Friday, June 4, 2010

Summertime for the Pueblo: Osvaldo Torres

 June 2010

Pueblo Nuevo and La Peña present,

REGISTRY OF COLORS & HOPE /
CATASTRO DE COLORES Y ESPERANZAS

The Artwork
OSVALDO TORRES
June 6 - Juy 4 2010
Pueblo Nuevo Gallery
1828 San Pablo Ave
Berkeley Ca

Opening Reception June 6th 7-11pm


Osvaldo Torres, a Chilean singer/songwriter was born in Antogasta, a city in the Atacama Desert of Northern Chile. He founded the internationally known Andean music group, Illapu, with his cousins the Marquez brothers in 1969, but has been a solo artist since 1977.

Osvaldo belongs to a generation of artists who stayed in Chile after the military coup of 1973 and was a major force in the cultural resistance to the dictatorship, both as an artist and in his community outreach work for the folk and alternative music label, Alerce, and as a founder of Nuestro Canto, a cultural production organization which linked artists with grass roots groups working against the dictatorship. During the years of the dictatorship, he continued to perform in union halls, community centers, churches and schools, even when it resulted in his being harassed and blacklisted from commercial venues. One of his longer works of music and poetry, La Vigilia was written for the Association of Relatives of the Disappeared in 1977.

Since early childhood when he first remembers hearing the music and stories of the Aymara people of the mountains of northern Chile, Osvaldo has been drawn to their culture. While still in high school he borrowed his first quena and charango from a neighbor who used them only as decorations and taught himself to play the music of the Andes. He has lived and traveled in Aymara villages, isolated and often at the ends of roads which could only be reached on a mule or donkey. He is fluent speaker of Aymara and many of his compositions are written it. Of all the many national and international awards and recognition his work has received, Osvaldo is most proud to have been asked to be the Aymara cultural representative to the European Union by Aymarmarka, an indigenous rights organization representing the Chilean highland peoples.

Osvaldo has recorded many collections of his songs and stories, as a solo artist and with other Chilean and European artists. He wrote the words for el Grito de la Raza, a musical history of the indigenous peoples of Chile for Illapu in in 197-. This work which Illapu has continued to perform all over the world is among the five works Alerce selected for its set of the masterworks of Chilean folk music. He worked recently with Horacio Duran and the Italian group Trencito de los Andes, to create the CD Escarcha y Sol, Frost and Sun, a tribute to the life in the high mountain plateaus. His stories have also been published separately in France, where he now resides. He has also written the music for French movies and television productions. He has been touring recently with the French actor, Bernard Giraudeau.
Osvaldo's music today reflects both his search for his own roots in the Andes and the influences of the Latin American, Africa and European music he has lived with since moving to France in the late 1980's. He continues to create, as the Chilean magazine Solidaridad, wrote in 1983, " a wonderful voyage through natural landscapes where humans and animals speak the same language and myths seem so real that the struggle for freedom and his love for humanity are inextricably linked."
For, above all, Osvaldo Torres is a storyteller and in every one of his concerts there is a moment when, quietly, almost shyly, he catches the audience' s heart with the traditional beginning of an Aymara tale: "our legends tell us thatŠ." What follows is always magic.

Outside the Pueblo

This Friday Pueblo Nuevo family Miguel Perez is participating in,

THE RAW ART GALLERY EXHIBIT
Uptown Gallery
At the heart of the Oakland Art murmur
2272 Telegraph Ave
Oakland

Opening Reception Friday June 4th 6-9pm



THE RAW ART GALLERY EXHIBIT: 4,500 square feet at The Uptown- in conjunction with Oakland Art Murmur- will display a visual art experience like no other, curated by Carly Ivan Garcia.

 

 

 

And Finally


Pueblo Nuevo & Trust Your Struggle are honored to participates in Brett Cook's solo exhibit,

SUPERNATURAL
At The Guerrero Gallery
2700 19th St
San Francisco

Opening Reception Saturday June 5th 3-?pm




Guerrero Gallery is pleased to announce Supernatural, a new exhibition by Brett Cook. Cook documents individual and collaborative transformation to promote awareness and celebrate the interconnectedness of all things. His creative practice includes crafting artifacts and experiences that reflect varied influences from art, education, and esoteric traditions. Supernatural features new and evolving installations from Cook’s public practice, altar-like assemblages, and works on mirror created from his ongoing study of nonviolence.

