Open Space

MONUMENTS, PLACEHOLDERS, GHOSTS

One crisp afternoon this spring, I walked through the Mission and Potrero Hill to have a conversation with artist Abbas Akhavan, CCA's...

JESS AND THE BUBBLEGUM CARD

Jess, Fig. 4 - Far And Few...: Translation 15 , 1965 Between 1959 and 1976, Jess created the Translations , a series of thirty-two...

A PROPOSAL FOR A NEW MUSICAL

Original concept developed alongside Melissa Sachs and Cameron Soren. Thanks to Davora Lindner and Toby Feltwell. Author's note: No...

ART/LIFE/LOVE

PHOTO MEMOIR NOTES: MCCOPPIN ST

Part one mccoppin st. we keep our photographs in phones, roses in books; expired film in black plastic, nets cast and reeled-in-empty...

L👀K B👀K 4 ENDLESS TEENAGERS:

Step 1: PRESS PLAY Bonanza, The Young & the Restless Soundtrack, 2018. Step 2: Transport back to 2003. You're skipping school with...

MORNING MATTERS

These are morning matters, pictures you dream as the final wave heaves you up on the sand to the bright light and drying air. You remember...

EXCAVATING MEMORY: SHELLMOUNDS OF THE BAY AREA

Four hundred twenty-five is the conservative estimate, made back in 1909 by Nels C. Nelson, at that time a UC Berkeley graduate student....

A COLLECTION OF PEOPLE AND MEMORIES I WANT TO HOLD FOREVER

Azha Ayanna. When I think of style, I think of undeniable individuality and self-expression. Style isn't really about clothing; it's...

PET SOUNDS

On our first day in Madrid, Alli and I walked from our place to the Prado. I had volunteered to be our guide. Not because I knew the...

COLUMNISTS IN RESIDENCE: SUMMER 2019

Our Summer 2019 columnists in residence are curator and writer Deena Chalabi , writer and critic Dan Elkind , and artist Courtney Trouble....

ON HIDING

Recently I reorganized my books, or at least the ones with which I have unfinished business. Over the last few years, they have been...

COILING THE POWER LINES OF SUPINE STAGNATION

View video here . The video is also available through the zip file linked above. The site of coiling the power lines of supine stagnation...

WHAT I'M DOING WHEN I'M SELLING OUT

At work, I pretend to be a museum guard, posting myself behind a wall in the last gallery of a large group exhibition. Whenever a visitor...

THE SKYLINE IS THE CONTEXT

But the choice of inside or outside, of private or public, is outdated now. - Vito Acconci, “Public Space in a Private Time” Nightly,...

FROM THE SUGAR CUBE TO THE 101

Working on the tenth floor of SFMOMA in its bright and shiny new configuration afforded me an exquisite view of the Bay Bridge from...

FEATURED CONTRIBUTOR: FRANCES RICHARD

Frances Richard at the Gordon Matta-Clark: Physical Poetics launch party, Mar 14, 2019, Curatorial Research Bureau, San Francisco. Your...

BETWEEN A SHOP SOILED SMOKE RING AND A ROCK-HARD GRAY

On the street where I've lived for many years, my favorite moment is when plum blossoms first appear in the gray of midwinter. While...

PRIVATE LANGUAGES: DAVID MELNICK AND GORDON FAYLOR IN CONVERSATION

David Melnick, ca. 1970s. Back in the late aughts, when Silliman's Blog served as something of a hub for certain lineages of experimental...

TALKING TO MYSELF

Vito Acconci, Command Performance , 1974 In the late 1960s, poet Vito Acconci began exploring single-channel stationary video works...