Friday, June 29, 2007

Young Collectors, where are you?

New Collectors On The Block
Liz Tunick, The Forbes Collector 11.08.05, 4:00 PM ETNew York -

Art collectors keep getting younger. Consider the 13-year-old boy who spent his bar mitzvah money on a Rembrandt etching at a 2003 art fair. In a few years, after finishing his education and landing a well-paying professional gig, our young friend may find himself with plenty of disposable income and empty walls in his loft that his tiny Rembrandt won’t fill.

How will he scratch his art itch then? Sure, he can spend his weekends wandering the dizzying art mall that is Chelsea, getting dissed by dilettantes in pointy shoes. Or he can fast-track his art world access by joining one of the dozens of dynamic collecting groups springing up around the country, many of them auxiliary membership groups attached to museums, auction houses and art fairs.

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With its graying leadership, the art community is looking to foster the next generation of collectors, trustees and donors. Paltry acquisition budgets put museums in the business of collecting collectors, ideally ones blessed with deep pockets and impeccable taste. It’s in museums’ interest to shape that taste so that its collector protégés might one day gift their treasures to the institution.

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So who joins these groups? Young married folks interested in art and looking for a boost on the social ladder? Cultured singletons who prefer to spend a weekend gallery hopping to TV watching? While only a few groups have actual age requirements, membership age ranges from 21 to 45. Whatever the age, gender or marital status, all are united by their desire to learn more about art and socialize with like-minded culturati.

Young collecting groups cater to these interests by hosting frequent events ranging from intimate visits to artists’ studios to bopping blockbuster galas. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art’s Contemporary Extension group takes its members on a winery field trip, complete with a slide talk on the “Bacchanalian History of Wine Seen through 4,000 Years of Art.” It also offers an innovative community-service project that pairs members with local students to view exhibits and make art together. The Contemporaries, a collecting group started this year by Harvard Business School alums, recently sponsored a tour of artist Cedric Smith’s studio in Atlanta to view his mixed-media images of African-Americans initially inspired by rap artist Public Enemy.

Indeed, the most important thing these groups offer: insider access, invaluable in the insular and clubby art world. Want behind-the-scenes access to museum collections and staff? Members of The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Apollo Circle attend exclusive curator-led workshops on topics like developing a “collector’s eye” or the importance of art conservation. A few blocks down, at the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Whitney Contemporaries meet regularly with curators, trustees and director Adam Weinberg. At the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, the youth-oriented Museum Council sponsors connoisseurship seminars, special exhibition openings and weekend jaunts to New York art fairs.

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Want a curator to accompany you to a few cutting-edge galleries to demystify the art? Philae Knight, co-chair of the Whitney group, says that their events foster “a close relationship” with gallery owners and artists. Nothing like an influential curator in tow to melt the frost off those gallery gatekeepers.

All of which makes it easier to whip out the checkbook when you are so moved. That’s exactly what Affordable Art Fair director Helen Allen hopes will happen with the New Collectors Group she formed in conjunction with the New York-based fair, which offers vetted contemporary art for under $10,000. Curatorial lectures and gallery walks are intended to help educate and broaden the market. Rodney Reid, a founding member of The Contemporaries, gets even more specific: “We focus on young artists, as we’re aiming to create a generational support system.” In other words, young collectors can help their creative peers be less reliant on their day jobs so they can focus on making art.

So, what’s the ante to get into this game? Fees range from nothing (joining The Contemporaries is free, but you have to be invited) to hundreds of dollars for an annual high-category museum membership. Of course, part of the mission of any museum-related group will be to support the institution. Young San Francisco collectors recently raised a whopping $1.9 million with their swanky spring ball. But often the cost of joining goes simply to cover the cost of group events, like space rental, speaker fees and refreshments.

The bottom line is that all these groups help people enjoy what they love: art.

The following is a list of collectors' groups and contact information:

The Museum Council
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Mass.
617-369-3268 / museumcouncil@mfa.org

The Apollo Circle
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, N.Y.
212-650-2371

SFMOMA Contemporary Extension
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
415-357-4086

The Whitney Contemporaries
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, N.Y.
212-570-3641

AAF New Collectors Group, New York, N.Y.
212-255-2003

The Contemporaries, New York, N.Y.
info@contemporaries.com

Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Watch out George...

This Scotsman is no poodle!

Monday, June 25, 2007

Catch a falling star


Rhizome News
June 25, 2007

Catch a falling star

With her video installations, photographs, and short films, Australian artist Lynette Wallworth creates communal environments that respond, like natural ecosystems, to human presence. At her current show at the British Film Institute (open June 23-September 2), her new work, Hold: Vessel 2, invites visitors to carry a lens-shaped glass bowl through a cavernous room.

