Evocative art openings at the Presidio, Yerba Buena Center.
A gloomy fog swirling over Fort Winfield Scott and historic gun batteries atop Golden Gate Overlook in the Presidio seemed an aptly ominous companion to the recent “Night Without Borders” exhibition opener of “Home Land Security” (http://www.for-site.org/). Curated by artist-gallerist Cheryl
Haines and Jackie von Treskow, this patrons’ preview dinner raised funds for the For-Site Foundation, Haines’ “art about place” nonprofit that’s presenting the show (through Dec. 18) in partnership with the Presidio Trust, Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy and the 100-year-old National Park Service.
Secreted inside spooky nooks of the decades-long shuttered former Nike Missile Administration building, hilltop batteries and Fort Scott Chapel are works by 18 international contemporary artists who present a haunting visual meditation on the wages of fear in an unstable world.
Israeli artist Tirtzah Bassel installed lifelike representations of refugees of war; global politics; and TSA agents. Dinner co-chair Nion McEvoy (joined in his duties by former Presidio Trust chairwoman Nancy Bechtle and major Dem donor Susie Tompkins Buell) was slightly surprised by Bassel’s medium: “I’ve always known duct tape could do anything,” McEvoy remarked, observing her figures “drawn” on walls with colorful versions of that ubiquitous adhesive developed during WWII. “But I never realized duct tape could create art.”
Many art materials used in “Home Land Security” are the discarded objects of war: A 6-foot-tall Samurai-style “suit of armor” by Korean artist Do Ho Suh is crafted from stainless-steel military dog tags. Swedish American artist Michele
Pred, who lobbied for access to objects confiscated from air travelers in our post-9/11 world, created a colorful largescale wreathlike installation composed of everyday ephemera (nail clippers, scissors, plastic water pistols) now suspect as sinister.
This show is For-Site’s fourth Golden Gate National Recreation Area art installation, and its most recent since its groundbreaking “@Large Ai Weiwei” show on Alcatraz in fall 2014. That site is also a National Park Service locale, and Haines remains amazed that her parks partners allow her to mount political shows on government soil. A dinner organized by chef Traci Des
Jardins, representing cuisine from many of the artists’ home countries (Iran, Vietnam, Korea, Israel), followed inside a cavernous Presidio building that Haines reimagined with globes, suitcases and wood walls repurposed from moving pallets.
“The ideas Cheryl dreams up are pure art that touches the heart, touches the soul. It’s not always about pretty pictures,” toasted Buell. “This exhibition inspires us to understand more and care more about this very fragile, frightened world we’re living in.”
Warp speed: It was a joyful liftoff at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts where sculptor Tom Sachs blasted off at the recent opening of his “Space Program: Europa” exhibition .
Led by Cathy Topham and her husband, Ned Topham (his late mother, Dodie Rosekrans, was an early Sachs collector), a cultural crew convened for this heartfelt, slyly humorous mission, which includes almost 200 exquisite bricolage creations handcrafted by the mirthfully obsessive sculptor whose work emits sly winks at our obsessive brandcentric consumerism.
During a mini-version of his “Europa” landing, Sachs and his studio team meticulously enact a DIY odyssey to “Europa,” replete with an Atari control system, space-suited astronauts commanding a towering landing module, boombox tunes and a civilized Japanese Tea ceremony.
It’s a bit like Kabuki theater meets “This Is Spinal Tap” — supplanting dancing midgets with alien abduction. And though Sachs eschews the term “mockumentary,” he expresses fandom for the sincere passion that film exhibited.
“The film conjured a fake metal band from scratch. But it’s no joke: The band became real — Spinal Tap even toured,” he explained during his initial YBCA installation. “That’s why it’s important my space program represents who we are as Americans: We’re colonists. We go into other places and impose our view. American culture is about abduction, about taking, about exploiting. We bring the noise. Art tells a story about who we are. And we have to accept who we are as exploiters.”
Art centers and cultural organizations are key to that mission. And that’s a concept near and dear to the heart of Deborah Cullinan, YBCA’s CEO, who is a champion of working with artists who transform how we think about our neighborhoods, our people, our cities.
“That’s what YBCA is here to do,” she enthused. “Tom’s ‘Space Program’ reminds us that if we can imagine it and we can make it, we can get there and make it ours. We have to work with pioneering artists like Tom and follow their vision. They see for us things we cannot see and they take us places that we cannot imagine.”