Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive

L@TE: Friday Nights @ BAM/PFA

Skank Bloc Bologna Number Four, Featuring William T. Wiley and Michael Hannon

May 21, 2010; 7:30 p.m.

Gallery B; All other galleries will remain open during the program

Programmed by Anne Colvin

Inspired by Semina, a free-form journal published sporadically by artist Wallace Berman and his circle in California in the 1950s and 1960s, each issue of Anne Colvin’s Skank Bloc Bologna is a looseleaf collection of works from an international cast of artists, writers, and poets. Issues One through Three are available in the BAM/PFA Store. Issue Number Four will be the first time-based and paper issue, drawn from Colvin’s five-evening L@TE residency at BAM (February through June, on the third Friday of each month), and will include ephemera from the performances, spoken word events, screenings, sounds, and conversations.

Set against the backdrop of Ken Russell’s film Tommy, the penultimate iteration of Skank Bloc Bologna Number Four features William Wiley, celebrated in the current BAM/PFA exhibition What’s It All Mean: William T. Wiley in Retrospect, and poet Michael Hannon. Widely published in journals and anthologies, Hannon is the author of numerous poetry collections, including many limited editions, and he often participates on projects with visual and book artists. Wiley, who plays a range of musical instruments, from Jew’s harp to banjo, will perform on the didgeridoo while Hannon recites. Friends since the early eighties, Wiley and Hannon have collaborated on books and inspired each other’s work; they do so again in this high-spirited, impromptu duet of music and verse.

Acknowledging SBB4 influences and the slow development toward a printed edition, Oakland-based artist and writer Analisa Goodin will create an installation inspired by Antonio Gramsci, who spent most of his life as a writer and thinker in prison. The installation—created from 200 used pencils exchanged for brand-new pencils with the children of Aurora School in Oakland—is a response to the tension between free thinking and forced confinement.

Preceded at 6 p.m. by KALX DJ Citizen Zain, who will re-play highlights from previous SBB4 iterations including Linton Kwesi Johnson, Joan La Barbara, Paul Rooney, Malcom McLaren, Scritti Politti, and more. Wine and beer will be available for purchase.

L@TE is made possible in part by Bank of America, the Tin Man Fund, and the continued support of the BAM/PFA Trustees. Special thanks to our media sponsors, East Bay Express and San Francisco Bay Guardian.