An immigrant absorbs her adopted history
The May sun shot long rays of light into the airy Rena Bransten Gallery on Friday, May 5, the evening before Hung Liu’s “Promised Land” exhibition opened there. A group of friends gathered there for a preview of the paintings based on the photographs of Dorothea Lange ,as Sam Whiting has written.
Surrounded by paintings of Dust Bowl refugees, we sat down at two long tables for dinner. Among the guests were Lori Fogarty, director of the Oakland Museum of California, which will open “Dorothea Lange: Politics of Seeing” on Friday, May 13 (as Chronicle art critic Charles Desmarais has written); and writer/biographer/art historian Elizabeth Partridge, Lange’s goddaughter, who has written at least three books about her. She is also the granddaughter of Imogen Cunningham.
The Lange photographs have become so well-known that the people in Liu’s paintings seem like old friends, their familiar features recaptured in new portraits and images. It’s as though the photographer and her work have been reborn. The Oakland Museum has the Lange archives, and Liu has spent much time there immersed in that work, “and I talk with her all the time.”
After thanking Rena and Trish Bransten, as well as the gallery’s Jenny Baie and China Langford “for the great installation,” the artist proposed a “toast to my hero, my mentor, my colleague, Dorothea Lange.” Having painted these images of America, “I feel now I can say I am a true American. I think of this history as part of my history ... American history.”
Before sitting down to dinner, guests walking through the gallery studying the paintings were lured by the light to glance through windows to Tennessee Street. An encampment there included tents, trash and a dumpster that looked as though it had been turned into a living space.
It was easy to wince at the squalor visible from those windows, a scene that included trash blowing across the street. Inside, the heartfelt paintings were celebrating “the resilience of the human spirit,” according to press materials.
In 1987, for the 200th anniversary of the U.S. Constitution, Arion Press — which prints deluxe hand-set editions of literature and other works — printed 500 copies of that document. They were priced at $500 each, and after The Chronicle ran a story by columnist Herb Caen about the publication, they sold out within a day. (The press also partnered with the U.S. Government Publishing Office to do an inexpensive edition in a paper binding.)
Recently, Andrew Hoyem and Diana Ketcham, who run the press, found a copy of the document in the bottom of a closet. The average price of this oldie-but-goodie document, when it comes up for auction now, is $1,750. And in conjunction with their June 22 annual benefit, they’re selling raffle tickets for the remaining one for $100 each.
Checking to see whether the 1987 version is still valid, I discovered the most recent amendment, No. 27, ratified on May 5, 1992. Under the provisions of No. 27, congressional salary changes don’t take effect until after the election that follows the changes. This was first proposed Sept. 25, 1789 — 202 years, 7 months and 10 days before its ratification. Of all the amendments, that’s by far the longest amount of time between submittal and ratification. (Not hard to figure out why; our elected representatives were loath to delay their own raises.)
Anyway, if you win that 1987 Constitution, you can just add a Post-It with the details of No. 27.
Sign spotted by Carol Dvora on the restroom door of a Bay Area Applebee’s: “Whichever.”
Blue Bottle Coffee is having a fight with a NIMBY contingent in the Lower Haight over its plans to move into 201 Steiner St., former home of the indie Bean There coffee house. Neighbors fighting Blue Bottle’s request for a “mom and pop” variance organized a demonstration at the site last week (“Wiggle riders: expect congestion,” said a Hoodline story about the planned protest). The opposition complains that Blue Bottle, which has 34 locations as far away as New York and Japan, is on its way to becoming Starbucks. A City Hall hearing is scheduled for Thursday, May 11. Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik @sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik