Walter Robinson. Spin, 2008; wood, epoxy, steel, and metal flake; 52 x 26 x 22 in. Collection of Donald Kushner. Courtesy of the Palo Alto Art Center.

Something about the cheery, bright colors in Walter Robinson’s work evokes the dreamy pleasures of childhood at the same time that it plunges us into adult-size recognition of the eternal recurrence of human fallibility. Some of the most provocative and moving art of our time calls up such a mix of emotions by drawing on the deep—some would say scarring—imprint of early memory. As Claes Oldenburg put it when asked about the source of his inspiration, “I made it up when I was a little kid.”

Robinson’s artistic forebears are an interesting group. His strategies often include the manipulation of scale, which can be traced to René Magritte, Oldenburg, and Robert Gober, and a Pop-inflected appropriation of bits of consumer culture, invoking the (sometimes) ambivalent relationship to the religion of capitalism/consumption that lies at the heart of American life and art. The importance of facture in Robinson’s work—of the manner in which it is made, with consummate skill and careful consideration of material and method to convey the intended ideas—demonstrates the artist’s relationship to “maker-uncles” such as Richard Artschwager and Allan McCollum. Additionally, Robinson’s affinity for words suggests alliances with text/image “cousins” Jenny Holzer and Barbara Bloom, or the Bay Area conceptualist branch of the family: William T. Wiley, Richard Shaw, Bruce Conner.

Read the full article here.

Terry Berlier. Core Sampling (Tick Tock), 2009 (detail); FGR-95, dyes, steel, motors, MAKE Controller, computer, sensor, microscope camera, PVC, aluminum, pocket watch, and MAX. Courtesy of the Artist. Photo: David Pace.

Half of the works in Terry Berlier’s Erased Loop Random Walk at the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art hum with a mixture of ingenuity, obsolescence, and camp that would be at home in Los Angeles’s Museum of Jurassic Technology, David Wilson’s Borgesian paean to the 17th century cabinets of wonder.  The other half transport the visitor to what might seem to be a satellite installation of San Francisco’s Exploratorium, combining high technology with a do-it-yourself aesthetic to explore and reconfigure the world.

Berlier frames her show in terms of the passage of time. Some artworks mark the ticking seconds via the back-and-forth motion of a rocking chair, the subject of both I Would Not Change It and I’m Dying; This is a New Experience (both 2013). They also mark the length of a visit to the show, via the repetitions of the Beatles’s Here Comes the Sun emanating from When Comes the Sun (2012), a machine powered by a solar panel mounted on the museum’s roof. Several pieces reference the longer intervals encoded in tree rings and even the unfolding geological eras in the nine six-foot long ersatz “core samples” that compose Core Sampling (Tick Tock) (2009).

Read the full article here.

Survey at San Jose Museum of Art - Installation view

It’s hard to know where to look upon entering Leo Villareal’s exhibition. Light literally dances on every wall and even on the ceiling—the blinking lights bridge the many large light sculptures and installations, melting the exhibition space into one monumental light show. Villareal’s first traveling museum survey, on view at the San Jose Museum of Art, is an exhibition of the artist’s work using strobe and LED light, which he has coded himself to animate into various patterns and movements.

Many of the works feel almost filmic. It is as if the frames and supports are actually sets for an array of movements that are calculated just enough to feel random. Star (2008) is a set for a brilliant patterning of light that flicks and courses through the spokes of the circular frame hung on the wall. On closer inspection, one can see the data chips of the LED bulbs meticulously placed and exposed; the visible guts of the piece are a nice touch, reminding the viewer that Villareal composed and conducted this visual symphony.

Leo Villareal Flag, 2008, 75 x 144 x 4"

Firmament (2010) is a ceiling-mounted light installation that involves viewers’ reclining in custom-built couches and staring up at an animated light display that Villareal also programmed. The installation is jarringly hypnotic; it possesses a little bit of James Turrell’s disorienting and quiet light spaces and just a splash of the overwhelming grip of the Studio 54 dance floor.

There is a playfulness to the sculptures that winks back to the lighthearted seriousness of the classic children’s toy, Lite-Brite, which involved carefully inserting small multicolored plastic pegs into an illuminated surface to create “light drawings.”

Villareal exists within a long history of artists whose primary interest is the study of light, from the Impressionist painters to photographers. But Villareal’s exploration of light is not through the creation of an image; rather, it is through the manipulation of light itself as form. He is a remarkable composer and conductor of sorts, leading and organizing lights to fade, glow, and blink in ways that manage to make the viewer have a moment, even if it’s a fleeting one, when they forget they are looking at art.

This weekend, the largest festival of art, technology and digital culture in the United States opens in San Jose, California. The 2010 01SJ Biennial, Build Your Own World, is a multi-disciplinary, multi-venue event that features dozens of projects by artists, designers, engineers, architects, marketers, corporations and citizens during a four day, city wide event. The biennial, which is open from September 16-19, includes exhibitions, performances, symposiums and artist talks all centered on the concept of rebuilding the world in which we live and the future that is upon us. 01SJ goes to lengths to consider the ways in which technology and community can come together to create real change in our lives and our future. Unlike many typical biennials, Build Your Own World has a very pragmatic agenda. This event brings together the creative community  and general public to foster new partnerships and to disseminate experimental and forward thinking concepts through artworks, performances and workshops.

Our friends at KQED arts in San Francisco visited San Jose earlier this week to speak with Steve Dietz, Artistic Director of 01SJ and to take a sneak peak at the programs in store for this weekend. Gallery Crawl captured several works in the final stages of production, such as Empire Drive-In by Brooklyn-based artists Jeff Stark and Todd Chandler and xAirport, an environmentally-based project by local artist Natalie Jeremijenko who was recently featured on Buzzoid.