Balmy Alley: Corridor of Community Consciousness

Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young Museum

Friday, June 4, 2010 • 6:00pm – 9:00pm

de Young Museum • 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive SF

FREE!

Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo series presents Balmy Alley: Corridor of Community Consciousness, introduced by Precita Eyes Arts Muralist Patricia Rose featuring talks by Master Muralists Ray Patlan and Patricia Rodriguez.

San Francisco, May 2010––On Friday, June 4, the de Young Museum presents another dynamic program, luminous projections, and book signing in the ongoing series Mission Muralismo, in conjunction with the recently published book Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo, edited by Annice Jacoby for Precita Eyes Muralists, foreword by Carlos Santana (Abrams, 2009). The evening focuses on the extraordinary legacy of Balmy Alley, home to hundreds of murals focusing on social justice from the wars in Central America to the impact of Aids in Africa. Balmy Alley Balmy Alley is located off of 24th Street in The Mission – parallel to Treat Ave and Harrison Street between 24th & 25th streets. The alley has become a symbol of community-based muralism and art lovers from around the world visit this important art site.

Installation: See billboard scale projections of four decades of art from Balmy Alley in Wilsey Court. These include many rare and archival photos of fences and garage doors that cover the entire street. Artists include Ray Patlan, Eduardo Pineda, Juana Alicia, Susan Greene, Rigo, Andrew Schoultz, Patricia Rodriguez, Miranda Bergman, Jane Norling, Herbert Siguenza, Martin Travers, Joel Bergner, Susan Cervantes, Patricia Rose, Marta Ayala, Carolyn Castaño, Sirron Norris, and many others.

At 7 p.m. the lecture presentation will begin in the Koret Auditorium. Patricia Rose, Precita Eyes Muralist and artist, will introduce the featured speakers. Patricia Rose is the senior tour coordinator for Balmy Alley and one of the major artists in the Mission Mural Movement. Patricia Rodriguez painted what is thought to be one of the oldest existing murals on Balmy Alley. She is one of the original Mujeres Muralistas, a seminal women’s art collective. In addition, Rodriguez is a contributor to the Mission arts as a working artist and administrator. She has taught at many Universities and her most recent shows in San Luis Obispo and the Triton Museum in Santa Clara. Ray Patlan lived on Balmy Alley for many years after he moved to the Bay Area from Chicago, where he began his work as a muralist. He has also worked in Mexico. He is considered an important artistic leader of the Mission Mural movement.

Balmy Alley, which provided many artists with their first mural spaces, is a narrow paved lane with more than two dozen murals on fences, walls, garage doors, laundry lines and weathered clapboard houses. The walls of this tiny street feature some older Mission district murals from the 1970s, including early work by members of Mujeres Muralistas, the pioneer women’s painting collective. The work in Balmy Alley began as a children’s art festival in 1971. In 1984, a group of 40 artists collaborated to create 28 murals sharing a theme of peace in Central America, with images of joy, anger, sorrow, pride, and fear. The alley became a protest point for the wars in Central America, organized by artists to show solidarity with the struggles on both sides of the border and to give support to exiles from those wars now living in the Mission.

Balmy Alley is now an ever-changing outdoor gallery with year round visitors from around the world. It’s also a pilgrimage corridor for the Day of the Dead annual procession in the Mission District. Day of the Dead, as celebrated in the Mission District, includes the creation of altars for friends and loved ones who have passed away and a procession, which takes place on the evening of All Soul’s Day, which is November 2nd each year. The artists with murals in Balmy Alley thrive on contrasts and diverging viewpoints. Balmy will be continuously restored, renovated, and reborn so that it serves as a visual compass that reminds all of us to look critically at our own visions of the world.

Visitors are welcome to bring or purchase their Street Art San Francisco: Mission Muralismo books for signing by the featured artists and editor, Annice Jacoby, before and after the talks.

Live music by Trio Garufa, Tango performances, and hands on art-making are also part of the Friday, June 4th great evening celebrating Birth of Impressionism: Masterpieces of the Musée d’Orsay and “Mission Muralismo.”

This “Mission Muralismo” series of lectures, performances, and more celebrates one of San Francisco’s greatest contributions to the artistic landscape—the Mission District artist community.

MORE FRIDAYS!

“Mission Muralismo” is celebrated on the first Friday of every month, 6–8:45 pm, through November 2010.

July 2: Graff Convention

Featuring presentations by Mission street artists Apex, Spie, Jocelyn Superstar, and Mark Bode, Estria, among others, this is an intimate look at the world of sprayers, writers, taggers, and graffiti artists of every stripe who work the walls of the Mission, with and without permission.

Live music in The Osher Sculpture Garden: Myrmyr, in collaboration with ME’DI.ATE Group for their Soundwave ((4)) Festival: Green Sound.

Aug 6: Film Series—Quality of Life; La Misión; Mi Name Is Chula: Low Riders

Sep 3: Film Series—Piece by Piece; Style Wars; Bombit

Oct 1: Clarion Alley CAMP

Nov 5: Art and Revolution: Centennial Commemoration of the Mexican Revolution

Friday Night at the de Young

On Friday nights, the entire museum is open until 8:45 pm. Friday Nights at the de Young offers a variety of interdisciplinary arts programs, including live music, poetry, films, dance, tours, and talks. The Museum Café is open with a special Friday Nights dinner menu and a no-host cocktail bar offers drinks. There are art-making activities for everyone. Programs take place in the FREE zone of the museum. General gallery admission is always free to members; regular gallery fees apply for nonmembers. $10/adults, $7/seniors, $6/youths, (13–17) and college students with ID, free for children 12 and under.

For more information about Friday Nights, go online to www.deyoungmuseum.org, call 415.750.7694, or email nschach@famsf.org. Cultural Encounters at the de Young is a series of interconnected programs developed in collaboration with community arts programs developed in collaboration with community arts organizations and performing and visual artists. These programs are designed to attract new and diverse audiences to the museum while creating exciting educational and artistic possibilities from the permanent collection and temporary exhibitions. Friday Nights at the de Young is part of the Fine Arts Museums’ Cultural Encounters Initiative, which is generously funded by The James Irvine Foundation, The Wallace Foundation, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, the Columbia Foundation, and the Winifred Johnson Clive Foundation.

Museum Admission:

Friday Night programs are offered in the free zone.