A Wondrous Exhibition in Balboa Park

 By Lonnie Burstein Hewitt. Photos by Maurice Hewitt.

 

A stunning wool and silk carpet by Faig Ahmed, an internationally renowned contemporary artist in Azerbaijan who combines his own distinctive stylings with traditional weaving techniques.

 Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World is  truly a wondrous exhibition based on a text by a 13th-century Islamic author-- Zakariyya ibn Muhammad al-Qazwini--who survived two Mongol invasions and yet invited his readers to contemplate the world’s wonders.

Organized by Ladan Akbarnia, Curator of South Asian and Islamic Art at SDMA, Wonders of Creation is part of the Getty Foundation’s PST Art initiative which this year has the theme “When Art and Science Collide” and has over 70 SoCal cultural institutions participating.

For this special exhibition, SDMA gathered over 200 extraordinary pieces from the wider Islamic world, including North Africa, Spain, the Middle East, and Central, South and Southeast Asia. Covering thirteen centuries of art and craft, it’s a great opportunity to explore these parts of the world through new eyes.

Two folios from the Blue Quran. Iraq, 9th-10th century.

Demons in Wild Landscape.  India, 1600.

Incense burner. Iran, 12th-13th century.

Untitled “el sokareya” by Sherin Guirguis, a contemporary Egyptian-American artist, born in Luxor, Egypt, based in Los Angeles.

The Zodiac Man. Iran, 19th century.

Woman’s Headdress. Central Asia, Turkmen, 18th century.

 

An amazing amount of scholarship went into the creation of Wonders, which also includes commissioned works by contemporary artists and craftsmen who have found their own ways of portraying their worlds.  

Folding Gardens, A Stained Memory by Pantea Karimi, born in Shiraz, Iran, based in San Jose, CA. “This piece is a response to my childhood in the time of the 1979 Iranian Revolution,” she told us. “I actually was injured in one of the protests, and my blood stained the floor…the red segment here is my bloodstain.” Step close to the piece to experience it fully and be showered with the sounds of her strangely soothing recording.

Brass standards carried in religious processions. India, late 17th-early 18th century.

 Surah Al-Tur verses 48 and 49, by Fouad Kouichi Honda, a contemporary Japanese calligrapher famed for his Arabic calligraphy. This piece was donated to SDMA by the Islamic Arts Museum Malaysia as a collaborative gesture.

Detail of Nation with Wings, from a manuscript of “The Wonders of Creation and the Rarities of Existence”. India, circa 1650-1700.

One on One, by Timo Nasseri, a multimedia German/Iranian artist born and based in Berlin who explores the aesthetics of Arabic writing in this piece.

For Wonders of Creation, Timo Nasseri came to SDMA to re-create a site-specific version of Florenz-Bagdad, a display he originally created for several walls of a Vienna gallery in 2016, inspired by a book about Renaissance art and Arab science. Referencing a traditional Persian architectural feature in mosques, shrines and palaces that uses small, hand-cut pieces to move and reflect light, he added mirrors to the mix, and in 2017 did a room-size installation for the Maraya Art Center in the United Arab Emirates. He has called this “a space that dissolves spatial boundaries” and you have the good fortune to be able to walk in and experience it here.

Try to come at less crowded times so that you can spend more than a few moments with the pieces that catch your eye. Taking time to contemplate what you see is very rewarding and you’ll have a deeper, more personal experience of the treasures on view.

Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World 
September 7, 2024-January 5, 2025
San Diego Museum of Art (SDMA)
1450 El Prado, Balboa Park

 HOURS: Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday 10-5, Sunday 12-5.
Closed Wednesday. $5 surcharge on admission to this special exhibition.
619-232-7931. 

Lonnie Burstein Hewitt is an award-winning author/lyricist/playwright who has been writing about arts and lifestyles in San Diego County for over a dozen years. You can reach her at hew2@sbcglobal.net. 

