November
Tuesday, November 1
My daily routine here at the Montalvo Artists Center in Saratoga, 50 minutes south of San Francisco: wake early, deal with the overnight email sitting up in bed, quick breakfast, walk on the hill, then move into the studio for the day's work. At 7.30 in the evening, I walk down the hill to the Commons building for dinner with the other artists. Often, I don't talk to anyone all day until the evening.
Montalvo's programme includes a culinary residency, a young chef who spends six months at the center cooking dinner five nights a week. The idea is that it will give the incumbent an opportunity to try out new recipes and develop their own cooking style. Jessica Theroux is the cook-in-residence, a fine arts major who recently spent more than a year travelling round Italy talking to and learning from all the old women cooks in the villages, so our nightly menus are wonderful peasant soups, silky raviolis, deep fried Zucchini flowers.
It's hard to imagine a more peaceful existence.
Thursday, November 3
I'm trying to use part of my time at Montalvo to finally get on top of some of the software I've never learned. Macromedia has recently launched updates of various programs like Flash, Dreamweaver and Director, and to encourage buyers and new users, runs online seminars. One signs up online ahead of time, and is sent the link by email. At the appointed time, the link opens to a screen with a little webcam pic of the instructor at top left, and a little column below where all the users sign on. Then all the features of the software will be demonstrated on the desktop of the instructor, which appears on screen. At the end there's a Q and A session for participants. It's really helpful. So great to be permanently connected to the internet here by a powerful Ethernet line.
Saturday, November 5
Montalvo provides three old cars for residents to drive around and get art and food supplies. These vehicles are donations from wealthy patrons, and the one I usually drive is a 30 year old Merc, a stately tank which should provide some protection if I hit something. Fry's Electronics at nearby Campbell is packed with computer stuff of all descriptions, and the huge pink building is also the warehouse where Steve Jobs started Apple. It's a bit like visiting a shrine.
Sunday, November 6
Leave Montalvo to fly to Lexington, Kentucky, where I will give two lectures at Transylvania University at the invitation of Kim Miller of the Art History and Women Studies Department. Transylvania University? What dark courses are offered here? Kim explains the university was named in 1780, more than 100 years before the Bram Stoker novel inextricably linked Transylvania with Count Dracula in popular imagination. Literally, the name means 'through the woods'.
Monday, November 7
Kentucky, with its rolling green grasslands and gentle hills is the centre of racehorse breeding in the States, and at breakfast, the hotel dining room is filled with French and Irish breeders flipping through their auction catalogues.
Lunch today is the in Transy cafeteria with senior students, and in the afternoon Kim (who I first got to know when she was studying and working for a time in Cape Town) and I drive out to neighbouring Berea, where the legendary 'black woman intellectual, revolutionary activist' (as she describes herself) bell hooks holds a discussion group at Berea College on a Monday evening. Women, and one man are seated comfortably round a wood paneled room, sipping soup and listening to the elegant and vivacious bell listen and respond and illuminate and flash with anger and humour as she talks about issues and feelings and events around racism and gender. Touching on the US government response to Hurricane Katrina, bell describes the United States as an 'imperialist white supremacist capitalist patriarchy' saying that people in the US believe that black people are unemployed because they're lazy. It's a privilege to observe her in action.
Tuesday, November 8
Lecture to responsive students. Round off an extremely pleasant stay in Lexington with a restaurant dinner with Kim and her husband, journalism lecturer Bryan and other local artists.
Wednesday, November 9
Fly to Atlanta. Meet Alvelyn Sanders at Atlanta airport to discuss a show at the National Black Arts Festival next July. Fly to Charlotte, North Carolina, to discuss an upcoming show at the Light Factory with the Light Factory people. Fly back to San Francisco and reach Montalvo late at night. With relief.
