Art
Public art works in Oakland live the good life. While city-commissioned sculptures and murals in San Jose and San Francisco have been targets of graffiti and vandalism, curators working in Oakland’s public arts program say that here, people are mostly content to admire public art without adding their own editorial flair. But even though passersby aren’t a problem, there is another threat lurking the streets.
During the Great Depression, lavish movie palaces New York to San Francisco suffered serious financial setbacks. The theaters that didn’t shut down altogether came up with new tricks to lure customers and fill seats. Thus, the Dec-O-Win was born, a spin-wheel raffle game played onstage before the movie feature.
Loren Partridge has until February 28 to vacate Cunningham Partridge Gallery and Framing, the Piedmont Avenue business she has run for seven years. “I’ve seen it coming for months,” Partridge said last Saturday afternoon. “Then January came, and boom.”
By Carlos Davalos/Oakland North Johanna Poethig’s art has a straight message: It’s crazy out there. The North Oakland artist’s latest work-in-progress is a series of large-scale canvases that take her ideas about public art into a more radical arena of political madness, cultural confusion and community consciousness. She calls it Wasak!!, in a nod to the Philippines, where the art has just gone on display. The word “wasak” is a commonly used term in Philippines’ slang. It’s one of those…