Category Archives: San Francisco

Masked Ball, Venetian Masters, and trippy mashups at the de Young, Zyzzyva

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Larissa Archer

Gerhard Richter’s enormous mural Strontium glowered over Wilsey Court. The mural, made from a collection of blurred photographs representing the atomic structure of strontium titanate (a substance used to make artificial diamonds), might have been interpreted as a bit of a symbolic … Continue reading →

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SF Ballet’s “Onegin”, Zyzzyva

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Larissa Archer

Often, the thing we love about the work of a great author is the ability to describe a moment, an emotion, some nuance of experience, in such a way that it is immediately recognizable to us, however foreign to our … Continue reading →

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Joan Baez at Yoshi’s, Zyzzyva

Posted on February 15, 2012 by Larissa Archer

As diverse as the music performed in concerts is, so are the appearances of the audiences. James Mollison documented a spectrum of what he calls the “tribes” of attendees in his photography project and book The Disciples, a rough census of personae … Continue reading →

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This is fun.

Posted on February 2, 2012 by Larissa Archer

Did you know that Russians have been in California longer than San Francisco has been a city? In 1812, the tsarist government (which didn’t have much going on that year) chartered Fort Ross in what is now Sonoma County, to control exploration, trade, … Continue reading →

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The Edwardian Ball got Balmy on the Crumpet, Yo. SF Weekly

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Larissa Archer

San Franciscans are serious about partying. We’ve been to a lot of fancy dress events, and a lot of events that weren’t “fancy dress” per se, but which were treated as such, apparently just for kicks. But the Vau de … Continue reading →

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I’m going to this tomorrow. Are you?

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Larissa Archer

So you want to “get fit.”  But prolonged periods of training are dangerous; you eventually find yourself sporting a Borat leotard and kissing your own biceps in the mirror. When you’re finally sick of post-workout Jamba Juice and hating the … Continue reading →

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Masters of Venice at the De Young, Art Practical

Posted on December 8, 2011 by Larissa Archer

Masters of Venice: Renaissance Painters of Passion and Power, composed of work on loan from Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, provides a small but potent display of both the flights of inspiration and technical advancements that made fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Venice an … Continue reading →

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Have you seen “Savage in Limbo” yet?

Posted on November 13, 2011 by Larissa Archer
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David Linger’s “Narratives in Porcelain at Meridian Gallery, SF Examiner

Posted on November 6, 2011 by Larissa Archer

  On the one hand, works in David Linger’s “Narratives in Porcelain” on view at Meridian Gallery evoke a vision of Russia that is straight David Lean — all bare birch trees, troikas, fur hats and snow-swept promenades.The fuzzy black-and-white … Continue reading →

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I had problems with Asian Art Museum’s (and V&A’s) Maharaja show, SF Weekly

Posted on November 2, 2011 by Larissa Archer

Any exhibition on the wealth of a nation’s royal class is an exhibition of the inflated amour-propre of men with money and armies at their beck. Well-fed bluebloods wrap themselves in theater curtains, pile on the baubles, and commission royal portraits for … Continue reading →

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