•January 19, 2012 •
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Can art be funny? Is art allowed to be funny? Something to think about.
I googled art and humor and after a few clicks around the web, I found a clip of Charles Atlas’ ‘Rainer Variations’. Charles was a visiting lecturer at SFAI when I was in grad school, when the grad lecture series was under the direction of Renee Green. He was funny! I’m glad I was reminded of his video work. Take a peek at the 30 second clip at this link: http://www.vdb.org/titles/rainer-variations
I like being funny. I like making people laugh. Can laughing be a part of the sophisticated gallery world? I mean, really gut wrenching humor, not like, giggles. Can a comedic film win an Oscar? I mean, really, is there room for humor or is it marginalized to popular culture?
Posted in dance, day in the life
•January 18, 2012 •
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The ritual of young people eating in the woods. Timeless!
still from Addams Family Values, 1993
Last Supper, Anthony Goicolea, 1999, color C-print, 40″ x 77″, ed. 1-5
still from Moonrise Kingdom, 2012
Posted in day in the life, trends
•January 12, 2012 •
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It’s Amazing!! I tried to embed the video below, but I don’t think it’s working, so just click on the blue link below to watch it on the PBS site. PBS, you know I love you!
http://www-tc.pbs.org/s3/pbs.videoportal-prod.cdn/media/swf/PBSPlayer.swf
Watch The Little Mermaid from San Francisco Ballet on PBS. See more from Great Performances.
Posted in day in the life
•December 28, 2011 •
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There’s been some recent hubub regarding Chicago Cardinal Francis George’s comments where we compared a gay pride parade to a KKK march. I’ve already made such similar connections, but mainly through visual aesthetic cues, and not for his reasons, which focus on the disruption of the Catholic Church. Here is his defense from The Archdiocese of Chicago:
The Chicago Gay Pride Parade has been organized and attended for many years without interfering with the worship of God in a Catholic church. When the 2012 Parade organizers announced a time and route change this year, it was apparent that the Parade would interfere with divine worship in a Catholic parish on the new route. When the pastor’s request for reconsideration of the plans was ignored, the organizers invited an obvious comparison to other groups who have historically attempted to stifle the religious freedom of the Catholic Church. One such organization is the Ku Klux Klan which, well into the 1940′s, paraded through American cities not only to interfere with Catholic worship but also to demonstrate that Catholics stand outside of the American consensus. It is not a precedent anyone should want to emulate.
It is terribly wrong and sinful that gays and lesbians have been harassed and subjected to psychological and even physical harm. These tragedies can be addressed, however, without disturbing the organized and orderly public worship of God in a country that claims to be free. I am grateful that all parties concerned resolved this problem by moving the Parade’s start time so as not to conflict with the celebration of Mass that Sunday.
Posted in catholicism, day in the life
•December 13, 2011 •
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Scumbag #1
2012
latex mounted on velvet
8.25″ x 7.25″ x 1″
I’m so happy to announce that I’m having my first solo show ever! The show will be at Steven Wolf Fine Arts in San Francisco, January 7 to February 18. Steven is one of the coolest guys ever, I mean, check out the show description he wrote:
Jeffrey Augustine Songco risks being accused of massive over-sharing with his first solo exhibition, Public Displays of Affection. Displaying extraordinary powers of negative capability, Songco constructs a world in which his two great passions, Queerdom and the Catholic Church, not only peacefully coexist but thrive on each other. Songco constructs his art from objects and images that go both ways, as it were, such as Peace Poles, spears of wood with uplifting slogans that began to show up in the yards of liberal churches in the 1980s.
Like a sex-crazed sleuth searching for the gay Da Vinci code, Songco turns those phrases and the phallic forms they were painted on against their original intention to illuminate their queer subtext. In Body Shots, an ordinary table of jello shot containers such as might be found at a college fraternity party is transformed into a tabernacle for what appears to be the artist’s seed. And in Scumbags, a series of surrealistic sculptures dramatically presented as luxury objects, Songco makes the case that balloon animals aren’t the only forms you can make from over-the-counter latex.
Posted in gallery, san francisco
