Art for Mid-week Wednesdays: Static and Statue

INTERPRETATIVE A new kind of sculpture-portrait.

For MFA student Matthew Segotta's Merlino work, this is an art that has more to do with its materials and the story to how it was made, which includes the main ingredient, Segotta's brother, Tim. "The Sculptor," as noted on the room plaque, or casually just "Scout," employed his younger bro for the casting of this untitled piece, and then a rich mix of materials: concrete, hydrocal, silicone, sisal, aluminum and steel.

The details are so specific to the subject—if you look closer at the right arm, you'll see human hair. But the unconventional presentation of this sculpture form is what stood out to me the most. The artist, who is on-hand during the entirety of his exhibition, will tell you about the process and the subject. The viewer, simply me, will tell you how soothing it is to finally walk into a room bare of wall art and stories locked into a perimeter of a few square dimensions. Statue work is normally seen erect, standing, but makes more of a statement here, where it's thrown and naked on the ground. This show makes more an impact with less and gives sculpture art some kind of new air of coolness. It works with the new tradition I've seen coming out of CSULB artists, like with Julia Haft-Candell, an MFA ceramics student who in spring transformed Merlino into a sculpture-cocoon, or BFA student Sean Flaherty, who adds himself into the end product of even his most sensual work. Space and identity are displayed and explored to dynamic exponents.

S.P. BALTAZAR A new character for Patrick Ballard gets its debut behind locked doors, and an overwhelming voice with an equally charged volume.

Another sculpture student who I find repeatedly "adding himself into the end products," is the unparalleled Patrick Ballard.

I stood there knocking, afraid I was missing the show. As soon as I stepped inside the FA3 building, the walls were throbbing from the noise outpouring one of its first-floor showrooms. Though, really, I was in a sequence of two shows in a row (see above) where the audience was challenged to restrain from and resist usual gallery expectations.

In a dramatic sense, it felt like God was speaking to me.

"S.P. Baltazar" is in the FA3 building through Saturday, 7 p.m. Matthew Segotta's work can be viewed through Thursday (12 p.m. to 5 p.m.) in the Merlino Gallery in the Gallery Courtyard.

Election Notebook: Hour-by-Hour Snapshots

Today is Election Day. And instead of hurrying to vote or even opening the newspaper to read whatever new controversy might’ve landed a 60-point headline, I plopped down for a nonsense breakfast at about 10 to 10. No radio. No TV. But, yes, toasty hash browns and creamy scrambled eggs interlaced with slices of garlic and onion, with a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice, and the clear sky allowing the intoxicating sun to shine through — I do remember thinking what beautiful day this had already started off to be!

11:07 a.m. I am somewhere racing down the 405, blasting some wild rock music, loud and for long, by Long Beach’s own, Cold War Kids. I can’t ignore the fact the band performed at the DNC, or Democratic National Convention, earlier this year.



12:16 p.m. On Facebook via mobile. All status updates look alike.

• Camilo Cruz has donated his status to remind everyone to vote for Barack Obama today. Donate your status: http://causes.com/election/25848890?m=ad1fd51b.
• Emily Sander has donated their status to remind everyone to vote for Obama & NO on Prop 8 today. Donate your status: http://causes.com/election/6213546?m=4455e771.

Cruz is an MFA student. Sander, a theater student who recently starred in the student showcased "Whose ISM is It Anyway?"

2:32 p.m. Meeting #2. This time at the University Art Museum, where I met with Nadia, the public relations assistant, for our plans to (as she put it) “take over the world.” More on that soon! *Mega-wink.* We were tucked away in the cozy Reading Room, plotting away some magical Warhol soiree, when suddenly politics and art slipped into our conversation. An undergraduate art history student, Nadia pointed out the somewhat overload amount of art shows galleries accumulated during campaign season. A lot of Obama art and a lot more subversive political art, she noted.

3:47 p.m. Immersed in the remote land simply labeled Dance Center on Cal State Long Beach maps, I encounter a flyer, “ArtsVote … Arts Positions of the 2008 Prsidential Candidates.”

Click to enlarge. LEFT Found. Evidence that dance students are interested in the campaign and each candidate's view on the arts. RIGHT Details, according to ArtsVote.

4:52 p.m. CSULB is only an image in my rear mirror now. Still in wonderment about that political video art I encountered at the galleries yesterday, I drive away wondering how Masters of Fine Art sculpture artist McLean Fahnestock is celebrating Election Day. She did mention a treat for gallery guests wearing an "I Voted" sticker. Ben & Jerry's and Starbucks are doing something like that, too. I am headed home to vote.

