Xandra Ibarra, Lumpy Lumpen, 2018 We asked artist Xandra Ibarra to meditate on Michelle Handelman’s Hustlers & Empires at SFMOMA. While she was experiencing the performance installation, another hustle unfolded in her mind. Here’s the script. —Eds. White Thing with Power and Brown Thing enter an empty room with one chair. White Thing with Power [...]
Dear Ben, killer whales came and snapped up the man who was pale, who bravely swam through the freezing black waters of the ocean, they grabbed his head and threw him aside, then we (people and whales) rolled around together in tufts on the sloping grassy field — Sesshu Dear Son (White male, twenties, I [...]
Click to enlarge. Ten years ago today, me, pushing the “Publish” button on the first post for Open Space, launching into an unknowable future with high aspirations and tremendous fears. I remember thinking it might be a soft start. Perhaps, I hoped, Open Space would stay partly invisible while it found its footing. Not to [...]
Stanley Gambucci in Paramodernities #3, February 23–24, 2018 at ODC Theater. When I think about lineage, I imagine taking those DNA tests that reveal surprising details about one’s ancestry. I have never done this, but I suspect that results may be less revealing for immigrants of color than our white counterparts, especially those of us [...]
Sigmar Polke, Untitled, 2003 The painting is of course Untitled, because words are a fence and allegories avoid containment. But stated simply: There’s a warm, amber-colored room, invoked from thin black lines that limn the flat planes of walls and floor; the room is slightly off-kilter, as though approached from an angle. Within that space [...]
An initial 3-D rendering of the Living Room space. I was the producer for Living Room, working alongside Suzanne Stein, the curator of the project; we were excited to make this — our first collaboration — happen, and about six months out, we started the planning process by discussing what Living Room would be or [...]
Mia Pixley performs Simone Bailey’s Sway, Clench, Release (Requiem No. 415) at the 16th St. Plaza in the Mission on February 24, 2018. Photo: Hillary Goidell. Simone Bailey’s Sway, Clench, Release (Requiem No. 415) Who gets to stand here? Standing at the corner of 16th and Mission as the day moved from sunset to evening, [...]
keyon gaskin performing this is an artwork… at The Lab on March 15. Photo: Alexander Girard. We asked Tongo Eisen-Martin to respond to Simone Bailey’s Sway, Clench, Release (Requiem No. 415), performed February 24 as part of The Lab’s 16th and Mission Project in the BART Plaza, and keyon gaskin’s this is an artwork…, performed March 15–16 at [...]