 

Other Pacific Standard Time: Art and Science Collide exhibitions to watch for in this column are:

Mingei International Museum: Blue Gold: The Art and Science of Indigo  September 14, 2024 to March 16 2025

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego: For Dear Life: Art, Medicine, and Disability on view from September 19, 2024 to February 2, 2025.

Oceanside Museum of Art: Transformative Currents: Art And Action In The Pacific Ocean through Jan 19, 2025.

Blue Gold: The Art and Science of Indigo at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park

 by Patricia Frischer

Unidentified maker - Girl's blouse and skirt, Fulani Wodaabe culture, 20th Century, probably Niger

Blue Gold: The Art and Science of Indigo is a very large exhibition covering the entire top floor of  the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park showing until March 16, 2025.  Of the 180 works on display only 26 are on loan to the museum, the rest come from the permanent collection. As part of the PST(Pacific Standard Time) : Art and Science Collide the show is more complex than usual aided by a $200,000 grant from the Getty Foundationh which have given out more than $17 million in funding in Southern California for the PST project. 

My recommendation is that you start clockwise i.e. turning left at the top of the stairs. Even though you will see wall hangings including tapestries, quilts and rugs as well as clothing all using indigo dye, by going in this direction you will more easily follow the science part of the show with explanations of the processes for making the dye followed by a whole lot of ways to use the dye. Don’t worry if you see a variety of colors at the beginning, they all do have some of the blue gold in them. The exhibition is not chronologically or geographically organized, but instead it seems like it is set to delight the eye with different stagings of the objects. You could view this show just for the remarkable visual experience. 

Unidentified coat and vest in Dragon motif - Dong, China

Aranya Naturals Artisans - Collarless shirt, India, 21th Century

Keisuke Serizawa- Summer Kimona, Japan mid-20th century

Unidentified maker, Boys pants, Yi culture, China

Unidentified maker - Huipil (Tunic), Guatemala

Unidentified maker, Thob Dress, Palestine, 20th C

Look out for some of the specially commissioned works like the slides show of indigo stained slide specimens and the special rescued indigo recipes used to make a ceremonial outfit which was lost of generation but now back. One of my favorites is the room within a room of intense blue hangings featuring the flight and blight of butterflies.
 

Lou Ann Moses  - Canneci Apache Camp Dress, part of the Lost Blue project

Porfirio Gutierrez - Temporary Spaces, 2024, USA. A comparison of the monarch butterflies migration with the migration of indigenous people of the Americas. Each butterfly represents 200K Zapotecs who are living and working in South California

Throughout the space are market racks, displaying lots of more samples of cloth, a hint to the enormous economic role that indigo played in world trade.

Lisa Kina -Hajichi Quilt, Hawaii, USA, 2023

Unidentified maker -Huari culture, 6-9th century Peru

It was thought that the earlies know use of indigo dye was in the Fifth Dynasty Egypt around 4400 BP. But in 2007, it was discovered at the Huaca Prieta ceremonial mound in northern Peru dated at around 6200 BC. We were told that dye vats can last centuries and they are some in existence today that go back to the 14^th century. A couple of centuries ago indigo was so exclusive that only royalty and the aristocracy could afford it. It was a major trade commodity in ancient Egypt,  China, Japan, India, and for Native Americans and Mayans and of course throughout Europe. Thirty countries are represented in Blue Gold:  Japan, Laos, Korea, Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, China, India, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Tunisia, Burkina Faso, Niger, Egypt, United States, Bermuda, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guatemala, Iraq, Uzbekistan, Palestine, France, England, Greece, and Turkey.

Shelly Jyoti - 18th Century Merchant Ship, 2023, India

In South Carolina in the 18^th century, everything to do with indigo production was handled almost entirely by African slaves. In Bengal, India in 1859 there was a huge revolt when peasants refused to grow indigo for European planters. Thirty-give barrels of indigo was used by Benjamin Franklin in 1776 when he went to France to gain support for the American revolution. 

Unidentified Maker, Yoruba culture, "Adire Eleko (Cassava Paste Resist-Dyed Cloth)," 20^th Century. 

