by James HIll -

DO HO SUH AND MEMORY’S LABYRINTH

Do Ho Suh’s current art installation at Arthouse of the Contemporary Austin running through January 11, 2014,  is easy to like, to photograph.  His embroidered sketches, videos and installations replay and rephrase an  inescapable memory of home.  It’s  depicted in paper and thread as carried on one’s shoulders,  or trailed after like clouds of dust, or in video hauled across country on a semi-trailer. One recalls   Atlas’s bearing the weight of the world, Peanuts’ Pigpen trailing the dust of ancient civilizations, and the percussive heartbeat of truck driving songs.

by James HIll -

STREET ART/STREET CRIME: PAINT IT WHITE DIVISADERO

Pictured here is not a new anti-graffiti effort by San Francisco’s Public Works Department.   As if the neighborhood hasn’t become white enough, Absolut Vodka has come to town with its artistic promotion of inebriation “Open Canvas” whitewashing San Francisco’s  Divisadero Corridor between Hayes and Grove to create a  blank canvas for the work of selected artists while providing the Vodka an advertisement in the form of a news event. 

by James HIll -

BARRY McGEE: ARTIST AND VANDAL

Last summer’s trip to Berlin, City of Graffiti, has us thinking about the lively yet criminal place of graffiti in the community.   The Berkeley Arts Museum visits the subject  in Barry McGee’s exhibit of constructions, sketches and graffiti art closing December 9th, 2012.  The museum building itself  is not to be missed, as it too is subject to closure as an art museum in 2015 as a result of ever-stiffening seismic requirements anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Big One.  Meanwhile, the building’s impending loss as a dramatic and now-unrepeatable gallery space is a tragic and crushing blow.

by James HIll -

FORT ROSS, SONOMA

Light on two sides is the rule for a well lit, warm and glare-free room. The Fort Ross Chapel of 1850 takes a different approach with a different effect. Lit from one side, the hot spots, glare and gloominess are highly emotive with a dark presence hanging over the pulpit.
The tight grain and rich darkness of the the old growth lumber panelling is unavailable today. The diameter of the ceiling drum would be similar to that of the tree fell to supply the fort’s lumber.