ARTIST EXAMINES CARS, PLANES, BOATS AND WHERE WE ARE GOING

By Erin Goodwin-Guerrero

In the characteristic collaborative mood that we have come to expect from Zero1 planners, San Jose State’s Art Department and Montalvo both hosted Portuguese installation and performance artist Miguel Palma, to provide a gallery site and a stimulating creative residence for his stay while working on another of his fascinating en situ works.  With the official opening of Zero1 on Thursday, September 16, a satellite projection of the San Jose State installation can be seen in the entry corridor of the Convention Center on Market Street, downtown.

Palma consulted with engineers and designers to build his own car.

Lectures at both Montalvo and San Jose State’s Art Department this last week provided glimpses into the videos Palma produces to document his extensive international productions.  Sometimes he films dry and repetitive scenes of small movements and slow tedious shifts of elements as seen from an unmoving single viewpoint.  Other videos document his social actions in the context of the art world and utilizes travel or the vehicle as a metaphor.  Rather mindless, but funny, is a repetitive, grainy, soft-focus view of water sloshing around and over some boxy structures, in a small contained space in his vehicle, as the artist drives toward Rotterdam, where he is to present a visual statement on the ongoing relationship of the City to the sea.  Sometimes they are humorous and ironic demonstrations of the artist’s unending fascination with transportation, travel, speed and destruction. A restored ambulance, painted in official looking exterior markings, is outfitted inside with a series of cameras and video screens.  As the artist drives the ambulance around the streets of Lisbon, making provocative moves, imitating an expedited trip to the hospital or the scene of an accident, the cameras inside are programmed to record the simulated accidents he causes en route.  There have been a spate of crashes of medivac helicopters in the recent news.  Pilots, co-pilots, medical personnel and the injured all perished.  How real is it to pose the ambulance as the instigator?

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New Beginnings at Montalvo

Bronze sculpture by David Middlebrook defies gravity on Montalvo Grounds.

In a spirited celebration of interactive arts in lovely summer weather, the grounds in front of Montalvo’s main facilities in the Phelan Mansion were the inauguration site of outdoor sculpture installations by Ann Weber, David Middlebrook and Ali Naschke-Messing on Friday, July 23, 2010.  Music and poetry contributed to the events of the evening. Programs Director Kelly Sicat took visitors on a guided tour of the sculptural works, inviting the artists to talk about each piece with her.  She explained that although some of the work is inherently impermanent she hopes this exhibition sows the seeds of an eventual sculpture garden.  For the future, Montalvo wants more interface of the arts with the grounds.

Ann Weber’s woven sculpture sits near the discovery site of the small cones that were their inspiration.

Ann Weber, as a resident at Montalvo, wove her forms out of strips of corrugated cardboard and modeled their shapes after small nuts and seed pods she found on the grounds. Weber had asked staff to save as much discarded cardboard as they could get their hands on for her before her arrival.  Coming from the Midwest, she says she is used to “making a silk purse from a sow’s ear.”  Her background in ceramics drew her naturally to the organic spherical and cylindrical forms she found under the trees.  A steel matrix beneath the surface maintains the structural integrity of each sculpture.  During the residency, Weber began looking in to the history of James Phelan (the Senator who bequeathed his estate to the arts) and learned of his status as an amateur poet. She named her sculptures after some of his favorite poems. While earlier public works were executed in weather resistant fiberglass and epoxy, these woven cardboard pieces are simply shellacked and exposed to the elements.  Weber is ambivalent about eventually allowing this series to disintegrate and return to the earth.

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A CHILD’S WORLD at THE TRITON MUSEUM

Mary Snowden’s Picnic by the Seashore, 2006

How much do you remember of your impressions of the world when you were a child?  Was your childhood one of innocence and fun, or was it full of mysteries, scary stuff, temptations and prohibitions because you were small?  The Exhibition, A Child’s World at the Triton Museum of Art, explores these and many more possibilities through the work of a number of adult artists who recall their own childhood, evoke childhood, express themselves with a veneer of childlike creations, satire the political world with reminders of corruption cloaked in fake innocence, and sometimes depict childhood as anything but innocent.  The exhibition is rich with insight, witty observations and a fascinating array of approaches in terms of craft. Read the rest of this entry »

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SAN JOSE STATE MFA GRADUATES  SHOW AT SAN JOSE ICA

By Sally Sumida

On the last Friday in May, the main gallery of the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art was abuzz with excitement from a supportive crowd of art enthusiasts. The occasion was the opening reception for Lift Off 2010, the sixth annual exhibition celebrating MFA graduates from San Jose State University. Seventeen artists created a wide range of artwork highlighting diverse techniques, styles, concepts and media. Curator Susan O’Malley placed them creatively, underscoring their underlying commonalities and interconnections.

