Can’t make it to BURNING MAN?
Lots of sights from artsy fest can be seen in the Bay Area.
It stings when you have to miss out on the Burn.
Yes, the hot, dusty, magical phenom that is Burning Man — the temporary city of massive sculptures, tents, frivolity, art, music and 70,000 crazy people riding around on glowing bikes and cupcake cars — appears in the Nevada desert one week each year, then vanishes like a mere mirage.
And if you can’t get to the playa this time — Sunday through Sept. 3 — you might be a bit bummed. But have no FOMO. There are ways to get a morsel of the mad, mad, Mad Max mania right here, and not just by staking a tent in your backyard, sewing LEDs to your swim trunks and rolling around in dust (a lot of dust), although that works too.
The Bay Area is the year-round home base for hundreds of Burners, makers and creators galore. And thanks to Burning Man’s own civic arts program and private exhibitions, many of the crazy creative sculptures from past B-Man years abound in public places.
TOP: “Lord Snort” made his debut at Burning Man. Bryan Tedrick’s work now resides at Soda Rock Winery in Healdsburg.
LEFT: Leo Villareal’s “Buckyball” is located outside the Exploratorium at Pier 15. It has colored lights.
As for events, there’s still cool local stuff going on. The Crucible, Oakland’s industrial and fine arts center, will hold a Fire & Water Open House Saturday. Timed to the Burning Man kickoff, it includes live demos in glass blowing, ceramics, welding, flameworking, foundry and more. In addition, there is an art show of works from the Crucible community, many of whom also are Burners.
And you can totally get an afterburn at things such as the Mini Maker Faire Sept. 9 in San Jose’s History Park or the East Bay version in Oakland’s Temescal district on Oct. 21. And for the ultimate urban BMan experience, check out “San Francisco Decompression 2018: Black Top City” on Oct 20-21. It’s a microcosm of the fest with art, mutant vehicles, themed camps and more, set along the waterfront at the historic Potrero Power Station.
If all else fails, as one self-described “grumpy old Burner” suggests, head out to an overpass along Interstate 80 just before the fest to spot the B-Man-bound vehicles, “the small city-sedans filled to the ceiling with camping gear and speakers with dusty bikes crudely lashed to the roof,” said Oakland artist Christopher Schardt, whose awesome large-scale LED creations are part of a Burning Man exhibit at the Smithsonian. “I’ve definitely enjoyed the show while driving up myself.”
In the meantime, let’s get straight to the art. As with Burning Man itself, these pieces are not necessarily permanently displayed in their various locations. Many are installed around the Bay as temporary exhibits, so get to as many as you can before they vanish .... mirage-style:
“Lord Snort,” Healdsburg
You can’t miss it: A giant, 20,000-pound, steel wild boar, about to roar off its foundations and stomp the vineyards at Healdsburg’s Soda Rock Winery. “Lord Snort” was created by artist Bryan Tedrick for Burning Man and later purchased by the winery (sodarockwinery.com).
“LOVE,” “Storied Haven” and more, Santa Rosa
These 12-foot-high LOVE letters, rustic steel sculptures stamped with flying birds by Reno’s Laura Kimpton and Jeff Schomberg, found a permanent home a few years ago in the sculpture garden of Paradise Ridge Winery in Santa Rosa, where dozens of other Burner-built art resides. LOVE took on new meaning after last year’s wildfires devastated the region. The sculpture
survived and stood as a beacon of hope for recovery.
Earlier this year, a piece called Storied Haven by artist Bree Hylkema and the art collective Five Ton Crane was added to the collection. It’s a 30-foot-tall boot, straight out of Mother Goose. The sculpture garden is open to the public on weekends from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. (prwinery.com).
“The Bay Lights,” Bay Bridge
We may have gotten so used to the sparking, ever-changing light show on the western span of the Bay Bridge, we may forget it’s Burning Man art — sort of — by virtue of its creator, longtime Burner Leo Villareal. The 1.8-mile masterpiece blinks 25,000 white LEDs from dusk till dawn nightly.
“Buckyball,” San Francisco
Outside the Exploratorium at Pier 15 is a big, bedazzling ball of colored lights. It’s Villareal’s Buckyball, a tribute to famed inventor Buckminster Fuller, a 25-foot sculpture of a carbon-60 molecule with 4,500 LED nodes that that can produce 16 million — yes, million — different colors. Everyone loved the Buckyball so much, its stay was extended indefinitely.
“Tabula,” Palo Alto
Charles Gadeken’s art is all over the place. Let’s start with “Tabula,” a massive 14-foot by 165-foot LED video installation that wraps around the sides of an office building at 385 Sherman Ave. in Palo Alto. The display shines with ever-changing light designs. It is interpretations of seismic data from the U.S. Geological Survey. The USGS never seemed so cool! More information: charlesgadeken.com.
“Squared” and “Crash,” San Francisco
Gadeken’s Squared is a tree form, “reimagined in a futuristic world post nature,” he said. It’s made of 786 cubes — white by day, but a rainbow of colors and patterns come nightfall — rising 50 feet over Patricia’s Green in Hayes Valley and on display through next May. And down at the Hotel Zephyr at Fisherman’s Wharf is Crash, which looks like a pile of old computers set aflame. Haven’t we all wanted to do that?
“Truth is Beauty,” San Leandro
It’s not exactly the “Attack of the 50 Foot Woman,” but the 55-foot tall sculpture of a naked woman reaching to the sky called Truth is Beauty, by Marco Cochrane, definitely got some panties in a bunch when it was installed at the San Leandro Tech Campus, right next to the BART station. But prudes about nudes seem to have adapted, or maybe closed their eyes.
Online, Silicon Valley Art Museum
If you can’t get to any of the above, go virtual with the online gallery from the Silicon Valley Art Museum, which has a really cool Burning Man exhibit; svam.org.