Everybody jump. jump.

Although my only roommate has moved out, there are now approximately 5-7 inhabitants of my inner sunset dungeon flat. X has been replaced by a handful of mexican jumping beans that fill the silence with incessant tick, tick....ticktickticks as they smack the walls of their clear plastic cage. I've grown quite fond of them over the past few days and decided I had to get to the bottom of their mysterious ways. The flier that accompanied their purchase was chock-full of hilarious but sadly indecipherable spanglish so I tapped into a different source - wikipedia. Below are my findings:

From Wikipedia:

A Mexican jumping bean is a phenomenon native to Mexico, where it is known as a brincador ("hopper"). Physically, Mexican jumping beans resemble small tan to brown beans. They are a type of seed in which the egg of a small moth has been laid. It is the moth's larva which makes them "jump". The beans themselves are from a shrub of the genus Sebastiania (S. palmeri or S. pavoniana), itself often referred to as the jumping bean, while the moth is a member of the genus Cydia, called a jumping bean moth.

After the egg hatches, the larva eats away the inside of the bean, making a hollow for itself. It attaches itself to the bean with many silk threads.
The larva may live for months inside the bean with varying periods of dormancy. If the larva has adequate conditions of moisture and temperature, it will live long enough to go into a pupal stage. Normally, in the spring, the moth will force its way out of the bean through a round "trap door", leaving behind the pupal casing. The small, silver and gray-colored moth will live for only a few days.
The larvae jump as a survival measure in order to protect themselves from the heat, which can cause them to dry out. The ultraviolet rays from the sun stimulate them to jump, even in cool temperatures, but leaving the beans in the sun for extended periods will dehydrate and kill them.

Maintenance — "watering" and storage of the beans
To rehydrate the beans, they need to be soaked for a three-hour period in chlorine-free water once or twice a month. The chlorine found in tap water in some locales will kill them. Alternatively, one may let chlorinated tap water stand in an uncovered glass for about six hours before using, to let the chlorine dissipate. Just spraying the beans with a little water is ineffective in maintaining the larvae's lifespan. Beans should be stored in a cool dry place, but freezing will kill them.

Source of the beans
The Mexican jumping bean (Laspeyresia Saltitans) comes from the mountains in the states of Sonora, Sinaloa, and Chihuahua; indeed, Álamos, Sonora styles itself the "Jumping Bean Capital of the World". They can be found in an area approximately 30 by 100 miles where the Sebastiana pavoniana host tree grows. During the spring, moths emerge from last year's beans and deposit their eggs on the flower of the host tree.

1847 map of Mexico

New Exhibition Faves

From September 12 through December 20, 2009, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA) will present two exhibitions: The Provoke Era: Postwar Japanese Photography and Photography Now: China, Japan, Korea. The exhibitions give SFMOMA a chance to brag a bit about their photography collection which is coincidentally one of the best in the country. Plus, the photo curator is just so darned kind! Although I did meet her in the elevator and promptly made an ass out of myself (I got off on the wrong floor, guffawed my way back into the elevator, made small chat, proceeded to insult photography (ok just photo shoots), sheepishly exited the 'vator...)
ANYWAY The Provoke Era: Postwar Japanese Photography is all about Japan in the wake of their defeat in World War II as the Japanese sought to both forget and transcend the past:

"Plagued by extreme poverty in the 1950s, the country not only accepted the presence of their American occupiers, but admired western values such as capitalism, democracy, pop culture, and jazz. This complicated and ambiguous atmosphere transformed the traditional social structure into a new egalitarian society. This collision of worlds also provided fertile emotional ground and political material for the burgeoning photographic community. Photography was ideally suited to record and respond to this complex atmosphere. During the postwar period a culture of photography, previously addressed to amateurs, saw the evolution of an important avant-garde.

"The exhibition title is derived from a small-press photography magazine, Provoke: shiso no tame no chohatsuteki shiryo (Provoke: Provocative Resources for Thought), founded by a group of photographers and writers united in their quest for a new visual language—one with a fresh way of seeing and experiencing the world. The works on view provide a context for this incendiary movement, including work from the immediate postwar period, the Provoke movement itself, and later generations who felt the impact of it."

