BAY AREA --- In both SF and Berkeley from May 23rd to 29th, the Landmark Theaters will be showing The Fake Case, a new documentary about famous Chinese artist and activist Ai Wei Wei.
If you’ve somehow missed the drama surrounding Wei Wei, he has been harassed by Chinese authorities for a supposed “subversion of state power” because of his internet postings. This documentary specifically focuses on another charge against him, this time for $2.1 million in tax evasion through his company Fake Ltd. It follows him quietly and intimately with his family during his home arrest and then builds to discuss some of his art works in the context of his involvement with Chinese authorities.
I highly suggest getting to one of these screenings, watching this film is an invigorating and powerful example of the influence one person can have, even in the harshest political environment imaginable. In his own words, Wei Wei says, “Political artists aren’t real artists. I’m not a political artist. I’m just political.” Whatever he may consider it, the work of Ai Wei Wei is a prime example of both art and activism, and we Americans might take a cue from him.
It's streaming on Netflix, it's been nominated for an Academy Award, so you've probably already seen this nice documentary, but if not, enjoy it sometime soon-
A look into the lives of struggling NYC based married artists Noriko and Ushio Shinohara. Heartfelt story which may give any young artist second thoughts when contemplating the life of a working artist. TRAILER
Noriko and Ushio Shinohara star in the Oscar nominated documentary "Cutie and the Boxer".
Can't decide to see Hayao Miyazaki's new film "The Wind Rises" in sub-titled or dubbed. What would you do? Some theaters are offering either here in San Francisco.
SAN FRANCISCO --- In the random dept: If you've lived in SF for more than 2 years, you remember The Red Vic, and if you've lived here for 20 years, like us, then you really miss this passed SF staple. Everyone in the city had Red Vic's screening calendar taped up in apartment bathrooms and kitchens with anticipated showings of their favorite film classics.
I think my favorite moment was watching the great classic The Harder They Come with a special Q&A with the film's writer/ director/ producer Perry Henzell (SFGATE Article) for the film's 25th anniversary in 1997. The film was made on a shoestring budget, and it was exciting for this young film student at the time to hear about how they scraped together this beautiful film with an almost DIY attitude and ambitious renegade mentality... Would be great for a Bay Area theater to do a screening soon.
Hey, the oldest continuously operating movie theater in San Francisco, The Roxie, is still going strong. Check their calendar, and get out to support real filmmaking.
A true film classic: "The Harder They Come"
"Nebraska" Film Saturday, 21 December 2013 /// Written by Trippe
Director Alexander Payne (About Schmidt, Sideways, The Descendants) directed the great film Nebraska which is in theaters now. NYTimes Pick, trailer, and go and see it. Worthy of a theater visit. ~ now playing @One Embarcadero Center.
SAN FRANCISCO --- Like shooting film? Like printing your own photos? We sure as hell do, but where can you print your lovely negatives?
Over the last 10 years or so, we've been using The Harvey Milk Photo Center at Duboce Park. Great resources, quiet lab, kind people, and afforable prices. A hidden gem in San Francisco for sure!
Harvey Milk Photo Center is a hidden SF gem for film lovers
What if you feel in love with a more intuitive/ life-like Siri, or should say, Siri that's Scarlett Johansson? HER is the latest from Spike Jonze and due out in November.
Today we've launched a new music video I've created. The video is made in stop motion using an analog camera (Olympus Mju I) and around 80 films. It's for Kreatones a young wave band from the Netherlands.
I hope you like it and like to show this to the Fecal Faces out there. -Jorrit Spoelstra
If you've never seen it or haven't in awhile, add the film Grave of the Fireflies to your rental queue. This heartfelt Japanese animated classic tells a stark tale of two young children who lose their parents towards the end of World War 2... We love it, and for more info listen to this guy... and again, we recommend you watch any Japanese animated film in Japanese with English subtitles.
What are some of your favorite Japanese animated films? Let's post some up in the comments:
Last night we watched Hayao Miyazaki's animated classic Spirited Away. We watched the English dubbed version for the first time. Don't do that. Animated Japanese films are so much better when you watch them in Japanese with English subtitles. Reading enhances the film by bringing your own your imagination into it... Plus, Disney has a way of Americanizing the film. There's a clumsy touch to such a delicate masterpiece.