 Unidentified Maker, "Shibori Textile." Japan. Cotton, indigo. Collection of Eriko Saito.

Detail: Unidentified Maker, "Shibori Textile." Japan. Cotton, indigo. Collection of Eriko Saito.

Unidentified Maker, "Shibori Textile." Japan. Cotton, indigo. Collection of Eriko Saito.

Unidentified maker- True Lover's Knot quilt, USA, late 1870's

Indigo can be process from many, many plants types. So no one country or people discovered the leaves or invented the process. Artisan from all over kept the process alive so it was not lost.  

Unidentified maker -Indigo resist printed quilt. USA or Bermuda, 1750-1770

To activate the dye is equally complex.  It is not water soluble so has to have a chemical change. When the fabric comes out of the dyebath, the oxygen in the air changes the dye back to an insoluble deep colored indigo depending on how often the fabric is submerged.

American Navajo Indian Chief rug

To derive indigo dye, basically the leaves have to be fermented. This can happen by leaving them in water and letting natural fermentation happen by organism and cells. Or they can be cut pounded (West Africa), shredded and dried (Japan) or ground (Europe) or they can be put in a dye vat where an alkaline like ash, lye or urine  is added along with water to start the fermentation process. The result can be a cake or ball of dye or the liquid dye. Now we have artificial indigo colors, of course.

Although fabrics can be dyed an overall color, to created patterns, a resist is used that can  be any kind of a block,   There are mechanical resists like using ties, stitches or folding to prevent dye from reaching certain areas like tie dying and Shibori. There are chemical resists that uses wax or paste to block the dye from reaching certain areas like Batik. Ikat means that the yarns are tied dyed before the object is woven.  

Jessica Hanson York, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer Mingei International Museum

Co-curated by Guusje Sanders  (above), Emily Hanna, Director of Exhibitions and Chief curator and guest co-curator Barbara Hanson Forsyth

Indigo did go out of fashion for a while until Levi Strauss and Jacob Davis invented blue jeans. Did you know that originally there were crotch rivets, but they were removed when cowboys sitting in front of fires got uncomfortably hot.  A reminder that the faded wrinkles cause by wear on blue jeans are called whiskering,  probably as they look like cat’s whiskers. This sign of the human touch adds to the story of indigo.

• Mural by local artist Stephanna Bennett in the study room

  

There are workshops and talks led by local artists, including a Master Craftsman Lecture with Porfirio Gutiérrez and Dyeing Classes with Sarah Winston at the Mingei, but there is a study room on site, a chance to add to a jean tapestry in the main lobby, and a very clever display of other blue objects in the Mingei collection including, glass, gems and ceramics.

 

Arianne King Comer, Lampshade

This enormous exhibition might take several visits and luckily it is on view until March 16, 2025. We see indigo blue in all of our futures and you can start at the gift shop with a wide selection. My blue jeans are calling….

Blue Gold: The Art and Science of Indigo at the Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park is one of many PST (Pacific Standard Time): Art and Science Collide projects that we are covering this month.  PST is an  initiative of the Getty Foundation with more than 60 exhibitions on this year’s theme in southern California with 818 artists participating. (Of course, you know SDVAN did it first in SD with the DNA of Creativity back in 2014!)

Other exhibitions to watch for in this column are:
San Diego Museum of Art: Wonders of Creation: Art, Science, and Innovation in the Islamic World  on view from Sept 7, 2024 to Jan 25, 2025  

The Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego: For Dear Life: Art, Medicine, and Disability on view from September 19, 2024 to February 2, 2025.

Oceanside Museum of Art: Transformative Currents: Art And Action In The Pacific Ocean through Jan 19, 2025.

