Icons of Wimmen's Comix

left to right: Lee Binswanger, Nancy Husari, Caryn Louise Leschen, Sharon Rudahl, Trina Robbins, Terry Richards, Ron Turner, Rebecka Wright, Lee Mars, Rebecca Wilson. Photo by Paul Mavrides.

The 40th Anniversary of Wimmen's Comix - 1972 - 2012. A show of original artwork is up at the San Francisco Public Library Main Branch's Art, Music and Recreation Center, on the 4th Floor through Thursday, February 7th 2013.

The SFPL's press release says: "In 1972, a group of women cartoonists in San Francisco created Wimmen's Comix, an anthology of comics by women, challenging the sexism thet faced by the male dominated comic  book publishing industry. The mission of Wimmen's Comix was to publish a comic book drawn by women cartoonists, and to leave fifty-percent of each issue open for new contributors. There was a rotating editor or co-editors and each issue had a theme. There were eighteen issues of Wimmen's Comix published by the Underground Comic Press between 1972 through 1992, and over a hundred new cartoonists saw their work in print, some for the first time. Many other titles grew out of this groundbreaking anthology, and today we are scattered in all corners of the United States and Europe.

I'm happy to see all these pioneers assembled in one place. I hope to see it myself soon and post about the actual artwork on display. Check it out!

Gallery Views of Determining Domain

This past Wednesday night, our long talked about exhibition opened at Intersection for the Arts. Determining Domain is an investigation of intellectual property  issues like infringement, appropriation, derivative works and parody/satire and the tangled web artists have found themselves in since appropriation and/or "borrowing" has become a ubiquitous part of the contemporary artist's palette.  All the artists featured in the show are re-purposing, satirizing or paying homage to the work of another for a wide range of reasons, with great results. I hope that everyone enjoys the photos below, and can make it to the gallery to view the real thing.

Marc H. Greenberg will be doing a lecture about issues in IP at Intersection on 12/8 (Sat) from 1-3. There will also be a workshop on copyright basics (how to register, etc) for artists on 1/16 from 7-9 led by IP attorney Inder Comar.

Determining Domain.

November 7, 2012 – January 19, 2013

Gallery & Community Hours: Tuesdays through Saturdays, 12–6pm, FREE
Intersection's 5M gallery is in the San Francisco Chronicle building at 5th & Mission. See their site for directions, artist's bios (with links to their web sites) and other info. I was happy to see the show listed as a "can't miss" in today's SF Chronicle!

Scott Kildall & Nathaniel Stern, Wikipedia Art & Farnaz Shadravan's Apocalyptic bathtubs.

Detail of one of Farnaz Shadravan's Apocalyptic bathtubs based on Albrecht
Dürer’s late 15th Century woodcut series.

Marc H. Greenberg & Farnaz Shadravan

Two collages by Bigface.

Work from Sanaz Mazinani's Frames of the Visible series.

The exhibit includes several monitors that show artist's work that has been "borrowed" for commercials and other media,  and wall panels explaining what the law is and showing examples from famous cases.

An example panel on parody and satire, written by Kim Munson & Marc H. Greenberg.

Stephanie Syjuco. Raiders, which repurposes digital photos of antiquities of questionable provenance
from a museum web site. 

Scott Tsuchitani's visual commentary on the Geisha &
Samurai shows at the SF Asian Art Museum.

Scott Kildall & Nathaniel Stern, Wikipedia Art. The display includes the dialog between the artists
and Wikipedia, who sued them for infringement.

A wall of posters featuring free digital books about IP issues & piracy,
curated by Stephanie Syjuco.

Determining Domain at Intersection

Sanaz Mazinani, Redacted March, 2011 (detail)

Determining Domain, Intersection for the Arts, November 7, 2012 – January 19, 2013. A group exhibition exploring complex issues regarding intellectual property and image ownership.

Years ago, I worked with Intersection on a show about the origins of various symbols (the peace sign, the AFL-CIO handshake, etc...). Since then, we have been discussing, on & off, an exhibition that investigates IP/copyright issues like infringement, appropriation, derivative works & parody/satire. The time has finally arrived, and the show will be opening 11/7!

Features work by Bigface, Scott Kildall & Nathaniel Stern, Sanaz Mazinani, Farnaz Shadravan, Stephanie Syjuco, and Scott Tsuchitani.  Marc Greenberg will be leading a copyright workshop for artists in early December (still TBA). See Intersection's site for calendar and more information.

Thomas Denmark's Murder of Crows

Cover of "Art of Murder of Crows"

At the Alternative Press Expo (APE) a couple of weekends ago, I had a brief chat with Thomas Denmark, an artist and game designer, who has designed and illustrated (among other things) a card game called Murder of Crows. The object of the game is spell “murder” and when assembled in order, the cards tell a witty short story.  The gothic style of the illustrations and the humorous and slightly twisted characters, weapons & locations are a great update on “Colonel Mustard with the candlestick in the library.”

