What do you do when the project you were working on gets canceled?
A group of artists with whom the Unified Port of San Diego broke contracts or canceled upcoming projects will show the drawings and models of the art pieces they were planning to build on the waterfront. The show happens Aug. 8 to 11 at Woodbury University in Barrio Logan.
The port slashed its public art budget earlier this month. (U-T San Diego)
You’re reading the Culture Report, our weekly compilation of the region’s arts and culture news.
‘A Sparkling in the Mind’:
• Sculptor Roman de Salvo said he doesn’t mind whether passersby think his piece at downtown’s Ruocco Park is art, architecture or both. “What’s important is the sparkling in the mind that happens,” he said in a new video clip featuring his and others’ reactions to his sculpture. (ArtPulse TV)
• Music dynamo Bonnie Wright is moving her eclectic concert series to Bread and Salt in Logan Heights for the upcoming season. (U-T)
• Lucky, the namesake of North Park’s Golden Phenix, originally a Chinese eatery and now a breakfast diner, predicted 40 years ago that North Park would “take the place of downtown.” He’s featured in a series called “Lifers” on Eater San Diego.
• William Bensussen, aka San Diego-bred hip-hop producer The Gaslamp Killer, suffered a serious scooter accident in L.A. recently. (San Diego CityBeat)
• Encinitas resident Jim Whiting, 87, is a comic artist who still works seven days a week on projects for books, websites and commercials. (U-T)
• The director of Mesa College’s acclaimed gallery studies program earned a spot on a roundup of “Seven Women of Vision” in Southern California’s arts scene. Alessandra Moctezuma is an artist and professor. (KCET)
• The first public photographs of an anticipated new Gaslamp restaurant, Bang Bang, are up at San Diego Magazine. Behind the spot is Mauricio Couturier, who designed and owns El Camino, and Johnny Shockey, who founded Voyeur nightclub.
Paranormal Craft:
• The city of Vista owns a theater, the Avo, where many workers have apparently seen “a ghostly man who looks like a farmer in the upstairs spotlight deck.” The city invited the all-volunteer San Diego Paranormal Research Society in over the weekend to investigate. (U-T)
• The San Diego Opera company is approaching its 50th anniversary, and the opera’s chief, Ian Campbell, detailed highlights and challenges — like the prevalence of distracting technology — for the company in a video chat with George Chamberlin. Sixty percent of the company’s budget comes from donations, not ticket prices. (San Diego Daily Transcript)
• Local dance companies say there’s a shortage of affordable performance space in San Diego. (ArtPulse)
• A colorful artwork involving close to three million beads is now on display at the downtown location of the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego. (U-T)
• Local public art gurus Mathieu Gregoire and Mary Beebe are among the influences on the collection at the UC San Francisco’s Mission Bay campus. (San Francisco Chronicle)
• As usual, the U-T’s roundup of theater and performing arts reviews and previews is chock full of interesting stories about what’s happening on local stages. Critic Jim Hebert catches up with actors with local roots who are making a splash on Broadway, including Lemon Grove native Charl Brown, who was nominated for a Tony for his Smokey Robinson role in “Motown: The Musical.”
• Beth Accomando, perhaps the city’s biggest Comic-Con fan, wraps up her favorite elements of this past weekend’s Con, which drew more than 125,000 people, for KPBS.
• My pal Sam Hodgson shot the weekend for Entertainment Weekly, catching the moments when the superheroes looked a little more quotidian.
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