Kate Bush Dance Troupe, 2008. Courtesy Jennifer Sullivan

Because who doesn’t want to watch a heartfelt, quirky tribute to one of music’s most beloved, haunting eccentrics?

The Kate Bush Dance Troupe (Samara Davis, Erica Magrey, Cassie Thornton, Kate Scherer, Renata Espinosa and Jennifer Sullivan) will be performing as the closing act of choreographer Chase Granoff’s piece in Nancy Garcia/Chase Granoff at The Kitchen, November 5, 6, and 7. In addition, Garcia and Granoff will each be premiering new works inspired by sources ranging from noise and punk music to the writings of Doris Humphrey and Simone Forti.

The Kate Bush Dance Troupe is an ongoing collaborative ensemble of non-dancers who create dance performances inspired by the music and emotive movement stylings of Kate Bush.

Buy Tickets

The Kitchen, 512 West 19th Street
Thursday–Saturday, November 5-7, 8pm
$12
Curated by Matthew Lyons

Michael McConnell, Slings 1, courtesy of the artist.

Tonight: Group opening at Jancar Jones Gallery in SF- Justin Beal, Lena Daly & Kate Owens. 6-9pm.

Artist Mark Dion presents a lecture about his work around scientific presentation and methodologies. Timken Hall at CCA, SF campus. 7-9pm. Free.

Friday, October 16th: Michael McConnell’s Slings and Arrows opens at Gallery BellJar in SF. 6-9pm. 

HYPERSPACES group opening at Park Life in SF: new works by Sean Mcfarland, Paul Wackers, David Kasprzak, Orion Shepherd, and James Sterling Pitt. 7-10pm

Cutters, an exhibition of international collage curated by James Gallagher, opens at Cinders Gallery in Brooklyn. 7-10pm

Saturday October 17th: The newly renovated El Museo del Barrio celebrates its grand reopening with free admission and a day of music and activities. 11am-9pm.

The grand opening of SF’s contemporary art space Southern Exposure in its new location, with an inaugural exhibition, Bellwether. 4-10pm

Sunday, October 18th: artist Tamar Hirschl will hold an open studio event as part of Chelsea’s High Line Open Studios event, featuring tours of more than 100 artists’ workspaces in the center of New York’s gallery district.

Monday, October 19th: The Berkeley Center for New Media and SFMOMA  presents From A to B and Back Again, a photo and video presentation by artist Candice Breitz. 160 Kroeber Hall, UC Berkeley, 7:30-9pm. Free.

Wednesday, October 21st: International curators Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, Jens Hoffmann, Hou Hanru, and Dominic Willsdon participate in a panel discussion at the SF Art Institute on Global Art in the Downturn. 7:30pm. Free.

Mike Sinclair, Fourth of July #2, Independence, Missouri. 30x40 inches, Archival pigment print. Courtesy Jen Bekman Gallery

Two more days to catch the 2009 First Edition of Hey, Hot Shot!, Jen Bekman Gallery’s twice-yearly showcase for emerging photographers. The exhibition opened September 9th and features the photography of Michelle Arcila, Daniel Cheek, Mike Sinclair, Parsley Steinweiss and Kurt Tong.

With the exception of Steinweiss’ large-format details of stacks of printed material, reminiscent of some of Marco Breuer’s abstractions, the works on exhibit all seemed to touch upon each photographers’ unique relationship(s) with aspects of the natural landscape.

Here are some of our favorite images:

Kurt Tong, Guangzhou Zoo II, 2007. 32x40 inches, Lambda print. Courtesy Jen Bekman Gallery

Michelle Arcila, Faering, 2007. 16x20 inches, C-Print. Courtesy Jen Bekman Gallery

Daniel Cheek, Mercey Hot Springs, Mendota, California. 2009, 8x10 inches, Gelatin silver print. Courtesy Jen Bekman Gallery

Sinclair, Tong and Arcila’s works are also available in multiple editions at 20×200.

TONIGHT, August 20th: Artists’ reception for Trains and Trips from Cement to Cemetery at Heist Gallery, featuring Peter Feigenbaum’s model-railroad-scale depiction of outer-borough NYC in the 1980s, and eerie woodland paintings by Marissa Bluestone.

