Sonic biennial
On Saturday night, I attended the opening night gala of the California Biennial at OCMA in Newport Beach. Thousands of shoppers probably drove by the museum, which is sunken between banks and offices, on the way to Fascist (Fashion) Island that day and didn't even know it was there.
The art show was impressive, with 31 up-and-coming artists in a nice, airy but not pretentious environment. Some of the contributors I was familiar with, like Pearl Hsiung (who started out modestly with stickers and went to UCLA with my sister) and Andy Alexander (who I've known for a while, but hadn't seen his epic, Illustrator-based pieces until that night). Others were new to me--photographer Dinh Tanh's bastard child of Swamp Thing and the Vietnam War and a feral children installation that could have come from the Museum of Jurassic Technology. There was tons of great art from sculpture and paintings to photography and sculpture, and I wasn't allowed to shoot pics of any of it. So I won't tease you by writing about specific pieces quite yet, but here's Wendy and Andy hanging at the reception.
And then there was Sonic Youth. I've seen them at huge venues (Castaic Lake), smaller ones (The Whisky), ballrooms (Palladium), goth clubs (Scream), festivals (This Ain't No Picnic), street fairs (Sunset Junction), and Tijuana (Iguana's). This might have been the coolest spot of all.
They played an inspired hour-long set (and a long one-song encore) in the patio behind the museum. Tiny! The songs were mostly off the great new album sandwiched between cuts from Confusion Is Sex. Thurston Moore was pretty funny, getting the well-behaved crowd involved with comments resembling "We heard Orange County has the hardest core art-rock fans" and "We're making a movie called American Art Core, and this show is going to be a crucial point in it."
I think the band could have played all night, but that would have been uncool to the artists. Ultimately, the night was theirs.
The art show was impressive, with 31 up-and-coming artists in a nice, airy but not pretentious environment. Some of the contributors I was familiar with, like Pearl Hsiung (who started out modestly with stickers and went to UCLA with my sister) and Andy Alexander (who I've known for a while, but hadn't seen his epic, Illustrator-based pieces until that night). Others were new to me--photographer Dinh Tanh's bastard child of Swamp Thing and the Vietnam War and a feral children installation that could have come from the Museum of Jurassic Technology. There was tons of great art from sculpture and paintings to photography and sculpture, and I wasn't allowed to shoot pics of any of it. So I won't tease you by writing about specific pieces quite yet, but here's Wendy and Andy hanging at the reception.
And then there was Sonic Youth. I've seen them at huge venues (Castaic Lake), smaller ones (The Whisky), ballrooms (Palladium), goth clubs (Scream), festivals (This Ain't No Picnic), street fairs (Sunset Junction), and Tijuana (Iguana's). This might have been the coolest spot of all.
They played an inspired hour-long set (and a long one-song encore) in the patio behind the museum. Tiny! The songs were mostly off the great new album sandwiched between cuts from Confusion Is Sex. Thurston Moore was pretty funny, getting the well-behaved crowd involved with comments resembling "We heard Orange County has the hardest core art-rock fans" and "We're making a movie called American Art Core, and this show is going to be a crucial point in it."
I think the band could have played all night, but that would have been uncool to the artists. Ultimately, the night was theirs.
posted by gr at
11:40 AM
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