On Saturday, June 5th from 3pm to 11pm, an opening celebration at Guerrero Gallery will be the container for a social collaboration with Eco Chef/Author/Food Justice Advocate Bryant Terry, Trust Your Struggle (TYS) Collective, artist/educator Evan Bissell, and magic through participatory fabrication of a new artwork of La Virgen De Guadalupe. On Saturday, June 26th at 2pm there will be a public dialogue with the artists.

Supernatural includes new works picturing Arundhati Roy, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Julia Butterfly Hill and Thich Nhat Hanh that were originally drawn and colored by hundreds of hands at collaborative events in California and New York City in 2002 and 2004. The artifacts of these events have since been embellished by Cook with a wide array of media, including documentary photographs, medicinal plants, LED lights, and reflective paper. The inclusion of diverse sensibilities and symbols – from poinsettia flowers and brooms to the five elements – invites viewers to explore the similarities underlying ostensibly disparate cultural expressions and celebrate the interconnectedness of all things in their process and product.

Cook’s work cohesively integrates the breadth and depth of his diverse – and at times disparate – experiences with art, education, science, and spirituality. Raised in a reverent Catholic family of public school educators, Cook was introduced to transcendental meditation at age six. He was influenced by aspects of graffiti art and community art while studying zoology, education, and fine art at the University of California, Berkeley. In the late 1990’s, Cook began studying yoga in New York City while showing extensively in galleries, museums and making scores of permissioned and non-permissioned public projects. Today, Cook continues his study of contemplative traditions nationally and internationally with acclaimed yoga teachers, natural healers, and through bi-annual retreats in the tradition of Zen Buddhist venerable Thich Nhat Hanh. His childhood curiosity with the nature of things manifested as a prodigious, award-winning obsession with the life sciences through high school, and evolved after college to 20 years of farming and using plants for healing.

Cook’s creative practice includes making dynamic art works based in portraiture that honor the best of humanity in all of us. In his collaborative practice, Cook employs mindful interpersonal dialogue, participatory pedagogy, and contemplative curricula to facilitate rituals and to build environments where other people make things – and “things” include objects, ideas, and new ways of being. Cook’s body of work spans the continuum between the extremes of “solitary” artist and community catalyst, both as one signature and with countless hands skillfully working to relieve suffering in the world.

Teaching and public speaking are extensions of his social collaborations that involve diverse communities in dialogue to generate experiences of reflection and insight. He has taught at all academic levels in a variety of subjects, and published in academic journals at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Columbia and Stanford Universities. In 2009, he published Who Am I In This Picture: Amherst College Portraits with Wendy Ewald and Amherst College Press.

He has received various prestigious awards, including the Lehman Brady Visiting Professorship at Duke University and UNC – Chapel Hill, the Richard C. Diebenkorn Fellowship at the San Francisco Art Institute, and residencies at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, ME, the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY, Art Omi, NY, and the Headlands Center for the Arts, CA.

Selected highlights of Cook’s community building, multi-disciplinary work include:
Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life, Durham, NC; The Building Community Making History Collaborative Project with the Smithsonian/National Portrait Gallery and Duke Ellington School for the Arts, Washington, D.C.; Colors of Compassion Collaborative Project, Deer Park Monastery, Escondido, CA; (De)Segregation, Harvard School of Education, Cambridge, MA; and Re-Invented at the Alvarez Bravo Photographic Center, Oaxaca, Mexico.

Cook’s solo exhibitions include Revolution and Multifaceted at P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York; and Meditations at Zilkha Gallery/Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT. Group exhibitions include Portraiture Now at the Smithsonian/National Portrait Gallery; Walls of Heritage Walls of Pride at the Smithsonian Anacosta Museum, Washington D.C.; Black President Exhibition New Museum of Contemporary Art, NY; Hip-Hop Nation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA; and Generation Z, P.S. 1/MoMA, Long Island City, NY.

