Words from California, for Sarah Hollinswood

by Alex Hetherington, 3 Jun 2008

I have wanted to write something for a while from here in California, but I have gotten caught up in the sunshine, seeing exhibitions and work. Anyway this blog is for Sarah Hollinswood and her kind words about our online presence here on PARS. Thank you.

I have spent a great deal of time thinking about the next show for The Park Gallery and the installation I want to present is called Mineral Park, named after a ghost town in Arizona that fought for years for its status as county seat of the larger district only for residents of the local, larger town Kingman to go in and steal from them all the paperwork related to Mineral Park’s status and administration. It is now a ghost town and was abandoned in 1912 when the US post office pulled out. It is also the site of the find of the world’s largest turquoise mineral stone. None of this history appears in my production; rather I want to concentrate on some of the ideas the site implies. (I went there, tried to camp at the old camp site, only to find it converted into a large quarry and having to avoid coyotes trawling the grounds.) More of this soon: but the materials I am employing include a description of a plane crash, speech psychology and research, footage from a baseball game, a performance using a fake, stolen language and video from the Grand Canyon also of course in Arizona (vertigo central, I had to be physically taken off one of the viewing platforms I was so terrified/compelled to jump off, apparently it’s called Thanatos syndrome/instinct, check out Freud).

I have seen and reviewed a number of shows here: all of which appear on Interface/Reviews Unedited at a-n magazine. You can find the page, you are smart people. I wanted to write on Anne Colvin/Tart San Francisco’s publication series Skank Bloc Bologna, Dexter Sinister at New Langton Arts, Joan Jonas at Berkeley and the new show at Silverman Gallery, after opening their new space at Sutter Street in SF. I have seen a series of other shows, but didn’t want to cover them. I go to Yerba Buena art center tomorrow to look at a large scale show on feminist art, which seems the flavor of the month all over the US.

I have also been following the Robert Dollar story, which has run dry somewhat having been tossed out of his building in California Street without the right photographic permit. I met some people there though who allowed me access to some of the archive material. I may add this into the new work, I don’t know. I also visit his house again in San Rafael, which is now an arts center, to film the grounds and interior. I have had to stay out longer in the US than planned, but I am taking advantage of this situation to get more research done. (Robert Dollar, this industrialist, is extremely fascinating but he remains out of reach at the moment.)

I will follow this up with more commentary soon. Next time around: why I am not a public artist or socially-engaged artist and should therefore stop blogging on this site; what to do when you see four stupid Texans jumping between 6000 ft drop rocky outcrops at the Grand Canyon?; what we learn from misrepresentation; oh and I have seen a tons of movies here.

Finally I have a date at Tom Marioni’s drinking party on Wednesday. He is one of the Bay Area’s principal conceptual artists who has been having this drink gig for years: see Tom Marioni’s 1970 exhibition, The Art of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art. That’s all folks. Sorry to hear of the passing of YSL, Bo Diddley, Sydney Pollack.