Bryan Valenzuela

Bryan Valenzuela's Multitudes Converge at Golden 1 Center

Photo by David Wakely

     I attended a lecture by Sacramento artist and Sac State alumnus, Bryan Valenzuela.  He spoke about first starting school as a musician studying composition with violin.  He even has road exerience as a touring musician.  As a musician myself, it was interesting to hear another artist also speak about the music side of their creative life.  Valenzuela described falling in love with making art and "dramaticism of color" being his first interest, in parallel to his attention to music tonalities.  He also spoke about his formal influences being Chuck Close and Jean-Michel Basquiat.  He was drawn to Close's hyper-realistic, redering ability, and the use of text when it came to Basquiat.  He also spoke about Sac State's library's collection of artist monographs, and them being a huge asset in his learning.  I think it's good for students to hear that and recognize the importance of learning outside of the classroom envionment, too.

     Valenzuela then spoke about his process and work.  He primarily makes pen-and-ink drawings.  A lot of the drawings are constructed from using his writings and/or writings of poets, to weave and wrap the text so it constructs a portrait.  Literature is an important source to his work.  He also spoke about sewing canvas together for the "hand-made" quality and because it's cost-effective when you have a lot of scrap.  He then mentioned the long and laborious process of designing and completeing his Multitudes Converge piece, which is currently installed in the Golden 1 Center.  The inspiration came from a line in David Mitchell's Cloud Atlas which says, "Yet what is an ocean but a multitude of drops."  From there, Valenzuela got approved for his piece, as one of five artists competing for the grant.  He then went to the Czech Republic and made over six-hundred glass spheres, in sizes of twelve, sixteen, and twenty. Even though he displayed a little over four-hundred pieces, he had to make extra because many would break.

     It's good to get insight on what a big project like Multitudes Converge involves.  It was exhausting just hearing about the arduous process but also great to see the result of so much hardwork and dedication.

Photo by Brett Melliar

Hippie Modernism at BAMPFA

Photo by Brett Melliar

Art Wall by Lawrence Weiner

Inflatables

Inflatables

Ayiti Mon Amour

Image still from Ayiti Mon Amour, from the Toronto International Film Festival

     On April 28th, I attended a screening of Ayiti Mon Amour by Haitian-born filmmaker Guetty Felin, at BAMPFA, with fellow graduate students Polo Lopez, Sean Hong, and Brett Melliar.  There was also a brief lecture and Q&A component.

     Ayiti Mon Amour is set five years after the devastating, 2010 earthquake in Haiti.  It's fictional and described as "documentary meets magical neorealism."  There are three tales surrouding the teenager Orphee (played by Felin's son), the old man, and the muse, all with the theme of connectivity.  Most of the fisherman in the film are actually fisherman since Felin wanted to keep a sense of realism intact.  Most of the conversations between the fisherman describing the challenges of catching fish are not scripted, either.  Felin's goal, however, was to not show a pity film and focus on the negative aspects of post-earthquake Haiti.  She wanted to express the beauty of her homeland, "a true Haiti," as she said; I believe she succeeded.  The cinematography is gorgeous and the color grading is excellent.  In emphasising Felin's desire for portraying connectivity, the film has a global aspect.  The teenager Orphee speaks Japanese, which brings to mind Japan's 2011 earthquake and Fukushima disaster.  Felin also notes that after Japan's earthquake, the world forgot about Haiti.  Haiti was no longer "vogue."  There are also multiple languages in the film including French, Creole, Japanese, and English.

Guetty Felin at BAMPFA

     Guetty Felin said she got into filmmaking because she's always been a storyteller.  Her drive is to tell stories and show visuals that people don't often hear and/or see.  Sean Hong asked her an important question about the possibility of goverment influence during her creation of the film.  She said there was absolutely none and proudly spoke about the freedom of press in Haiti.

Trailer for Ayiti Mon Amour

Art History Symposium

Professor O'Brien, Rachel Teagle, Lawrence Rinder, and a bunch of heads

     

     I attended two lectures on April 8th by Rachel Teagle and Lawrence Rinder.  Rachel Teagle's talk How Do You Make an Art Museum and Why? centered around the construction of the Manetti Shrem Museum in Davis, CA.  I learned that UC Davis has wanted to create an art museum for more than twenty years and there's been a plan since 1994 for one.  Teagle's mission in building the museum focused on answering "what does it mean to be a state of the art museum?"  She invited the public as an additive process to figure out what the museum should be like.  The Eli and Edyth Broad Art Museum, designed by architect Zaha Hadid, at Michigan State University was a reference.  In contrast to Hadid's architectural design style which could make a form work anywhere, Teagle and her team wanted to build something that was specific to Davis.  She listed "innovation, experimentation, and openness" as core values.  In consideration of UC Davis' interdisciplinary community, understanding how to build a space that could exhibit a wide variety of work was also important.  Teagle ended her talk by saying she wanted the Manetti Shrem to be a place where students could "find transformational experiences."

     Lawrence Rinder's talk The New Downtown Berkeley provided a history and mission statment for the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA).  As director for the museum, his mission statement is as follows: "inspires the imagination, ignites critical dialogue, and activates community engagement through art, film, and other forms of creative expression."  Certainly great goals to strive for when it comes to most museums.  During the talk, I learned that collector William Ernest had donated his big collection of Japanese prints to the museum in 1919.  At the time, it only featured about a dozen Western and American work.  Abstract expressionist painter Hans Hoffman then left forty-seven of his paintings for the museum.  Film is also an important aspect and the Pacific Film Archive was created as "part and parcel of the museum."  In 1940, the museum was moved to the UC Printing Plant of late deco design.  Also interesting to learn that ninety percent of the museum's visitors are not students.  I have recently had the pleasure of visiting the museum for the first time and I really enjoyed seeing the Collection Portal, which allows anyone to digitally see the museum's entire collection.

-My question would have been for Rachel Teagle in regards to the lab coat uniform for the staff at the Manetti Shrem.  She had said that she wanted to eschew a "research" feel from the experience but the lab coats seem to contradict that.