He is represented in New York by PPOW Gallery.
___

For those of you that have scrolled this far, I gotta link you to some more goodness from Chile (where our current artist, Osvaldo Torres, is from). Our namesake, Pueblo Nuevo is a Chilean record label that releases electronic music, and it's all available FREE.99 legit at their website--that's the kind of access that we like! Check out this video for DJ Fracaso's "el ardiente gran estallido," which might give you a seizure:

Thursday, April 22, 2010

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Memorias de Ti

Here's a sneak peak of our current show Memorias de Ti... A story of Colombian Resistance by Pablo Serrano and Erin Yoshi.



Memorias de Ti installation at Pueblo Nuevo from Trust Your Struggle on Vimeo.

Trust Your Struggle Collective at La Peña

Props to our extended family the Trust Your Struggle Collective who recently completed a mural at Berkeley's historic La Peña Cultural Center.  A little taste:




And a little shout out and random awkward photo of Miguel Bounce Perez--either doing the half-step or the two-step. Or maybe some new ish, the two-and-a-half step. From the Berkeley Daily Planet, February 4, 2010.

Here is our Pueblo Intern Oree supplying inspiration during a late night of painting.

Thursday, January 21, 2010

OLD NEWS BUT GOOD NEWS: Pueblo Nuevo in 2009

Happy Belated New Year folks!  2009 was a good year for Pueblo Nuevo Gallery.  We started with strong shows from Leo Docuyanan, Dignidad Rebelde, Amanda Perez, the Wixarika Research Center, and Asia Eng and finished up the year with an Art and Music Session, Renee Castro and a Pat Augsburger-curated group show.  In the summer, we held our first film series, with some fantabulous flicks from fresh folks (like that alliteration?), such as the Conscious Youth Media Crew's full-length feature A Choice of Weapons.  And the end of the year held some good things, despite being faced with the tragedy of death in PN family.

EXTRAEXTRA READ ALL ABOUT IT
In response to the death of his father, Miguel Bounce Perez put together a number of memorial altars, starting with a small one at the Pueblo Memorial.  That expanded in an awesome piece for a Dia de los Muertos show in Oakland, and was then combined with a photography show at La Pena Cultural Center that remembered and celebrated the lowriders his father helped to build.  And that show, Hecho en Berkeley, landed him in the East Bay Express with a full page article: Their Car Was Their Art Show.  We're hoping that this show can be expanded and come to PN at some point in the future.

GET MONEY SON!
PN has really been missing Diana, who is on research leave to Mexico (where she is chilling in the real Pueblo Nuevo).



Nevertheless, we've had a little infusion of extra people power at PN, which helped us to apply for an Alternative Exposure grant through Southern Exposure, a San Francisco-based arts non-profit whose mission is to "nurture a broad range of innovative, risk-taking contemporary art in an accessible environment."  We thought PN was perfect for it, and guess what, we got it!  Now we'll be getting a little dough to help support this otherwise all-volunteer, all-love operation.  Of course, this doesn't mean we don't need your donations or your support when you come through!  Now that we're on the grantee list, we'll also be shouting them out, letting you know that our gigs are made possible partly through the generous support of Southern Exposure.  They also hold many art functions, often through their new space at 20th and Alabama in the Mission, so check them out.

THE QUILT
For those of you that came through to the opening or closing of the Day of the Thread show (flix of the opening here), or one of the many Sundays events we held, you've seen--and likely helped make--a beautiful collaborative quilt.  We'll post a photo as soon as we have one; it is not only a beautiful finished product but also represents hours of chilling out, listening to good music, having good conversation.  We had folks drinking green tea on cold Sunday afternoons listening to the best of Trane; we had folks at quilting too late with that firewater and Zapp; we had little kids putting their mark--and bringing a needle from underneath takes some real hand-eye coordination: we all missed and pricked ourselves a few times.  There's some fingertip blood and a bottlecap on the quilt; a Carmen Miranda look-alike with a sewn-on gold tooth; there's a meticulously embroidered mosquito (how did that man find the hours to do that?  It's like he lived in the gallery!).  Needless to say, the show and the collaborative experience is exactly what PN is all about.  Thanks Pat for bring this to us!

FOR THE TWENTYTEN
In the new year, we have all types of good stuff planned.  We hope to keep our Oldies and Art sessions going strong every Sunday from 3-6, so come through and look out for special event Sundays.  We've been thinking a long time about starting a reading group, and maybe this'll be the year.  We also seem to have come up on a projector somehow, so expect to see some movie showings at PN--and we might even have to have a Super Bowl Party, but we'll see about that.