Near the entrance to the exhibition, a viewer posed for an unauthorized snapshot inside a shimmering, metal mesh head, artist Hongbiao Wang’s gigantic self-portrait bust. To the right, Pernilla Andersson and Paula Pereira’s large-scale vinyl wall hanging threatens to pull viewers onto an escalator transporting them visually toward an unknown destination. But Kirk Amyx’s visually arresting photo prints of the patterns created by 10,000 overlapping dice rolls in cyan, magenta and yellow, and Wendy Crockett’s evocative gelatin silver photos of an Icelandic teen captured on the brink between childhood and adulthood, served as compelling distractions.

Like paths through the exhibition, themes began to emerge connecting the seemingly disparate pieces. To the left of the entrance, was a poem printed on a scrim suspended from a bamboo pole, a pair of hand-colored photo portraits and a bronze figurine, pieces from Hedwig Heerschop’s corner installation inspired by her father’s World War II experience as a young Dutch soldier in Sumatra. Along the same wall were Barbara Horiuchi’s seven-foot scroll-like hangings, splattered with trails of Japanese black sumi ink and iron filings on white handmade paper. Both Heerschop’s and Horiuchi’s works illuminate familial, historical, and cultural influences in their art.

Johnny Hanna’s Curiosity Cabinet

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IF YOU ARE DOWNTOWN, WHY NOT TAKE A PEEK?

by Anna Hygelund
Got 30 minutes? Take in 3 great art shows in downtown San Jose…yes, in 30 minutes or less.

Alfred Saheen’s flavor of Hawaii, at the Museum of Quilts and Textiles

The San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles’ current exhibit is “Hawaii’s Alfred Shaheen: Master Innovator.” Alfred Shaheen was the cornerstone of which Hawaii’s garment industry was built and was pivotal in its development. The show is well curated with impeccable examples of Shaheen’s approach to the fusion fashion design aesthetic he pioneered. I was interested to learn that this approach is now recognized worldwide as a visual market-not only of a transnational Hawaiian culture-but of a West Coast “American” lifestyle that is informal, environmentally aware and multi-cultural. Shaheen is considered the most important aloha wear designer and manufacturer in Hawaii’s history and his aloha shirts and women’s wear are the most respected and sought-after of all Hawaiian clothing.

Dimitri Drjuhin’s colorful icon0graphy at Anno Domini

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42nd Annual Textile Exhibition, Olive Hyde Art Gallery
April 2-May 15, 2010
by Jane Przybysz

Perhaps it was the fact that I’d just finished reading Glenn Adamson’s Thinking Through Craft (2007), a provocative book that makes the case that “craft, as a cultural practice, exists in opposition to the conception of art itself….as a conceptual limit active throughout modern artistic practice.”  In a chapter that teases out what Adamson refers to as the “laudable idealism and tragic self-deception” that can be commonly found in crafts’ invocation of the pastoral, I couldn’t help but reflect on how many artists seem to find their inspiration in apparently unproblematic and totally decontextualized experiences of the natural world.  So I entered the Olive Hyde Art Gallery on the look out for artwork with content that engaged a specific context.

Art quilt Hong Kong Taxi by Jean Renli Jurgenson

I found just three artworks that met the admittedly unformulated criteria that served as my lens for viewing this show and held my attention with the questions they asked or issues they posed.  “Hong Kong Taxi,” an art quilt by Jean Renli Jurgenson, takes a dizzying aerial view of a lone red taxi cruising along a deserted urban landscape of high rise buildings that overwhelm small patches of green at their edges.  Seen from this angle, the taxi reads something like a wildflower whimsically disrupting the grids formed by buildings and pavement, more alive than the nature tamed by cement borders.

