Balboa Park Centennial Art Surveys

Back in 1915 the Panama Exposition in Balboa Park presented work by some of America's finest artists.  San Diego benefited from this effort because it attracted travelers as well as new artist residents. There are a number of group shows in 2015 exploring those artists or duplicating that effort of 100 years ago.

San Diego Keeps Its Promise: Balboa Park at 100
San Diego Art Institute presents this show organized by Executive Director Ginger Shulick Porcella and Francis French, Director of Education at the San Diego Air & Space Museum, which  is a collaborative exhibition, exploring the past, present, and imagined future of Balboa Park. This is the only multi-sensory approach which includes smells, sounds and compressed time. 


Several artists take a multi-sensory approach to addressing Balboa Park, as in Brian Goeltzenleuchter & Charmaine Banach's self-guided tour of the smells of Balboa Park, and Suzanne Thorpe's soundscape based on the wind speed in Balboa Park. Artists Vincent Mattina and Will Given create images that compress time, simultaneously allowing viewers to experience the past, present, and future of the park, while artists such as Beliz Iristay and Ruben Franco Notch have focused on the physical architecture of Balboa Park as a point of entry to discuss historical and social implications of the 1915-California Exposition. Finally, Kate Clark and Hermione Spriggs explore the history of unique events in Balboa Park's past, such as the Zoro Garden Nudist Colony, while Scott Polach explores plumbing and water conservation in  the park.Other participating artists include: Alex Young,  Bianca Romani, Carlos Castro Arias, Cat Chiu Phillips, Chuck McPherson, Dave Ghilarducci, Denise Strahm, Diego Leon, Francisco Eme, Jasna Gopic, Joe Nalven, Kathleen Kane-Murrell, Paul Turounet,  Saulo Cisneros,  

Vincent Mattina

 

Masterworks of the Exposition Era

At the SD History Center  the original works are on display of the 1915 era. The co-curators, Bram Dijkstra and Derrick Cartwright, working with Harry L Katz, the SDHC Visual Culture Curator,  reconstructed a representative selection of the major works of both the East and West Coast painters who were part of the 1915 exhibitions. This is a extremely impressive display of landscapes by masters and to see some of the original works on display in 1915 was very moving and made you feel the string of history stretched right to the present.  Showing until Jan 3, 2016.

( left to right:) parital images: Anna Springs,Detlef Sammann, Charles Fries, Maurice Braun,
Alfred R. Mitchell, Hanson Puthuff, William Wendt.

Alice Klaubber

Charles Fries

Guy Rose

William Wendt

Maurice Braun

Alice Klaubber

Under The Same Sky
Noel Baza has a new space at SD History Center and they are celebrating the tradition of San Diego landscape art with a look at what our artists today are creating under the same roof in this cleverly titled show. The space is adjacent to the Masterworks but does not attempt to compete with these works. Instead it is a something for everyone type of landscape show with multiple styles, sizes and prices available for sale.

Duke Winsor

Work bought by Bram Dijkstra for their collection

Gallery view

San Diego Invites the World

Also at the SD History Center, this is the definitive commemorative film of the exhibition of the 1915 Exposition showing several times a day so make sure and check the schedule. It really gives you a good idea of how the exposition was formed and the intent and how it was extended into 1916. There was a big honky tonk component which was fun. Actually in many ways they were less conservative and more daring than we are now.  Opening as the end of the month will be  a vast collections of historic memorabilia, photos, and artifacts as well and showing until March 2016.


Landscapes of Balboa Park
Lemon Grove Historical Society (3001 School Lane , Lemon Grove, 91945) is presenting Ed Roxburgh works from Feb 10 to April 10, including pastels by his grandmother, Margaret Kyle Roxburgh, who painted in the park in the first half of the 20th century.  On Feb 4th, Film Night in the Lemon Grove Library (all at 6:30 pm) features a rare screening of Jack Ofield's Emmy awarded PBS documentary (the first ever) about Balboa Park. Remastered and beautiful, the origins of the park and a day in its dazzling life are adroitly guided by host, the late Lionel Van Deerlin. There is an art talk with Ed Roxburgh and Helen Ofield on Tue. Feb 10 at 2 pm. and then Feb 18 Jack Ofield's second documentary about Balboa Park, the captivating and amusing "Postcards from the Fair," which details the 1935 exposition through vintage footage, archival photos and eyewitness accounts. Finally "Balboa Park: A Living Legend," Jack Ofield's third documentary about the park, will open the 50th Annual Congress of History Conference devoted to the centennial of Balboa Park. Two-day event in the Balboa Park Recital Hall. For tickets go to http://www.congressofhistory.org. More info: Helen M. Ofield 619-463-0823

