iPhone and iPad Player
Roll Call: Bay Area Arts and Culture
PLAYLIST
Michael Nicoloff, poet : Punkses (After Ketjak), TAXT Press, Oakland
Dorothy Ashby : The Moving Finger, The Rubaiyat Of Dorothy Ashby
Emily Lacy : With God On Our Side, Emily Lacy Sings Bob Dylan Songs, Vol. 1
Norcal : The Atchleys (Kattt Sammon and Kenneth), Private Collection, Oakland 2011
Yoko Ono Plastic Ono Band : Watching The Rain, Between My Head And The Sky
Myles Cooper : Lord Love Music
INTERVIEW
Dj Margaret is joined in conversation with Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts artist and curator MAURIZZIO HECTOR PINEDA and artist and gallery associate NICOLE CRESCENZI, about their upcoming 25th annual exhibition Solo ESAS Mujeres: Documenting the Universal | Material curated by iona rozeal brown and Veronica Jackson, which utilizes photography, watercolor, video, and mixed-media to explore aspects of female empowerment through documentation. The distinguished line-up of artists includes: Nina Chanel Abney, Dawn Black, Zöe Charlton, Gina Contreras, Lisa Cortés, Martha Diaz, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Deborah Grant, Jessica Ingram, Nicole Markoff (Nicacelly), Kelly Ording, Wanda Raimundi-Ortiz (Chuleta), Stephanie Syjuco, and Robyn Twomey.
MAURIZZIO HECTOR PINEDA is a Salvadorian curator and artist who currently lives and works in San Francisco. He attended the San Francisco Art Institute and graduated with a degree in Interdisciplinary Studies. While attending SFAI Maurizzio become interested in curatorial practice. After graduation he moved to southern California where he opened SWYS (See What You Started) project space. Shortly thereafter SWYS closed, and he moved to the downtown LA art district to work on his own practice in painting and sculpture. He also held a position at the Santa Monica Museum and Regen Projects, and a visiting curator at the downtown gallery The Tree House in Los Angeles. In 2008 Maurizzio returned to the Bay Area to continue developing his curatorial practice and in 2009 he was invited to be a guest curator at Togonon Gallery, San Francisco. Presently, he is Mission Cultural Center For Latino Arts gallery coordinator and curator.
Originally from the East Coast, artist and gallery associate NICOLE CRESCENZI received her first Bachelor’s Degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Georgia. Disenchanted with the systemic greed of medical insurance companies, however, she turned from the path of medicine and travelled internationally for two and half years. Returning to the United States, she chose to pursue her passion for the arts, both in the mechanical and material, as well as in the critical and conceptual. After earning a second Bachelor’s Degree in Photography at the San Francisco Art Institute, she continued and graduated with a Master of Fine Arts from SFAI as well. Nicole’s practice is focused on the analog and process, investigating the critical role of image making, of mediation, and of the fantasy of representation, itself. She was recently in a group exhibition at aggregate space in Oakland.
Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts (MCCLA) is located in the heart of the Mission at 2868 Mission Street, San Francisco, and was established in 1977 by artists and community activists with a shared vision to promote, preserve and develop the Latino cultural arts that reflect the living tradition and experiences of the Chicano, Central and South American, and Caribbean people. MCCLA makes the arts accessible as an essential element to the community’s development and well-being. This year marks MCCLA’s 35th anniversary.
Solo ESAS Mujeres: Documenting the Universal | Material, on view, March 17–May 5, 2012. Curated by iona rozeal brown and Veronica Jackson, this 25th Annual Solo Mujeres exhibition Solo ESAS Mujeres: Documenting the Universal | Material utilizes photography, watercolor, graphite, textiles, audio, video, and mixed-media to explore aspects of female empowerment through documentation. As documenters of their identity, lives, loves, losses, and related matter, these artists, as narrators, are chroniclers of the worlds around them. They are the visual story tellers interpreting their visual voices through these various mediums. These artists acknowledge and continue the tradition of documentation using their own language.
“We are wrestling with internalized life experiences, perceptions of ourselves and familial personas developed by sociopolitical baggage.” —LaToya Ruby Frazier
“Justice and humanity lie at the root of my personal image making. Challenging our marginalizing ideologies by documenting risk takers and people who encounter the restrictive mainstream paradigm is my effort to open our personal understanding of one another and dare a deeper human connection.” —Robyn Twomey
ABOUT THE CURATORS
IONA ROZEAL BROWN most recent paintings are an unprecedented mixture of anonymous courtesans, geisha and other Japanese subjects. She explores the theme of afro-asiatic allegory, addressing the global influence of african american culture as fetish. brown’s work signals the energy, critical direction and complexity of contemporary practice that is engaged in a tenuous marriage of commerce and resistance. She has had solo exhibitions at MOCA, Ohio; Goff + Rosenthal Berlin, Germany; VOLTA4: Voltany, Basel, Switzerland; G Fine Art, Washington, DC; Caren Golden Fine Art, New York; Sandroni Rey Gallery, Los Angeles; and the Luggage Store, San Francisco. brown received a BS at University of Maryland, a BFA at San Francisco Art Institute, and an MFA at Yale University.
VERONICA JACKSON is Principal and Senior Exhibit Designer for The Jackson Design Group. As a creative exhibit designer, developer and curator, interpretive master planner, and interior architect for more than 25 years, she has honed her skills by working on culturally significant and historically prominent projects. Although most of her work involves cultural museums and heritage centers, art is substantial in this work because it is integral to the development of all culture. Veronica believes that art maintains sanity and must always exist. As a result, she supports all artists but particularly emerging artists, in order to ensure they are able to engage in their craft. Veronica also believes that art, for many, is a transformative experience and should be accessible to everyone. She gives herself many labels—cultural anthropologist, humanist, entrepreneur—but at the core of all three is this love of art; this powerful tool that is a way out of darkness for some, a means of self-expression for others. Whatever role art plays for the individual, Veronica has a passion to be involved in making sure that it exists and is available to all who want to produce it, gaze at it, debate it, or simply live with it.
Public Programs
Film screenings at 7pm:
Wednesday, April 4. Precious (2009) Directed by Lee Daniels, executive producer: Lisa Cortés.
Wednesday, April 11. The Woodsman (2004) Directed by Nicole Kassell, coproduced by Lisa Cortés.
Wednesday, April 18. Antonia (2006) Directed by Tata Amaral, produced by Tata Amaral, Geórgia Costa Araújo, and Rui Pires. FREE admission to all screenings, in MCCLA theater. Space is limited. RSVP to 415.643.2775 or galleryasst@missionculturalcenter.org
Night in Conversation
Wednesday, April 25, 6:30-9p: Join participating artists and curators, moderated by Dr. Ella Diaz (Visiting Lecturer, SFAI’s School of Interdisciplinary Studies), as we explore their various processes and motives, and their relationship to the conceptual line of the exhibition identity explored through documentation. FREE admission. RSVP by April 18. 415.643.2775 or galleryasst@missionculturalcenter.org
For more on Mission Cultural Center for Latino Arts: www.missionculturalcenter.org. Sign up for the newsletter to be up-to-date on all programs, exhibitions, and events. Take classes, and participate!
Images:
Dawn Black
Gina M. Contreras
LaToya Ruby Frazier
Martha Diaz
Robin Twomey
