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Sly Wit

~ Random musings on all things cultural

Sly Wit

Tag Archives: California

@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz

22 Thursday Jan 2015

Posted by Sly Wit in Art, History, Travel

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Artists, California

Alcatraz_01

When I learned that my French cousin was going to be visiting over the holidays, I wasn’t sure she would want to go to Alcatraz, and, if she did, I wasn’t sure I would join her. Even though I love Alcatraz, it is now the site of my first date with the Math Greek so I don’t want it to become commonplace for me. But then I remembered that the Ai Weiwei exhibit was there and thought that could be interesting. I am not a huge fan of contemporary art, but I had seen his Sunflower Seeds at the Tate Modern while in London and I remember being pleasantly surprised by its impact. @Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz was even more impressive. If you are in the Bay Area in the next few months, don’t miss it.

The overall impact of With Wind is so glorious that I didn't even notice at the time that it has Twitter birds for eyes.

The overall impact of With Wind is so glorious that I didn’t even notice at the time that it has Twitter birds for eyes.

@Large is a series of installations located in two different buildings on the island. The three largest works—With Wind, Trace, Refraction—are located in the New Industries Building, which once served as the prison workhouse and is not generally open to the public. (I asked an attendant stationed there if they planned to keep the building open once the exhibition is finished and she didn’t think so.) The four remaining pieces are located in the main building of the prison—in Cell Block A, the hospital wing, and the dining hall.

The installations of @Large explore human rights and the concept of freedom, especially freedom of expression, and much of their effectiveness derives from the Alcatraz location, which, in addition to serving as a federal prison from the 1920s to the 1960s and housing the likes of Al Capone and “Machine Gun” Kelly, was also the site of a major protest of the American Indian Movement in the late 1960s after the prison’s closing.

We started our visit at the New Industries Building, which is reached by following the main road around to the Marin side of the island. This is on your way up to the prison, but if you have never visited Alcatraz before you may want to start with the excellent audio tour first.

Upon entering the New Industries Building, you are immediately confronted by With Wind, the magnificent dragon kite pictured above, which winds its way around the first room and seems to want to burst forth out of the door.

Alcatraz_02a

With Wind against the sunlit windows of the New Industries Building on Alcatraz.

With Wind against the sunlit windows of the New Industries Building.

In the next room is the expansive Trace, a series of six carpets depicting more than 175 prisoners of conscience in portraits made entirely of Legos. I didn’t know most of them, but there are helpful notebooks on the side that give a brief history of each person, why they were imprisoned, and their current status. Famous faces include Aung San Suu Kyi, Nelson Mandela, and Edward Snowden. This piece really reminded me of Sunflower Seeds, which was not a carpet of seeds at all, but rather thousands of pieces of hand-painted porcelain.

Trace spreads out across the floor of the New Industries Building.

Trace spreads out across the floor of the New Industries Building.

The Trace portraits of Andrei Barabanov and Edward Snowden.

The Trace portraits of Andrei Barabanov and Edward Snowden.

Lastly, viewable only from the gun gallery where guards used to keep watch over the working prisoners, is Refraction, a monumental sculpture of a bird’s wing made entirely from the parts of Tibetan solar cookstoves. One looks down on the “trapped” sculpture from above. As such, it was hard to capture in a photo but you can see it here.

The thought that is put into each piece and its placement is evident throughout the exhibition. The fact that it was undertaken long-distance, since Ai Weiwei’s travel is currently restricted by Chinese authorities, is truly remarkable. The art is completely integrated into its surroundings, calling to mind the experience of touring the Chinati Foundation museum in Marfa, Texas.

Cell Block A houses one of two audio installations. Here, in what is left of the former military prison (also generally closed to the public), are a dozen cells each containing one metal stool and a looped recording of either music, poetry, or a speech. Stay Tuned features the creative work of prisoners of conscience or those detained for creative expression, from Fela Kuti to Martin Luther King to Pussy Riot. My favorite cells were “Sorrow, Tears, and Blood” by Fela Kuti, “A Study for Strings” by Pavel Haas (written in 1943 in the concentration camp at Terezín before Haas was transported to Auschwitz and killed), and “What a System (What a Crime)”—a song by the Robben Island Singers set to the tune of “Oh My Darling, Clementine.” You can hear full recordings of the selections here.

