Cliff Notes
Each week, our regional Cliff Notes columnists Fox Whitney, Alitzah Oros, Melika Sebihi, and Kaya Noteboom pick the most exciting events and exhibitions on the West Coast.
HERE HERE
San Francisco State University’s Fine Arts Gallery, San Francisco, CA
September 27 – October 24, 2024
HERE HERE provides a unique opportunity to observe the varied artistic practices of over twenty faculty and staff members in the School of Art at San Francisco State University, including photographs, textiles, sculpture, and other media.
SF State as a workplace unquestionably unites these artists, but themes such as nature, surveillance, identity, storytelling, and play further unify the seemingly disparate works on view. HERE HERE gives us a rare opportunity to not only learn about the individual practice of these teachers and mentors, but also connect them to one another.
My attention was kept the longest by the work of ceramicist Jeff Downing, whose Seismic Swarm (2021) represents the Hayward fault line as a web of individual, pastel-colored porcelain stars dangling on individual screws. Activated by a motion sensor, the powder blue background occasionally wiggles, shimmying the stars that represent schools, hospitals, and emergency centers that live along the fault line. Whimsically jolly at first sight, I was surprised to learn that this work represents the collective anxiety of not only those who reside on California fault lines, but all who are affected by the disasters of climate change.
I was also taken by the work of Lorena Molina, whose colorful installation of photographs and video investigates the nature of home, particularly its quality of being both an incubator of joy and play while also being a site of trauma and displacement.
Reflection: Do you have a mentor who has impacted you?
Allegedly the worst is behind us
ICA San Jose, San Jose, CA
September 14, 2024 – February 23, 2025
I find the question “what is art?” to be so willfully frivolous and boring that if someone asked my opinion, I would likely decline to answer out of sheer annoyance. But if forced to reply, I would probably plagiarize the answer given by American artist Leslie Dick, “taking something from the inside and putting it out into the world so you can be relieved of it.”
Something about Allegedly the worst is behind us reminded me of that quote, perhaps because the artists on view are doing just that in its purest form. Demetri Broxton, Trina Michelle Robinson, and nine others showcase multimedia works that uplift their ancestral knowledge and recognize their internalized historical trauma, treating themselves as living archives of generational pain and understanding. In doing so, they refute dominant historical narratives, problematize institutions as the sole keepers of expertise, and imagine different possible futures for themselves and their communities.
The themes of this exhibition are severe, but at the same time, it’s comforting to think of oneself as a repository already full of purposeful archival material, ready to be drawn out when the time comes.
Reflection: What are you carrying as a living archive? What material do you value the most, and what needs deaccessioning?