Art
The Oakland Museum of California is hosting the first museum retrospective of comic artist Daniel Clowes. The exhibition, curated by Susan Miller, features all the key artwork in the career of the celebrated cartoonist who is based in Oakland, and includes 100 original pieces from 1989 to 2011.
Oakland’s first annual Murmurama — a multi-venue celebration that mixed Chinoiserie with the avant-garde, baroque, cubist, or monochrome — challenged the San Francisco Fine Art Fair Saturday by luring hundreds of art enthusiasts to the East Bay for a night of open galleries and performances
It’s been nearly three decades since the Bhopal disaster left thousands dead in India, altering the face of one of the world’s largest agriculture economies following a leak of methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals at a plant run by Union Carbide India Limited. Today, attitudes towards the excessive use of chemicals in India have changed, but the pollution of public water systems with industrial waste from plants run by major chemical manufacturers continues with very little regulation. This was…
Laura Bruland of Yes and Yes Designs makes hand-made, laser cut jewelry … out of old books. Most of the books that she uses tend to be old textbooks, Reader’s Digests, or children’s books. She avoids books with glossy covers, preferring fabric or textile covers, and tries to use books with lots of colors or images. “I don’t cut up classics or first editions,” she said, adding that she always tries to buy books that most people would not want to read.
At the 16th Annual Youth Speaks Poetry Slam Finals, thirteen young people between from across the Bay Area held the audience captive with their poems on everything from young love to the broken economy. Hear their poems in this interactive audio piece.
This Friday, the city kicked off Jack’s Night Market, a small festival and market is being held in conjunction with Oakland’s First Friday Art Murmur, a citywide art walk incorporating galleries from 26th Street to Uptown, Old Oakland, downtown Oakland and Jack London.
After canceling its spring dance program amid financial troubles, the Oakland Ballet Company plans to host its annual gala fundraiser on May 5 in the Kaiser Center Auditorium.
Scott Oliver can tell you a lot about Lake Merritt. He can tell you that it’s not really a lake but a tidal lagoon. He can tell you that this place used to be named Lake Peralta and that, for a while, it was Oakland’s sewer. He can tell you that the white pelican who hangs out year-round is called Hank. And no, he does not buy into the rumors about a Lake Merritt monster. Now, Oliver hopes to bring the story of Lake Merritt to anyone with headphones and an audio player.
Desi W.O.M.E, the founder of the Community Rejuvenation Project, says he wants to “transform the San Pablo corridor” by engaging the local community with a series of murals focused on sustainable practices. His plan is to take a huge wall—tagged with graffiti but otherwise blank—and talk to members of the community about what they’d like to see in a mural, then work out a deal with the owner of the building. Then, he says, local artists will turn the vision into a reality.