Stay Tuned is a sound installation located in Cell Block A, part of the military prison located on Alcatraz in the early twentieth century.

Stay Tuned is a sound installation located in Cell Block A, part of the military prison located on Alcatraz in the early twentieth century.

The crumbling Rorschach-test walls of Cell Block A in Alcatraz.

The crumbling Rorschach-test walls of Cell Block A in Alcatraz.

Yours Truly, located in the prison Dining Hall, invites visitors to write to the people portrayed in Trace using pre-addressed postcards depicting either the official bird or flower of the prisoner’s country of origin. The postcard images were designed by manipulating photographs of the bird or flower in question so that the photo looks like a painting. The effect is quite beautiful and I saw more than one clueless visitor inquire about buying them.

Lastly, upstairs from the Dining Hall, is the hospital wing. (Again, this is an area usually closed to the public, so it may be of interest to the casual prison visitor in and of itself.) There are two installations here: Illumination, an audio piece using Tibetan and Hopi ceremonial chanting and located in the isolation cells reserved for mental patients, and Blossom, which fills the plumbing fixtures of the medical ward—bathtubs, sinks, and toilets—with white porcelain flowers. The exhibit signage didn’t say, but I imagine these flowers are related to both With Flowers and #FlowersforFreedom on Twitter. These pieces were less effective to me, but that may just be because I saw them at the end of an already long visit.

Blossom fills the sinks, toilets, and tubs of the hospital wing with delicate porcelain flowers.

Blossom fills the sinks, toilets, and tubs of the hospital wing with delicate porcelain flowers.

A close-up of the tub of flowers in Blossom.

A close-up of the tub of flowers in Blossom.

In sum, this exhibition is outstanding and, even if you have already visited Alcatraz before, I highly encourage you to plan a visit. @Large will be on view through April 26 of this year. The exhibition and ferry to the island are included in the regular Alcatraz ticket price.

My own portrait of “flowers for freedom”:

Even in January, jonquil bloom on Alcatraz Island.

Even in January, jonquil bloom on Alcatraz Island.



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It’s Oh So Quiet

13 Saturday Jul 2013

Posted by Sly Wit in Philosophy

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California, Random Musings

I am a horse for a single harness, not cut out for tandem or teamwork; for well I know that in order to attain any definite goal, it is imperative that one person do the thinking and the commanding.

—Albert Einstein, cited in Quiet by Susan Cain

Not that I am normally all that prolific, but I just realized that it has been almost two weeks since my last post. This is partially due to the fact that I have been busy working, which is always nice as a freelancer, but also to the emotional roller coaster I seem to have been on the last few weeks (for both personal and political reasons).

While exhausting, I do think it’s a good thing to get a reality check from time to time and remember who and what is (or should be) important to you. However, I finally decided it was up to me to pick myself up, dust myself off, and start all over again. Look for new posts starting Monday.

Seal Rocks at Lands End, San Francisco

Seal Rocks at Lands End, San Francisco

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Landing the White Whale: Napa and the California Dream

17 Monday Oct 2011

Posted by Sly Wit in Food and Drink

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California, Restaurants, Wine

The second day after I moved to San Francisco, La Belle Chantal* called up and asked if I wanted to drive up to Sonoma. Well, who wouldn’t? So, off we went and had a fun-filled day of trains for the kids and wine for the adults. At the time, I thought that that’s what my life here in California was going to be like—fabulous restaurants in the city, weekends off in wine country, swimming pools, movie stars—you know the drill. But then I woke up and realized I still had lots of debt from graduate school and worked in publishing, so maybe I’d have to settle for fabulous burritos and cable cars. Eh, there are worse things.

