Art
A look at current and upcoming exhibitions at Oakland’s art galleries.
Placemaking–using art to create places of meaning and significance–is catching on in the Golden Gate District with a new project created by neighbors that aims to tell the story of the area, both its history and what people would like to see in the future.
Occupy protesters throughout the nation managed to create an informational campaign that went globally viral for months. Now, as activists scramble to build a phase two, a look at the creative legacy of Occupy 1.0 shows how Bay Area artists helped develop its artistic language.
Deep in West Oakland, a collective of artists called Five Ton Crane (5TC) is hard at work tuning up their submarine Nautilus. Although it doesn’t go underwater, there seems to be little else this lifesize submarine can’t do—it even defends its perimeters with a water spear gun and bumps tunes from its built-in iPad technology.
The Community Rejuvenation Project (CRP), a nonprofit best known for large mural projects throughout Oakland, released a declaration on Tuesday decrying property destruction during last Wednesday’s general strike.
Tourettes Without Regrets is a monthly performance extravaganza of lewd audience contests, dirty haiku battles, and onstage improvisation. Reporter Dylan Bergeson takes a turn as a TWR judge to figure out what makes this raunchy vaudeville show so popular.
Thi Bui has just begun her fifth year teaching at OHIS. During her time here she has worn several hats. She taught social studies for one year, then art, reading and literacy for another; for the past two years she’s been the art and media teacher. As she begins her third year teaching a combined comic book and oral history curriculum, she finds she is doing a little bit of everything.
Katherine Sherwood, whose show He-Charmers opened last week at The Compound Gallery, located in the Golden Gate arts district in North Oakland, has included a number of her own angiograms in the mixed media pieces that comprise her collection. Fourteen years ago, Sherwood, a professor of art and disabilities studies at UC Berkeley, had a massive cerebral hemorrhage in the left side of her brain—a stroke—that almost took her life and left her mostly paralyzed on the right side of her body. She had to learn how to walk, talk, think and paint all over again.
Going from a dingy yellow wall to a bright-colored, futuristic work of art, the 28th Street Partners apartment complex off of Telegraph Avenue in downtown Oakland has received quite a facelift. Earlier this month, Oakland artists Sidharth Chaturvedi, Samuel Garland and Lindsey Millikan took their art to the streets by painting a mural on the side of the two-story apartment building. Millikan found out about the job after property manager Tony Toppanno posted an ad on Craigslist. Soon after, Millikan…