Ed Roxburgh

I believe in coincidences and so when Ed Roxburgh sent me this image of him painting a mural using Dr. Seuss images, I thought I would also make a comment about the show
Ingenious! The World of Dr. Seuss which is also at the SD History Center until Dec 2015. Ed's work is not in this show but maybe it should have been. I found the show confusing. It is fun for children definitely, with lots of hands on activities and cute furniture so it looks like a series of playrooms. But the work is all reproductions, nothing original where you see the hand of the artist Theodor Geisel. There are  sculptures that are bronze instead of multicolored as you might expect for children to enjoy. But these works are not by Geisel himself  but by his step daughter Lark Grey Dimond-Cates. I found out that all the works are in editions and for sale through outlets so there is a well developed  market for the art.  Although I have no problem exploiting the talent of Geisel, the show sent mixed messages. I guess they want adults and children to both enjoy the collect the work. But I would have enjoyed it more if this was clear and if they had included some original art as well as the reproductions and the work influenced by Geisel. 

We can look forward to two other survey exhibitions at the Oceanside Museum of Art  later in the year. One covers the history of the San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild curated by Mark Lugo-Smith and the other will cover the Robert Pincus years at the Union Tribune with a selection of artist he reviewed and is now  curating.

Although there will not be a huge showy spectacular, that does not mean all the money for the Balboa Park centennial celebration has disappeared. Lots of infrastructure has been put in place to improve and make a more united park with all the advantages of collaboration. Read about that in the following articles.

A saved Balboa Park centennial? City Beat by Kinsee Morlan
Saving the Centennial Union Tribune by James Chute

Plus there are some fun events in the pipeline: The new lighting will be featured in the White Nights Celebration with late night opening for all the museums. The new hot spots in SD are the marker places and  a Makers Faire is scheduled. Coming up on Valentine’s Day is 100 Years of Weddings an with a chance for all those who were married in Balboa Park to come together.

Omar Lopex: An exhibit of Pretend Families at the Oceanside Museum of Art

Families come in many configurations ─ polygynous, polyandrous, extended, nuclear, blended, and the like.

But pretend families? We can find them in Sesame Street, the Familyquins, faux family portraits, and more broadly in ethnographies of pretend family play. 

The challenge for an artist who immerses him- or herself in a theme is convincing the viewer of its significance. There needs to be a power that grabs the viewer and makes that theme important in some way. Omar Lopex gets us thinking about family once more.

Lopex makes his pretend families seem real, in part, by using photography from the distant past with tintype photographs. Everything was more real way back then, wasn't it? No Hollywood, no hucksterism, and no Photoshop. Well, maybe that wasn't the way it really was, but the Lopex's tintypes create just enough doubt that his images draw us in. Maybe that was the way it really was.

Joe Nalven: What are pretend families?

Omar Lopex: For me, defining what a pretend family is, involves defining what it's not. It's not Fantasy. It’s important for me to distinguish between Fantasy and Pretend. Fantasy implies a desire a longing a wish it has a focus a distinct aim; Pretending is rooted in the act itself. The heart of this project lies in Pretend’s open-endedness – exploration without obligation or commitment. For me, Pretending does a loop and reinforces everything else that is Real.

Omar Lopex / Pretend Family #25

JN: Are pretend families interesting in ways that are different than 'real' families?

OL: The concept of a pretend family is interesting to me, but even more interesting were the people I actually worked with. For every shoot, I was meeting someone new, and working with them on creating this lie. So each person's personality, style, their home, the ideas they contributed to what the scene in our foto should be, that was interesting in a way that a normal real family isn't.

Omar Lopex / Pretend Family #17

JN:  Are you considering other pretend families? 

OL:  I've been thinking of how to continue the project, which would involve traveling farther and collaborating with people I have less and less in common with. The thing I'm keeping in mind is how not to do it in a trite way. I don't want to create any boring work. But it does feel like the theme isn't entirely tapped. If I do it again, I also might change mediums. It would still be something analog, and in a small format though. Right now I'm shooting a lot of direct paper prints with a brownie camera, and a smaller portable darkroom (fits in a suitcase).

Omar Lopex / Pretend Family #11

JN:  Have you thought about putting these families onto other media?

OL:  If I documented the pretend families in any other media, it would have to be in something that was still small and humble. Besides being in love with the small format, the project just wouldn't work in a large format. A big picture, in this project, would’ve ruined the believability of the image. A large format foto is often too stunning. It would focus too much attention on the image as an object itself instead of the intended story in it. To work the images have to be something, but just as important they have to be nothing – they have to be something you could throw away, or something that someone else threw away and that you found.

Omar Lopex / Pretend Family #6

JN:  What kind of feedback have you gotten?

