Holy Terra

Planet of the arts

Comments (0) Wednesday, Sep 28 2005

ONGOING 9/30-10/29

Carrie Lederer

Planet Garden at "Fabulandia."

Mark Brecke

A Sudanese mother and her children arrive at a refugee camp in eastern Chad.

Aaron Farmer

CELLspace gets a permit to party.

Aaron Farmer

CELLspace gets a permit to party.

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Suspended and piled-up globes, shiny with painted green stalks and tiny yellow blooms, make up much of Carrie Lederer's work in "Fabulandia: Terra." The show is a tribute to imaginary future landscapes, and also features the work of what might be called a visual arts supergroup: David Hamill, Philip Ross, Tonya Solley Thornton, Genevieve Quick, and James Sansing.

Lederer's sculptural installation here continues her long-standing fanciful style: A small round bird and ivy intertwined with some free-standing flowers creates a modish warmth around the verdant spheres. The scene bears only a whiff of psychedelia's subtle threat.

The other pieces aren't all so pseudo-innocently fuzzy: Although this is not necessarily a dystopian group, curator Lauren Davies seems to have put an emphasis on technology. One of the eye-catching phrases she uses to describe the show's emblematic collision of high- and low-tech elements is "motorized shrubbery": cute, but only in a fictional form. The opening reception for "Fabulandia" starts Friday at 6 p.m. (and the show continues through Oct. 29) at the LAB, 2948 16th St. (at Capp), S.F. Admission is free; call 864-8855 or visit www.thelab.org.
-- Hiya Swanhuyser

Retooling Art
The Hybrid Project mixes it up

FRI 9/30

Since its inception in 1999, Intersection for the Arts' Hybrid Project has been spinning out multidisciplinary performances on a mostly monthly basis, investigating city life, worldly visions, and international culture in the context of art, poetry, and sound. Kicking off the new season is "The Hybrid Project: Re-mixing Classics," in which the new collective Lyrics and Lines uses spoken word, music, and film to retell literary blasts from the past, like Poe's Tell-Tale Heartand Faulkner's Barn Burning. The backdrops consist of graphic-novel versions of the stories, projected onto the stage. Also on the bill are scenes from Naomi Iizuka's new play, which finds Shakespeare's Hamlet hanging out in 1980s East Oakland. The show starts at 7:30 p.m. at Intersection for the Arts, 446 Valencia (at 15th Street), S.F. Admission is free-$15; call 626-2787 or visit www.theintersection.org.
-- Karen Macklin

Tough as Nails
But short of funds

WED 9/28

For the past 10 years, photographer Mark Brecke has been documenting troubled regions such as Cambodia, Rwanda, and Iraq, traveling alone through the deadly hot spots without the support of news agencies, making him infamous in tough-guy journalism circles and subsequently flat broke. You can help change that -- or at least help him pay his rent -- at tonight's fundraiser, where Brecke will present photos, films, and war stories along with a slide-show lecture on the Dafar region of Sudan, in which he traveled with the rebel Sudanese Liberation Army. "Mark Brecke: War Photographer" starts at 7 p.m. at the Quaker Meeting House, 65 Ninth St. (at Mission), S.F. Admission is free-$5; call 385-5956 or visit www.warandweddings.com.
-- Michael Leaverton

Permitted to Party

FRI 9/30

In July, the cops informed CELLspace that it could no longer host events without a Place of Entertainment permit from the city; it took the venue months to secure the precious slip of paper. Now, the staff is celebrating with a monthlong series of shows, starting with the Mystic Family Circus tonight at 8 at CELLspace, 2050 Bryant (at 18th Street), S.F. Admission is $10; call 648-7562 or visit www.cellspace.org.
-- Michael Leaverton