PUC brings fine art to the Tenderloin
San Francisco’s brand-new Public Utilities Commission building on Golden Gate Avenue will be brimming with art, some 350 two-dimensional pieces from about 100 artists, including Robert Bechtle, Hung Liu, Chris Brown, Clare Rojas, Walter Kitundu, Paul Madonna, Craig Fonarow and Dugald Stermer. The collection, which will be on display on all 13 floors of the building but viewable by the public only on the first three, is being curated by Jill Manton of the San Francisco Art Commission and PUC Director Ed Harrington. It’s augmented by 150 photos from the PUC archives, some going back more than 100 years.
You already may have noticed small spinning panels on the outside of the building, turning in the wind. This is “Firefly,” a work by MacArthur-winning sculptor Ned
Kahn. The panels are made of clear polycarbonate and embedded with magnets that are connected with electrical switches. At night, their movement makes tiny lights flicker to turn the facade into a firefly swarm. All this is said to use less energy than a 75watt bulb. Kahn also made “Rain Portal,” a fountain on two walls in the lobby.
The public is invited to free tours of the building on June 21 and 22; sign up at sf pucpublicbuildingtour.eventbrite.com.
P.S.: Manton tells me that Webcor, which built the PUC building, is also building the new Transbay Terminal. The Art Commission wanted to install a
Tim Hawkinson sculpture that incorporates pieces of the demolished ramps of the old terminal, but the art budget for the terminal couldn’t cover the $991,000 needed to construct it.
Webcor CEO Andy Ball agreed that his company would donate construction management and figure out a way to use the bidding process efficiently, so as to cover costs, resulting in a $400,000 or so savings for the project. “It really wouldn’t be possible without them,” said a grateful Manton.
Noting a recent Chronicle report that authorities found an abandoned boat and 22 bales of marijuana on a beach near San Simeon (San Luis Obispo County), Dan
Blackwelder notes “there was scarcely a tern unstoned.”
John Konstin is amused by the e-mail address of San Francisco debt-collection lawyer David Cook: “cook@squeeze bloodfromturnip.com.”
Lawrence Ferlinghetti, whose works are featured in “The Painted Word,” an exhibition at the Meridian Gallery in San Francisco, says his painting “I Am Not a Man” was inspired by a photograph that had belonged to his brother. The painting shows a man strapped into an electric chair. Ferlinghetti’s brother, a guard at Sing Sing prison for many years, witnessed many executions. The exhibition has been extended through July 14.
Steven Pinsky reports that a gentleman of a certain age who’s a member of his club caught a glimpse of himself in a locker room mirror and observed, with some surprise, that he finally understood why elderly Chinese ladies were giving him their seats on the bus.
“If Comcast is going to use the Everly Brothers’ classic song ‘Dream’ to convince us all to stream their product at all times and in all places on our portable devices,” writes Scott McKinzie, they surely should include the line, “Only trouble is, gee whiz, I’m streamin’ my life away.”
Michael Fullerton received a solicitation from the San Francisco Mime Troupe that included two payment options: “check enclosed” and “charge my evil credit card.”
Bernalwood bloggers report on a run of yarn-bombing knitters adorning public works with stitchery. The latest, perhaps carried out by the bombers who put leg warmers on the Willie Mays statue for opening day at AT&T Park, is a San Francisco Giants logo stitched onto a fence on Crescent Street. The anonymous bomber “plotted it out on graph paper ahead of time, but because of the major difference between squares and diamonds, I had to readjust on the fly and redo a few spots. Just like with smaller-scale cross stitch, it came to life under my hands and took on a life of its own as I got further along. …
“I realize a major-league baseball logo might seem like a lame public-art project, but in my culturally-diverse neighborhood, this crazy team’s logo really is common ground, guaranteed to make everybody happy.”