Thursday, September 24, 2009

Celebrate the release of Issue two this Saturday


We will be tabling at the Independent Arts and Media Expo this Saturday in Golden Gate Park this Saturday, September 26th.
Come say hi, and pick up your copy of Issue two, hot off the press!

http://www.artsandmedia.net/

If you can't make that, then be sure to drop by Heavy Rotation at El Rio on Friday, October 9th. The one and only, amazing DJ Durt will be throwing us a benefit party- Guaranteed good time. We will have issues for sale there and will be raffling a few off as well.
See you soon!

Thursday, September 10, 2009

And a quick word about Mel Kadel...



I stopped by Mel's opening at Fecal Face Gallery tonight. What is it about her work that makes me so happy? Is it the rainbow colors triggering dopamine production in my gay little brain?
Mel Kadel's work is like the spawn of Aesops fables and Mayan codices (It happened sometime during the postmodern re/"anti"- conquest of Latin America). When I look at her work, I see stories of epic, time- worn struggles of fem- andro' a' fem- andro, and fem andro vs the omnipotent yet pervious forces of nature, all played out on little scraps of coffee stained paper.


Mel Kadel is one of the featured artists in issue 2 of Art XX. Check out her work at Fecal Face, 66 Gough in San Francisco

Issue two has gone to the printers

For reals! To fill you in on the last few weeks:

We had an fantastic benefit at the Sub/Mission Gallery where we raised nearly half the printing cost for this issue, which is amazing. A year ago we had a benefit where we somehow managed to book a middle aged "all girl" metal band from Sacramento who forgot and/or broke most of their equipment but managed to run up a bar tab that left us without with a net gain of 40 bucks. ha.
However, with the craft and ingenuity of Noelle Duncan aka lead singer of Elle Nino (I don't know how to put in a tilda), the event was a success. Thanks Noelle!



There was music



Dancing



Friends making funny faces

etc, for more photos http://sfstation.smugmug.com/gallery/9208325_UX58M#614761842_jtUgd

Altogether, lovely. My night ended with someone trying to set themselves and consequently my bedroom on fire, but that is a different story, and also lovely.

Then, with money in the bank, we had one last collective meeting to finish up the final edits.
These were the fortunes we got with our Chinese delivery lunch


Mine was the top one: "Cut through organizational impediments and get some real work done"
I was really inspired, but accidentally fell asleep

There are pictures of me drooling, but I am trying to maintain dignity.

Once well rested, we looked over the final pages

and viola!

Today we had our curatorial meeting for issue three...

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Michelle Rothman's "Egoless" at Femina Potens

A friend of mine, who has long worked in one of San Francisco’s premier museums, likes to refer to her place of work as the Mausoleum: the place where art goes to die. Femina Potens is once again quickening the pulse of the SF art scene, and ensuring that creativity and imagination are alive and well with its new show “Egoless.” I speak with the fiery master- mind behind this exhibition, FP curator Michelle Rothman, about this challenging and introspective show.
Francesca Ochoa, ArtXX Magazine

Hi Michelle! Could you start us off by explaining your position at Femina Potens?

I’m the visual arts director of Femina Potens. That entails the in- gallery visual arts program as well as FP Edge, which is our outreach program. I have been with the gallery about a year now, and I absolutely love it.

In a nutshell, what is this show “Egoless” all about?

We asked 15 different artists in an array of different medias to come together. We put them in groups of three, which were chosen out of a hat, and gave them three months to complete this project, and in doing so, give up their ego…

This is artists we are talking about. Did they really give up their ego?

They’ve really had to. Trust me, it’s been quite an experiment. The first month, each of the fifteen artists were asked to create a piece using whatever medium they wanted. Then, they switched with someone else in their group. Everyone swapped a piece, and then came back and swapped with the other person in their group. At the end of the three months, there are fifteen works, but each piece has had three artists work on it. Within each group, each artist will have worked on the beginning, middle, and end of a piece.

What inspired you to create “Egoless”?

Firstly, I have always been inspired by the exquisite corpse. Probably what inspired me the most, was a show started in New York about 10 or 11 years ago at the Guggenhiem. It was composed of a number of Robert Rauschenberg’s panels, and traveled to maybe twenty different cities in the states. Everytime the show went to a different city, different curators, celebrities, or personalities would be invited to take several of the panels and create their own piece with them. So, everytime the show went somewhere else, the end result was going to be markedly different. To me, it is really important that artists are kept stimulated. I think that a gallery shouldn’t just display work, it should inspire work. My goal in being a curator is to always be a muse, getting artists to create new work, and push boundaries.

What has the reaction of the artists been like?

It’s been very interesting, because no one knows what is happening to their piece. Every person who has been involved has had a different reaction. Some people have kept it really minimal, knowing that other people will add, and some people really went for it. Some people have been really upset with what has happened with their work, and others have loved it. But all the pieces have gone through a huge transformation, and the one’s that I’ve seen so far, are really spectacular.

Is this a project that you plan to continue at Femina Potens?

Definitely. We will keep this as an annual show. We’ve had such a great experience. So much of it is the trust of the people you are working with. We went into this blind. Some of the artists I knew, some of them I didn’t, and I have to say, I have worked with fifteen phenomenal artists. They all really let go, while at the same time really engaged emotionally, physically, spiritually- it’s been incredible.

Monday, August 3, 2009

We're Back!

Art XX Radical Arts Magazine is getting ready to release its second issue. Though it has been nearly a year since our first issue, in theory we are a bi- annual publication.... Art XX is the project of three working artists who drink to much, have to much sex, are prone to long unproductive bouts of angst and utter nihilism, etc. (Don't you feel bad for us?) So, excuses aside, we promise to try and stay focused, get organized, and give you two issues a year. You want two issues a year because they are so damn great!
In this and in future issues we have wrangled some super hot columnists:
Rhiannon Argo
Jiz Lee
Ill Nippashi and
Cristy Road

Issue 2 features writing by
Eileen Myles
Meliza Banales
Michelle Tea and
Choung- Dai Vo

And interviews and artwork by:

Katie Bush
Umayyah Cable
Mary Coble
Mia Nakano
Monica Majoli
Hong- An Troung
Laura Splan
and many more....