SERIES INTEGRATES WITH TWO NEW COMPANION PROGRAMS-E@RLY: SUNDAYS @ BAM/PFA AND RE@DS

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Berkeley, CA, December 9, 2011-The University of California, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive released the January/February 2012 L@TE: Friday Nights @ BAM/PFA schedule. The calendar features a concert in honor of the late experimental composer Julius Eastman, and a series of events programmed by the local fine-art publishing house and record label run by artists Chris Duncan and Maria Otero, Land and Sea. Each Friday night program will be preceded by a reading by a local writer or poet as part of the museum's RE@DS series. In addition to the Friday evening events, Land and Sea will program a companion E@RLY: Sundays @ BAM/PFA event, the first such program hosted by the museum.

Formed by Duncan and Otero in 2010, it is the goal of Land and Sea to not only publish objects, but also create moments for people to come together for shared experiences. For their series of gatherings at BAM/PFA, Land and Sea will take inspiration from the sun and the moon. The series begins on January 27 with The Moon (Part One), featuring musical performances by Tana Sprague (a.k.a. Lissom), Shock, and High Places. Sprague will perform songs from her upcoming album Nine Chains to the Moon, as well as the soundtrack to her own short film about the moon. Through field recording, synthesis, signal processing, and other technology that has transformed the definition of instrument, her work explores, mirrors, and expands the edges of perception and consciousness. Bay Area band Shock, featuring Dan Judd (Windsurf), Terri Loewenthal (Rubies), Michael Taras, will expand on their high-energy cosmic dance sets to utilize the unique space and acoustics of BAM/PFA. The Los Angeles-by-way-of-Brooklyn band High Places is composed of multi-instrumentalist Rob Barber and vocalist Mary Pearson. The duo's most recent album Original Colors (Thrill Jockey) is full of driving bass pulses, syncopated dance rhythms, and the binding force of Pearson's vocals. Patrons arriving early will leave with a free tote bag designed by Dustin Wengreen in commemoration of Land and Sea's collaboration with BAM/PFA.

On February 5, Land and Sea presents the first E@RLY: Sunday @ BAM/PFA program. The Sun (Part One) will feature a food-based workshop by Scott Winegard, a New York–based chef and owner of Nasturtium. Inspired by the sun and the moon, Winegard will have guests thinking about fruits and vegetables in ways they haven't before. Once nourished, patrons will be enveloped by the solar violin compositions of Jennifer Curtis. Curtis is a winner of the Milka/Astral Grand Prize for violin and has been praised by the New York Times as “an artist of keen intelligence and taste, well worth watching out for.” Gregg Kowalsky and Marielle Jakobsons, who perform together as Date Palms, will close out the event with a short set of psychedelic, trance-inducing sounds. On the duo's recent album for Mexican Summer, Honey Devash, “dry soundscapes of fuzz, bass, and fender Rhodes, synth, volin, tanpura and feedback shift gradually like dunes in hot winds.” Join us after E@RLY for a screening at the PFA Theater of Kinshasa Symphony (Claus Wischmann, Martin Baer), a triumphant documentary about the power of music in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Purchase a ticket for the film and get free admission to E@RLY.

Returning to more nocturnal fare, Land and Sea presents a second installment of The Moon on February 24. Artist/curator Rich Jacobs starts off this evening with a DJ set inspired by our nearest celestial neighbor. Turntablist Julia Mazawa will perform a new composition that interprets Klein Bottles and Möbius strips using vinyl's hisses, pops, and musical snippets. Poet and Guggenheim Fellow Matthew Zapruder will read a series of moon-themed poems. Zapruder's Come On All You Ghosts was named a New York Times “Notable Book of 2011.” And synth duo Believer (Danny Grody of Tarantel and Trevor Montgomery of The Drift) will soothe listeners with lush, atmospheric, and blissful sounds. As a bonus, we'll be giving away free copies of Land and Sea's publication of Zapruder's moon poems.

Julius Eastman (1940–90) was one of the first composers to convincingly combine rock and house influences with minimal processes. Active in New York throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he endured addiction and homelessness and died alone, likely of AIDS-related conditions. His pioneering work paved the way for generations of experimental composers and pop artists. Programmed by Sarah Cahill and composer/musicologist Luciano Chessa, this performance on February 10 will offer Bay Area music lovers the first local live presentation of his compositions, including Gay Guerilla, an expansive and emotional work for four pianos.