Friday, August 21st: EAI Project Space at X-Initiative presents a video tribute to the late Merce Cunningham, featuring works by Charles Atlas, Nam June Paik and Shigeto Kubota. Noon-8pm, free.

San Francisco artists Lisa Rybovich Cralle and Jessalyn Aaland’s Good News opens at Painted Bird, with music by Jealousy. 8-10pm. Thru Sept. 11th.

Saturday, August 22nd: The 8th annual San Francisco Zine Fest celebrates small-press and DIY publications from the Bay Area and beyond this weekend. At the SF County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park thru Sunday, August 23rd, 11am-6pm, free.

Sunday, August 23rd:  One of our favorite storytellers, Juliet Wayne, is spinning a 40-minute tale, “The Moron Years,” about her life which is already the stuff of legend. If you haven’t seen her at various performance events around NYC or Philadelphia, don’t miss your chance this weekend. 6pm, Cornelia Street Cafe, $10. (via Jeff Simmermon)

Monday, August 24th: Your last week to catch I Don’t Believe in Miracles, a group exhibition focusing on the natural elements curated by Alana Celii at Space Womb gallery in Long Island City. Open Thursday-Monday.

Slideluck Potshow's attendees mingle before the slideshow.

Slideluck Potshow is a non-profit organization formed around two great ideas: food and art. Last night in New York City’s spacious Canoe Studios in Chelsea, SLPS put on its thirteenth NYC show. The event started, as the name would suggest, with a potluck dinner. Guests were asked to bring a dish and/or drink to share. I arrived about an hour later than the 6:30pm starting time, but there was still enough food around, a grill for brats and dogs on the balcony and plenty of desserts. DJ Moni provided the mingling music, as guests stuffed their faces watching the sun set over Jersey.

A sampling of the fare at the potluck

Eating and mingling while the sun sets over the Hudson River

The dessert table (with icebox pie, cupcakes, lemon crumb cake...)

Slideluckers wait for the show to begin.

The main event of the evening started around 9:30. The slideshow was simulcast into at least three packed standing-room only gallery rooms. This slideshow was anything but your grandparents’ last summer vacation. Each of the featured artists’ works were multimedia spectacles accompanied by music and sometimes video. The theme of this year’s SLPS XIII was “Now.” The diverse group of artists rose to the challenge wonderfully, from Chief White House photographer and esteemed photojournalist Peter Souza’s photos of the first family’s first year (set to the audio of the President’s Inauguration Address), to San Francisco’s Lisa Wiseman and her The New Polaroid series, a collection of dreamy whimsical images all captured with an iPhone.

An image from Claudio Papapietro's Demolition Derby series. c. Claudio Papapietro

For me personally, many of the most surprising, poignant and beautiful images of the night came from several photographers examining American subcultures. Claudio Papapietro’s Demolition Derby series shows a group of friends as they make preparations for and compete in a demolition derby. Papapeitro’s use of light and composition endows his working-class subjects with subtle nobility. Like Papapietro, Brooklyn’s Kim Reierson focuses on an underside of American culture in her Exotic World Dancer portraits. The photos of the burlesque competition’s contestants range from ages 18-80 and allows her subjects’ beauty to manifest through their flaws, rather than in spite of them. The Chicago-based Brian Ulrich’s Dark Store, Ghost Boxes and Dead Malls is a haunting reminder and warning of America’s financial struggles as photograph after photograph depicts empty malls, weed-plagued barren parking lots, and lonely storefronts with only ghost-letter impressions of the corporate names they used to carry.

I (Lego) New York by Christoph Niemann. c. Christoph Niemann

A major part of what made the collection of slideshows work so well was the juxtaposition of the vastly different artists and mediums. Whimsical and playful pieces like Jonah Sampson’s Pleasantville, a series of toy-like model people engaged in many comically-placed scenes of violence and debauchery, or Christoph Niemann’s crowd-favorite Lego art in I (Lego) New York were placed directly next to heavy, thought-provoking, difficult images like Portrait of a Genocide’s stark and heart-wrenching reminders of the atrocities in Rwanda by French documentary photographer Myriam Abdelaziz.

