Today we’re thinking about what “school” means as a way of codifying an art movement—that is, the politics, aesthetics, and ethos that are implied by attributing work to a particular school. In that vein, we present Anuradha Vikram’s review of SFAI’s 2013 exhibition Energy That Is All Around—Mission School, wherein Vikram analyzes the problematics of the Mission School attribution. This article was originally published on November 18,[…..]

It’s the last day of July—and with it, our final look at the theme of celebrity! We examined the complex intersections of fame, money, desire, and artistic practice this past month, and for our final installment we bring you an ongoing project in New York City by pseudonymic street artists Clint Mario and ME, whose self-reflexive ad takeovers speak to the inherent absurdity of celebrity’s constant jockeying for cultural ubiquity. Tomorrow[…..]

Andrew Birk is a gringo. I don’t mention this as an insult—I’m one too, after all—but to give some context to his work. The Portland, Oregon, native has lived in Mexico City since 2011 and has a clear affinity for the cacophony and vibrancy of this dense, sprawling metropolis. It is with the fresh eyes of an outsider that Birk is able to translate the[…..]

#utopia #nostalgia #technology #street art #counterculture Technology and utopia are united in a certain subset of counterculture in Hippie Modernism: The Struggle for Utopia at the Walker Art Center. The show illustrates the ideals and limitations of the utopian imaginings by artists of the 1960s and early 1970s with early computer graphics imaging, speculative architecture proposals, political posters, and installation art. In contrast to ideal societies,[…..]

#access #gentrification #street art #painting #historicity A panel at the San Francisco Art Institute on October 20 in conjunction with the Walter and McBean Galleries exhibition Energy That is All Around – Mission School: Chris Johanson, Margaret Kilgallen, Alicia McCarthy, Barry McGee, Ruby Neri, posed the question: “Mission School: Yes or No?” The general consensus, both on the panel and in the wider Bay Area[…..]

Help Desk is an arts-advice column that demystifies practices for artists, writers, curators, collectors, patrons, and the general public. Submit your questions anonymously here. All submissions become the property of Daily Serving. Help Desk is cosponsored by KQED.org. 2012 is almost gone, and over the course of this year I received some questions that didn’t seem quite right for the column—either because they only required a[…..]

It’s a rainy summer night in Guadalajara. Zooming through the dark, the jeep I’m riding in feels more like a powerboat as it leaves a black wake in the flooded streets. This ain’t no British rain – and thank God for that. (I’ve had enough drizzle for two lifetimes.) Palm fronds shake and the heavy rain suddenly turns to hail. The frothy water in the[…..]