As far as shows, we're going to keep you guessing--do we want to keep planned shows a surprise, or are we just so unorganized that we don't know what's next?  You'll never know...  But February is Memorias de ti, a mural/photo show brought to you by Pablo Serrano and Erin Yoshi.  The opening will be Saturday, February 6 at 7p.m., but we'll post about that in more detail sometime before the opening.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

PATRICIA AUGSBURGER: Day of the Thread

At Pueblo Nuevo, we love it all: we loved Renee Castro's wall painting; we loved Dignidad Rebelde's silkscreens; we loved Wixarika's photographs and collection of yarn paintings--so we are excited to have Patricia Augsburger bringing the art of quilting and textiles to Pueblo Nuevo this weekend (the opening reception is this Saturday, November 14 from 7 to 10 p.m.).

With Day of the Thread, Patricia Augsburger brings together a number of collaborators--who usually work in a variety of other mediums--to create works inspired by textiles and quilting.  You can check out the work of the other Day of the Thread collaborators here: Sophia Blum, Cathy Fairbanks, Laura Boles FawLauren HartmanCynda Valle-RogersIzumi Yokoyama, and Steven McFarland.

Augsburger herself draws upon the long and beautiful tradition of American quilt-making, including the well-known women of the Quilter's Collective in Gee's Bend, Alabama and Amish Communities in Pennsylvania and the Midwest. The Gee's Bend Quilters' traveling exhibit stopped at the De Young Museum a few years ago, and an Amish Quilting show is opening at the De Young this weekend.

Linda Pettway, "Blocks and Stripes" (2003), part of the Quilter's Collective



"Thirty-Six Patch variation (crib quilt)" (ca. 1930), from an Amish community in Arthur, Illinois



To make her quilts, Augsburger often uses pieces of the Kanga cloth; made and used in parts of East Africa the Kanga is a multi-purpose cloth that is used to wear, to carry, to decorate. The styles of Kanga cloths are always in flux, and range from geometric patterns to images of newly-elected Barack Obama to images of trees and even a statesman's car:



 

Augsburger's work combines these elements into quilts that are nothing less than global.  Augsburger's two quilts below were on display at the Washington D.C. Historical Society earlier this year as part of Quilts for Obama, an exhibition of quilts from around the U.S. that celebrated and welcomed Obama's presidency.



If you can't catch us this Saturday night, try to join us for one of our Sundays events. Follow us on Facebook for the schedule.

RANDOM RELATED KNOWLEDGE
And while we're on quilting and the Kanga, here's a little something about the complex mathematics that are part of--not just found in--African cultural practices. Many of us know that math has never been the exclusive property of academics, but the way this is broken down is enlightening. 



AND FINALLY
On Friday, November 13 be sure to check out Pueblo's Miguel Bounce Perez at La Pena Cultural Center's Hecho en Califas Festival, where he will be presenting Hecho en Berkeley, a multimedia anthology of Berkeley Low Rider culture in the 1970s. The opening reception is from 6:30 to 8 p.m. in the cafe lobby; the show will be up until November 29.

SUNDAYS: Bay Area Originals

SUNDAYS
Often, terribly sad and painful happenings in life reveal beautiful things--beautiful people, beautiful lives, beautiful stories, beautiful inspiration.  This past month has been a long one for Pueblo Nuevo Gallery; we mourned the passing and celebrated the life of one of our own's father.  This loss makes us pause and consider how fragile, how precious life is.  But this pause also allows us to reflect on all of the beauty that Paul M. Perez brought into this world.  Pueblo Nuevo is part of that legacy. Not only does the name Pueblo Nuevo come from the car club he was a part of, but we believe in the idea that the beautiful things we make with our hearts, brains, and hands--like Paul's '65 Riviera--are to be seen and shared.



In memory and honor of that legacy, last month we spent a Sunday at Pueblo, spinning oldies records as folks came through to remember Paul.  We're hoping to make Sundays a regular thing: a time to listen to good music and to check out the art we're showing, a space to create your own art, have a little something to drink, talk with folks--a little chilling on a Sunday afternoon to push back that case of the Mondays a few more hours. Follow us on Facebook and we'll keep you posted regarding the schedule of Sundays.