Blue Gold: The Art and Science of Indigo at Mingei International Museum in Balboa Park
September 14, 2024 to March 16 2025.
Co-curated by Emily Hanna and Guusje Sanders, and guest co-curator Barbara Hanson Forsyth
Tue, Weds, Thurs, Sat, Sun 10 to 5, Fri. 10 to 8 pm, Closed Monday 

Visual/Concrete Poet, Rusell Atkins Eulogy by Jesse Rusell Brooks

 by Jesse Rusell Brooks

The Cleveland poet Russell Atkins, died at 98 on August 15, 2024

Introduction by Vallo Riberto:

The poet, Russell Atkins first came to my attention while curating a visual poetry exhibition titled Rule42 for the Bonita Museum, San Diego 2022. from the writer of this eulogy, Jesse Russell Brooks.  This eulogy is an extension of the essay Mr. Brooks wrote for the exhibition catalog. For years Russell Atkins, an African American poet, has written and published his work in relative obscurity in his home town, Cleveland Ohio. Although he was never fully recognized or celebrated until the end of his life, Atkins nonetheless had a very rich professional life with friendships and exchanges with such notaries as Langston Hughes and Marianne Moore. Both of these writers became advocates of his work. There is now ample information about the life and work of Russell Atkins on-line, with readings and interviews on YouTube.

Eulogy for  Visual/Concrete Poet, Rusell Atkins

Virginia State University has a small building that students fondly called "The Little Theatre". Perhaps it is now gone, though In 1991 as a young teen, I found myself following a group of avid readers into the dressing rooms of this space,  which were used to store boxes of printed matter that had yet to be cataloged by the campus library. Years of forgotten or disregarded treasures. Among these hidden gems—rags, zines, independent publications, piles of Ebony and Jet magazines, and chapbooks—I stumbled upon The Abortionist and The Corpse, 2 by Atkins published by The Free Lance Press.

What I found in those pages was unlike anything I had ever encountered from an African American writer. Until that moment I was fully committed and mesmerized by Antawn Artaud, and hypnotized by Maya Daren. These artists allowed me the doorway into the mysticism of stage, poetry, and cinema, but Russell gave me the same along with something Artuad and Daren could not~ a map to myself. That moment sparked a journey for me, a quest to seek out more of Russell’s work and anything else like it. 

Through his writing, I learned something profound, something I had never imagined: Black radicals could defy the conventions of text and grammar with the same courage and defiance that Rosa Parks showed in taking her rightful place on a bus. Russell did that for literature. And he didn't stop there. Atkins did the same for early American avant garde by publishing concrete poetry that emulated nature, spurning Anglo American publishing traditions while also rejecting the perceived duty to popular African American politics of that time. For me, this was far more radical than Baraka or Hughes. Russell overturned regulated methods of idealisms and literacy in support of re-discovering forms of suppressed idealisms and literacy.

He wasn’t just a writer; he was a pioneer of the avant-garde, breaking away from both traditional publishing norms and the political expectations of his time. His concrete poetry reflected nature and rejected constraints. Each word, each solo letter, each shaped line was an act of both rebellion and reawakening—a deconstruction, yes, but also a bold declaration of freedom from the conventional ideals that had long held sway.

40 years later, Mathematical Poet Kaz Maslanka reintroduced me to Russell's work. I found myself reading BIRDS and FOR A NEIGHBOR STRICKEN SUDDENLY—poems that seemed familiar yet distant. Slowly, I realized why: I had studied Russell’s work before, on my own, without any formal instruction. It struck me then how deeply his work had influenced me, even though it was never part of my formal curriculum. Thank god my education wasn’t confined to the classroom; it mostly unfolded in those hidden boxes in the dusty rooms of The Little Theatre.

Today, I’m deeply grateful that Russell's work found its way to me. Without those chapbooks, I might have remained bound by the traditional, Western conventions of literature and thought. But Russell freed me from that. His work, while not in textbooks, has become more enduring and impactful than the writings of many of his contemporaries.

I am honored to have known him, and I am forever thankful for the lessons his words and forms have taught me: I am human more than anything else. Rest in peace, Russell. You will always be remembered, not just for your radical approach to poetry, but for the profound impact you had on those fortunate enough to encounter your work. 

