Photos of YBCA Walking Tour 10/4

After days of hearing forecasts of pouring rain on Saturday afternoon, it turned out to be a beautiful day in San Francisco. Kim, Jessica, Valerie and Catherine led a group of about 15 participants around the stencil sites, starting at YBCA and continuing to SFMOMA, the Asian Art Museum, Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, Davies Symphony Hall, the War Memorial Opera House, the Herbst Theatre and the Lusty Lady.

What isn't obvious in these photos is that this was also the weekend of the Love Fest and parade, which climaxed at civic center about the same time we were there. It was challenging to be heard, but there was lots to look at (tons of photos on Flickr). On the whole, we think everyone enjoyed it. Thanks to YBCA for inviting us!

Walking Tour of Stencil Sites - Oct 4

Syndicate, a collaborative project celebrating unionized workers in San Francisco performance and art spaces, has been included as part of the GroundScores component of Bay Area Now 5, showing at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from 7/19/08-10/13/08. The walking tour features street stencils of historic photographs in front of theatres and museums starting downtown at YBCA and SFMOMA and then continuing to civic center (Asian Art Museum, Bill Graham Civic, Davies Symphony Hall, the Opera House and the Herbst Theatre). Some of the stencils are also shown in the gallery exhibition, which also includes a video by Jessica Tully (video/stencils/performance artist) along with text by Kim and photography by Tom Griscom & Wendy Crittenden. The guided tour will be led by Kim, Jessica, Catherine Powell (from the SFSU Labor Archives, another collaborator), Valerie Imus (GroundScores curator) and other guests from noon to 2:30 on Sat, 10/4.

Because of the Love Fest parade on Market Street and Civic Center, and the possibility of driving rain on Saturday, we may be forced to postpone this tour. If you plan to come, please e-mail Kim at kim_munson (at) yahoo.com or call YBCA at 415.978.2787 to check for current information. Click here to see more images and information on YBCA's web site.

Kim, Tom & Wendy will be presenting at SFSU on this topic on the evening of 10/20.

Of Asian Art, and Authors…

It seems that in honor of the Olympics, every museum and gallery in the Bay Area decided to focus on some facet of Chinese or Asian art. This brought us an opportunity to explore many different aspects of Chinese art we don’t usually see, and to compare and contrast (every art historian’s favorite).

Particularly of note were two large museum shows, The Ming Dynasty show at the Asian Art Museum (closed), and the Dreams of a Half Life show at SFMOMA (closes 10/5). Although most of the contemporary works in the Dreams show reference modern China and the changes that have occurred since the end of the Mao era, the artistic traditions formed and carried forward from the Ming Dynasty still provide a foundation for many of the works on view. Through these shows I gained new insights into a culture that is so often misunderstood and yet inexorably entwined with ours.

Perhaps the Asian connection seems ubiquitous to me at the moment because I seem to be surrounded by friends talking and writing about Asia. Law Professor husband Marc has been relentlessly slogging through tons of research on China, calligraphy and intellectual Property law in the East & West in order to finish a law review article that he will be presenting at Tulane University in New Orleans next week. He did this while juggling law school politics, the beginning of the term and movie star clients. Even though we’ve been married for 10 years, I’m always impressed by his ability to put together amazing intellectual arguments under pressure. His next planned article, focusing on the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, will also involve a panel at either WonderCon or San Diego Comic Con next summer.


Another friend, teacher and curator Hannah Sigur, accomplished the Herculean task of authoring a complex book while maintaining an insane schedule lecturing at SFSU, UC Davis and Berkeley Extension. Her book The Influence of Japanese Art on Design, published by Gibbs, Smith, will be out by the end of October. The press release says ” This stunning book explores the story of Japan as the catalyst of modern design in the Gilded Age. Sigur juxtaposes glass, silver and metal arts, ceramics, textiles, furniture, jewelry, advertising and packaging with a spectrum of Japanese materials ranging from one-of-a-kind art crafts to mass-produced ephemera, showing the ways that Japanese arts and ideas about Japan set the course to our modern design.” The advance copy I saw was absolutely beautiful. I had the good fortune to be Hannah’s teaching assistant for a class based on the draft of this book, and as a person who worked in graphic design for many years, I can say it was a real eye opener. So many of the graphic design elements we take for granted were borrowed from the Japanese aesthetic that it blows me away to think of it. The book will be available at many bookstores, museum stores and Amazon.

As Hannah has begun a series of speaking engagements related to the book, I am filling in for her at SFSU on Sept 25 (Thurs) from 9-10:30 in Burk Hall room 226. I will be doing my Chinese calligraphy lecture. In this lecture I establish some of the historical background of the calligraphic arts in China up to the Cultural Revolution, and then spend 80% of the lecture talking about Modern and Avant-Garde calligraphy, and artists that are using calligraphic traditions in installation art.

While we are on the subject of authors, Fred Glass, communications director of the California Teacher’s Association, is also teaching from a draft of his book (with Joanne Barkan), From Mission to Microchip: A History of the California Labor Movement. We (the class) have only read up to chapter 10 at this point but I’m very impressed with his research and plain-spoken explanations of complex issues. Hopefully all this intellectual activity will help me power my way through my own on-going book project (the Labor Labels project; currently I am writing about the history of the arm and hammer symbol).

