Category Archives: San Francisco

I’m going to the Zyzzyva Spring issue launch at Catherine Clark Gallery. Are you?

 This Saturday, April 7, at 4 we’re launching the spring issue of Zyzzyva magazine at Catherine Clark Gallery at 150 Minna St. in conjunction with the gallery’s 21st anniversary celebrations. Zyzzyva managing editor and illustrious book reviewer Oscar Villalon, Jonathan Keats, … Continue reading

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and after seeing Robert Moses’ Kin…

What an amazing company! Not sure why Yerba Buena Center’s Novellus Theater wasn’t full. This was as interesting as anything going on in dance right now in the Bay Area and possibly beyond. My favorite piece was the first: The … Continue reading

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Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, for Zyzzyva

The experience of attending an Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater performance is slightly different from that of most other dance company productions. The audience is more diverse both in age and race, and often treats the performance not as a … Continue reading

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The Cult of Beauty: Victorian Avant-Garde at the Legion of Honor, for Art Practical

The temptation to sigh and swoon through The Cult of Beauty: The Victorian Avant-Garde, 1860–1900, at the Legion of Honor, is strong. The mostly male artists gathered here have borrowed the French poet Charles Baudelaire’s concept of “Art for art’s sake,” … Continue reading

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I’m seeing Robert Moses’ Kin this week end. HuffPost.

Weekends are short and the list of culturally enriching events is long. With all the concerts, readings, exhibits and shows going on, how do you decide what to fit into your all-too-brief respite from the workweek? Well, attending a performance … Continue reading

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Trio, Francesca da Rimini, and Carnaval des Animaux at SF Ballet for Zyzzyva

Helgi Tomasson, the San Francisco Ballet’s artistic director and principal choreographer, combined elements of modern and classical ballet to create “Trio,” set to Tchaikovsky’s Souvenir de Florence. While much of the ballet recalls the aggrandized ballroom prancing one sees so often, … Continue reading

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Chroma, Beaux, and Number Nine at SF Ballet, for Zyzzyva

The San Francisco Ballet’s Program 2, which finished its run late last month, started strong. Wayne McGregor’s “Chroma” — one of three works making up the program — looked more like contact sport than ballet, an effect strengthened by the … Continue reading

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I interviewed photographer Fred Lyon for The Rumpus

What does it take to commit to a craft for more than 70 years—particularly one that has undergone the revolutions in technology that photography has? Legendary photographer Fred Lyon worked as a Navy photographer in WWII, spent more than a decade … Continue reading

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Speak, Memory: Restaging the Past in Todd Hido’s Silver Meadows

The press release for Todd Hido’s recent exhibit Excerpts from Silver Meadows describes it as a “metaphorical reckoning with his own past,” and indeed many of images look as they might in memory or old polaroids: blurry, the colors faded or over-saturated … Continue reading

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I chatted with artist Michael Brennan for Zyzzyva.

If you’ve dined at any number of swanky Bay Area establishments, you might have unwittingly enjoyed your meal in a restaurant designed by one of the few people who is as well known and well respected for his fine art … Continue reading

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