By moving through the darkness with a ritualistic posture of supplication and offering, viewers 'catch' projected still and moving images of microscopic underwater life forms and deep outer space. Participants inevitably interact with each other; the artist structures her works to 'encourage temporary interdependence.' While her user interface is simple and transparent, Wallworth's collaborations with specialists in contemporary scientific visioning technologies--the BIO-Rad confocal laser scanning microscope, X-ray Microtomography, and remotely operated light-sensitive cameras--reveal images of the world ! that are invisible to the naked eye.

Placing the human subject at the nexus of a microcosm and a macrocosm largely outside the reach of everyday experience, the artist offers access to those wondrous hidden realms while hinting at the infinite 'unknown unknowns' beyond. Hold: Vessel 2 is a visceral reminder of our interconnectedness within the vast and complex system of the universe--a feeling which, according to the artist, is 'a useful sensation to achieve.' - Marcia Tanner

http://www.bfi.org.uk/whatson/southbank/gallery/wallworth



Sunday, June 24, 2007

Pink Weekend

Hey there,

just a quick note that I will be performing for hundreds of queers on the street today. Pee Play does the Tantra Soundsystem located between 18th and 19th on Castro street. Just look for the big truck with all the stretch fabric near Nirvana restaurant and the Wells Fargo? I do an early set from 7pm - 8pm (one hour and thats it) and then you can stay tuned for San Francisco legendary Techtress DJ Darcy who goes from 9pm -10pm. This is my favorite set of the year, please come join me. Links for all the events I'm doing this weekend are attached.

http://www.deejaypeeplay.com/honey/pinksaturday.jpg http://www.deejaypeeplay.com/honey/afterglow.jpg
http://klodhopper.com/joy/2007/media/Afterglow.jpg

Happy Pride Everyone! Jacob aka PEE PLAY

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Red Without Blue, airing on Sundance.

For those of you who missed Red without Blue, it will be airing on The Sundance Channel on Monday June 25th at 9pm. It is a beautiful, moving and very inspiring film. This stands as a very important human document. Anne.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Red Without Blue

Check out the The SF Chronicle article about Red Without Blue, the documentary which explores the relationship between identical twins Mark Oliver and Alex as Alex undergoes a transformation into a woman named Clair...

Oliver recently performed Skipping Rope, a reformulation of past experiences into the ongoing present achieved through a kind of self portraiture at TART.

"Red Without Blue finds painful beauty in the unshakeable bonds of family. "- L.A. Times.

“Clair and Mark share their story so bravely. They are teachers and true beauties, and each so wise and kind.” - Antony Hegarty, Antony & The Johnsons.


Screening at:

Frameline, San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival
June 17: 5:00 pm, The Victoria
June 20: 2:30 pm, The Castro Theatre
San Francisco, California

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Mad Science

Hi Anne, below is my blurb for the PLAySPACE events; thanks for the plug! Hope to see you on Friday, Jess.

PLAySPACE presents Mad Science

This summer, PLAySPACE Gallery will host a series of one-night events. The gallery will become a space for experimentation, presentation and conversation. The events will feature works-in-progress by artists, writers, architects, designers and curators from CCA and beyond. Participants have been invited to bring actual works-in-progress or documentation of these works to show and discuss casually. These are not meant to be critiques or finalized exhibitions but opportunities for conversation around process. Participation in these events is not exclusive to the CCA community.

All members of the public are invited to join us for drinks and conversation.

Featured artists lined up so far include Dina Danish, Joshua Gabriel, Samantha Lautman, Travis Meinolf, Dina Pugh, Karie Reinertson, Zachary Scholz, Gareth Spor, and Paul Zografakis.

The schedule of upcoming events is as follows:
Monday June 25, 7-10 pm
Monday July 9, 7-10 pm
Monday July 23, 7-10 pm

The event series will culminate in a month-long residency at PLAySPACE, for which one artist/writer/architect/designer/curator who shares work over the summer will be invited by the directors and committee to use the gallery as their studio for the month of August 2007.
Please email us at playspace@cca.edu with any questions.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

yacht club gallery presents:

yacht club gallery presents:

F*CK YOU / COMMENTARY, CRITICISM

Opening: Saturday, June 16th, 6-10pm
2750 Yemans
Hamtramck, MI 48212


exhibiting artists: Mary Addison Hackett (Los Angeles); Nevin Tomlinson (Chicago); Dick Goody & Jef Bourgeau (Detroit); Jose Ruiz (NY); Andre Ethier (Toronto); Dylan Spaysky (Detroit)


yacht club gallery’s inaugural exhibition aims to showcase contemporary works that address or actively rebuff standard notions of critical evaluation and acceptance in art. But this is not a reactionary show; it is rather pro-active in its anti-critical stance. Included works both directly and indirectly address the role of criticism in the contemporary art community and its relationship to artists in the act of creation.