Friday November 12
Had bought the December Vanity Fair to read on the plane, and am shocked to find a double page spread headed 'Africa in their eyes' featuring controversial Swiss collector Jean Pigozzi and his curator André Magnin photographed in a beach setting in Juan les Pins in France. The story is about a show of the work entitled 'African Art Now' to open at the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art in Washington on November 21. Pigozzi stands, legs astride, hands on hips, a brightly clad hunter amongst his artist trophies.
Why the shock? Pigozzi describes his 'three rules' of buying art: the artists must be 'black, breathing and living in Africa'.
Could this possibly be expressed in cruder neo-colonial terms? Pigozzi has reputedly never set foot in Africa, and is known to prefer his artists untaught. Collectors are clearly entitled to set any criteria that they wish for their collections, but then to call the presentation of this art 'African Art Now' as if to pre-empt the whole field of contemporary African art, taught, untaught, black and white again betrays the overweening colonial instinct of the man.
What is the Smithsonian thinking to mount this show?
More about this matter next month.
Monday November 13
In the meantime... from the other side of the Atlantic... lurid stories are arriving about 'The Pantagruel Syndrome', the Francesco Bonami/Carolyn Christov- Bakargiev-curated show which opened at the Castello Rivoli on November 11. Artist Ed Young is presenting Bruce Gordon as his artwork, and has apparently hired a paparazzi photographer to follow his artwork, now clad in an Italian made suit, around from art event to art party to bar to wherever. No doubt the beginning of a new Ed Young artwork. Also in Turin accompanying artist and artwork are Ruth Sacks and curator Andrew Lamprecht.
Thursday, November 16
Disturbing news. Ed Young was returning alone to the hotel in the Turkish quarter where the group was staying and he was mugged, his wallet taken and attacked so viciously his knee was broken. He has been taken to hospital. His laptop, which was in his backpack, escaped the attention of his attackers.
Sunday, November 20
From Turin, the news comes that the broken knee will have to be operated on next Wednesday. I have sympathy dream of being mugged, and send an email expressing my condolences at the nasty turn of events in Turin.
Monday, November 21
An email:
Hi Sue
Good to hear from you. Ed is sore, but much more cheerful since we bought him a playstation. He and Bruce have arranged to stay here until the 28th as originally planned as Ed's op is on Wednesday and this will give him some days to recover before the flight. I am going to stay on for a few extra days as Ed needs help. Bruce says to tell you that he wants to move to Yugoslavia and become a digital photographer. I am unclear as to what he means.
Muggings aside, we've had a good time here, although I can't keep up with the late nights. I have gathered an enormous amount of information interviewing people for
an article on this biennale. Turin is an interesting model for Capetonians to look at in terms of its use of contemporary art to boost the city's profile.
Take care,
ruth
Tuesday, November 22
Another email:
Hi Sue
Hope you are well. Ruth says you are having a good time on that side. Me in a bit of pain, but bruce and ruth have been giving me injections. This might look familiar.
http://www.artforum.com/diary/id=9850
(This website is the Artforum Diary of the opening of The Pantagruel Syndrome.)
Friday, November 25
Latest email:
Hi Sue
Hope you are doing fine and relaxing. Bruce and I will still be flying back on the 28 Nov. And my insurance is paying for me and bruce for an upgrade. unfortunately there is only one first class ticket left so bruce has to go in business class. He is very upset.
Saturday, November 27
This upset is confirmed when the artwork phones and complains bitterly that selfish Ed refuses to return on the 29th, when there would have been two first class tickets available, and is insisting on returning on the 28th, forcing the artwork to slum it in Business Class.
Sunday, November 28
This is my last weekend in California, and a weekend with friends in gorgeous Marin County with beach walks and wood fires ends with an interesting visit to San Francisco Cartoon Art Museum - full of original comic book and cartoon art. My guide is Malcolm Whyte, founder of the museum. To see the work in its original fine-lined perfection is quite a different experience from seeing it badly printed on cheap paper. We talk about the possibility of introducing some South African comic art into the collection. Will write something about this for exchange in January.
