RARE BAY AREA PERFORMANCES BY SIR RICHARD BISHOP AND EVANGELISTA HIGHLIGHT GUEST PROGRAMMER GEORGE CHEN'S L@TE SCHEDULE

Berkeley, CA June 29, 2011-(Download a PDF version of this press release.)The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive L@TE: Friday Nights @ BAM/PFA program returns in August with a three-part series of musical performances programmed by local musician, record label founder, and writer George Chen. Chen began exploring the underground with a high school zine called ZUM which evolved into a website and record label. His wide-ranging contributions to the local and national music scenes include launching the all-ages booking collective Club Sandwich and performing in musical projects such as KIT, Chen Santa Maria, 7 Year Rabbit Cycle, Common Elder Kind Elder, Vholtz, and Rys Chatham's two-hundred guitar composition “Crimson Grail.” His varied aesthetic affiliations, bridging multiple scenes, is reflected in his stellar line-up for L@TE which draws from the punk, classical, noise, and experimental music worlds and performance art.

On August 5 Chen welcomes C. Spencer Yeh and David Horvitz. The Brooklyn-based violinist Yeh is best know for his experimental noise project Burning Star Core. As a solo artist he uses violin, voice, and electronics. His many collaborations include works and performances with artists such as Tony Conrad, Thurston Moore, Jandek, John Wiese, Prurient, Paul Flaherty, and Chris Corsano. For L@TE, Yeh will perform improvisations on voice and violin that utilize the open space of BAM/PFA's Gallery B. Fellow Brooklynite, photographer, and performance artist David Horvitz's activities emanate from a philosophy that “you can make something (or make something happen) anywhere at anytime in any circumstance.” For his most recent project Things for Sale That I Will Mail to You, Horvitz solicits his services to travel to remote parts of the globe to acquire rare objects for a price. In the prankster tradition, he stages surprising interactions that replicate the online experience. His absurdist social-practice approach to art will take full advantage of BAM/PFA and the L@TE audience.

The August 12 L@TE event pairs two artists from very different ends of the sonic spectrum. Richard Bishop is best known for his work, along with brother Alan Bishop and the late Charles Gocher, with the Sun City Girls. For nearly three decades Sun City Girls baffled and delighted audiences with a repertoire that veered between absurdist theater, punk rock, and world music. As Sir Richard Bishop, he showcases his exploratory and transcendent guitar playing, which bares traces of legendary gypsy travelers like of John Fahey, Django Reinhardt, and Ravi Shankar. His recordings have been put out by Fahey's label Revenant, Locust Music, Drag City, and others. Along with Alan Bishop and Hisham Mayat, Bishop also co-founded the immensely important Sublime Frequencies label, which is dedicated to exposing obscure sights and sounds-past and present-from modern and traditional urban and rural frontiers around the globe. Bay Area duo Gerritt Wittmer and Paul Knowles make pieces together that combine elements of movement, sound, and light. They will create a site-specific performance for L@TE that promises both intensely harsh moments and quiet ones in equal doses. Their 2010 album Selfish was released on Wittmer's Misanthropic Agenda label and the duo recently performed Illusion of Relevance at Les Urbaines festival in Lausanne, Switzerland.

Chen's L@TE series closes on August 19 with an all-too-rare performance by Evangelista, the recording and touring project of Carla Bozulich. The Los Angeles-based Bozulich has traveled the road of the working musician since being a teenage noise rocker in bands such as Neon Veins and Ethyl Meatplow. In the 1990s, she was the lead singer of and songwriter for (alongside guitarist and Scarnella bandmate Nels Cline) the popular alternative rock band Geraldine Fibbers. Meanwhile, she continued to collaborate with the likes of Mike Watt, Thurston Moore, Lydia Lunch, Christian Marclay, and even Willie Nelson. Since 2006, her project Evangelista, featuring a rotating cast of international musicians, has released three staggering albums on Constellation Records. The core Bay Area band will be gracing L@TE for the entirety of the night.

L@TE Calendar
Friday night programs begin at 7:30 p.m. in Gallery B; doors open at 5 p.m. with DJs filling the galleries with music and sounds beginning at 6:30 p.m.

August 5
C. Spencer Yeh / David Horvitz
Programmed by George Chen
Doors 5 p.m. / DJ set by Matt Thompson 6:30 p.m. / Performance 7:30 p.m.

August 12
Sir Richard Bishop / Gerritt Wittmer and Paul Knowles
Programmed by George Chen
Doors 5 p.m. / DJ set by Alan Schneider 6:30 p.m. / Performance 7:30 p.m.

August 19
Evangelista
Programmed by George Chen
Doors 5 p.m. / DJ set by Dominic Cramp 6:30 p.m. / Performance 7:30 p.m.

$7 After 5
General admission to the BAM/PFA galleries is $7 after 5 p.m. on L@TE Fridays. Show your ticket for a same-day PFA screening or gallery visit and get in to L@TE free. Admission is always free for BAM/PFA members and UC Berkeley students, faculty, and staff.

About L@TE
L@TE: Friday Nights @ BAM/PFA is the institution's afterhours program, featuring guest programmers-as well as BAM/PFA curators-who showcase mostly local artists, musicians, filmmakers, performance artists, and other creative types resulting in a series of eclectic performance and events. Galleries are kept open until 9 p.m. Programs begin at 7:30 p.m. in Gallery B; doors open at 5 p.m.

Credit
L@TE is made possible in part by the continued support of the BAM/PFA Trustees. George Chen's three-part summer series is sponsored by Amoeba Music.

More Online
For updates and advance tickets, visit bampfa.berkeley.edu/late.

About BAM/PFA
The Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) is the visual arts center of the University of California, Berkeley, the nation's leading public research university. One of the largest university art museums in the United States in both size and attendance, BAM/PFA aims to inspire the imagination and ignite critical dialogue through contemporary and historical art and film, engaging audiences from the UC Berkeley campus, the Bay Area, and beyond. Each year BAM/PFA presents fifteen art exhibitions, 380 film programs, and dozens of performances, as well as lectures, symposia, and tours. The museum's collection of more than 30,000 works ranges from Neolithic Chinese pottery to contemporary video art. Among the collection's exceptional strengths are Ming and Qing dynasty Chinese painting, Italian Baroque painting, Old Master works on paper, early American painting, mid-twentieth-century abstract painting-including important works by Hans Hofmann, Jackson Pollock, Eva Hesse, and Mark Rothko-Japanese cinema, Soviet silent film, West Coast avant-garde video and film, animation, and international classic films.

Berkeley Art Museum Information
Location: 2626 Bancroft Way, just below College Avenue across from the UC Berkeley campus.

Gallery and Museum Store Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 11 a.m.–5 p.m. Open L@TE Fridays until 9 p.m. Closed Monday and Tuesday.

Information: 24-hour recorded message (510) 642-0808; fax (510) 642-4889; TDD (510) 642-8734.

Website: bampfa.berkeley.edu

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