Mayor Lee praises builders and artists

Monday night’s big public art opening was at 350 Mission St., in the lobby of the building, which has been leased to Salesforce. The piece, by Refik Anadol, is described as a “2,500 square feet 7mm-pixel digital canvas”; it dominates the lobby. When I walked in, a pink and orange abstract pattern undulated across the “canvas,” creating a slightly vertiginous effect; I pictured pedestrians — it was said that 40 million commuters a year would pass by en route to the new Transbay Terminal — reeling on the sidewalk. D’oh. This particular projection was just the digital “curtain,” which would be opened for the postspeech grand unveiling. The oratorical headliner was Mayor

Ed Lee, who talked about the passage of Proposition A and described the “wonderful developers Kilroy Realty” as “world-class corporate contractors. It’s incredible that we can use space like this ... in innovative ways to challenge our intellects and our souls.” Praising the builders as civic heroes, he said the economic growth of San Francisco also presented “an incredible opportunity for more housing.” Here, in this gleaming space that seemed to symbolize booming San Francisco business, he asserted with gusto, “People want to live here because of art like this.” Said developer John Kilroy, the work would “not be possible without City Hall, receptive to good development.”

And then, to the art: Anadol’s piece is called “Virtual Depictions: San Francisco.” According to descriptive materials, the artist’s “hallucinatory cinematic media installation is designed to advance the connections between two- and three-dimensional spaces.” Running in loops of 90 minutes, programmed afresh every day, the work will offer a “constant display of information,” the contents of which are created by “transforming data into sculpture,” said the artist. The data, collected with custom software, will include “all social networking in the city,” collected from every geographical location and every citizen who tweets. This prospect seemed fascinating ... and also terrifying.

But when the “curtain” was drawn, and the real art was shown, the images on the screen looked abstract (with the exception of one loosely based on a map). Utilizing algorithms, the artist has derived images from an array of public platforms. To see the images, however, is simpler than understanding their source. I overheard someone — probably a rube as unsophisticated as I — pondering the difference between the work and a screen saver.

“San Francisco is a city with the mind of a scientist and the heart of an artist,” said Anadol, whose data come from San Francisco but who lives and works in Los Angeles. Outside the lobby’s huge glass windows, a 14-Mission rumbled by. I peered in the window and saw most of the passengers looking down at their smartphone screens. “Poetic Ghost” is an exhibition of

Cassandra Straubing’s glass works, in collaboration with Babette, a wellknown clothing line that uses a heat process to crease fabric, artfully and permanently. For this show, at Bullseye Glass Resource Center in Emeryville, through Jan. 16, Straubing has cast glass sculptures from individual blouses in the line. Most of the works combine glass versions of individual blouses — draped as if they were being worn, in motion — with sewing tools and materials. “Clothing, used as a skin to cover the vulnerable and fragile body, is rendered transparent in glass,” says Straubing in a statement on the website of San Jose State, where she chairs the glass art department. “The viewer can see through the superficial definitions of gender and status to a personal truth without the exterior facade society so readily judges.”

In this particular show, says her statement, “exploration of the blouse” celebrates “the handed toils of the garment worker, honoring the mastery of their labor.” Blouses are particularly iconic objects because at the turn of the 20th century, when they became popular, they were symbolic of women’s rights. For “The Seamstress Sets the Seam of a Hand Pleated Garment,” a glass blouse lies splayed atop the sewing plate of an industrial sewing machine. In another piece, a bundle of red thread dangles from a glass hanger.

Straubing’s previous works had been based on heavy denims, work clothes, in tribute to blue-collar workers. This work, she said, is in part a tribute to her own grandmother, a seamstress.

Today’s drought tip: If the recent rain has left a puddle in your path, walk through it and track the mud on your kitchen floor. This will leave you grateful for dry sidewalks.

PUBLIC EAVESDROPPING “It’s come to this: Chocolate costs more than pot.” Man shopping for candy at Bi-Rite on Divisadero, overheard by Niles Dolbeare