MORE ORIGINALS
Speaking of Berkeley originals, the Purple Moon Dance Project put on a beautifully moving dance performance last month in a back yard on Stuart Street in Berkeley. When Dreams Are Interrupted tells the story of Japanese Americans in Berkeley who were forced from their homes and interned in camps such as Topaz during World War II. Purple Moon founder Jill Togawa moved into her home in South Central Berkeley, and uncovered the history of her home, once inhabited by a Japanese American family--as were many homes in the neighborhood between Ashby and Dwight Way, between Martin Luther King, Jr. Way (then called Grove Street) and Sacramento. This site specific performance wove narrative and visual storytelling together and was supported by wonderful, live instrumentation. Check out a short video clip of the piece here.

Part of the performance focused on one member of the family, who returned to the West Oakland after the war and, informed and inspired by the injustice of internment, ended up working as one of the founding members of the Black Panther Party. Not only was this another amazing Bay Area story, but it turns out that a documentary has been made about this man, Richard Aoki, who passed away earlier this year.

It's late notice, but the flick is showing Thursday, November 12 at 8 p.m. at Grand Lake. Hopefully, it'll show again somewhere or will be available at some point on DVD. Nevertheless, it's Bay Area history, and as our folks at Come Bien Books say, ya need ta know about it!




Friday, October 16, 2009

Paul Perez Memorial/funeral Fundraiser



As you may or may not know, Paul M. Perez, Miguel & Celina's father, passed away this past October 13th. We are going to be have a memorial/fundraiser at Pueblo Nuevo this Sunday, October 18th to help Miguel, Celina & the Perez family pay for the funeral expenses.

We are asking for 5-10$ sliding scale for each person, with a plate of food included.

There also will be music as well as art for sale.

We also will be putting a link to paypal soon if you want to donate and do not live in the Bay Area or can't make it to the event.

In addition, a memorial fund has been set up in his name at Wells Fargo Bank. Unfortunately the only way to donate online is if you are a Wells Fargo customer. Otherwise, you have to walk into a Wells Fargo branch & make ur deposit in person. Thank you all for your kindness & generosity: Memorial Fund – Paul M. Perez Wells Fargo account #7115743614

Thank you,

Our thoughts and prayers are with the Perez family

Sunday, October 18, 2009
3:00pm - 10:00pm
1828 San Pablo Ave. Berkeley, Ca 94702

Thursday, October 8, 2009

I DREAM OF YOU BOOKER T., DIEBENKORN, AND TOWNBIZ

UPCOMING AND COMINGUP
Pueblo's next show is Renee Castro's "I Dream of You Rabbit. Jack Rabbit and High Heels." The opening is this Saturday, October 10 from 7-11 p.m.  Check out some of Renee Castro's other work at her webiste and at Project Elephont.

RANDOMNESS
Recently, the list of art works that the Obama family has borrowed to decorate the White House has become available.  The selection is eclectic and interesting, featuring a number of 19th-century whitemanpaintingindians pieces by George Catlin, as well as 20th-century African American stylist William T. Johnson, mid-century abstracters Mark Rothko and Richard Diebenkorn, and the African American conceptual artist Glenn Ligon.  You can read through the full list of Obamas' White House Art Collection here and find most of the the images in the list at the online galleries of the National Gallery of Art and Smithsonian Museum.

George Catlin's Camanchees Lancing a Buffalo Bull (1861/1869)



William T. Johnson's "Booker T. Washington Legend" (ca 1944-45)




Glenn Ligon's "Black Like Me #2" (1992)




Richard Diebenkorn's "Berkeley No. 52" (1955)




INTHETOWN
The 3rd Annual Estria Invitational Graffiti Battle is on Saturday, October 10 from 11 to 5 at deFremery Park (aka Little Bobby Hutton Park) in Oakland.  Come out and support Pueblo's own Mister Bouncer as he tries to follow up his 2007 and 2008 victories with another one.

Also this weekend, the Individual World Poetry Slam is being held at venues throughout the East Bay, starting Thursday night.

And the Oakland International Film Festival runs from Thursday, October 8 through next Wednesday, October 14.  Homegrown hood flick Town Biz looks interesting. It'll show on Tuesday October 13 at Jack London Theater at 7 p.m.  Check out the trailer:


Townbiz The Movie 30 Second Commercial from History Maker on Vimeo.