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For San Jose, a Memorable Evening – Part Salon, Part One Day Art Fair

By Erin Goodwin-Guerrero

Graduating from their spacious home, where three previous art parties have showcased local artists and lavishly hosted the art community, Sconberg and Henderson moved this year’s event to their vacant warehouse off Alma Street. Although the “art party” is officially a party for friends and family, that features the art of friends and family, most would agree that the Sconberg-Henderson network has grown exponentially since the first festivities a scant four years ago. This unbelievable extravaganza, perhaps even better than a Bienale, featured tons of art in numerous galleries, bands performing on several stages with ample dance floors, lots of fire, outdoor sculpture, and catered food and drink.

At least a thousand people jammed in to see the art, to be seen (many in the costume theme “Moulin Rouge meets Mad Max”), to party and support the Arts Council Silicon Valley, to the tune of $15 to $50 on a sliding scale. There were over 900 works of art, a lot of it grand in scale, and around 120 artists. It is rumored that artists sold from 30 to 50K of their work. Sconberg and Henderson did not keep track nor take any percentage, as they emphasize, “This is not a gallery operation, and we have no desire to get approach the party as a commercial vehicle. Everyone did it for fun and for free.”

Fire, art cars, dancing and outdoor sculpture colored the night outside the Alma Street Warehouse.

Guests ride an Andrew Hedges kinetic sculpture entitled Big Pig

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Two individual artists visiting the Nathan Oliveira exhibition in the Natalie and James Thompson Gallery at San Jose State University, in the School of Art and Design came away with very different impressions of the show. Both were asked to comment on the way Oliveira’s work connected to their own artistic direction. Dana Harris focused on the formal and technical aspect of the monotypes in the show and Robbie Sugg related to Oliveira’s content and the development of a relationship to the meaning of the image.

Site Specific

Nathan Oliveira

By Dana Harris

I remember seeing Nathan Oliveira’s work in a book I found while attending college. Entitled Bay Area Figuration, I remember being very intrigued by his use of gestural marks in paint. I don’t remember seeing any of his monotypes until the show here at San Jose State University. They blew me away. His prints have a presence that drew me in immediately. It wasn’t the scale of the pieces that captured and held me, it was the sense of light emanating from within the work.

Nathan Oliveira’s monotype with mixed media, Douro Valley #1, at the Natalie and James Thompson Gallery, San Jose State University

Across the room I saw Portuguese sites, Douro Valley #3. I had to investigate. The rich earthy rust color seemed to be taken from the land itself. The layering of graphite drawing over the color field enriched the image, making the physicality of the “site” Oliveira was conjuring come to life. Upon entering the gallery, at first glance, I didn’t notice the surface drawing on the the monotype. The color grabbed me, and only upon closer inspection did I perceive the intricate map-like drawing. I really love the way detail can come and go in an image. Oliveira makes this look so easy, but I’ve struggled with just how much detail to include in a piece, and how to achieve a sense of the ethereal while keeping a solid ground upon which to rest.

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Tuesday Nights March On with Surprise and Satisfaction

By Erin Goodwin-Guerrero

If there is any reader that does not yet know, every Tuesday evening at 6:00 pm, following a guest lecture in Room 133, the San Jose State University Art Department opens a new set of five to seven gallery shows with a mix of work that ranges from student-experimental to emerging artist and professional quality. Last week, an elegant opening of Nathan Olivera’s prints and bronzes in the Natalie and James Thompson Galleries was followed by visits to the student galleries featuring BFA and MFA exhibitions. This was one of those weeks when the BFA shows were every bit as exciting as the MFAs. You were bound to find one that you loved.

Susan Suryapa’s drawings evoke nature and move toward the abstract.

In Gallery Two, Susan Suriyapa presented large drawings on a toothy transparent plastic paper. Some of her drawings are minimal, sublime and lyrical, drawing on phenomena in nature that are often barely recognizable. I am fond of the fragile, pastel images in this earlier part of her series. In the last year some of her work has become bolder, more aggressively black and white, with an energy that sometimes borders on frenetic. They seem further abstracted and focus my attention quite exclusively on the lines and marks themselves, subjecting every mark to great scrutiny. I enjoyed the opportunity to discover the form of a storm or mountain vista or delve slowly into the details of every freckle on the petal of a lily that the more representational works afford.

