I just got back from visiting family and friends in Santiago, Chile. The neighborhood of Bellavista is a great place to hang out and one of my favorite neighborhoods to hang out in South America. Sure, Santiago has competition from more famous Street Art stomping grounds like Sao Paulo and Buenas Aires, but it still holds its own. Again I found the most interesting and relevant artwork on the streets, embedded and enmeshed in the architecture and the lives of the people who are blessed enough to live around this most refreshingly un-American of art-making modes. Yes, America has a huge tradition of Street Art, but I contend that it is not of the same scope as you can presently… Continue reading...

“I know you don’t like group shows, but if you did, what kind of group shows would you put together?”

“Come again?” I replied. It was like being asked what I would do in a restaurant that served only different kinds of yogurt, or sauerkraut.

The caller came again, explaining she was involved with a new organization devoted to displaying work by young, “emerging” artists. Questions like this make you wonder if haranguing for years on a given subject ever does much good.

Well, after a period of time, things that go without saying need to be said all over again.

It is hard to figure which kinds of group shows are most objectionable: patent space-fillers or shows that obviously consumed some time, effort and expense… Continue reading...

All the signs here say

Watch It for Flying Eggs!

and the tent string turnip pawns pocket of a Queens
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bound clown, eating noodles w/a fluke

in a toothpaste tube
bodysock                                    deep in the pocket of the D
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MZ

blowing tin cans… Continue reading...

In thinking about my last post—about putting into artists’ mouths a simple statement of what they do–I went back to my favorite art text of all time, “Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees” a book by Lawrence Weschler about Robert Irwin. The following fragment (which is transcribed from a photocopy of two pages of the open book) outlines what seems to be Irwin’s breakthrough as an artist and—this is what makes it so amazing—a person. Here we can see how and where the artist, the individual human, and the human species merge.

“…purples. It’s a little more difficult to see the incidental transitions, the low-grade shadows caused by the varying textures, because of the starkness of the contrast between the white wall and… Continue reading...

Episode 5

In the Studio with Kate Clark

Kate Clark creates striking sculptures that synthesize the human face onto the bodies of wild animals. In the pursuit of a longstanding interest in the face and its unique abilities for expression, abilities which separate us from other mammals, she brings to the surface uncomfortable tensions in our history as recently civilized animals. Evolution, the nature/culture divide, dreams and nightmares are some of the topics that come up when Work Only visits her in her studio near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, as she prepares new pieces for Claire Oliver’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach 2009. Continue reading...

Julia Shirar—Oakland-based artist—joined me in a email conversation about her upcoming exhibition Wrath is Come at the Rowan Morrison Gallery, opening Saturday, January 16th through February 20th.  Enjoy, and if inspired, please comment below.  Happy new decade!

Steven Barich– Greetings Julia.  I asked you for an interview via Artopic.org because next month you will open an exhibition titled Wrath Is Come at the Rowan Morrison Gallery, in Oakland. Having followed your career over the last decade as colleague and friend in the Bay Area art scene, I’m immediately curious to know the derivation of these recent artworks, what you are planning for the exhibition itself, and where exactly does

Oakland Swee(t)art’s list:

Top 10 best Oakland Gallery shows of 2009

By Obi Kaufmann

 Note: This is a Lovefest, get ready. I contemplated the 10 worst shows too but don’t have the desire at all to list them. I have seen a lot of great work this year and have been involved as curator and as artist in many exhibits myself. This list does not include any of those shows. I can’t go there. This show does not include a lot of Oakland, namely, Jingletown, the Museum, Oakland East, etc… Continue reading...