Fast forward more than four years, and, while I’ve been very privileged to have seen lots of my new home state, including multiple trips down the coast, four of its eight National Parks, and fourteen of the twenty-one missions on the Mission Trail, I had never been to Napa. Which, as many people have pointed out to me, is just a little crazy, especially given that I have been wine tasting in both Paso Robles and Santa Barbara—twice. Anyway, La Belle Chantal once again stepped up to the plate and suggested celebrating my birthday in Napa. Again, who am I to refuse?

What a lovely day. I definitely need to do this more often.

We started out by taking the tram up to Sterling Vineyards in Calistoga, which is as lovely a setting for wine tasting as you can imagine. And, I actually preferred the cab, so another first for today—miracles do happen!

Looking out over Napa Valley from the terrace of Sterling Vineyards

We also checked out many overpriced goods at the Oxbow Public Market and on the streets of St. Helena. I resisted the temptation of $9 soap and managed to get out alive having only spent $2.80 on crushed vadouvan at the spice store. Score!

Despite eating too late a lunch at the Pica Pica Maize Kitchen in Napa (try the deviled ham), I still managed to put away a good part of a wood oven duck dinner at Cindy’s Backstreet Kitchen. The salad was as delicious as it looks; the sumac in the dressing was subtle, but gave it a distinctive zip. If this is her “casual” place, I certainly see why Cindy Pawlcyn made the Top Chef Masters cut.



Thank you, Chantal!


*La Belle Chantal is my former roommate from Paris and one of the reasons I fell in love with San Francisco (since her moving here allowed me to visit far more than is reasonable). She is many things, including belle, but her name is not actually Chantal.

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The Two Americas

01 Wednesday Dec 2010

Posted by Sly Wit in Travel

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California

The amazing thing about California is its sheer size and the resulting diversity of landscapes and mindsets. A great example of this diversity can be found in the two classic landmarks that I stayed in this past week.

In what is quickly becoming a Thanksgiving tradition, I headed down to Pasadena for the holiday. Last year, I flew down early and had a marvelous side trip to Palm Springs and Joshua Tree National Park. This year, I decided to take a few days off and drive leisurely down 101 (or I guess “the 101” being that I was visiting Southern California).

I have driven along the coast twice since moving here, with the focal point of both trips being Hearst Castle, when I stayed at the Sand Pebbles Inn on Moonstone Beach in Cambria. This time, I stayed at two iconic places along the route: Asilomar and the Madonna Inn.

Asilomar boardwalk and dunes at sunset

I had longed to stay at both for some time: Asilomar, because it was designed by Julia Morgan, architect of my beloved Hearst Castle, and the Madonna Inn because I had heard so many crazy things about it.

Asilomar Room



While both high on my list of landmark lodgings, these two places couldn’t be more opposite, with Asilomar representing a sort of East Coast, old money rusticity, and the Madonna Inn (named after its original owner, Alex Madonna, not the pop star), representing classic American roadside kitsch. And yet it made perfect sense to me that I loved them equally and that they were both terrific representations of my new home state.

The Traveler’s Yacht room at the Madonna Inn



You can read about these incredible places in more detail at my new travel blog, Worth the Detour.

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Deep Thoughts

21 Sunday Nov 2010

Posted by Sly Wit in Books

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California

Most of the time, I forget I live on the Pacific Ocean. But then, some days, it decides to sit up and slap me in the face and scream “Wake up, here I am, in all my vastness!”

Or maybe I’ve just been reading Two Years Before the Mast for too long.

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About Me

Half American, half French, and
all-around opinionated.

“Maybe it’s the French in my blood. You know, sometimes I feel as if I’m sparkling all over and I want to go out and do something absolutely crazy and marvelous and then the American part of me speaks up and spoils everything.”--Bette Davis in The Petrified Forest

For my writing on travel, check out Worth the Detour.

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The image in the header was taken in March 2011 at the Palais Royal métro entrance in Paris, France.

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