Oakland Museum of California Re-Opens Saturday May 1st

Miné Okubo: Citizen 13660

Celebrate with OMCA! The newly transformed Oakland Museum of California (OMCA) opens Saturday, May 1, with 31 hours of continuous, FREE programs and events, including the opening exhibition of Miné Okubo: Citizen 13660. Below is the full list of scheduled events but for more info, visit OMCA’s website.

Saturday, May 1:
Watch the premiere of Project Bandaloop’s aerial dance performance, created for the Opening. Dance with Alice 97.3 DJ’s. Try Hula-Hooping. March to the drum beats of the San Francisco Lesbian/Gay Freedom Band. And more.

Saturday Night and Late Night, May 1
Saturday night goes adult-themed with live performances by Tommy Guerrero, LIVE 105, Freddi Price, Zoli Lundy, and Isabel Douglass. Nonstop Bhangra Bollywood Dance Party, California square dancing, and dance jam with the Schoolhouse Stringband. Plus a Sex, Drugs, & Rock ‘n’ Roll Gallery Tour, DJ’s, and palm-reading by Madam Z. Did we mention the YELP late-late night pajama party?

Special 8-10 p.m.
California Futures: Technology Tweet #CALIFORNIA with the social media staff from Bay Area museums, and a LIVE performance with the Stanford Mobile Phone Orchestra (MoPho).

Special 11 p.m.-1 a.m.
California Futures: Radical Start-Ups Join Dr. Carol Queen, Good Vibrations; Richard Lee, Oaksterdam University; Ron Turner, Last Gasp for an extraordinary conversation, plus radical interpretations of the conversation with visual artists Rob Reger (Emily the Strange), J Otto, and others.

Sunday, May 2
Start Sunday with a wake up yoga and chanting class with Ann Dyer. Enjoy a pancake breakfast with Oakland Firefighters, in a ($5) benefit IAFF Local 55. The dancing continues with Movin’ 99.7, Capacitor Dance Company, and a community drumming celebration with DRUMMM Rhythmic Events. Plus two special Sunday performances with the Oakland Interfaith Gospel Choir.

Special 10 a.m. – Noon
California Futures: Oakland and the Fight for Food Justice: Chef Robert Dorsey III, operator of the new OMCA café, Blue Oak, will lead a conversation with Brahm Ahmadi, People’s Grocery; Barbara Finin, City Slicker Farms; Eric Holt-Gimnez, Food First; and Keba Konte, Kijiji Grows.

Read Full Post »

Marina Abramović : The Artist is Present

Marina Abramović. Portrait with Flowers. 2009. Black-and-white gelatin silver print; photo: Marco Anelli. © 2010 Marina Abramović. Courtesy the artist and Sean Kelly Gallery/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, via MoMA

Marina Abramović has tested the limits of performance art by testing the physical and psychological limits of the human body. Acting as the primary object of her pieces, she has offered up her own body – her health, her safety, even her life – in the interest of innovative performance. Perhaps the most infamous piece was Rhythm 0, performed in 1974 in a Naples gallery. For this piece Abramović stood, passively, in front of an audience and allowed them to use, or inflict, on her any of 72 objects in whatever manner they chose. Some of the objects were benign and some were deadly. The most malignant of those included an axe, a saw, and a loaded gun. By the end of the 6-hour long piece, Abramović had been cut, undressed, and had the gun pointed to her head. In reflection, the artist had this to say: “The experience I learned was that…if you leave decisions to the public, you can be killed.” In her latest piece entitled “The Artist is Present”, on view now at MoMA, Marina Abramović tests the limits of her sanity. Seven days a week, during gallery hours, Abramović will sit silently and motionlessly at a table and stare into the eyes of whichever museum-goer sits at the opposite end of the table. She will do this every day for the next three months until her exhibit closes on May 31st.

For more information, visit the MoMA website or view the live video feed during museum hours.

Read Full Post »