PUNCH with OUTLOOK and NO STATIK and special guests NEO CONS

AT OUR HEELS with THE FUNERAL PYREand SIXES and special guests DEATHEAVEN

DROWNING WITH OUR ANCHORS with RUN WITH THE HUNTED and GREEDY EYES

See The Leaves & SFitall Present
Skeletal System, Dash Jacket, School Knights and The Lovely Bad

Walk through downtown San Francisco on Christmas day, and you can begin to believe you are the last person on earth. Everyone else has fled to the family bosom, retreating to childhood rituals, faces aglow from twinkling Christmas tree lights, sledding down pristine, snow-covered hills.

But not you. You’re a holiday orphan, left alone in the big city.

Or, not quite alone. Portuguese Artists Colony will turn on the light, just for you. On December 26, we are your family, minus the years of disappointment, the festering resentments. Join us to hear twisted tales, drink something to warm you, and sing anything but Christmas carols.

You may belong nowhere else, but you will always belong with us.

Featured guest reader JOSHUA MOHR is the author of the novels “Termite Parade,” which was an Editors’ Choice on The New York Times Best Seller List, and “Some Things that Meant the World to Me,” one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a SF Chronicle best-seller. He has an MFA from the University of San Francisco and has published numerous short stories and essays in publications such as The New York Times Book Review, 7×7, the Bay Guardian, ZYZZYVA, The Rumpus, The Nervous Breakdown, among many others. He lives in San Francisco and teaches fiction writing. Please visit him at joshuamohr.net.

Suggested donation is waived for those wearing pajamas.

Fivepoints Arthouse in collaboration with aptProjects.curatorial is excited to announce the opening of Proximity, a two-person exhibition of recent sculpture and installation based works by Elizabeth Amento and Jessica Laurent. Proximity will be on exhibit at Fivepoints Arthouse from October 22 through November 14, 2010. A reception for the artists will be held on October 22, 2010 from 7-11pm. A conversation between the artists, curator and a special guest will take place on November 7, 2010.

In the interest of challenging the traditional role of curator to the production of art exhibits, Proximity presents the recent sculptural works of Elizabeth Amento and Jessica Laurent as a conversation. However, this is not simply a formal dialogue happening because of the proximity of art works in a gallery. With the curator acting more as a moderator, facilitating critical conversation between the artists at all stages of the process from introduction through to the closing of the exhibit, Proximity is an experiment in curating as process.

The formal affinities between the soft, engage able biomorphic sculptures that Elizabeth Amento has been making and the crocheted, rope and fabric works by Jessica Laurent were very clear and naturally became the starting point for Proximity. Throughout the process of organizing Proximity, discussion brought to light the harmonious as well as the contrasting themes that influenced the works in the exhibit from creation to installation. With Amento’s investigation of the relation of comfort to architecture and Laurent’s investigation of time, structure and awkwardness each artist brings a conceptual contrast ensuring a lively conversation.

Elizabeth Amento and Jessica Laurent are based in San Francisco.

moccretro
danga bloom
superstitions

Fivepoints is extremely excited and honored to announce that one of our founders, Erik Parra, has been curated into the group exhibit “Myths of Progress: Utpoic Dreams/Dystopic Realities” at the wonderful Kala Gallery.

February 16-March 31, 2012
Kala Gallery, 2990 San Pablo Av., Berkeley, CA

Opening Reception: Thursday, February 16, 2012. 6-8PM

Conversation with the Artists: Saturday, March 31 at 2PM.

Kala Gallery is proud to present Myths of Progress, the first in our two-part 2012 exhibition series exploring cycles of time.

Year 2012: For some, it is the mere mention of this calendar date, which can evoke dis-ease and even foreboding. This is the year in which an important event will occur, according to an ancient inscription of a once-flourishing Maya civilization. But whether or not one buys into modern fatalistic readings of those hieroglyphs, of impending doom and calamity, one thing is certain: If we are not now entering “The End Times,” we are clearly in the midst of a period of radical changes. Could this simply be the endpoint of another great cycle, a transition to a more hopeful phase, and an embarcation on promising new projects, of physical and spiritual transformation and renewal? Will we at last see our frailties as a species transcended? Or have we already been down this road before?

In Myths of Progress, nine artists respond to these auspicious times, with works that veer from dreams of a renewable utopia, to an assortment of brave new failures emblemized by apocalyptic landscapes, and wildly out-of-control technologies.

Please join us for a Conversation with the Artists and the curator on Saturday, March 31 at 2:00 pm. The event is open to the public and is free of charge.

For complete press release, including bios of all the participating artists please visit the Klog!

Fivepoints Arthouse loves you, but the time has come to develop new ideas, discover new paths, and see new horizons.
Since 2007, we have brought you over 150 art exhibitions, live music events, readings, and performances from artists all over the globe, and on January 28th we will host our final night.
Come and join us as we say goodbye and welcome the excitement of a new incarnation.
Thank you for your tireless support and we hope to see you one last time!
Saturday January 28, 2012 @ 7pm

SUNDAY, JANUARY 22, 2012

Not loaded
She says it isn’t loaded as she passes it to you, but it feels heavy, the metal still warm from her hand. You could open the chamber and check, but that would violate some rule of trust between you. You have to believe her, it isn’t loaded. The neighbor kid thought the gun wasn’t loaded when he took it out to show his friend, just that little thing, and the shot was heard for years after, the story whispered from kid to kid through two generations. Your uncle must have thought the shotgun wasn’t loaded when he leaned it against the fence before climbing over, but we’ll never know, his mouth is closed forever.

So it isn’t loaded. So you trust her, and put your finger on the trigger. Join Portuguese Artists Colony on January 22 to see what happens next.

Featuring guest readers:
Seth Harwood grew up in Cambridge and the Boston area and graduated from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in 2002. His latest novel, Young Junius, is now available from Tyrus Books. It is billed as “The Wire meets Cambridge, MA in 1987” and was picked by George Pelecanos as one of his best books of 2010. Seth lives in San Francisco where he teaches English and creative writing at Stanford and the City College of San Francisco.

Brittany Perham is the author of The Curiosities (Parlor Press 2012). Her recent work may be found in Southern Poetry Review, TriQuarterly, Lo-Ball, Linebreak, and elsewhere. She is a Jones Lecturer in poetry at Stanford University, where she held the Wallace Stegner Fellowship from 2009-2011. She is a member of the word/music project Nonstop Beautiful Ladies and she lives in San Francisco.

Steven Paul Lansky will return with a long-distance reading of his winning piece from December’s live writing, inspired by the prompt, “She saw Jesus.”

Live music from “Oakland’s sweet little secret,” Ira Marlowe.

Live writing:
Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you’d like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance. The live writing gets more exciting with every show. Place your bets!

Live writers TBD

Sunday, January 22
Fivepoints Arthouse
72 Tehama
One block south of Howard at 2nd Street
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm