The 35th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival hits the Smith Rafael Film Center this Friday, August 7, through Sunday, August 9—the art line-up is impressive
It’s been 35 years since her death and radical socialite, philanthropist, art collector and personality Peggy Guggenheim is still a subject of fascination. Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s new documentary, “Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict,” opens the Marin portion of the 35th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and screens Friday, August 7 at 12:30 PM at the Smith Rafael Film Center. Along with Guggenheim’s most important and interesting artworks, the doc features clips from recently re-discovered audio tapes of Guggenheim in conversation with her authorized biographer, Jacqueline Bograd Weld, and film clips with artists Jackson Pollack and Willem de Kooning. Photo: SFJFF
The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (SFJFF), the first, the largest, and arguably the best in the proliferation of Jewish film fests, returns to Marin’s Smith Rafael Film Center Friday afternoon with a line-up of 15 new films showcasing the best in independent Jewish film. All of the films have been selected from the 120+ film line-up that has been playing in San Francisco, Oakland and Palo Alto since July 23. The Marin segment has been curated with our North of the Golden Gate viewing preferences in mind—great story-telling, thought-provoking content on current issues and art. Three of the films are art related and with fabulous storylines and seem well worth the drive and time spent indoors.
The festival kicks off Friday at 12:30 with Lisa Vreeland’s acclaimed documentary, Peggy Guggenheim: Art Addict (2015), which made its California premiere at the festival.
And on Saturday, at 12:30 PM, Yari Wolinsky and Cary Wolinsky’s Raise the Roof (2014) tells the inspiring story of the complete architectural restoration of a decimated 18th century wooden synagogue in Gwozdziec, Poland by a team of committed volunteer artisans from around the globe who use original methods and tools to restore the churches elaborate exterior and immense and complex interior frescoes.
On Saturday, at 6:20 PM, French director François Margolin’s docu-drama, The Art Dealer (“L’Antiquaire”) (2014), journeys through a family’s secrets and European history.
In French director François Margolin’s “The Art Dealer” (“L’Antiquaire”) (2014), Anna Sigalevitch portrays a Jewish woman who becomes obsessed with the provenance of a painting allegedly created by French artist, Jacques-Laurent Agasse (1767-1849), one of Vernet’s protégés. Her research takes her back to her own grandfather’s art collection and the German occupation of France. The story is based on a true story involving the Seligmann family and patriarch art dealer and antiquarian Jacques Seligmann who ran famed galleries in Paris and New York and fostered American interest in European art. The film screens at the 35th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, at the Smith Rafael Film Center on Saturday, August 8, at 6:20 PM. Photo: SFJFF
On Saturday, at 6:20 PM, French director François Margolin’s docu-drama, The Art Dealer (“L’Antiquaire”) (2014), uses the story of a painting to journey through a famous family’s secrets and European history.
Details: Screenings at the Smith Rafael Film Center start Friday, August 7, at 2:30 PM and run through Sunday, 10 PM. Click here for complete program and ticket information. A Marin Pass, good for all screenings in Marin, is $100 for members Jewish Film Institute / $120 General Public. The Smith Rafael Film Center is located at 1118 4th Street, San Rafael.
Festival Box Office Hours: The Festival Box Office for the Smith Rafael Film Center screenings will be next to the venue’s regular box office and easy to find. It will open 1 hour prior to the first SFJFF screening of the day and will remain open throughout the day until 15 minutes after the last screening begins. Orders set to will call will be available at the venue and on the day of the first screening in the order. If all tickets were purchased on the same order, they will all be available for pick up at the first screening in the order; if tickets were purchased on separate orders, they will be available or pick up at the first screening of each order. Marin Passes will be available for pick up at the Rafael Film Center on August 9th.
Jay DeFeo shows are closing—“Renaissance on Fillmore” at Napa’s Di Rosa Preserve and “Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective,” at SFMoMA
Jay DeFeo, Courtesy of the estate of Jerry Burchard, c. 1958.
Anyone interested in artist Jay DeFeo—and who isn’t?—should not miss two important shows which are closing this week.
Closing Sunday, January 27, 2013— “Renaissance on Fillmore, 1955-65” at the di Rosa Preserve’s Gatehouse Gallery
Situated in Napa Valley’s Carneros region amidst a lake and wildlife preserve is di Rosa, visionary collector Rene di Rosa’s art-filled paradise, one of the Northern California’s most important contemporary art collections. Its impressive stone Gatehouse Gallery is pure poetry. Situated on the edge of a bird-filled lake, with a wall of windows to take in the panoramic view, the space is filled with natural light and a sense of openness. It houses rotating exhibitions which draw from di Rosa’s own collection and which offer a look at important work by emerging and established artists, all with an essential link to the Bay Area.