The evening was a success and a tribute to the work that directors Casey Kelbaugh and Alys Kenny have put into these shows nationally and internationally. I strongly recommend making your best dish and attending the next Slideluck Potshow either in its next return to New York or in the myriad of other locations where they set up a projector.

The spacious Canoe Studios on W. 26th Street hosted Slideluck Potshow's thirteenth New York show.

All photos by Joyce Tota unless noted.

Not in Fashion c. Mark Borthwick

There are photographers who document and photographers who create. Meaning, a photographer either chooses to make images of an event that is already happening or chooses to make images of an event that either he or someone else has created specifically for the image-making purpose. There are exceptions to every rule of course and photographer Mark Borthwick certainly qualifies as an exclusion. Mark’s work does both (documents and creates) and his subjects seem found yet casually staged through discovering and uplifting informal moments. His new book, titled “Not in Fashion,” a contradiction to the fact that he came to prominence as a fashion photographer, illustrates Mark’s insistence of working outside of fashion’s guidelines. There is nothing elaborate about Mark’s fashion work - a plain wall or a park provides the backdrop, light makeup and hairstyling or none at all and few or no clothes round out the atypical (fashion) photograph.

I first came across Mark’s work in the late 90’s when I had just become interested in fashion photography. Images of Angela Lindvall leaning over into a sink which appear in the book depicted the model wearing one of Comme des Garcons’ infamous bump dresses gave me the assurance I needed that fashion photography was not singularly about pretty models and unattainable luxury. Here was a photo of a girl sticking her head into a kitchen sink and not a designer stainless steel one either - a very ugly suburban kitchen sink. Not in fashion, certainly. Mark clearly played a role in a certain type of late 90’s conceptual fashion photography, the anti-flash, the refusal to actually photograph clothes, and the denial of celebrity and glamour in general which magazines like Purple and i-D championed.

Fast forward a few years, I had the great fortune to work briefly for Mark and enter his vastly interesting world. I was never privy to seeing him shoot, though at the time Mark was peculiarly fascinated with sidewalks and their cracks, many of which are shown in his new book. I was presented however with the task of editing his writings (Mark also writes to accompany his work occasionally). Though what Mark had intended as poetic, off-kilter ramblings with made up or strangely spelled words, the computer mistook as typos, sending angry red underlines throughout most of the pages. Again, misspelled words were certainly not in fashion, but were very integral to Mark’s work and creative process.

Mark Borthwick from Not in Fashion c. Mark Borthwick

There are people who Mark photographs regularly and counts as close friends - Kim Gordon, Chan Marshall of Cat Power, Bjork, his wife and two children and anyone who enjoys sitting out in the sun and lolling in the grass. Mark’s work has always been a celebration of the outdoors, powerfully joyful and therapeutic in their bursts of sunlight and greenery. Recently, a technique sprung up where Mark would open the back of his camera to let light in which would leave the impression that a rainbow was trying to sneak its way into the image. What Mark possesses is a true reverence for his subjects and this is obtained by photographing them over and over - trees, sidewalks, lakes, his friends and family. His moments are curiously repetitive though soothing as is the way the book is laid out. Small images float on the pages forming stories, polaroids scatter and writings are in abundance. The collection of all of these ingredients illustrates in a deeply personal way a truly singular point of view of this casually staged life.

Not in Fashion is available through Amazon

Closing tomorrow, Saturday, July 18th: Chris Lux’s exhibition, Give Me Some Peppermint Freedom at Jancar Jones Gallery.

Chris Lux, Give Me Some Peppermint Freedom, 2009, oil on panel, faux mistletoe, 43 x 12 inches. Image courtesy Jancar Jones Gallery

Unlike the artist’s earlier works which teem with bright, faceless figures (think Jonathan Borofsky’s sculptures invading a Hieronymous Bosch landscape) Lux’s new paintings seem to have distilled the color punctuation and movement of his previous works into more contemplative canvases with a kinetic, modernist bent.

