It is totally amazing to me how my life is a never ending parade of circles/cycles intermingling, colliding and during The New College Circle exhibition at the Gray Loft Gallery in Oakland, SEVERAL of them came washing me away to Memory Land!
Participants in the exhibition included David B. Doty, Henry S. Rosenthal and Dale S. Soules, all wonderful and excing music flashbacks for me from the seventies and eighties.
Doty, Rosenthal and Soules recorded a superb series of Avant-garde music albums under the name, Other Music. Their works were inspired by Avant-garde musicians such as Harry Partch, Lou Harrison and others of that ilk. I discovered their album, Prime Numbers, sometime in the early eighties; I have been intending to write about it on a future article on the vinyl LP section (link below); NOW I need to get on the ball and DO it.
Doty and Rosenthal (aka Hank Rank) formed one of the early San Francisco punk rock groups in the seventies, Crime (link belows). They were intense to say the least; I caught them at the Deaf Club on Valencia Street, San Francisco. I bought their 45 RPM, Hot Wire My Heart, the "B"
side had Baby You're So Repulsive. How could you pass up that?
Well, back to the exhibition! It will have one more showing on Saturday, November, 9, then the closing reception will be the next day, Sunday, November, 10, from 4 to 6 PM.
Closing reception:
Sunday, November, 10, 4 to 6 PM
This exhibition
is a celebration of fifty years of creative achievement launched by an
experimental education at New College of California (NCOC) in San
Francisco. On view in the exhibit are archival materials, costume
design, film, drawing, landscape design, music, installation, sculpture,
performance, and photography.
Featured Artists:
Carola Anderson, David B. Doty, Michael Patrick Lynch,
Elaine McKeen, Henry S. Rosenthal, Dale Soules
and Meredith Tromble who curated the show
In the mid-1970s, a group of young artists at New College of California fueled their creative practices with friendship and the radically experimental education offered by the school. They drew each other, recorded their own physiological data, performed plays written by their professor, invented musical instruments, and received credit for a gallimaufry of life experiences. At the time, statistics revealed that of students graduating with an art degree, only 5% were still making art ten years later. But in the ensuing decades each person in the New College Circle created their own path over, under, or around the barriers that stop young artists from becoming mature artists, pursuing creative practices and careers. This exhibition presents the New College Circle’s vibrant work in context with the unique institution that prepared them to thrive creatively throughout life.
Closing reception – November 10, 2024
Installation photos by Styrous®
Michael Patrick Lynch
above: Michael Lynch
below: Time As the Crow Flies - 2023
Dale S. Soules & Other Music
Thank you for this review, Max. It has been so interesting, and inspiring, to see how viewers respond to different aspects of the show. It's great to have you articulate the personal connection with the music.
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