Category Archives: First Fridays!

Art Murmur continued…

Friday already again!  This week has gotten the better of me…

In effort to finish up my Art Murmur escapades before leaving town, I’m going to just ramble for a bit…  After leaving bayVAN, we stopped in to Johannson Projects.  I’ll have to do another post on the Projects in the future because it’s considered one of the best independent galleries in the East Bay, if not the greater Bay Area.  Voted Best Gallery of 2008 and 2009 by the East Bay Express, “[the] art shown in this stylish space… is postmodern-cool, often involving unusual methods or processes, but well crafted and visually appealing.”

Founded by Kimberly Johannson, who just happened to luck out with the already existing lovely “K” mosaic installed at the entryway, this space is the epi-center of Art Murmur.  As such, it tends to be unbelievably crowded, even on a dark drizzly evening in February…

art murmur gallery, oakland art gallery, kimberly johannson

While a lively environment to pal around with friends and meet like minded artsy types, it wasn’t all that easy to see the art, and none of my photos turned out very well, so you’ll have to go check this one out for yourselves.

The current installation, titled Article X, features amazing photographs by David Trautrimas… otherworldly beautifully de-saturated Cold War landscapes constructed out of common everyday household items like coffee pots and waffle irons, and fascinating sculptural installations by Kristina Lewis. Lewis “frees utilitarian objects from their allegiance to human agendas and gives the materials of our disregarded possessions space to evolve. Emancipated zippers, stilettos, and light switches (complete with their wiring), become indescribable relics that could be machine or animal.”  Both of these installations feature the DIY sensibility that is often associated with this gallery.  Show is up through March 20th, and the gallery hours are 12 – 6pm Thurs/Fri and 11 – 5pm Saturdays (also by appointment).

Also featured this evening was a performance by a men’s a capella group called Conspiracy of Beards. Have you heard of them? Based here in the Bay Area, they’re a 30-member group, performing exclusively the works of Leonard Cohen in complex 4 and 5 part harmony arrangements. Can you say dreamy? This was just about the handsomest room full of men I’ve ever seen, and they were pouring their hearts out in song. And boy could they sing. These gentlemen put on a show worthy of the great Mr. Cohen, whom I had the good fortune to see on his recent stop at the Paramount; it was… truly transcendent.  Here’s a brief clip of Conspiracy…

There were a few other stops Friday night, but I’m running out of time so I think I’ll just stop there.  Kind of a nice note to end on I think.

I hope to get a bunch of posts up next week about my historical tour focusing on African American leaders influential in our Oakland’s development.  But it all depends on internet access… vacation starts tomorrow!!!

bayVAN

This post continues the chronicle of my escapades this past Friday night, another “First Friday” in Oakland. In fact, the rest of the week will highlight the various venues hit… expect posts to get shorter and images to get blurrier as evening progressed!

And a bit of a heads up… next week (while I am on vacation ~ woo hoo!) I’ve got some posts lined up about some of the key influential African American leaders in Oakland’s history. I took a walking tour last weekend (provided free of charge thanks to the city, despite their budget woes) and it was fascinating! I hope you will find it equally so… please tune in next week to read more about the first and second generations of black leaders who shaped the city we live in today.

Last note: cool show at the Stork Club tonight.  9-9:30ish.  Two drummers.  One sax.  Experimental.  OUT THERE.  Come check it out if you’re feeling brave…

In the meantime… second stop Friday night…. bayVAN, which stands for Bay Area Visual Arts Network. It’s a gallery, housed in a tiny but beautiful space nestled between Broadway and Telegraph Avenues, on the third story of 455 17th Street. But it’s not your run-of-the-mill conventional gallery… Their focus is “[sourcing] opportunities for artists to display, lease and sell original artwork outside traditional gallery venues,” and large scale residential and commercial applications seem to fit this bill quite nicely. They currently have an artists’ registry of 100 strong, and though their 2010 Open Call to Artists is currently closed, you can check back here for future openings later in the year.

