Sampling Oakland: July 15-Nov. 5 @ Yerba Buena Centerfor the Arts
Reviewed by Wanda Sabir

YBCA Public Programs and Community Outreach person Cicely Sweed and Wanda Sabir

Friday night was the opening party for the current exhibitions: “Sampling Oakland” and “Cosmic Wonder,” at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. When I heard about the exhibition I assumed, incorrectly that the galleries would showcase the vibrant and diverse art scene in the city across the bay. Nothing could have been further than the truth. In fact, prior to Marcel Diallo’s insistence that he have something on the wall in the exhibition, he was an invited speaker at the artist talk Tuesday, July 18, not a contributing artist.

I saw him briefly at the exhibition which I am still trying to figure out. I’m not certain if “cosmic” means tripping or art created while tripping, but the psychedelic colors and designs remind me of the ‘60s when LSD-influenced art had the same kind of surreal palate, one, I guess you couldn’t really appreciate unless you too were in a chemically altered state of reality. In the current exhibition was a place where one could remove her shoes and walk on elevated platforms between sculptured objects, projected scenes appearing inside a circular frame. Then in another area of the same gallery, there were instruments…drums, a guitar, and other more esoteric types, the artist played intermittently. Nearby was a gigantic kaleidoscope, projected media, lots of ear-phones playing what, I never found out.

It was just weird. Not weird bad, just weird. I wondered why I was there and who created this stuff.

Curated by Betty Nguyen, the artist stated she identified young artists who “explore trance, who tap into altered states of consciousness through exaggerated color, mind-altering patterns, morphing forms and visions of the infinite. Their work is inspired by nature, the cosmos, the vastness of the Western landscape, yet, rooted in an urban sensibility.” Artists Jim Drain and Ara Peterson are juxtaposed with ‘60s, ‘70s artist James Turrell.

Opening reception of Sampling Oakland exhibit. Guests looking at the Diallo Collective piece. Photo by Wanda Sabir

So with urban scenery or cinematography as the theme, my eyes and legs carried me to the terrace galleries to look at the big city across the bay Oakland.
When one thinks Oakland, immediately the image is African people—African Diaspora color, style, media…Marcel Diallo– Black Dot Collective, told me Saturday, at the Berkeley Flea Market that prior to his insistence on participating in the show, which he told Berin Golonu, Associate Visual Arts Curator, should be called: Sampling White Oakland, there were no Black artists in the show. He invited Keba Konte, eesuu, Githinji Wa Mbrie, and Letitia Ntofon to participate with him once the curators found space for him in the show.

What the Black Dot Artists’ contingent has upstairs is a wall where each artist has a huge sculptured work. Diallo's has statues in buckets, and a camera which follows the viewer. I asked the artist if there was film in the camera. "Not yet," he told me Saturday. Who knows, there might be film in the camera now. I suggested a screening after the show closed. Keba has a photo of a Black man on a door, shoe forms and other objects attached to the montage which includes a couple of ironing boards.

I really liked the first piece, a huge face: the "O" in "OAKLAND," which the installation spells out. (See photo). Marcel told me all the artists collaborated on the “O”. He did the “A,” Githinji wa Mbire, the “K,” Letitia Ntofon, the “L,” Keba Konte, the other “A,” eesuu orundide, the “N,” and the Collective, the “D.”

The other galleries represented are: Mama Buzz, Ego Park, 21 Grand, and Lobot Gallery. Visit http://www.soulsalon10.com/ for their exhibit: "Fresh Meat," which is closing this weekend, Sunday, July 23. Kaya Fortune, a member of Soul Salon 10 as are Githinji, eesuu and Keba, is gallery sitting this week, July 19-22, 12 noon-5.

The art spaces highlighted in "Sampling Oakland," are the newer spaces, those places set up in gentrified Oakland, vacant spaces where Black people once lived. Also absent was the rich Latino/Asian art scene, represented in large by the collaboration known as Eastside Arts Alliance in the San Antonio/Fruitvale area of Oakland. Joyce Gordon Gallery is a new gallery too. Other creative spaces like the one on Park Blvd., Ninth Street (where ProArts was located), and on Shattuck Avenue at the Guerilla Café in Berkeley, didn’t get a whisper.

Art speaks to each person differently, yet when an exhibition places a work thematically in a geographic location where one lives and the work eclipses one’s sensibility, what does that say about the authenticity of the work displayed?

What it reflects is the purposeful intellectual disregard for the people there and their aesthetic. If it isn’t included perhaps some will attempt to say the people didn’t exist, they had no art, they had no culture. It’s the argument given by the missionaries, it is the argument given by European representatives at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 where they officially divvied up Africa among themselves.