6:13 p.m. I am in my hometown, San Pedro. I've waited 15 minutes in a short line of about 20, finally reaching the check-in table where I present my California driver's license, sign by my name, receive a ballot, am directed to a poll station, look for the President's name, punch, turn around, deposit ballot, receive sticker. I Voted.

Photos, a la Fahnestock.
7:22 p.m. Chinese take-out, steamy. TV with Katie Couric, steamy.

8:09 p.m. Game over. Barack Obama will become the 44th president of the United States of America. Offical release by the Wall Street Journal:

Nov. 4, 2008

Barack Obama won a historic race for the White House, defeating John McCain to become the first African-American president. Obama carried Democratic strongholds such as California and New York, but also won key battlegrounds such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida.

With the victory, the 47-year-old senator will become the nation's 44th president, riding a tide of voter discontent with the economy, the war in Iraq and eight years of Republican control.

Obama's party was poised to expand its majorities in both the House and Senate, setting the stage for Democrats to push an ambitious agenda from health care to financial regulation.

What are your reflections on today's results?

Pre-Election Notebook: Fahnestock's Video Art

NO WALLFLOWER McLean Fahnestock, MFA sculpture student, exercises her political views through her video art. Politics and celebrity shape powerful characters we all get to know, but politicians hold all the power, Fahnestock says.

It's come down to less than 24 hours before Election Day. History will be made either way -- the possibility exists for the first black president or the first woman vice president to enter office.

Whatever the scenario, Masters of Fine Arts sculpture student McLean Fahnestock is watching carefully, so carefully she often records politicians or those stalwart political TV analysts in the act.

In the Gatov gallery, she's got Hilary Clinton in a "Today Show" interview from 1998 -- the day after the Lewinski scandal broke. Part of Fahnestock's interests include documenting politicians who mesh "private and public parts" of their lives before the media. A better example rings louder in the Merlino gallery, occupied by another one of her videos, "The Great Debate." "God. God. God. God." repeat two men. This is an example of how God, being that private thing, gets delivered in such a public manner.


THE "GOD" VIDEO "God. God. God. God. God." Currently in the Merlino Gallery, Fahnestock's 45-second video projection called "The Great Debate." The video shows two conservative news analysts, George Will and Cal Thomas. The great debate? It's about teaching creationism and evolution, noted Fahnestock.

"I am watching performance," notes the part-time video artist. "It's a facade, all in the face, a schedule in looking like people."

Like how democratic nominee Barack Obama announced he'd be spending time with his children for Halloween?, I probe. Actually, Farhnestock responds, more like John McCain's making-up of fictional characters, like "Joe the Plumber," attempting to grasp the middle-class archtype.

Farhnestock is excited about the election, and so am I. And as the school's arts commissioner, I'm more curious of which candidates have more interest in supporting the arts and funding for artists, a lot of like what I do.

Click here to read what LA Times has to say about the presidential candidates and their individual support towards the arts.

Do you vote according to who has greater support for the arts?

McLean Fahnestock:

Sculpture Act

You see the frame of a chair, there. You see the wiry skeleton of a chair, up there. A rope controls the direction of the chair, up there, which will eventually dip in a pool of bubble solution, down there. Slowly, cautiously, breath by breath, the rope lifts the wiry chair into the air, now glossed with a flimsy shell of bubble. The skeleton has transformed into an outer skin, like a fabric to fit the wooden "chair" below.

"Not in So Many Words": See this active sculpture in its breathing moments at set times in the gallery.

The Very Act

by McLean Fahnestock (Sculpture, MFA)

Max Gatov Gallery at the Student Art Galleries

Sunday, Nov. 2, to Thursday, Nov. 6

This Week at the Galleries: Pasty and Pretty

TOP Trina Turturici and Travis Ott-Conn recreate "Broadway and Junipero" in this reused carboard, mixed media mural. It hangs in Gatov Gallery West for this week's drawing and painting exhibition, "Ties United." MIDDLE Summer Merritt's work is in the Merlino Gallery where you will find delicate paper things (left: "Portrait of Mantel"; paper, wood and acrylic) and heavy-duty pieces like a chimney face ("Show Piece") that is half wood, half 500 pounds of periphen wax. BELOW In the Dutzi Gallery, Linda Clare Larson's ceramic pieces are inspired by abstract symbolisms and challenge the illusions of structure and permanence.

WEEKLY SHOWS AT THE CAL STATE LONG BEACH

STUDENT ART GALLERIES END THURSDAY.