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April and Art in New York

by Virginia Westphal Uhl

California

I grabbed the chance for a free place to stay, and headed to New York City for five days of gallery and museum crawling. My own work has addressed time, place, and spiritual connection. Since leaving school (SJSU MFA Spring 2009), my new dream is to make art with the potential to promote social justice and peace and reconciliation. I hope to open American’s hearts to the people of the Middle East. Defining this new direction is challenging and I am researching narratives. While in New York, I sought art that responded to issues of social injustice. Here is what I liked best:

Having read about Irving Petlin (Art in America, Mar.2010), I sought out his work, particularly Gaza/Guernica at the Kent Gallery in Chelsea. Alas, the gallery was closed the week I was there, but this painting is also in the current show, Mad Men (through May 1, 2010) http://www.kentgallery.com/exhibitions/2010/02_men/13.html.

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Archives at the Art Ark

By Erin Goodwin-Guerrero

The current exhibition at the Art Ark Gallery, entitled Archives, is simply another way of saying works from the studios of selected artists. But this is just what the Art Ark Gallery does so well. It gives a forum for artists from the Martha Gardens art community that includes the artists of the Art Ark Residence itself, Citadel Cannery studios and others that live in the community around the SJSU School of Art foundry. It is rewarding to see that Martha Gardens has a rich core of artists that always have new work to show and to see new artists getting involved all the time. Here are some highlights:

Can You Live in a Cube?, 2008, by Ema Harris Sintamarian

Ema Sintamarian’s, Can You Live in a Cube?, an enormous ink on paper drawing of floating parallelograms through which are seen textures and myriad small images is an overwhelming viewing experience. It is possible to spend hours getting lost in the details of her colorful and unending lines.

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Jane Castillo’s Bloodlines intertwine among the trees of Parque de Los Pobladores.

Entering downtown San Jose from the south either on 1^st Street or Market, you can’t miss them. Long strips of bright red fabric zig zag between and among the tree branches some 7 to 9 feet off the ground in Parque de Los Pobladores. No, it’s not a crime scene. It’s an installation—Bloodlines—conceptualized by Columbian artist Jane Castillo, an artist-in-residence at MACLA, who invited community members to embroider their family names on the fabric. Walk beneath the fabric canopy and you can read the names—evidence of people wanting to belong, wanting to be represented as part of the “fabric” of our lives here in San Jose.

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City Windows Gallery Shows One of Silicon Valley’s Claim to Fame

by Erin Goodwin-Guerrero

Stan Welsh offers a contemporary juxtaposition of formal visuals in the exhibition Earth•Bound

One of the outstanding branches of Silicon Valley’s clay artistry is ceramic sculpture. Most clay artists begin building traditional vessels. But figurative ceramic sculpture is equally important and significant in history, reflecting culture, values and lifestyle through centuries of production. Interpretation of every-day life, a depiction of the people and dignitaries sculpted with both reverent and satirical approaches in clay is a great tradition anthropologically. Even as there are many other media with which to observe and express impressions of our society today, artists still find the medium of clay a fundamental.

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The Triton Museum of Art currently has on display works of the Santa Cruz artist Robert Chiarito in a show titled: In the Raw: New Work by Robert Chiarito.

By Andy Muonio

Installation view, Robert Chiarito exhibition at Triton Museum of Art

Triton Museum‚Äôs exhibition of Robert Chiarito‚Äôs work includes recent large oil paintings, monotypes and charcoal drawings. A charged and active theme of nude figures runs through the show. The earlier paintings are painted with a vibrant color palette in contrasts that create brilliance and at times vibrate like Op Art. The more recent works have a more subdued palette. In his statement Chiarito reveals that the charcoal drawings are begun with rubbings of the artist’s studio floor and the paintings are derived from random marks, all to activate the subconscious and begin a dialogue with the work, and to ultimately form his figures.

Robert Chiarito’s Hot to Trot and below, Tiff

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Eccentric and Alive, Pipe Cleaner Sculptures Free the Imagination

By Erin Goodwin-Guerrero

Once again, Ted Fullwood lives up to his wonderful capacity to amaze and delight. Although I have only seen his work in an occasional group show in recent years, he is never far from my mind. Among original and creative people in Silicon Valley, Ted Fullwood is always right at the top of my list.

Fullwood’s Energy Machines filled the Cardinale Project Room at San Jose ICA.

Fullwood’s fans have been waiting for this new body of work to appear and were not disappointed the evening of February 5, when Energy Machines were unveiled at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art. Many gallery visitors reported that the crowd surrounding the work made it impossible to see the installation and they were resigned to come back on another day to get a glimpse of the works sporting such titles as Oxcavator, Dialator, Rejuvenator, Reciprocator and Yellow Retort.

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