“Renaissance on Fillmore, 1955-65” is a compact gem, thoughtfully curated by Michael Schwager, chairman of Sonoma State University’s Art and Art History Department and a former di Rosa curator. It brings together works from 17 artists, including Jay DeFeo and Wally Hedrick, who were a pivotal part of the remarkable and eclectic group of painters, poets and musicians who came together in San Francisco’s upper Fillmore district between 1955 and 1965 and literally changed the course of American art. The 17 featured artists either lived and worked in the building at 2322 Fillmore or were active in the neighborhood’s pioneering art galleries, such as the Six Gallery, King Ubu, and Batman Gallery. Works by Paul Beattie, Joan Brown, William H. Brown, Jerry Burchard, Bruce Conner, Jean Conner, Jay DeFeo, Sonia Gechtoff, Dave Getz, Wally Hedrick, Craig Kauffman, James Kelly, Les Kerr, Hayward King, Ed Moses, Deborah Remington, and David Simpson are included, along with photographs, posters, and exhibition announcements documenting this extraordinary period in Bay Area art.
Northern, California seemed an especially welcoming environment for both Abstract Expressionist painting and this new hybrid of art, music, and literature that was lumped under the rather inelegant rubric “Beat,” a word with multiple associations—the rhythm of Bebop jazz, the cadence of spoken poetry, or the sometime desperate conditions under which these artists struggle to create their work. (Michael Schwager, curator)
Jay DeFeo, “Song of Innocence,” (1957), oil on Canvas, 40″ x 40,” the Jay DeFeo Trust.
There are three works by DeFeo in this show, all from 1957-58, as well as three portraits of her in her Fillmore Street apartment/studio taken by Jerry Burchard in 1958. No matter the scale, whether it is a 4×6 inch graphite and colored pencil drawing or “Song of Innocence,” (1957), a 40 x40 inch oil painting which presents a flurry of pastel colored brush strokes organically bursting into a flaming bloom, DeFeo was a master of her space.
If you go, don’t skip Swinging in the Shadows: San Francisco’s Wild History Groove (DVD, 2011 directed by Mary Kerr), an informative video which covers the entire Fillmore art scene, including slow birthing of Jay DeFeo’s colossal masterpiece, The Rose (1958-66). Not only does it capture the vibrant life that DeFeo and her husband Wally Hedrick led during that magical era that they lived with the painting which dominated the front room of their famous flat-studio, it recounts several legendary parties. One included a very drunk Willem de Kooning being pried off DeFeo and then driven around in a sports car. When finally sober, de Kooning thought he had been in New York because of the remarkable art he saw that evening and DeFeo’s painting in particular “blew his mind.”
Details: di Rosa is located at 5200 Sonoma Highway Napa, California 94559. Directions: Mapquest. Hours: NOV-APRIL: Wednesday-Sunday 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Closed Monday & Tuesday Fee: suggested donation $5. Tours: Guided tours of the collection and grounds are available Wednesday through Sunday. Tours are $12-$15 and are a wonderful way to learn more about di Rosa and its important collection of Northern California art, and offer plenty of time to enjoy the art collection and grounds.
Closing Sunday February 3, 2013— Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective at SFMoMA.
When Jay DeFeo died in 1989, at age 60, she was at the height of her creative powers. Despite her iconic status as the creator of the monumental painting “The Rose,” she was little known outside a small circle of art insiders. SFMOMA’s retrospective (finally!) offers a revelatory, in-depth encounter DeFeo’s work, giving this artist her well-deserved tribute. Presenting close to 130 works, including collages, drawings, paintings, photographs, small sculptures, and jewelry, this definitive exhibition traces DeFeo’s distinctive vision across more than four decades of art making. How did she do it? Aside from innate talent, she worked obsessively throughout her life, never letting go of ideas until she had thoroughly exhausted them.
Prepare to be mesmerized and, as a rule of thumb, double the time you think you think you’ll need to take this in. There’s no need to hurry. “Only by chancing the ridiculous, can I hope for the sublime.” said Jay DeFeo in a 1959 Museum of Modern Art catalogue statement. “Only by discovering that which is true within myself, can I hope to be understood by others.”
Details: Jay DeFeo: A Retrospective closes Feb. 3, 2013. The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA) is located at 151 Third St., S.F. (415) 357-4000. www.sfmoma.org
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