OL:  The feedback had been pretty consistent. The two things I hear the most from people are that they think the idea of working with all these different people is beautiful, and that the fotos look realistic and that they almost don't even notice that it's me in some of them. For me that's fantastic, and its what I aimed for people to get out of the project. I can be sort of a bull or an ape, kind of loud in real life, and I love spectacle, but I also have a big thing for smallness and subtlety and vulnerability.

JN:  How do you go about making these images?

OL:  I started teaching myself wet plate fotography several years ago. The work in RELÁMPAGO was all done by me, all fotos developed on the spot, in the special portable darkroom I outfitted on my motorcycle.

Oceanside Museum of Art November 8, 2014 - February 8, 2015 Omar Lopex: Relámpago Relámpago is Spanish for “lightning,” referring to the moments of illumination captured directly on solid metal plates for this exhibition of Omar Lopex’s intimate tintype photographs. A photograph documents reality without context: what appears to be a wide variety of traditional family portraits exploring different representations of familial relationships, is in fact a complex game of pretend. Using a motorcycle specially outfitted with a darkroom to develop images on the spot, Lopex visited four different cities to meet strangers and become a part of their family for as long as it took to shoot and develop these images. The resulting small-scale artworks draw the viewer into a fictional world, challenging the traditional concepts of identity, personal space, and familial roles. 704 Pier View Way, Oceanside, CA 92054 (760)435-3720 Tuesday - Saturday; 10am - 4pm; Sunday 1pm - 4pm Closed major holidays General admission $8;  Seniors 65 + $5

State of the Arts 2014: Are these the Questions for 2015? by Patricia Frischer

The State of the Arts series is about a wider vision of what is happening in the art world. At the end of 2014 we look forward to 2015 not so much with answers but with a list of questions which I think may be important to ponder, discuss, and perhaps give us inspiration for action.

1. The San Diego Art Institute SDAI has a new director Ginger Porcella. She has to turn an almost dead organization into a thriving innovative art destination. How is she going to do this?  What are the changes needed. How does she balance old with new? SDAI has the prime location in Balboa Park for contemporary artists and the potential to be amazing. Porcella is a highly motivated and articulate young woman from New York. She came up with the idea of a new job description for a staff member at SDAI: Director of First Experience. So instead of a PR person, a fundraiser, an education director, you would have someone who was responsible for the first impression of the institute; how is the institute branded before you even walk into the building and how do you first get involved as an artists or a visitor. This question of the future of the non-profit arts organizations and how they need to change seems particularly important in the year we almost lost the Opera and where the SD Foundation and the Commission for Arts and Culture both have new leadership and as we struggle to establish a SD County Arts Council.

2. Reading about 10x talent agency in the New Yorker (The Programmer's Price), I was impressed with the idea of Rock Stars of Tech. It is fascinating to see how creativity is so sought after. Musician, producers, actors and now software designers all want to be thought of now as “Artists”.  That seems to symbolize that they are innovative. As technology and the arts are tied more and more closely together, what can we expect to see in the future? Besides the development of new ways to make art with 3-d printing, there will probably be algorithms to compute metrics for audience involvement, funding and sales.

3. This leads me to the more specific questions of what are the new trends in commercialization of art on line? SDVAN just joined an online second hand goods fundraising site called WebThriftStore. You can take all those holiday presents that disappointed you and sell them online benefitting SDVAN and earning a tax donation for yourself. They let you upload an image directly from your phone, they even send you a shipping label when the item is sold and the shipping is paid by the buyer. Our very successful accessory exchange happens only once a year, when old favorites are given new homes. Now we hope you will try this out anytime during the year anytime you clean out your closets. You can sell anything so don’t forget that work of art that may not inspire you any longer, but will appeal to someone new. And if you are not the artist selling your own work, you get a nice tax deduction. 

4. A question we have been pondering for the last year, is who are the new art patrons? Or maybe we now need a new word for those who support the arts. How do we define the teams that will take the arts into un-chartered waters? Are these Artists as Art Patrons? How do we transition young art attendees into young art supporters? What do the emerging foundations look like and why should they donate the arts? Social Networks with Cloud Funding are already fast becoming patrons but they don’t necessarily think of themselves in that role. When we make Cross Collaborative projects aren’t we really patrons of each other? As innovation is seen as a key economic driver, can we expect to see the Politician Patron rising?

Your can read all the past State of the Arts addresses by Patricia Frischer at this link. Please blog back and watch for future opportunities through SDVAN to join in the conversation.

Raymond Elstad captures SDVAN Holiday Potluck Lunch

Raymond Elstad managed to capture the flavor and feeling of our annual 2014 SDVAN Holiday Potluck Lunch in this series of images he is sharing with us.

