Feminist work in Hippie Modernism

I started writing my Exhibition Review all wrong so I decided to paste what I wrote about Sheila Levrant de Bretteville here:

Pink and Everywoman

Sheila Levrant de Bretteville is an American artist and graphic designer whose feminist principles drive her work. She worked as an instructor at CalArts where she met Judy Chicago, one of the leading ladies of feminist art at the time, and Arlene Raven, a feminist art historian who co-founded various feminist art organizations in Los Angeles. The three of them founded the Feminist Studio Workshop and the Los Angeles Woman’s Building, which was a nonprofit feminist cultural center.

close up of Pink

De Bretteville also created a feminist newspaper called Everywoman in 1971 in which all of the women featured in the paper got two full spreads to work with. This piece was displayed in a glass case below Pink, an offset lithograph on paper created in 1971. Both Everywoman and Pink are very minimal in color, using only grey and pink. For Pink, the responses to the color by different women were stitched together in a quilt like graphic. Another minimalistic quality is the usage of such a grid system, however the powerful feminist messages within the work conceptualize the piece. Strong images of young women and girls were sparingly placed next to phrases such as “Little girls don’t know why, but, little girls are pink,” and, “Pink is childish. I’m not pink now.” Some associated the term to love or a memory of their childhood. Some messages embraced pink, some rejected, some spoke of the journey through both such as one woman saying “And then I HATED PINK. Now pink has become a symbol of liberation for me.” De Bretteville wanted to show how much of a strong association women tie to feminism through the color pink and how social constructs shape women’s depictions of a simple color.

Hip-hip Hooray for Hippie Modernism

Outside of BAMPFA

Hippie Modernism at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archival (BAMPFA) showcased a variety of artists that represented hippie counterculture and the historical events that occurred globally during the 60’s and 70’s. Hippies were members of liberal counterculture that advocated ideas such as a close relationship with nature, spirit, communal living, artistic experimentation, and recreational drugs. They were advocates for the environment and peacefully protested for equal rights during the fight for Civil Rights and for peace during the Vietnam War. Their counterculture aesthetic rarely has this kind of attention in history or even a gallery showcasing their contribution to their culture.

Lower floor of the gallery

            On April 22^nd, the museum was free. Protestors marched the streets outside and people of all ages were walking around the neighborhood. For a busy Saturday evening, BAMPFA was not as crowded as expected. Overall the gallery was spacious. It was almost like a maze the way the different sections of the gallery space were broken up, especially on the lower floor with the split-level area that opens into another room. The show was split onto two levels because of the amount of work. There were two larger installations that people could go inside of. Those were placed into the center of the rooms, which utilized the large rooms well because a lot of the work were screen-printed posters and photographs that were hung on the walls alongside video and performance art displayed on flat screen TVs.

Corita Kent's silkscreen posters

The colorful array of psychedelic colors signature to the hippie aesthetic were utilized in a variety of forms in photography, print, sculpture, and installation. The signature poster style of Hippie culture was demonstrated by Corita Kent in her silkscreen anti-war posters that utilized text as well as incredibly vibrant neon colors next to more neutral yet still saturated colors.

USCO's two pieces with guard trying to sneak away

The installations were very engaging and immersive. However, some installations were weaker because of how intense the lighting is in the gallery. The flashing lights in USCO’s installations may have had a more powerful effect if it were in a room with dimmer lighting.  Shiva (1965) was a massive painting with electric lights around the perimeter that would blink in a timely manner however, the red lights could only be seen if paying attention up close. When further away, the gallery lights wash out the red bulbs. Drop City’s The Ultimate Painting (1968/2011) digital print with strobe lights and a motor did not have that same problem because it was encapsulated in their dome titled 8-Fold “Polar Zonohedron” (1966/2011) made of painted wood, mylar, and composite panels.

            Revisiting and reflecting upon the sociopolitical issues that we are still fighting today made Hippie Modernism a great contemporary show to see. Although it is questionable if the architecture of BAMPFA helped the show with the split-levels, but for what they had to work with, the gallery space was used up in a meaningful way that did not take too much attention away from the art. It was informative of the key movements and ideas in the art making of the time and brought to light a counterculture that does not get the recognition it deserves. Hippie Modernism is on display at BAMPFA until May 21, 2017.

Frances Butler fused traditional quilting
with exuberant colors

Being a part of art while looking at art

The Diggers were a theater group and helped
their community by promoting art and
giving goods for free

One of the best installations in show

Channeling modern weab culture with hippie counterculture

Crown Point Press

Signage at the bottom of the stairs

The printmaking class' annual visit to Crown Point Press at 20 Hawthorne St in San Francisco was on March 16. Every semester, Professor Mark Emerson takes his printmaking class to visit Crown Point Press, a well established printmaking studio founded by Kathan Brown in 1962. Crown Point invites artists who are not printmakers to work with their printers and experiment with various printing processes for a week. They are also the creators of Magical Secrets, an instructional book on the many different etching processes and the in depth guide on everything you need to know to use them. Famous artists such as Wayne Thiebaud and Richard Diebenkorn worked with Crown Point occasionally. Their pieces can be seen in the gallery from time to time.
The building is an old newspaper facility in the Yerba Buena area. I absolutely love this place! A very welcoming vibe and a peaceful energy that flows throughout the building. Up the winding staircase to the second floor, the door is open and inviting you to step inside where the magic happens. The ceilings are high and the windows are large, flooding daylight into the space. Their gallery is small but the shows are phenomenal showing a variety of ways artists could use the same etching techniques.
We started our field trip with a guided tour from Sasha Baguskas, the editor and publications manager at Crown Point. She explained the history of Crown Point and talked about the processes of prints currently exhibited in their gallery. Usually there aren't many relief prints but this time around there were a few. Focusing mainly on intaglio prints, the discussion was mainly about dry point, aquatint, sugar lift, spit bite, and both hard and soft ground etchings. (I would explain them all but it would take all day.) Baguskas talked about the quality of line that is created through etching that is very different from that of a drawing. She said that Diebenkorn appreciated the velvety quality of the softness of the ink. He collaged different pieces of paper to come up with a composition that read easily
After the tour of the gallery, Baguskas took us on an exclusive tour into the back rooms to the studio space. She explained each room, taking us around until we reached the largest press beds where the printers, Emily York, Sam Carr-Prindle, and Courtney Sennish, were busy inking plates. They were working on a three color photo gravure print. The artists are never working when we visit, so our class examined the inking and printing processes of the printers. I love the thud of the press bed when the plate finishes going through and the plop of the blankets when they systematically throw them over the roller. Sadly my phone ran out of memory before the plop. Next time... Anyways Sennish explained the photo gravure process better than I did in my previous post so check out the video! (hopefully I can get it to work soon)

Diebenkorn's proofing process

Staring at the proofs hoping to absorb some knowledge

Baguskas (right) explaining the collaging Diebenkorn used to proof Green (1986)
with Professor Emerson and super awesome relief printer Luis

Love the windows! Tom Marioni prints on the left side.

Just to show how far back the space stretches

Smaller press bed

Tools!!!

Left to right: Sam Carr-Prindle, Courtney Sennish, and Emily York

Check out their website: https://crownpoint.com/