Art - The Canvas

Is Your Bike Ready for Halloween?

On a weekend afternoon a few months back, a pigeon flew into my spokes as I was getting off the Golden Gate Bridge.  Feathers and horrified tourists everywhere.  It was magnificent.  Luckily there is a hose in my garage.

Anyway, the gruesome scene looked a lot like this post-apocalyptic ride spotted by Ramona Wheelright, which means you better either cross paths with a pigeon or get hella creative between now and October's Critical Mass.

TONIGHT: 10 Years of Fecal Face

If you don't have shit to do tonight, might I recommend Fecal Face's 10 year anniversary party?  It kicks off at 6pm at The Luggage Store Gallery and moves over to Mezzanine at 9pm.  Honestly, I could give you a description of why you should go to the party, but if you haven't already heard of Fecal Face, you should probably just get shitty on Valencia like you always do.

The Biggest Development in Valencia St. Dining We've Seen in Years

BIG NEWS IN HIPSTER DINING: Recognizing that everyone in the Mission is secretly a child, the newly opened Crepe House on Valencia and 22nd has stocked the place with animal placemats and crayons.  This made my hungover, juvenile mind so happy.

Aren't I such a good lil' artist?(I got the gorilla)

This seriously brought me back to the good old days of eating crappy sandwiches and delicious clown ice cream sundaes at Friendly's as a child, which means this place automatically gets 5 ironic stars.  Just like Friendly's, their food wasn't the best (if you want really killer crepes, go to Ti Couz), but it was reasonable for a cheap 8am breakfast.

Anyway, thank you, Crepe House, for satiating my primal urges for crayons.

David Choe Book Signing Tomorrow

Tomorrow at 6:30, David Choe will be at SFMOMA's Haus Atrium signing copies of his awesome street art coffee table book*:

This dynamic monograph captures the frenetic raw energy and gorgeous, intense work of gallery and street artist David Choe. From dropping out of art school to a stint in Japanese prison to representation by the Lazarides Gallery alongside Banksy, Choe's wild ride through the art world is represented by a major selection of images, and narrated throughout by Choe himself. Graffiti, murals, paintings, sketchbook pages, photographs, toys, t-shirts, collages, artwork created with blood, and more fill the kinetic pages — all annotated by the artist in a voice that matches the funny, frantic, daredevil nature of the work itself. Join us and meet as David Choe signs copies of his new book. (link)

The book's highlights include an entire page of iPhone sexts, a Korean bodega owner with a pitbull and a TEC-9, and matzo getting wasted off of Manischewitz.  You can buy the book for $45 tomorrow at SFMOMA or get it on Amazon $30.

* I know “coffee table book” can be insulting, but it's a hardcover book of street art, tits, iPhone text messages and blood.  What the fuck did you expect?

ROBOT POWER

The lighting in this place is ideal for iPhone photography.

I swung by the Artist Xchange on 16th the other night to check out the new crop of art and was particularly impressed by ROBOT POWER by Joshua Ellingson.  Take $200 of disposable income and go grab one for yourself.

John Waters Gives Us a Rush at Rena Bransten Gallery

John Waters, Hollywood Smile Train, 2009. C-prints, edition of 5, 26 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches framed. Courtesy of Rena Bransten Gallery, San Francisco, CA

John Waters' fourth solo exhibition at Rena Bransten Gallery entitled, Rush, is now on view through July 10th. The exhibition, aptly titled after Rush liquid incense, the alkyl nitrites inhaled for recreational purposes (more commonly referred to as “whip-its” by the kids I roll with) gives you just that. 

Rush boasts a comical fiberglass mixed-media sculpture of Ike Turner forcing his puppet, a fur coat and pink dress clad Tina Turner to perform a sassy dance. Other memorable works are the film stills of Hollywood stars appropriated onto butts, poking fun at the filmie technique of Rear Projection (the works title) and appropriately finishing the sequence of photographs with “the end,” a perfect double entendre! The piece, Hollywood Smile Train, is composed of images of Tom Cruise, Hitchcock, Meryl Streep, and other celebs with harelips, and not in that hot Joaquin Phoenix kind of way.

The exhibition also incorporates a series of photographs taken from the movie set of Pecker, the 1998 comedy written and directed by Waters about a young photographer plucked from Baltimore and promised to become a New York art star. The stills challenge the contemporary idea of the art worlds relationship with celebrity, its obsession with the next big thing, and the excitement and sadness it all incorporates. 

The exhibition is an insiders peek into the film and art world as seen by Waters, but manages to keep outsiders in on the joke too. The exhibition ends July 10th.

Calder to Warhol: Introducing The Fisher Collection, Now at SFMOMA

Gerhard Richter, Seestücke (Seascape), 1998; The Doris and Donald Fisher Collection at SFMOMA; © Gerhard Richter

Opening today and running through September 19, 2010 the SFMOMA will be showcasing their latest exhibition entitled, Calder to Warhol: Introducing The Fisher Collection. The Fisher Collection was recently promised to the SFMOMA on a 100 year loan, just two days before Donald Fisher died (phew!). The collection boasts more than 1,100 works from the monumental collection of Gap founders Doris and Donald Fisher. Donald Fisher previously attempted to build a museum dedicated to contemporary art in the Presidio to house the Fishers extensive collection in 2007, but withdrew the proposal last July. 

Calder to Warhol: Introducing The Fisher Collection, will display more than 160 works by seminal artists from the collection such as Alexander Calder, Chuck Close, Anselm Kiefer, Gerhard Richter, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Agnes Martin, Andy Warhol, amongst many others. The works will be on display on the fourth and fifth levels of the Museum, and will also occupy the Rooftop Garden, displaying the Collection's strengths in large-scale sculpture including works by Alexander Calder, Mark di Suvero, and Beverly Pepper. 

The Introduction exhibition is sure to be an exciting preview of what's to come at SFMOMA. With the addition of the Fisher's Collection, one of the best collections of modern and contemporary art in the world, plans to reveal expansion designs in 2011 and the completion of said expansion coming in 2016, the SFMOMA has been rumored to be on the fast-track to rivaling the greatest museums of modern art—  the Tate Modern in London and the New York City MoMA.

Cycling Machine

Lots of good art around the city this week bros.

Photo was taken by Ramona Wheelright.  I wish I knew who drew it because it's fucking rad.

You can go grab this piece (and others like it) at Fabric 8 on 22nd and Valencia.  The perfect gift for the cracked out dog lover in your life! (photo)

Lastly, this was found outside the 111 Minna.  It's likely cooler than anything you'll find in the gallery. (photo by Beej Weir)

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