BayVAN is headed by three women who’ve been formative in developing the East Bay arts community:

  • Brooke Baird is a painter and illustrator who has been working and teaching in the Bay area for 15 years. With non-profit management experience as well as skills in high-end art advertising and real estate marketing, she “takes great pleasure in using original art to bring together beautiful and unique spaces while creating economic opportunities for fellow artists.”
  • Kerri Johnson “is a working artist, arts administrator and curator. She is the co-owner of Blankspace gallery, a contemporary art gallery she co-founded in 2005. Ms. Johnson has been a member of the Bay Area fine art community for 9 years and has worked with internationally renowned artists including Keith Boadwee and Anya Gallacio.”
  • Nicole Neditch “has been part of the Bay Area Art community for over a decade, as an independent curator, arts administrator and graphic designer.” She opened Mama Buzz Cafe and Buzz Gallery in 2002, and later, with the help of other new gallery owners in the Uptown district, “founded Art Murmur, Oakland’s ‘First Friday’ art walk, which now hosts thousands of Bay Area residents at more than 15 galleries surrounding the Mama Buzz Cafe.” She also recently designed and executed the city’s new art & culture website: OaklandArts.org

The current exhibit, up for the next two months, is a group show that hosts a number of artists with whom they’ve worked over the past year: Brian Caraway, Jason Byers, Steuart Pittman, Modesto Covarrubias, Maryly Snow, Zoe Ani, Eric Larson, Martin Webb. The show is mostly small works, which seem well suited for the narrow profile of their space. It’s not clear to me if the gallery has other open-to-the-public hours, aside from First Fridays. You can check their blog or contact them directly.

First Friday, First Stop: MUA

Friends and I checked out the Art Murmur scene on Friday night… I missed the last one (it fell on New Year’s Day) so I was excited to mingle among the artists and hipsters once again.  My artist friend C came from San Francisco (I love that city folks are the new “bridge and tunnel” crowd… trekking to Oakland on the weekends for edgy art and sublime dining).  Unfortunately, she got hung up in traffic due to an accident on the bridge which gave me an extra hour to kill, so I met friends at MUA for a drink.  Or two…

mua lounge, mua on broadway, auto row restaurants

First of all, a bit of a disclaimer… I have yet to actually eat dinner at MUA, so those looking for a full dining review should just skip to the end and check some other links I’ve provided. But I have been to MUA a handful of times for drinks and/or snacks and I have to say, I just love this place. Everything about it, from the ginormous warehouse space and the way their minimalistic asian-shic decor perfectly meshes with the raw materials and scale of the larger industrial space, to the edgy urban art, the ultra-modern unisex bathrooms, and the artistry they apply to their simple but delicious food & drink preparations (and yes, I just mentioned bathrooms and food in the same sentence, but who really cares?). The whole place exudes a modern, but warm, aesthetic and the crowd inside (both staff and patrons) feels like modern-Oakland in my mind. It’s hard to explain, but it’s really one of the few spaces I’ve been in in Oakland where I really felt, for a moment, like I was in New York (or Brooklyn rather, because this is a huge space.)

mua, mua oakland

And that’s one of the things that’s so impressive about MUA. They’ve been open for 2 years now and I remember thinking when the first opened, ‘Man, that’s a big space. How are they gonna keep that full consistently?” But they do, and I’m so happy to see this enterprise going strong on a mostly abandoned stretch of Broadway’s Auto Row. Granted, there are a few other things going on there… but there are also a lot of large empty car dealerships, and a couple redevelopment plans already in the works for the area. Here’s one specific plan and EIR (Environmental Impact Report) if you’re interested. It’s actually pretty fascinating reading… The redesign of a city, in progress.

