color and so much light and it’s so relentless that you leave the exhibit feeling as if you just spent a binge weekend in Vegas: your brain is slightly numb and you can’t quite remember what happened, but you’re certain you had a very good time.
Chihuly is up through September 28th.
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Continue reading ‘Photos: Dale Chihuly at the De Young in S.F.’
It gets even better once you go in. (Photos by C-M.)
Oh. My. God. Where do I start? I have seen some crazy museum stores, but this one is in a category of its own. S.F. MoMA has a temporary gift shop for their Frida Kahlo retrospective that has all the charm of an airport curio stand. Down to the ceramic tile coasters and Frida aprons. It was an orgy of folklore, set amid lots of brightly-painted everything. Seriously, the only thing this place needed to become a full-on Mexi-Disney was to have the cashiers wearing huipiles and braids. And why no mariachis? Or a taco bar? After standing in line to see the show, I sure coulda used a snack.
The show is up through September 28th.
Step inside, after the jump. Click on images to supersize.
Continue reading ‘See Frida. Buy Frida. Be Frida.: S.F. MoMA’s Kahlo gift store.’
