The Three Heads Six Arm Buddha statue in Civic Center Plaza was defaced in June with three different kinds of graffiti. One person wrote a message about Christ being the Lord, a tagger put his signature on an upper arm, and on the shoulder just above, a viral advertising employee plastered a sticker for BAYGAME. According to the SF Citizen site, this was thanks to a Kodak viral video campaign.
That means the Buddha was disfaced by a religious fanatic, a disaffected youth, and an outlaw corporation, which is quite a trifecta.
The statue has been cleaned up and the green tarp has been removed from the fence that was put up to guard it. According to Kate Patterson at the San Francisco Art Commission, the fence is due to come down on July 12th, which means we will all have to protect the Buddha ourselves from its would-be defilers.
In the meantime, I am headed for the south shores of Long Island for a Fourth of July beach holiday. Have a happy holiday yourselves.
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The San Francisco Arts Commission presents art exhibits throughout the year at its gallery in the Veterans building on Van Ness, a window display on Grove Street, and larger shows in the basement of City Hall.
The exhibits tend to be hit-and-miss, but it's a pleasure to report that the latest show in City Hall's basement, "Picturing Power and Potential," is a winner with about 50 beautiful and fascinating photographs by over a dozen artists of women at work.
The exhibit is co-sponsored by the International Museum of Women and is part of a larger project called "Economica: Women and the Global Economy" (click here for the online exhibit).
Looking at the photo of the Richmond, California policewoman above, it became clear how unusual these photos are.
Most photographic representations of women tend towards either the idealized, movie star alluring or conversely, portraying women as victims of repression in some way.
These photos do neither, and the combination of their formal elegance and their matter-of-fact subject matter is bracing...
...such as the two photos above by Anne Hamersky of women around the world growing their own food.
There are a series of photos by Joanna Lipper of seaweed farmers in Zanzibar that are stunning, topped only by Brenda Paik Sunoo's trio of portraits of "Granny Divers" on Jeju Island off of South Korea.
According to the signage, these women have long dived for seafood in the ocean as deep as 20 meters while simply holding their breath, and they are known to live into their nineties.
If you happen to be in Civic Center on a weekday, it's worth a trip into City Hall's basement to check this show out, which will be on display through August.
