Art at the California State Fair – Yes, the State Fair

It’s worth an annual trip up to the California State Fair in Sacramento, if only to escape the foggy, July weather in San Francisco.  No one gets out of bed in Sacramento and puts the heat on during the summer.  The state fair brings to mind images of prize winning dairy cows, corndogs and chocolate-dipped cheesecake-on-a-stick – a dessert that is so wrong, but so right.  Most people don’t think of art and state fairs, but the California State Fair is also a great place to see what’s happening in California Art.

There are galleries with traditional, expected crafts like quilts – each one a work of fine art.  One of the expo buildings is always devoted to the Youth Art & Design competition winners.  The quality and promise of the work never fails to impress me.  It’s a reminder that there is a new and very talented crop of artists coming up in California.  The Fine Art juried exhibit is always a treat. 

The first thing you encounter when you walk into the Fine Art exhibit is Dave Lane’s Device for Creating Stars, Model A.  Its glowing orange center has added an element of James Turrell meets steampunk.  I was waiting for it to start vibrating and blast off through the roof.  You can’t go wrong with a giant (yes it’s made out of a lot of sugar) sugar skull, Rob Owens work Mija.  Pam Avery’s Majestic Red was a personal favorite – classic, California abstract work.  Sacramento artist Ianna Nova Frisby has included an installation piece titled Archaeoacoustics.  From the artist’s statement:

“Archaeoacoustics is the exploration of acoustic phenomena encoded in ancient artifacts. For instance, the idea that a pot or vase could be "read" like a gramophone record or phonograph cylinder for messages from the past, sounds encoded into the turning clay as the pot was thrown. Although improbable, the history of such attempts has its own intriguing history.”

Finally, it was great to see a portion of Gong Yuebin’s installation Site 2801 was shown in the gallery.  I saw it twice at the Crocker Museum.  It’s one of the best things being shown anywhere in California this year.  It was also fun watching a boy of about 12 excited about the instrallation and explaining it to his friend.  Later I noticed him in another part of the show explaining the art.  It’s easy to tell a kid who has seen a lot of art and grown up in museums.

This year’s state fair runs through July 29.  Go on up to Sacramento, have a corndog and see some great art.

I’m Having an Affair with Sacramento

Tomorrow will be 22 years. I always celebrate the anniversary of the day I moved to San Francisco. And, after 22 years, my relationship with the city I love can be like a marriage. I can’t imagine life without San Francisco. At times it feels like we’ll be together forever — that is usually a good thing. But of course, there are those days when San Francisco drives me crazy.

And now, I have to confess, I’ve been having an affair, with Sacramento. Yes, it’s true — I’ve been sneaking up I-80 for little daytime flings. I lived in San Francisco for 10 years and had never been up there. Sacramento was just a place on a fifth grade state capitals quiz. And then, I became Sacramento-curious.

It started with corn dog cravings and trips to the State Fair. Then I started to discover the art scene in Sacramento. Sacramento is able to support alternative spaces that are a thing of the past in San Francisco. Exorbitant commercial rents have choked much of the life out of San Francisco. Yesterday’s trip included a stop at Tangent Gallery (where I have shown work a few times myself). Next door to the gallery is one of my favorite cafés, The Coffee Garden. It’s a great neighborhood space where it’s all about the groovy garden out back instead of being a room full of drones on laptops. We moved on to Bows and Arrows for lunch. By San Francisco standards, it’s a huge space. They have vintage retail, a gallery space and a nice café in back — and again with a back garden. Sacramento taunts San Francisco with warm weather. The current artist being shown at Bows and Arrows is Ianna Nova Frisby. Her work includes embroidered images inspired but the illustrations on vintage sewing patterns (check out her website).

In 2009 I visited the Crocker Art Museum for the first time. I liked it and immediately added it to my list of “small” museums one should visit on the road. Since then, they renovated, built an addition, etc. Yesterday I got to see the new museum for the first time. The Crocker is no longer a small museum. They are about three times bigger with the room to show off more of their collection and host big traveling shows. The museum’s contemporary ceramics collection is arguably the best in the Western United States. It alone is worth a visit.

The older, original part of the museum was once the Cocker family mansion. Even then, it was designed to house the family collection of work collected on their grand tour of Europe. The work feels best in these old Victorian galleries. It’s a genre of work that is difficult to find in San Francisco. Most of the artwork brought back to San Francisco from those grand tours was lost when our mansions burned after the 1906 Earthquake.

Currently the mansion’s Gold Rush Era ballroom is filled with a Gong Yuebin’s installation titled Site 2801. It’s an installation of terra cotta warriors modeled after the ones made in China over 2300 years ago. But with this installation, a few modern, terra cotta soldiers are included. All 200 march in formation bearing nuclear missiles. The perimeter of the ballroom is dimly lit and, as we overheard one young visitor say, it’s scary.” Scary, powerful and worth a trip up to Sacramento just to see it. The Chinese artist and dissident Ai Weiwei is world famous. Weiwei has done nothing as subversive as Gong Yuebin’s installation. Fortunately the artist lives in Sacramento, if he still lived in China the authorities would have made him disappear long ago.

The ballroom also works well on many levels for this installation. We approached from the modern, new wing. The transition between spaces goes from a bright, white passageway into the past. It’s abrupt and effective and reminded one of the sci-fi experience seen on a Star Trek holodeck. Above the ballroom is another gallery with a balcony that looks down at the installation. In 1870 the intent was to be able to watch dancers below on the ballroom floor. In 2012 it feels like we’re looking into an archaeological dig.

Already impressed with our visit, we finally started exploring the museum’s new wing. This “small” museum has transformed into one too big for a single visit. The next overwhelming moment of the day was the exhibit Edgar Payne: The Scenic Journey. I’ve seen and liked Payne’s work over the years in many California museums. But seeing a massive show is an entirely different experience. It’s up until May 6^th and I want to see it again. The show heads down to the Pasadena Museum of California Art next.

Yesterday’s trip to Sacramento makes me want to continue my affair. And like a proper mistress, I really don’t know her all that well, and I am yet to spend the night. I am not worried about being found out. One can’t get most San Franciscans to venture to Oakland let alone Sacramento. San Francisco will never know.

As for the Crocker Art Museum, It has grown from a museum worth checking out if you’re in Sacramento to a museum you should go to Sacramento to see.