yacht club gallery

248.709.9747

Directions here

- ann gordon

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Terra Incognita II

Film Screening
Friday June 15
7pm
Sliding scale $5-$10

New Langton Arts and San Francisco Cinematheque present Terra Incognita II, an evening featuring the work of Abbas Kiarostami. We will be screening Roads of Kiarostami and A Taste of Cherry. These screenings supplement the ongoing exhibit Critical Foreground, a group show of international contemporary artists whose works foreground the representation and manipulation of landscape.

Abbas Kiarostami (b. 1940, Tehran) is a master of modern cinema and one of the few Iranian filmmakers to enjoy fame in the Western world. He has made such classic films as The Wind Will Carry Us, Through the Olive Trees, and Close Up. His films are distinguished by their simplicity; a poetic meditation slowly deepens into a sophisticated dialogue that mixes nature and culture, fact and fiction. In 1998, he became the first Iranian filmmaker to win the Palm d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival with A Taste of Cherry.

Program
Roads of Kiarostami (2005), 32 min
*Taste of Cherry (1997), 95 min
*Please note that we will be screening a digital version

Roads of Kiarostami makes a thoughtful probe into the connection between still photography and film. The camera follows the paths in Kiarostami's landscape photography, widening out to show the pathway's scenic context. Narrated by Kiarostami and set to a musical score, the paths are poetry: "ways of love, ways of escape...ways which destroy us, ways without conclusion like stagnant water..." (Kiarostami, 2005.) Here, the conclusion is not stagnant, but explosive; the film creates a hand-wringing anxiety about the future of our world.

Taste of Cherry follows the journey of a middle-aged man who is going to end his life. Seeking the help of someone to bury him if he succeeds, or to rescue him if the attempt fails, the characters he meets on his drive through the area surrounding Tehran all refuse to assist him, and their the diverse reasonings form the dialogue. This simple fable delivers complex meditations on life, death, and Iran.

***************************************************

New Langton Arts
1246 Folsom Street
San Francisco, CA 94103-3817
For further information: 415.626.5416
www.newlangtonarts.org

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Saturday, June 9, 2007

Rail night

Rail invites you to our openings, open hours and events on Friday June 15th from 6pm onwards.

Ampersand and Ping Pong open their new shows, TART has open hours for its current show which is being reviewed for Artweek magazine and Silverman has an event planned.

Rail's actions include monthly coordinated openings, projects across all Rail venues, an online resource, hosting of national and international visiting artists, curators and critics. Rail recently participated in an International Archive Meeting at The Zurich Schedalle.

Rail's artwalk was a trip! -- a journey of discovery, sociability, and unexpected aesthetic delights. It's a perfect opportunity to explore what's germinating in the San Francisco art scene and to tour this developing area of the city - Marcia Tanner, curator and writer.

Look forward to seeing you, Rail.

Friday, June 8, 2007

Jump (Break Up)

A portrait of our 'skipper' Oliver Farley who recently performed at TART is featured in Caitlin Mitchell-Dayton's show at Gallery Paule Anglim.

Printed Matter

Dear TART,

Please join us Thursday, June 7th from 5:00 - 7:00 pm at Printed Matter to celebrate the publication of the fourth volume of Between Artists: Amy Sillman & Gregg Bordowitz. Between Artists is a series of small format, conversation based books edited by Alejandro Cesarco. The books document different positions and strategies of leading and up-and-coming contemporary artists.

Printed Matter is located at 195 Tenth Avenue between 21st and 22nd streets. The artists will be present.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

A.R.T. Press is the publishing arm of Art Resources Transfer, Inc., a nonprofit, tax exempt organization founded in 1987 and dedicated to establishing access to the arts through publishing and community-oriented distribution. Art Resources Transfer is committed to documenting and supporting artists' voices and work, and to making these voices accessible to the broadest possible public. Since its founding, Art Resources Transfer has maintained two interconnected program areas: publishing (A.R.T. Press), and the free distribution of books to underserved communities (D.U.C. Program).

For additional information on these programs, as well as ordering this and other A.R.T. Press titles please visit http://artresourcestransfer.org/artpress.php

Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Ms. Homeland Security


Hi all,


I wanted to let you know that Ms. Homeland Security:Illegal Entry Dress Tent will be performed, for one night only at The San Jose Museum of Art this Thursday evening, June 7, 6-8PM.


I hope to spy on some of you there!!!!


Robin.