Venice Biennale 2023

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

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

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

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

There’s a lot of hubub about the new United Colors of Benetton ad campaign, which depicts world political leaders kissing. It’s amazing. I love it. I love it all. But what’s super interesting is that the Vatican was very offended and acted quickly and now Benetton has removed one of the ads that shows the Pope kissing Egyptian imam Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb. Has the Vatican forgotten that the bible says, “Greet all the brothers with a holy kiss,” 1 Thessalonians 5:26. The kiss of peace! The sign of peace! Geez, read up on your shit, that you wrote!

Here’s a clip of the ladies talking about the campaign:

Posted in catholicism, day in the life, design, fashion