Email Author Jonathan Curiel

2011 Stories by Jonathan Curiel

• The Lighter Side of India's Deities

  published November 16, 2011

  Ideally, art exhibits offer an "ah-ha" moment, when you stand transfixed and realize, "This speaks to me like nothing before." This exhibit... More >>

• Artifacts of Escape

  published October 12, 2011

  More than 80 years after his death, the escape artist who called himself Houdini still commands the popular imagination, with new books arriving... More >>

• Completing the Picture

  published October 5, 2011

  In the plaza area of UCSF’s Mission Bay campus, people frequently look up in awe at the Richard Serra sculpture called “Ballast.”... More >>

• Redefining the Grid

  published October 19, 2011

  Thanks to advances in technology (hello Google), the definition of "map" has evolved oh so radically in the past decade. Not surprisingly, visual... More >>

• Decline and Rise

  published November 23, 2011

  Ideally, art exhibits offer an "ah-ha" moment, when you stand transfixed and realize, "This speaks to me like nothing before." This exhibit... More >>

• Borrowing from the Past

  published November 16, 2011

  "The Matter Within" surveys contemporary artists with roots in India who are taking radical approaches to their subjects. In photos,... More >>

• Artists Illuminate Amazing Territory Using Map Technology in "Here Be Dragons"

  published Dec 27, 2011

  Thanks to advances in technology (hello Google), the definition of "map" has evolved oh so radically in the past decade. Not surprisingly, visual artists are utilizing these high-tech tools to reconfi... More >>

• "Blek le Rat: 60/30": Street Art's Godfather on S.F., Banksy, and His Legacy

  published December 28, 2011

  It's 8:30 a.m., and French street artist Xavier Prou — a.k.a. "Blek le Rat" — is surveying his latest stencil work: Curtain-sized... More >>

• How Bill T. Jones Turned Radical African Music Into the Broadway Hit Fela!

  published Nov 30, 2011

  It's easy to take for granted that Fela! would be a smash Broadway musical -- that it would make its big-stage debut to critical acclaim ("music that gets into your bloodstream," said the New York Tim... More >>

• Decline and Rise: Three Exhibits Prove the Continued Splendor of Indian Art

  published November 16, 2011

  Ideally, art exhibits offer an "ah-ha" moment, when you stand transfixed and realize, "This speaks to me like nothing before." All three India... More >>

• Taking in Richard Serra's Arresting Drawings

  published October 19, 2011

  Walking hurriedly through the galleries at More >>

• A Life Story on Canvas

  published July 13, 2011

  For seven decades, Pablo Picasso set the standard for what art could be. Cubism and abstract figuratives were born through his canvases. African... More >>

• "Modern Masters: Works from the 1910s to 1950s"

  published September 21, 2011

  In the mid-20th century, the name Le Corbusier was everything in the world of architecture. To have a home or small building designed by the... More >>

• Charles Gatewood, "Greatest Hits": Still-Challenging Work of S.F. Legend

  published September 21, 2011

  Hardcore fans of Charles Gatewood's photos will be perplexed by his newest exhibition. Where are the images of tattooed penises, pierced labia,... More >>

• Fall Arts: Eight Visual Art Exhibits You Must See This Season

  published September 7, 2011

  Yoon Lee: "Minor Inconveniences" Sept. 8-Oct. 22 at Marx & Zavattero, 77 Geary (at Grant), S.F. Free; 627-9111 or More >>

• San Francisco Art Gallery Reviews for September

  published August 17, 2011

  Various: "Bay Area Now 6" Through Sept. 25 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission (at Third St.), S.F. $5-$7; 978-2700... More >>

• "Chico & Chang": Exhibit Shows the Swirl of Asian and Latino Culture

  published July 20, 2011

  Two years in the making, this exhibit accomplishes what it set out to do: to showcase the multifaceted art being made in California from an... More >>

• "Face of Our Time": Photos of Africa Show Life as It Is, with No Exoticism

  published July 20, 2011

  An African woman stares at the camera and purses her lips. She seems upset, but her eyes are in shadow, so it's hard to determine her exact... More >>

• Michael Garlington Transcends Gimmickry in Creating a Powerful "Photohouse"

  published Jun 21, 2011

  It's easy to dismiss this exhibit as one big gimmick. A house made of photos and their frames, in the middle of a gallery, covered on the outside with dark eyes and darkish images of beautiful naked w... More >>

• Tony Berlant Summons the Ethereal in Abstract Works

  published Jun 16, 2011

  For decades, Los Angeles artist Tony Berlant has made abstract collages of metal, paper, wood, and steel braids -- nails that are driven into the work and become, like hard dots, part of its surface p... More >>

• 

  COVER STORY

  A Movement Defaced: Queer Street Art Fights for Legitimacy

  published June 15, 2011

  Cover photo by Michael Cuffe/Warholian. Inside his art studio in San... More >>

• "Picasso: Masterpieces from the Musée National": The Women Who Inspired Picasso

  published June 15, 2011

  It's almost impossible to separate Pablo Picasso the artist from Pablo Picasso the personality, and Picasso the public figure from Picasso the... More >>

• Richard Learoyd: "Presences"

  published May 18, 2011

  The women look forlorn or flummoxed, and the question is why. Only Richard Learoyd and his semi-anonymous subjects know for sure, and they... More >>

• Sandow Birk: "American Qur'an," and Al Farrow: "Reliquaries"

  published May 18, 2011

  Since 2004, Sandow Birk has painstakingly drawn an English-language version of the Quran, with an emphasis on "drawn." Birk's holy book is... More >>

• Romare Bearden Retrospective: Once-Neglected Artist Gets His Due

  published May 18, 2011

  In the early weeks of 1969, protesters gathered before the entrances of New York City's major art museums to complain about the institutions'... More >>