A new companion program to L@TE, RE@DS, seeks to spotlight the vibrancy of the contemporary Bay Area writing community and the area's long tradition of artistic and literary comingling. A RE@DS event will precede each L@TE performance through April at 5:30 p.m. Guest programmers Suzanne Stein, poet, publisher, and community producer at SFMOMA, and poet/writer David Brazil have enlisted writers to present their own written works in the context of another writer or artist that has been a source of inspiration for them. On January 27, we welcome Jackqueline Frost, author of When We Say Brutal (Berkeley Neo-Baroque) and the Soft Appeal and co-curator of the Condensery Reading Series in Oakland. Tom Comitta, a writer, publisher, programmer, and co-conductor of the interventionist poetry troupe SF Guerilla Opera, reads on February 10. Poet and San Jose State Lecturer Monica Peck reads on February 24. RE@DS takes place in The Reading Room, a temporary space dedicated to experimental poetry and fiction. From January 15 through June 17, visitors to the museum will have the opportunity to take home a free book from The Reading Room. The space, which offers comfortable reading spaces and an area to listen to recordings of selected poets, will be populated with books published by several notable small Bay Area publishers. In turn, we ask that patrons replace any copies pulled from The Reading Room with a book from their own collection.

L@TE Calendar
Friday night programs begin at 7:30 p.m.; doors open at 5 p.m. with DJs filling the galleries with sound at most events beginning at 6:30 p.m. RE@DS events start at 5:30 PM in The Reading Room, and are included with L@TE admission.

Fri. Jan. 27
The Moon (Part One)
Featuring Tana Sprague, Shock, and High Places
Programmed by Land and Sea
Doors 5 p.m. / RE@DS: Jackqueline Frost 5:30 p.m. / DJ Aaron Harbor 6:30 p.m. / Performance 7:30 p.m.

Sun. Feb. 5
The Sun (Part One)
Featuring Scott Winegard, Jennifer Curtis, and Date Palms
Programmed by Land and Sea
Doors 11 a.m. / Performance 12 p.m.

Fri. Feb. 10
A Tribute to Julius Eastman
Programmed by Sarah Cahill and Luciano Chessa
Doors 5 p.m. / RE@DS: Tom Comitta 5:30 p.m. / DJ 6:30 p.m. / Performance 7:30 p.m.

Fri. Feb. 24
The Moon (Part Two)
Featuring Rich Jacobs, Julia Mazawa, Matthew Zapruder, and Believer
Programmed by Land and Sea
Doors 5 p.m. / RE@DS: Monica Peck 5:30 p.m./ DJ 6:30 p.m. / Performance 7:30 p.m.

Tickets
General admission to the BAM/PFA galleries is $7 after 5 p.m. on L@TE Fridays. General admission to the BAM/PFA galleries is $7 between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. on E@RLY Sundays. Both L@TE and E@RLY are free with a same-day PFA Theater ticket. Admission to L@TE and E@RLY 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. E@RLY events bring this same type of programming to early Sunday afternoons.

Credit
L@TE and E@RLY are made possible in part by the continued support of the BAM/PFA Trustees. Special thanks to our media sponsors, East Bay Express and San Francisco Bay Guardian.

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

About BAM/PFA
Founded in 1963, the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAM/PFA) is UC Berkeley's primary visual arts venue and among the largest university art museums in terms of size and audience in the United States. Internationally recognized for its art and film programming, BAM/PFA is a platform for cultural experiences that transform individuals, engage communities, and advance the local, national and global discourse on art and ideas. BAM/PFA's mission is “to inspire the imagination and ignite critical dialogue through art and film.”

BAM/PFA presents approximately fifteen art exhibitions and 380 film programs each year. The museum's collection of over 16,000 works of art includes important holdings of Neolithic Chinese ceramics, Ming and Qing Dynasty Chinese painting, Old Master works on paper, Italian Baroque painting, early American painting, Abstract Expressionist painting, contemporary photography, and video art. Its film archive of over 14,000 films and videos includes the largest collection of Japanese cinema outside of Japan, Hollywood classics, and silent film, as well hundreds of thousands of articles, reviews, posters, and other ephemera related to the history of film, many of which are digitally scanned and accessible online.

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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