A totally random selection gave me (M) A rotting stench filled the air (U) on Lynchburg street when (R) Finnegan Faust (D) due to an inferiority complex (E) used chopsticks to impale (R) Tom Thornbritches. People are killed with poodles, nail clippers & frozen turkeys, with all kinds of wacky motivations.

I wasn’t able to find much out about the artist as his web presence seems to be in transition. He has done illustrations for a number of collectible card games: Mentalist Companion, Orkworld RPG,  Legend of the Five Rings, Warlord, Dungeoneer, Dungeons & Dragons, Magic: The Gathering and A Game of Thrones, and has a day job as an artist on several video games. He does have a number of beautiful illustrations on his blog at http://thomasdenmarkportfolio.blogspot.com/

Comic Art Show Article in Fall IJOCA

Catalog cover featuring Warhol's Dick Tracy.

My article about the Comic Art Show, which was at the Whitney Museum's downtown gallery in 1983, has finally been published in the International Journal of Comic Art (Vol 14, No. 2, Fall 2012). I thank the following people for sharing their memories, giving me input on my numerous drafts, or other assistance:

John Carlin, Art Spiegelman, Gary Panter, Sheena Wagstaff, Ann Philbin, Brian Walker, Leonard Rifas, Denise Lederman, Kristen Leipert, Marc H. Greenberg, John Lent, and the Frances Mulhall Achilles Library and Archive at the Whitney.
  
The IJOCA's articles are not published on-line.Here's a link to a (legible, but not fabulous) pdf scan of the article.

Bode & Walker, Metalmorphosis at 1:AM

Mark Bode mural on the 6th Street side of 1:AM gallery. Photo by Mark Bode.

Last week I saw Mark Bode & Metalman Ed Walker's show Metalmorphosis at the 1:AM gallery at 1000 Howard Street in SF (August 24-September 22, 2012).  While Bode's previous show at 1:AM was sort of a straight-head father and son retrospective, this show brings Vaughn and Mark's creations to life in a new & vivid 3D style. The show features 60 small-scale to life-size pieces depicting Vaughn Bode's major characters, which Mark and Ed created with sheets of aluminum, acrylic, Montana Colors' Alien spray paint and lettering enamel. It also features 18 three-dimensional metal sculptures by Walker.

One of the most interesting things, to me, was that Mark also drew backgrounds and dialog balloons  behind and around the characters on the gallery walls in pencil, giving the characters more context and narrative. The 1:AM gallery is an intimate space, and it felt to me like I had walked into a 3D comic. Highly recommended!

More info: 1:AM Gallery | SF Gate

If you can't see the slideshow above, click here to see it on Flickr.

Stephen Galloway, Beth Moon at Corden Potts Gallery, SF

Works by Stephen Galloway. Photo from a previous exhibition at the Bolinas Museum.

Yesterday I was checking out the galleries at 49 Geary and noticed several shows focusing on nature and natural forms. The most striking of these was Roots, Shrubs and Moss, an exhibition of the photography of Stephen Galloway, artist and photography professor (Sonoma State) at Corden Potts Contemporary Photography (suite 410; up 9/6 - 10/27/2012).

Galloway's works show plant forms in loving detail, with every leaf, branch and root shown to its best advantage. They are life size or larger, with the plant element floating in clean white space. This gives the viewer an opportunity to luxuriate in the forms, textures and colors of the natural world.  The rich color and crisp detail of the c-prints, face-mounted to plexi, left me feeling that the plants had an live inner glow, yet they also seemed somewhat preserved/fossilized in the process. A review of a previous show in ArtWeek (Brenneman, 2006), explains that he arranges the materials on a light box, and then uses a mounted camera/scanner to photograph it.  Maybe it's the light and amount of information this process allows him to capture that gives his works such a luminous feeling.

Beth Moon. Odin's Cove series. Platinum/Palladium Print, 28x22" 2012.

The same gallery had a couple of photos up from the Odin's Cove series by Beth Moon, who recently exhibited there. The subjects of the photos are a pair of Ravens, which is a subject dear to my heart, and I am sorry I missed seeing more of her work. In her introductory notes, Moon explains the close relationship between the mated pair (they mate for life) and the dynamic that developed between herself and the birds.  I have the same relationship/experience with a pair of Ravens myself, who have adopted my ocean front balcony as part of their territory and come over everyday for some peanuts and a chat. By an odd coincidence, I recently connected with another artist named Kim Munson, who lives in the San Jose area and happens to draw and paint Ravens as well.

Other shows I noticed focused on natural forms were the works of Ryan Bush at Modernbook Gallery, and the works of Charles Burchfield and Ralph Eugene Meatyard at the Fraenkel Galley.