Got an email from Tim Bierbaum who wanted to let us know about his fantastic new multimedia web series Real Artists he created. It's great, and he wrote and directed this pilot episode. He also photographed, illustrated, animated, and recorded a voice. We love it. Think you will too.
"Real Artists" (a Thrash Lab special created by Tim Bierbaum)
This first episode of Real Artists finds a number of characters engaged in their daily routine in New York City. Presented as a collection of vignettes, the episode connects the characters and discussions in a digressive unpredictable way.
The best part of the cinema program at SF State was taking the history/ theory classes. They would screen iconic classic films in SF State's wonderful Coppola Theater. Always took these classes early in the morning. That's the best time to see any film. As opposed to viewing a film at night and then going to bed soon afterwards, viewing a film early in the morning allows you the entire day to reflect. Highly recommend your next viewing with a cup of coffee.
Visionary Design: The Cinema of Charles and Ray Eames - Fri. Feb. 24 - 8PM @Oddball Films in San Francisco --> Oddball Films presents Visionary Design: The Cinema of Charles and Ray Eames. Among the finest designers of the 20th Century, the husband and wife team are best known for their groundbreaking contributions to architecture, furniture design, industrial design and manufacturing, but the Eames’ were also brilliant and inventive filmmakers, able to illustrate the most abstract concepts with readily understood images. There is so much to say about the legacy of the Eames’s that an entire period has been named after them. ~complete details
As cool as it is to be nostalgic about an artist's past, you don't have to hold onto it. Especially since there are people like C.R. Stecyk creating works in the now with even more punch than they had 30 years ago - a trait that can only be attributed to the character of a true artist. In fact, he's just made a new experimental film named "FIN", that's packed full of the elements of culture and spirit which have always fascinated Stecyk and his fans.
The film will be premiering at H Space Gallery on February 8th and if you think it's going to be a regular old screening, think again - since Stecyk and the creative team at Hurley will be fully transforming the space into an old movie theater. I'm talking a floor to ceiling installation that will be 110% unforgettable. Not to mention that "Fin" will continue to evolve even after its screening - taking on a life as a limited edition clothing run and web series.
If you don't know who C.R. Stecyk is, all you have to do is open up practically any skateboarding magazine and point to any page knowing that what you're seeing wouldn't exist without his vision of how to the capture the radical images and lifestyles that forever inspired our imaginations. From his Dogtown Articles in the 1970's, to his recent exhibit of posters at the Art In The Streets exhibit at MOCA - the man is just unstoppable. And so the film based on the lives of the z-boys he made part of history might have been called Lords Of Dogtown, but Stecyk was and is still most definitely the king.
Twixt @Fifty24SF Wednesday, 18 January 2012 /// Written by Trippe
Last Friday, we swung through Fifty24SF to check out their current show coinciding with filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola's newest feature/ horror film, Twixt (art directed by Jimmy DiMarcellis aka Porous Walker).
The show references many scenes from the film, which Coppola wrote himself, and which struggles to win over critics (ouch).
Incredible set design complete with a heavy duty fog machine, it certainly was photo worthy. The bird houses were priced very inexpensively with many sold by the time we arrived... Didn't even recognize the gallery is was so reworked.
I don't think at this point it needs to be written since the last update to Fecal Face was a long time ago, but...
I, John Trippe, have put this baby Fecal Face to bed. I'm now focusing my efforts on running ECommerce at DLX which I'm very excited about... I guess you can't take skateboarding out of a skateboarder.
It was a great 15 years, and most of that effort can still be found within the site. Click around. There's a lot of content to explore.
Hit me up if you have any ECommerce related questions. - trippe.io
I'm not sure how many people are lucky enough to have The San Francisco Giants 3 World Series trophies put on display at their work for the company's employees to enjoy during their lunch break, but that's what happened the other day at Deluxe. So great.
SF skateboarding icons Jake Phelps, Mickey Reyes, and Tommy Guerrero with the 3 SF Giants World Series Trophies
When works of art become commodities and nothing else, when every endeavor becomes “creative” and everybody “a creative,” then art sinks back to craft and artists back to artisans—a word that, in its adjectival form, at least, is newly popular again. Artisanal pickles, artisanal poems: what’s the difference, after all? So “art” itself may disappear: art as Art, that old high thing. Which—unless, like me, you think we need a vessel for our inner life—is nothing much to mourn.