Syndicate continues at YBCA through 10/13

Syndicate, a collaborative project celebrating unionized workers in San Francisco performance and art spaces has been included as part of the GroundScores component of Bay Area Now 5, showing at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts from 7/19/08-10/13/08. The walking tour features street stencils of historic photographs in front of theatres and museums both downtown and at civic center. Some of the stencils are also shown in the gallery exhibition, which also includes a video by Jessica Tully (video/stencils/performance artist) along with text by Kim and photography by Tom Griscom & Wendy Crittenden.

There will be a guided tour with Kim, Jessica, Catherine Powell (from the SFSU Labor Archives, another collaborator) and other guests from noon to 2:30 on Sat, 10/4. Get tickets for the tour on YBCA's web site. Kim, Tom & Wendy will be presenting at SFSU on this topic on the evening of 10/13.

New Labor Landmarks site

Tom Griscom has built a new section onto his web site featuring the photography he's been doing for the SF Labor Landmarks project (in collaboration with photographer Wendy Crittenden, myself and Catherine Powell of the SFSU Labor Archives). There's also another photo from this project in my August 3rd posting. This project is still looking for a home, so please contact me if you have ideas.

Another opinion on the Chihuly show at the de Young

I had a chance to get a second look at the infamous Chihuly exhibit at the de Young last week. It’s the first time I’ve gotten back there since Kenneth Baker ripped the show apart in the SF Chronicle. Another curator friend echoes Baker’s criticism, saying “seeing the Chihuly show is like going to Pottery Barn.”

“Educated viewers cannot look for long at Chihuly's work without wishing there were something to think about," says Baker, "So they think about something else. “ He states that Chiluly’s work is not capable of holding our attention in the museum or upon reflection later. Perhaps it’s due to the endless amount of time I’ve spent contemplating the issues of high and low art as it relates to comics, comic art, pop art & fine art, but I find lots things to think about, both in the gallery and after. In the case of the Tabac baskets, for example, which are used as prime target for criticism, I can only speak for myself as an artist when I say that when I study another work that closely and consider it long enough to add my own interpretation, I am usually honoring that work in some way. To me this reverence is clear in the way that the glass pieces and the baskets are displayed. Although they aren’t spot lit, as Baker points out, the baskets have a real presence in the room. The baskets didn’t have to be there. The glass could have been displayed in any number of ways, yet the baskets from Chihuly’s personal collection are included for the viewer’s appreciation and education. How often are Native American baskets included in blockbuster exhibitions? Seeing both together, the viewer can appreciate the organic forms and patterns of both.

I often agree with Baker’s assessment of work in the Chron, but in this particular review he sounded very elitist to me. Baker is clear about what he thinks of as "high" glass art and that he thinks of Chihuly's work as "low" art that should be sold at Gump's. He says that these days only "intellectual content still distinguishes art from knickknacks." I can’t say that I loved every bit of work in the show, but the “reeds,” and the chandeliers are worth seeing, and anyone who loves plants will enjoy it. However you parse Chihuly's intellectual intentions, I think there is still a place in the art world for work that has emotional impact and revels in the shear joy of mastery over craft and material.

The exhibition has been packed as people flock to the de Young to see what all the hooha is about. As a de Young staffer told me when I expressed sympathy about the bad review, “everybody has their opinion. People love to see car crashes and are coming to see what could possibly be so bad. If this is the response we will get from bad reviews, bring it on.“ Yes, it’s flamboyant, and I didn’t leave the exhibit thinking about existential angst, but it did provoke thought about high & low, respect for organic forms and the creative process. Does art have to be a bummer to be “important”?

Valuation by Illustration?

Do you think a work of art’s valuation is driven by how many times its photo has appeared in 33 art history textbooks published between 1990 & 2003? Economist David Galenson, according to the New York Times (article here), has a new book out ranking the top art works using just that method. Since the most famous works of art are rarely sold, he decided that the next best indicator of a work’s importance was to count up how many times it had been reproduced in textbooks. Explaining his thinking on this, Galenson says, “Important artists are innovators whose work changes the practices of their successors, the greater the changes, the greater the artist.” This seems a bit too black & white for me... but first, here's Galenson's list of the top ranked works:

1. Picasso’s Demoiselles (28 illustrations)
2. Vladimir Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (25)
3. Smithson’s Spiral Jetty (23)
4. Hamilton’s Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing? (22)
5. Umberto Boccioni’s Unique Forms of Continuity in Space tied with Picasso’s Guernica (21)
6. Duchamp’s Fountain (18)
7. Duchamp’s Nude Descending a Staircase, No. 2 (16)

As you can imagine, many critics don’t agree with this method, saying that it is too limited (among other things). Arthur Danto, for example, points out that there is much more diversity in recent textbooks. Galenson’s answer to his critics is that they “don’t see the value in quantitative methods.” While many of these works may have helped establish various art movements, some of them aren't well known outside art history classes. I won't repeat the whole article here, but there's a pretty lively critical debate if you are interested.

For myself, I can see some merit to this. The art world and its institutions are one big network, constantly reinforcing ideas of what’s “important” or valuable. For better or worse, we all refer back to the same cannon. So, the textbook idea does make sense. On the other hand, there’s so much more going on that makes art influential. Just to round things out in terms of publications, one should include reproductions or citations in academic journals, magazine articles, or other art books. I also think it's odd that he doesn't mention the classical works that formed the basis of our visual language (for example, it's hard to believe the Mona Lisa or the Birth of Venus aren't in the top 8). What about Monet and Turner? Cezenne? What about the rest of the world? Asian & African art was very influential, plus great art in their own right. Galenson doesn't explain his criteria in the NYT article, so I guess I will have to read his book and see if he makes a convincing argument.