With respect and sincerity,

Jesse Rusell Brooks

Founder of The Film and Video Poetry Society and publisher of PermaStates.
Jesse Rusell Brooks worked on PermaStates with Atkins right before he passed away. 

Flora & Fauna at Techne Art Center: Not your usual flower show

By Patricia Frischer

Ye Hongxing - detail

For those of you with bad eyesight, you might be familiar with the experience of everything being a complete blur and then, voila, your glasses bring everything into focus. I am not saying that the blur isn’t nice once in a while, but seeing every detail, every bright colored petal, every curve of every leaf, and most of all the incredible variety of textures in the world, can be mesmerizing.

The Techne Art Center exhibition was curated by Chuck Thomas, and it is really his vision that is on view here. He hand-selected 25 artists and gave each of them a whole area of their own in the space, to really shine. They represent nationalities from all over the world, but they are almost all local artist and all are members of the Oceanside Artist Alliance. Yes, the theme flora and fauna is a bit porous (a description by True Ryndes), but I found the incredible textures of the show create a flow that leads you from artist to artist.  

Ye Hongxing

Ye Hongxing

Ye Hongxing

Ye Hongxing - detail

Ye Hongxing - detail

The star of the show is Ye Hongxing  in the large central gallery. She is an internationally known artist who first showed in SD at the old Lux Institute (now the ICA) in 2014. She now lives 6 months of the year here and what a treasure to have amongst us. It is an understatement to say the works are complex. The mind reels with the details and quantity of content. The surfaces seem to be sometimes embedded with matter and sometimes collaged and flooded with clear bubbles of some sort of plastic.

But don’t rush through the gallery. Stop and smell the roses along the way. The aforementioned True Ryndes’s work is the illustration for the invite and was a big incentive for me to see the show. 

True Ryndes

Susan Osborn opens the show at the entrance to the gallery.

I was surprised by the wall of funky soft and found object wall sculptures by Vicki de Long. You can again, see Thomas’s hand in the arrangement of these objects.

The amazing set of 4 videos by Lucy Boyd-Wilson are stellar and deserve a long view….come back after you are exhausted by the visual variety and take a load off.

Lucy Boyd-Wilson - captured still from video

Lucy Boyd-Wilson - captured still from video

 Ellen Dieter delivers as always  to the theme and her giant tulip will gladden any heart.

 Ellen Dieter 

Ceramic sculpture portrait heads by Reginald Green are tribal in nature and full of surface delights.

Reginald Green 

Sylvia Fernandez

Erick Perez - just part of the large display

View from the balcony of Ye Hongxing, Erick Perez and Reginald Green

Upstairs forest of sculptures by Scott Bruckner, hangings by Oriana Poindexter, large flowers by Brenda Hope Zappitell and a selection of Megan DeRoma 

Megan DeRoma

Robin Raznick

Micki Brown

Briana Miyoko Stanley 

Briana Miyoko Stanley 

The Installation room for the gallery features Briana Miyoko Stanley who incorporated her designs into the existing light fixtures also give us a number of wall pieces that are elegant.  By the way, the light fixtures throughout the space are artworks themselves and worth a look on their own. Don’t miss the “refreshment” room which is Chuck Thomas’ own studio as his works certainly fit into the theme of this show. Artist and Curator, we will continue to watch this space and his efforts with great interest.

Other artists in the Oceanside Museum of Art Artist Alliance included in this exhibition: Jennifer Steffey, Stephen Harlow, Christine McKee, Annalise Neil, Nanette Newbry, Rhonda Anderson, Lucy Boyd-Wilson,  Lisa Croner, Gail Wagner, and Safa Salman.

Techne Art Center: Flora and Fauna
Opening reception: Saturday, September 7th. 4-7pm showing until Oct 10, 2024
Opening Days   Thursday 1-6pm Friday 1-6pm Saturday 1-6pm
917.972.1752
1609 Ord Way, Oceanside, 92056