BROADWAY / VALDEZ DISTRICT Specific Plan and Environmental Impact Report

You can chime in if you have something to say. There are already great discussions going on here…
Building Up Broadway on A Better Oakland
Oakland’s Growing Pains on Living in the O

But I digress. Back to MUA, which is right in the thick of the redevelopment zone on Broadway at 24th Street… I meandered upstairs to see Ross Simonini putting the finishing touches on his portion of a two-man show in the upstairs area of MUA. The next two photos are his pieces, which were collaged creations of crayon, paint, and, if I remember correctly, “sandpapered” photographs. The room was rather dimly lit, but amidst the raw textured surfaces of compressed plywood and more sophisticated asian-influenced furniture, I thought his pieces looked, well, perfect. In fact, his whimsically constructed lanky figures, who seemed to be battling or dancing – I couldn’t quite tell, reminded me of the slender figures of Indonesian shadow puppet batiques. Beautiful. Simonini is also an editor at Believer magazine and has a blog here where you can read about more of his work, and many other artistic things of interest.

mua art show, ross simonini

William Saroyan, the other artist displaying works, is known more for his writing than his painting. His paintings were difficult to see by candlelight, and alas, I had a cold drink waiting for me at the bar downstairs, so I will have to go back to see his pieces by the light of day (the picture below does not do them justice). In the meantime, I’ll provide you an excerpt from Simonini’s recent blog post about the show…

“His vein of abstract expressionism came not from New York but from Fresno, his home, and contained an intensity of ferocious markings and firework colors, often quickly scrawled on butcher paper. As a writer, he received Pulitzer for “The Time of Your Life,” but turned it down, and was given an Oscar for his screenplay, “The Human Comedy,” but sold it to a pawnshop. Like Steinback, he wrote extensively about central California, though Saroyan was widely known for his work about San Francisco.”

Sounds interesting, eh? Go check it out… this place is cool.

mua art show, william saroyan art

More reading and reviews…
MUA on Yelp
MUA on City Homestead
MUA on Oakland Magazine
MUA on East Bay Express

Royal Nonesuch Gallery (Art Murmur – Act III)

Our last stop of the night (our last gallery stop… more on our real last stop later) was the Royal Nonesuch Gallery on Telegraph between 42nd and 43rd Streets. As far as I know, this is the newest addition to the Art Murmur tour, having just opened about 2 months ago.

Royal Nonesuch Gallery, art murmur

You literary folks may get the reference, but for those who don’t, Royal NoneSuch Gallery was named after “the crafty theater troupe in Mark Twain’s novel Huckleberry Finn… in the spirit of participation, interaction, and art making of all kinds.” The space is run by two local artists: Elizabeth Bernstein, a photographer, and Carrie Hott, who works in mixed medium (drawing, painting, installations), and their focus is to provide more dynamic and interactive experiences than the typical conventional gallery space. Judging from the descriptions of their brief history of events, they seem to be hitting the mark spot-on: craft markets, barbeques, parlor game nights. How fun!

small works holiday show, royal nonesuch, urban yeti, aaron terry

Their Friday night event was called “Small Works! Art for Under a Hundred Bucks.” Not a bad price point for original art. The “Urban Yeti’s” above are wood and paint constructions by artist Aaron Terry, and the “Venom Dip Collection” below is the work of artist Ben Venom.

ben venom, royal nonesuch gallery, royal nonesuch small works

Their next event is this Sunday, December 13th: Sunday Craft Market & BBQ! (1 – 5pm) I’ll mention this again in my guide to all the holiday sales, artisan markets, and craft fairs around town this weekend, so you can get your holiday shopping needs met while supporting local artists. Check back tomorrow for that.

And finally, our last last stop of the night was just down the street to Pizzaiolo for delectable late night delight (chocolat pots de créme… you must say this in french… exquis!) I love this restaurant and the fantastic fare that Charlie Hallowell and his staff consistently put out. I’ll give them their own in-depth post in the future, and plan to hit his new restaurant (Boot and Shoe Service) opening this month on Grand Avenue too!