Buzz Gallery presents: City:Visible
Photo essays on urban space
Interpreting the work of Italo Calvino
Sept 9th to Oct. 3rd
Artists Reception
Friday, September 16th, 2005, 7-10pm
Mama Buzz Cafe and Buzz Gallery
2316 Telegraph Avenue, Oakland
This event is free
With cities, it is as with dreams: everything imaginable can be dreamed, but even the most unexpected dream is a rebus that conceals a desire or, its reverse, a fear. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.
City: Visible is a collection of photo essays based on the book Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. In the book, Marco Polo is entertaining Kublai Khan by describing the cities he has seen in his travels around the empire: cities and memory, cities and desire, cities and designs, cities and the dead, cities and the sky, trading cities, hidden cities. It becomes clear that each city Polo describes is the same city, seen in different ways.
With this as a starting point, five photographers in five different cities viewed their homes through the lens of Calvino's book. New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Oakland; each has a parallel in Polo's descriptions.
The tragic reminders of crime scenes in Oakland, the elusive horizons of Hollywood, the visual layering of language and image in New York, the contrast of joy and sorrow in the Midwest, and the digital layers of life in San Francisco are all put forth as an image map a new way of seeing the familiar.
ABOUT THE PHOTOGRAPHERS:
Native to NY, Lauren Martin is still falling in love with her city every day. Each walk to work or the market is another chance to see something new, even if it's the same thing, but looked at differently. A graduate of SUNY Purchase, she's constantly composing photos in her mind.
Nicole Neditch is a photographer, a curator and a mathematician. Surreal environments, saturation, gore and texture have always been prevalent in her work. She is the co-owner of the Mama Buzz Cafe, the design manager of Kitchen Sink magazine and is on the Cultural Affairs Commission for the city of Oakland. She is only just getting started.
Tristan A. Crane is a writer, photographer, and does other things besides. Tristan's art has appeared in his graphic novel How Loathsome and magazines ranging from The Advocate to Curve. Wandering city streets in search of stencil art or lounging in the park and watching clouds drift by overhead are two activities Tristan is nearly always in the mood for.
Born and living in Chicago for the best part of 25 years, Christopher Sebela took the sage advice of Horace Greeley to �Go west young man. He stopped in Kansas City and hasn't quite gotten back on the road yet. He is a freelance writer, newspaper graphic designmonkey and makes the odd piece of art as a photographer. He has just begun his second year of piano lessons.
Sam Humphries was raised in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is an artist and writer living in Los Angeles. More of his work can be seen at samhumphries.com. He is left handed.
ABOUT THE CURATOR:
Laurenn McCubbin is the Oakland based author and illustrator of the Xeric Award Winning XXXLiveNudeGirls and XXXLNG:Pretty Like A Princess (with Nikki Coffman), the creative director for Kitchen Sink Magazine, and the illustrator of Rent Girl (written by Michelle Tea and published by Last Gasp). Her work as an illustrator has appeared everywhere from On Our Backs to McSweeneys to the New York Times. Her newest book, Baby Girl Bollenger will be coming out from Image Comics in June �06.
Laurenn was first introduced to the work of Italo Calvino at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She has reinterpreted his text in several ways � book design, short comics, photography and screenprinting among them. Having worked so often with Invisible Cites as an inspiration, Laurenn was curious to see how other artists would relate to the work. She is terribly impressed with what they have done.
A book of work from the show City: Visible, designed by Laurenn McCubbin will be available for purchase at Buzz Gallery and RockPaperSissors Arts Collective at 2278 Telegraph Ave. Oakland. The book will also be available to purchase online.
Opening September 9th, 2005, City: Visible will run through the 3rd of October. An artists reception will be held Friday, September 16th, from 7-10pm.
"The kind of place where ideas flow as fast as the coffee," wrote Melissa Hung in the East Bay Express. Mama Buzz is a cafe, gallery and gathering place for artists, creators and their communities. Mama Buzz was also named Best Hipster Hangout by The East Bay Express, Best Coffee with the Kitchen Sink by the SF Bay Guardian, and Best Indoor/Outdoor Cafe by San Francisco Magazine.
The cafe and gallery are open Monday through Friday, 7am to 7pm, Saturday and Sunday, 8am to 5pm. For more info: 510.465.4073 or www.mamabuzzcafe.com.