Kaz Maslanka

Patricia and Darwin's home, rather shabby chic

Cellephane fish from Sea Changes: Act with additional works by Patricia Frischer

Happy feel of Michelle Kurtis Cole with new shoes from the accessory exchange

Huge spread of food as always with special birthday wishes for Rosemary KimBal

Painting with sculpture inspiration by Patricia Frischer

Another painting with found object inspiration, this time a pitcher

Champagne cork greetings in the form of a wreath

Birthday girl Rosemary KimBal with baby Jesinoski

Patricia Frischer Bottomless Pits sculpture with Michelle Kurtis Cole glass plate

Mural by Paola Villasenor at SDAI and Art Fair Miami

I had a chance to view the mural by Paola Villaseñor Panca at San Diego Art Institute gala fundraiser and found myself very, very attracted to it. I was not put off by the subject matter, but instead attracted to the wonderful colors and the excellent composition. So I had to ask myself why I was not more put off by the view of naked women eating a fallen companion. This really intrigued me. Why did I like this so much?

I started to analyze what I was seeing and realized that the almost cartoon nature of the drawing eliminated the serious nature of the content. We all see cartoons like Superman and Spiderman where blood is graphically depicted and looses some of the realistic nature that would make it scary.

The subject of women with blood is one which women deal with from puberty and the site of blood and the female is a very natural one, Women bled almost all of their lives. I think that is another reason I could accept this subject matter with all women in the image. The absence of men seems significant.

I had a bit more trouble wondering about the eating aspect, and I know that could be a challenge to many. But art should challenge us. I am an optimist and I choose to see the subject in a positive way. I saw women surviving by devouring the wisdom of the group.  I heard others say it was a metaphor for the blood of Christ but I am not Christian so this did not resonate with me. Someone else thought it was reflective of the recent be-heading in the middle-east. And I think many others have made other suggestions.  These ideas including my own are more reflective of the viewer than the artist perhaps, but once a work it made and put on view, then it is in the domain of the viewer.

My suggestion is to go and see the image yourself. SDAI has arranged a wonderful changing light that make the work glow with energy. The work is up for only a few months and then I understand there are plans for a whole series of artist to create murals in this fabulous space. SDAI is the premier display site for living artists in Balboa Park.

We would’ve gotten you a Warhol but your grades weren’t good enough. Lisa Levy's "Thoughts in my Head # 50 (Warhol)" 2014 at Schroeder Romero

December in Miami is art fair month and I had a blast looking at the images from the different fairs. I had no idea there were so many as you have about 10 just in Miami Beach including the grand daddy Art Basel Miami Beach plus Aqua, Scope, Select Untitled etc. and then all the mainland fairs as well  I have decided to post a selection of some of my favorite works and there is a complete list of fair with links and some more slide shows at the end of this blog. 

From Art Basel:

Alison Knowles Four Shours, 2011

Broadway 1602

Franklin Parrasch Gallery.

Galerie Rodolphe Janssen

Hirschl & Adler Modern.

Hrair Sarkissian Homesick, 2014

MOT International

Nathalie Djurberg Bonute with Purple Glaze 2013

 Plaster raindrops by Urs Fischer give Sadie Coles's

Take Ninagawa

 Two Palms

Will Cotton Elle with Cupcakes, 2014

From Spectrum

Sarah Steiber with Sergott Contemporary Art

From Red Dot

Sergott Contemporary Art

From Design Miami

Carolline Van Hoeck

Gallery Antonella Villanova

Magen H Gallery.j

From Miami Projects

Kasher Potamkin Gallery Maurizo Galante, porcelain, hand embroidered cockator parrot freathers of organza with glass meads.jpg

ProjectsMargaret Bowland at Driscoll Babcok Galleries

From Pulse

Beers Contemporary.jpg

Poulsen, Jean  Pierre Roy Macraherence

Bransten Gallery Munlz, album Booting

 From Scope

 Inner State Gallery

Primo Marella Gallery

Rush Arts Gallery

From Untitled

plaster-on-books sculpture by Jonathan Callan at Josée Bienvenu

Marco Maggi's Putin's Pencils at the Josée Bienvenu Gallery

Marlborough Chelsea tony Mateilli, Arrangement 3, 2014

Threewalls

Miami Fair Week in Pictures

Miami Beach Art Fairs Enjoy this video of 60 views in 60 seconds at Art Basel Miami Beach   |   Aqua Art Miami   |    Design Miami   |   Ink Miami   |  Enjoy this video of 60 views in 60 seconds of NADA Art Fair PULSE Miami   |   SELECT   |   Scope Miami   |   Untitled. Art Fair Miami Beach
Miami Art Fairs Art Miami   |   ArtSpot   |   Concept-Fair   |   CONTEXT   |   Fridge Art Fair   |   Miami Photo Salon   |   Miami Project   |   Miami River Art Fair  |  Pinta  |  PRIZM  |  Red Dot Miami  |  Sculpt Miami  |  Spectrum