Citing diverse influences, from Pieter Bruegel the Elder to Tal R, these paintings have a confidence and naive energy associated with the latter artist’s work, but seem executed with a less-studied, looser hand. Lux’s inventive use of repurposed materials in his compositions is evident in the incorporation of elements like plastic branches and layered glass panels in his paintings, or in the use of fake-marble busts as a pedestal.

Some of my favorites:

The paintings were accompanied by a selection of Lux’s found-object sculptures in a glass vitrine that at first glance recalled Josephine Meckseper’s retail displays. While the sculptures held some interest as possible referents to the artist’s working process, the case, neither large enough to compete with the paintings nor small enough to be supplementary ultimately seemed tangential to the dominance of the 2-D work in the gallery space.

Chris Lux’s Flickr

Jancar Jones Gallery

(photos c/o Aileen Tat unless noted)

TONIGHT: San Francisco-based artist Chris Lux’s solo exhibition Give Me Some Peppermint Freedom opens at Jancar Jones Gallery. Lux’s work was accorded this week’s SFBG Pick for his “new rave sensibility.” 6-9pm, free. Through July 18th.

OMG Gallery Aferro Benefit preview, see below for additional details. 6-8pm

Saturday, June 20th: OMG Aferro Art Party Benefit. Gallery Aferro founders Evonne Davis and Emma Wilcox have been consistently supporting and producing some of the strongest emerging artists’ projects that The Totam has come across in recent years. Funds from the sale of artist-donated artworks and crafts at this inaugural benefit event will be used to cover the costs of finalizing Aferro’s status as a non-profit organization. We strongly urge tri-state residents to enjoy an entertaining evening and buy some fantastic work to support an organization promoting a thriving community of artists in and beyond the Newark area.

Everything is Terrible: The Movie premieres at The Silent Movie Theater in Los Angeles. This full-length feature by the group of friends responsible for the popular Everything is Terrible website and YouTube channel promises to be a comic videoclip mashup of weird and epic proportions. One night only. Accompanied by a screening of the 1994 softcore classic, Dinosaur Island. 10:30pm, $10. Tickets here.

Monday, June 22nd: catch Afternoon, the solo project of singer-songwriter Krista Warden at the new Williamsburg music venue Bruar Falls, with Drew Victor. Warden’s accordion, guitar, and bittersweet honky-tonk-tinged vocal sensibility has graced collaborations with fellow Brooklyn notables Drew Victor, Beastheart and Sharon van Etten. 9pm, free.

Tuesday, June 23rd: The opening of X-Initiative’s No Soul For Sale: A Festival of Independents. X has invited more than 30 international nonprofit art spaces to travel to New York City to present themselves, their programs and the artists they support. 1-9pm, RSVP here. Through June 28th.

In conjunction with No Soul For Sale, Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI) will be unveiling a temporary video project space on X’s ground floor which will be open to the public, bringing new works by emerging artists into dialogue with rarely seen historical treasures from the EAI archives for the summer. Character Witness, the launch program for EAI’s project space, includes works by Kalup Linzy, Alex Bag, Michael Smith, MICA-TV, Harry Dodge and Stanya Kahn, and Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson. 6pm, free. Through September 2009.

It’s the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, and I just found this very interesting post from artist Michael Mandiberg about his request to a number of reproduction painters in Shenzhen to copy Jeff Widener’s iconic photo of a man in front of PLA tanks during the Tiananmen Square protests.

Courtesy Michael Mandiberg

Mandiberg posted images of some of the finished paintings, all done in an almost uniform, bland illustration style, along with a quote from the negotiations for the making of the works. The suggestions about composition were funny, but it was most compelling to find that at least one painter outright refused to recreate the image:

Courtesy Michael Mandiberg

I remember going to rallies with my dad in support of the student demonstrations at Portsmouth Square in San Francisco’s Chinatown as a kid, and the ubiquity of the tank image in the newspapers and on TV at the time. To Chinese around the world, it seemed the tank photo and reproductions of the Goddess of Democracy were cherished symbols of a freedom worth defending. It was surprising to learn from Mandiberg’s post that this photo has been virtually eliminated from the Chinese media, but not surprising that the Chinese government continues to censor any hint of negativity in all incoming and outgoing communications. I wonder if this will ever improve.