Here are a few of the works:

Moriyama, Daido, Stray Dog, Misawa, Aomori, 1971; gelatin silver print; 7 9/16 x 11 11/16 in.; Collection SFMOMA, gift of Van Deren Coke; © Daido Moriyama

Hosoe, Eikoh, Kamaitachi #31 [Caped Kamaitachi running through field], 1968; gelatin silver print; 10 ¾ x 16 5/8 in.; Promised gift of Paul Sack to the Sack Photographic Trust; © Eikoh Hosoe

The second exhibit, Photography Now: China, Japan, Korea, features some 65 pictures, many newly acquired and on view for the first time. Enhancing the Japanese photography collection, in 2007 and 2008, SFMOMA acquired a diverse group of 50 pictures from 13 emerging photographers in China and has also added a selection of photographs from Korea.

The works in the exhibition examine the diversity of photographers working in China, Japan, and Korea. Although the photographic community in Japan blossomed in the postwar period, China, and Korea experienced this growth later and are now experiencing a renaissance in cultural expression.

A new generation of Korean photographers is beginning to make a mark on the international photography scene. With the first wave of students leaving Korea in the mid 1980s, photography reached a turning point that awakened and renewed their own cultural expression.

In China, a country whose artist population was long dormant during the Cultural Revolution, which smothered artistic production, a new interest in documentary work has revealed a passion for recording the changing face of the rapidly developing nation. After the death of Mao Zedong in 1976, China opened its borders to the West and outside influences rushed in. Artists, such as Zhang Huan who formed an experimental art community outside Beijing called The East Village, sought to stage a confrontation between human expression and social and political criticism, resulting in arrests for their performances. One of the fathers of the performance art movement in the 1990s, Zhang Huan’s Foam (1), 1998 refers to the memory of the performance. Photographs become the primary means of documentation for these historic and ephemeral acts .

As has been true in Japan, photography is well suited to record the rapid changes transforming the modernizing nation. Amateurs and professionals alike contrast the collision of age-old traditions and modern western culture, resulting often in remarkable, occasionally, unsettling pictures.

Here are some pickies. The foam one I have held in my very hands. I scanned it for the marketing department. All that exists of it in our records is a slide that we own the rights to (or that's how I understand it at least):

Zhang Huan, Foam (1), 1998; chromogenic print; 41 x 27 in.; Collection SFMOMA, gift of Vicki and Kent Logan; © Zhang Huan

Yan Changjiang, Outang, from the series The Three Gorges, 2006; inkjet print; 19 11/16 x 19 11/16 in.; Collection SFMOMA, Accessions Committee Fund; © Yan Changjiang

Hatakeyam Naoya, Untitled, Osaka, 1998-1999; two chromographic prints on aluminum; each 35 x 71 in.; Collection SFMOMA, fractional and promised gift of anonymous donors; © Naoya Hatakeyama

Le Sandwich

I promise this whole artsy sandwich thing won't become a pattern. Actually, it might. They are so friggin cool! More at http://www.funkylunch.com/

An evening at the de Young

Here are some highlights from a late night visit to Golden Gate Park's de Young museum:

A nearly private visit to the observation deck:

Ruth Asawa - what craftsmanship! what mastery of light! what stunning forms!

Jack Levine Birmingham '63 (1963):


Andy Goldsworthy Faultline:

Kehinde Wiley

The colors duke! the colors! Ever since I first saw Kehinde Wiley's art, I've been in love. He started out working in painting but recently switched to photography (I'm quite partial to his new stuff - the contrasts really pop). Both his paintings and photographs present young African-American men in the freshest new styles amidst vibrant, antiquated patterns (check out that turquoise tie! that rubiks cube belt!). The men assume theatrical poses reminiscent of famous western paintings from the 17th-19th century. Wiley thus rewrites history by inserting his contemporary black subjects into visual positions of power that they were previously denied. At the same time, the portraits, however aesthetically pleasing, seem absurd. The models appear to be mocking the effete, flowery motions of old and reminding us that "postures of power can sometimes be seen as just that, a pose” (Art in America). Beyond merely mocking the postures and the power of old white men that haunted these scenes, I think the models do something more bold. With a perspicacious look in their eye, they cooly inform the viewer that our cultural landscape has shifted. No longer do elite white men drive society; these men, with their extravagant of-the-moment clothing, posses their own power to define our cultural trends and, to an extent, our moment in history.

Kehinde Le Roi à la Chasse (2006)

Anthony van Dyck Le Roi à la Chasse (1635 - portrait of Charles I of England)