Hard-working artisan, solitary genius, credentialed professional—the image of the artist has changed radically over the centuries. What if the latest model to emerge means the end of art as we have known it? --continue reading
"Six Degrees" opens tonight, Friday Jan 16th (7-10pm) at FFDG in San Francisco. ~Group show featuring: Brett Amory, John Felix Arnold III, Mario Ayala, Mariel Bayona, Ryan Beavers, Jud Bergeron, Chris Burch, Ryan De La Hoz, Martin Machado, Jess Mudgett, Meryl Pataky, Lucien Shapiro, Mike Shine, Minka Sicklinger, Nicomi Nix Turner, and Alex Ziv.
"[Satire] is important because it brings out the flaws we all have and throws them up on the screen of another person," said Turner. “How they react sort of shows how important that really is.” Later, he added, "Charlie took a hit for everybody." -read on
As we work on our changes, we're leaving Squarespace and coming back to the old server. Updates are en route.
The content that was on the site between May '14 and today is history... Whatever, wasn't interesting anyway. All the good stuff from the last 10 years is here anyway.
Opening tonight, Friday May 23rd (7-10pm) at Park Life in the Inner Richmond (220 Clement St) is Again Home Again featuring works from the duo Jacob Mcgraw-Mikelson & Rachell Sumpter who split time living in Sacramento and a tiny island at the top of Pudget Sound with their children.
Jacob Magraw will be showing embroidery pieces on cloth along with painted, gouache works on paper --- Rachell Sumpter paints scenes of colored splendor dropped into scenes of desolate wilderness. ~show details
NYC --- A new graffiti abatement program put forth by the police commissioner has beat cops carrying cans of spray paint to fill in and cover graffiti artists work in an effort to clean up the city --> Many cops are thinking it's a waste of resources, but we're waiting to see someone make a project of it. Maybe instructions for the cops on where to fill-in?
The NYPD is arming its cops with cans of spray paint and giving them art-class-style lessons to tackle the scourge of urban graffiti, The Post has learned.
Shootings are on the rise across the city, but the directive from Police Headquarters is to hunt down street art and cover it with black, red and white spray paint, sources said... READ ON
Los Angeles based Alison Blickle who showed here in San Francisco at Eleanor Harwood last year (PHOTOS) recently showed new paintings in New York at Kravets Wehby Gallery. Lovely works.
We haven't been featuring many interviews as of late. Let's change that up as we check in with a few local San Francisco artists like Kevin Earl Taylor here whom we studio visited back in 2009 (PHOTOS & VIDEO). It's been awhile, Kevin...
If you like guns and boobs, head on over to the Shooting Gallery; just don't expect the work to be all cheap ploys and hot chicks. With Make Stuff by Peter Gronquist (Portland) in the main space and Morgan Slade's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow in the project space, there is plenty spectacle to be had, but if you look just beyond it, you might actually get something out of the shows.
Fifty24SF opened Street Anatomy, a new solo show by Austrian artist Nychos a week ago last Friday night. He's been steadily filling our city with murals over the last year, with one downtown on Geary St. last summer, and new ones both in the Haight and in Oakland within the last few weeks, but it was really great to see his work up close and in such detail.
Nate Milton emailed over this great short Gator Skater which is a follow-up to his Dog Skateboard he emailed to us back in 2011... Any relation to this Gator Skater?
Congrats on our buddies at Needles and Pens on being open and rad for 11 years now. Mission Local did this little short video featuring Breezy giving a little heads up on what Needles and Pens is all about.
In a filmmaker's thinking, we wish more videos were done in this style. Too much editing and music with a lacking in actual content. Just because you can doesn't mean you should.
Matt Wagner recently emailed over some photos from The Hellion Gallery in Tokyo, who recently put together a show with AJ Fosik (Portland) called Beast From a Foreign Land. The gallery gave twelve of Fosik's sculptures to twelve Japanese artists (including Hiro Kurata who is currently showing in our group show Salt the Skies) to paint, burn, or build upon.
