Swedish-born artist Nathalie Djurberg’s unsettling avian menagerie takes flight this fall at YBCA. Using actual bird species as inspiration for her sometimes grotesque forms, Djurberg explores physical and psychological transformation as well as pageantry, perversion, and abjection in avian society. In addition to the wild flock of more than eighty freestanding bird sculptures on view, the exhibition also includes five animated films, in which avian psychology is superimposed upon human behavior with extraordinary results. Her clay animations are set to music and sound effects by her partner and collaborator Hans Berg.
In conjunction with the exhibition The Parade: Nathalie Djurberg with Music by Hans Berg, YBCA presents A Mad Tea Party: Five Videos by Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, a selection of important works where complex and twisted narratives are performed by molding clay figures in constructed environments. Spanning the past eight years of the artists’ career, these animations depict their characteristically dark tales that plumb the depths of human psychology to dramatic effect, and include human and animal characters that are thrown together into strange and mythological scenarios laden with sexuality and violence.
Nayland Blake was one of the pioneers of performance art in the Bay Area in the 1980s. His work often explored aspects of the queer urban lifestyle. Though now based in New York, his most recent work is a return to his earlier processes from that period, where materials and spontaneity generate sculptural works that are informal, precarious, nonsensical, and odd or uncanny. For his upcoming solo exhibition at YBCA, Blake will create spontaneous sculptures using his life as the catalyst. Also included in the exhibition are a DJ booth stocked with Blake’s collection of over three thousand LPs, which visitors will be invited to spin; and the recreation of a mural by Chuck Arnett (1962), which decorated the wall of the Tool Box, a leather bar in what is now San Francisco’s SoMa district.
William Cordova works in installation, performance, sculpture, film, photography, and drawing. He focuses on architecture and landscapes, and reconstructs, reconsiders, and reconnects past events to reveal their relevancy in today’s social climate. Creating ephemeral monuments, Cordova sees the visual arts as a platform for discussing our common experiences, needs, and struggles.
FREE!LOVE!TOOL!BOX! provides visitors an opportunity to explore Nayland Blake’s unique collection of over 3,000 LPs. You are invited to sign up for a DJ set to spin at the turntables within the installation, Ruins of a Sensibility.
Thu, Jan 17 & Fri, Jan 18 • 7:30pm Sat, Jan 19 • 4:00pm & 7:30pm Sun, Jan 20 • 2:00pm & 4:00pm
Does hell exist? If so, who ends up there, and why? Is it possible we’ve gotten hell wrong? Hellbound? is a provocative and unique example of the burgeoning independent Christian film genre that we rarely see in San Francisco, and will appeal to believers and non-believers alike. Featuring an eclectic group of authors, theologians, pastors, social commentators and musicians (including members of Deicide and GWAR), you’ll never look at hell the same way again. (2012, 85 min, digital)
Oct 27, 2012 – Feb 17, 2013YBCA GalleriesVisual Arts
Oct 13, 2012 – Jan 27, 2013FREE with gallery admissionYBCA GalleriesVisual Arts