Twenty years have passed since that violent government crack down on the twenty-something college students occupying the public square in pro-democracy protest. Enough time for the protestors’ children to grow up without ever seeing this famous image that was eradicated by the media. It lies cloaked lies cloaked in Google searches, behind the Great Firewall of China.

This famous image did not exist. This was one manifestation of China’s pattern of Internet censorship. Another pattern was that if a scandals breaks out in China, all webpages outside of China are temporarily disabled. During my month there, two regional politicians were caught in corruptions investigations. One of them was sentenced to death, and the other killed himself. The official reports glossed over the details, and focused on the new appointee. The New York Times, on the other hand, did an in-depth analysis, which I happened to read, as I was up at a strange jet-lagged hour. It was gone the next day.

Just yesterday the New York Times published a small series of editorials about the anniversary. And just now they are reporting on extensive shutdowns of most major communications platforms, from the NYTimes.com to Twitter. Ironically, that article will not make it through the firewall either.

Michael Mandiberg is an Eyebeam Senior Fellow and an Assistant Professor at the College of Staten Island/CUNY. Drawing Contemporaries, an exhibit curated by Mandiberg and featuring some of his laser drawings, is on view at Eyebeam until June 9th.

Mandiberg.com

Daniel Salemi, Ikea vs. Beuer, 2009, c-print. Courtesy of Kris Graves Projects.

Not able to see Swoon’s Swimming Cities, or Bruce Nauman’s pavilion at the Venice Biennale in person this year? Well, you could opt to visit what is being touted as the Biennale’s “largest pavilion” here, or just take advantage of an abundance of homegrown activities this weekend and beyond:

TONIGHT: Honey Space hosts a benefit and celebration for Swoon’s Swimming Cities of Serenissima, with a silent auction that includes works by many of the artists on the boats’ crew, and a raffle for original artwork by Swoon and Thomas Beale. 7-9pm, $10 admission.

Artists Daniel Salemi and Austin Thomas have concurrent openings of their work tonight in the main and project spaces of Kris Graves Projects. Salemi’s photographs and Thomas’ drawings and collages share an affinity for architectural forms. 6-9pm

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in SF presents Big Idea Night, featuring the delicious stylings of Mission Street Food. 9pm-3am. FREE, RSVP recommended.

Friday June 5th: Varnish Gallery hosts a party to raise awareness about eminent domain issues with guests Jello Biafra, Matt Gonzalez, etc. The gallery is one of over 30 local businesses and residences being evicted by a San Francisco city agency under the property law. 7-Midnight, 21+. Free.

Saturday June 6th: As part of Michael Cataldi and Nils Norman’s The University of Trash at Sculpture Center in Long Island City, guest artists McKendree Key and the neuroTransmitter collective have been invited to give public courses at the museum. Key will teach a family workshop on making recycled paper and paper-pulp sculptures, and neuroTransmitter will lead a radio transmitter building workshop. 1pm. Courses available with $5 admission to museum. ($25 materials fee and a reservation for the transmitter class is recommended.)

Your last chance to see Sophie Calle (and 107 other women)’s collaborative breakdown of a breakup, Take Care of Yourself at Paula Cooper Gallery.

Saturday & Sunday, June 6th & 7th: Oakland’s Pro Arts Gallery presents the 2009 East Bay Open Studios. Over 400 artists exhibit their work this weekend and the weekend of June 14th-15th. Visit site for more info.

Sunday June 7: The Exploratorium hosts a talk, reception and book signing by scholar Edward Shanken, author of the new book Art and Electronic Media, interviewed by arts commentator Dorka Keehn. Innovative Bay Area electronics artists Lynn Hershman Leeson, Paul DeMarinis, Ken Goldberg, Jim Campbell, Survival Research Labs, and Alan Rath are among the over 200 artists featured in Shanken’s book. 3pm. Free with Exploratorium admission.

Monday June 8th: David Byrne will perform a selection of music created with Brian Eno at the Prospect Park Bandshell as part of BRIC Art’s Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival. Other performers this summer include Femi Kuti, Blonde Redhead, Big Daddy Kane and They Might Be Giants. 8pm, gates open at 6:30pm. FREE, first come first served.