FFDG is pleased to announce an exclusive online show with San Francisco based Ferris Plock opening on Friday, April 25th (12pm Pacific Time) featuring 5 new medium sized acrylic paintings on wood.
Backwoods Gallery in Melbourne played host to a huge group exhibition a couple of weeks back, with "Gold Blood, Magic Weirdos" Curated by Melbourne artist Sean Morris. Gold Blood brought together 25 talented painters, illustrators and comic artists from Australia, the US, Singapore, England, France and Spain - and marked the end of the Magic Weirdos trilogy, following shows in Perth in 2012 and London in 2013.
San Francisco based Fecal Pal Jeremy Fish opened his latest solo show Hunting Trophies at LA's Mark Moore Gallery last week to massive crowds and cabin walls lined with imagery pertaining to modern conquest and obsession.
Well, John Felix Arnold III is at it again. This time, he and Carolyn LeBourgios packed an entire show into the back of a Prius and drove across the country to install it at Superchief Gallery in NYC. I met with him last week as he told me about the trip over delicious burritos at Taqueria Cancun (which is right across the street from FFDG and serves what I think is the best burrito in the city) as the self proclaimed "Only overweight artist in the game" spilled all the details.
Ever Gold opened a new solo show by NYC based Henry Gunderson a couple Saturday nights ago and it was literally packed. So packed I couldn't actually see most of the art - but a big crowd doesn't seem like a problem. I got a good laugh at what I would call the 'cock climbing wall' as it was one of the few pieces I could see over the crowd. I haven't gotten a chance to go back and check it all out again, but I'm definitely going to as the paintings that I could get a peek at were really high quality and intruiguing. You should do the same.
The paintings in the show are each influenced by a musician, ranging from Freddy Mercury, to Madonna, to A Tribe Called Quest and they are so stylistically consistent with each musician's persona that they read as a cohesive body of work with incredible variation. If you told me they were each painted by a different person, I would not hesitate to believe you and it's really great to see a solo show with so much variety. The show is fun, poppy, very well done, and absolutely worth a look and maybe even a listen.
With rising rent in SF and knowing mostly other young artists without capitol, I desired a way to live rent free, have a space to do my craft, and get to see more of the world. Inspired by the many historical artists who have longed similar longings I discovered the beauty of artist residencies. Lilo runs Adhoc Collective in Vienna which not only has a fully equipped artists creative studio, but an indoor halfpipe, and private artist quarters. It was like a modern day castle or skate cathedral. It exists in almost a utopic state, totally free to those that apply and come with a real passion for both art and skateboarding
I just wanted to share with you a piece I recently finished which took me 4 years to complete. Titled "How To Lose Yourself Completely (The September Issue)", it consists of a copy of the September 2007 issue of Vogue magazine (the issue they made the documentary about) with all faces masked with a sharpie, and everything else entirely whited out. 840 pages of fun. -Bryan Schnelle
While walking our way across San Francisco on Saturday we swung through the opening receptions for Kirk Maxson and Alexis Mackenzie at Eleanor Harwood Gallery in the Mission.
Jeremy Fish opens Hunting Trophies tonight, Saturday April 5th, at the Los Angeles based Mark Moore Gallery. The show features new work from Fish inside the "hunting lodge" where viewers climb inside the head of the hunter and explore the history of all the animals he's killed.
Beautiful piece entitled "The Albatross and the Shipping Container", Ink on Paper, Mounted to Panel, 47" Diameter, by San Francisco based Martin Machado now on display at FFDG. Stop in Saturday (1-6pm) to view the group show "Salt the Skies" now running through April 19th. 2277 Mission St. at 19th.
For some reason I thought it would be a good idea to quit my job, move out of my house, leave everything and travel again. So on August 21, 2013 I pushed a canoe packed full of gear into the headwaters of the Mississippi River in Lake Itasca, Minnesota, along with four of my best friends. Exactly 100 days later, I arrived at a marina near the Gulf of Mexico in a sailboat.
Material published on FECAL FACE DOT COM online service is copyrighted by Fecal Face or its licensors, including the originating wire services. Such material is protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and treaties. All rights reserved.
Users of the Fecal Face online service may not reproduce, republish or redistribute material found on the web site in any form without the express written consent of the copyright holder.