oakland art murmur

So I went to the Oakland Art Murmur event.

 

It was NOT @  A L L  what I expected.

 

I was a bit naïve in assuming that it’d be a bit more like SF [yeah that was really stupid].  In my mind I thought it’d walking with a lot more room & a lot more intimacy.  & a lot more people in maybe peacoats or @ least dressing somewhat nice.

 

But I just saw hipsters.

 

It was a hipster Mecca.  White hipsters & their cultural appropriation for style points.  Their usage of the term “Orient” to stay modern, hip, & innovative [who cares about the shadiness of using said term; who cares about the Imaginary Orient & Edward Saïd; let’s be more like Lady GAGa]; their overabundance of greasy, disgusting dreadlock hairstyles & other hairstyles embraced by black individuals [who cares about the blatant disrespect for the Rasta culture; who cares about what Bob Marley {the man they OH SO WORSHIP} said about his hair being integral to his actual spiritual being; they’re just BRAIDS, right?]; their snakes around their arms walking up & down the streets like snake charmer [I don’t even know about this one.]

 

Also the punk rocker people & the “free spirits” in the middle of the street LITERALLY holding hands & singing Kumbaya.  & the little girls with their animal hats & the TOMS bleeding of white savior complexes & the alternative people with all their tats & piercings & this & that & whatever.

 

I felt so overdressed & overbathed.  I was wearing this teal dress & everyone around me was just in their tight pants with all of these tatters & their tattered shoes & their stained tees.  It’s all so hobo-chic that you can’t even tell the real starving artists from the people who want to look like starving artists for fashion.  You can’t even tell who’s really homeless & who’s being homeless just to be “in style.”  It’s a bit disturbing.

 

I also felt vulnerable & exposed walking down the street.  I’m just an 18 year-old girl, surrounded by smoking, drinking, white 20-something males in all directions.  I’m only a little bit legal.  & I’m only a little bit stronger than the skinnier white chick next to me.  I was happy I was in a group.  I was also happy that our group was made of POCs who weren’t of the skinny white variety. 

 

The other side of the street was a less artistic endeavor, but it seemed like a more human one – a movement that better suited Oakland, even though it wasn’t as much about art.  There was a block party, free [for the most part] from the hipster dreads.  There dancing in the massive crowds were the actual POCs with those dreads.  & there were others throwin’ down lyrics & smokin’ jays.  Here we had the POC proletariat [because let’s be real; they’re the REAL proletariat] coexisting next to the white hipster proletariat acting ironically more bourgeois just to be ironic [I honestly don’t get those people.]  On one side there was that plant that “set the people free;” & on the other side was the cigarette that enables the hipsters & the hipsters that enable the cigarettes.  On one side we had a space where people could just freely party; on the other side, people put on airs of pretension & made little comments to the people next to each other, hopefully to appear smarter than the people right next to them.  But not always.  Some people just admired the art & moved on, just as some people admired the partying people & also moved on.

 

Yet it’s so Bay Area to have such contrasts, such stark contrasts being able to coexist – to have a “lower class” party of minorities right next to galleries filled with white college students, graduates, & adults; to have spaces full of “lower culture” rap & techno music next to spaces full of white cultural

capital & artistic finesse.  They inhabit the same greater area & some people can freely mingle in both worlds.  It’s not doublethink; it’s the Bay Area.

 

But the art.  I came for the art, not the dirty & mostly unattractive hipsters.

 

But there were also the burgers.   I had a wonderful burger from a food truck.  I had to wait near 20 minutes for it, but it was well worth the wait.  I mean juicy beef with a secret sauce & melted cheese & lettuce & tomatoes & bacon with some fries & green beans mixed in some sort of a spice rub really satisfies a person; it gets their mind off being claustrophobic – because even tho I’ve been through Giants games… it was really uncomfortable being squished against so many people & having to worry about people spilling beer on my dress.

 

But yeah I was there for the art.  My mini group didn’t get around to seeing the art until ~ 8:20 or so.  There was a little bit of everything, as advertised: ceramics with little skulls & this one guy sipping coffee & looking magnificently Tim Burton-esque; Tron-like light design photography going up into infinity; eerie marionettes with crows dancing around them; glass cut out into diamonds & mixed with other materials; pop culture inspired graphics of the ultra-violent persuasion; those tables you get that are one giant piece of wood & then there’s a layer of lacquer or something on top of it & Tim Lincecum has one in one of his houses; multi-faced bowls – like there’s this guy’s face & it repeats over & over into a bowl shape & it’s really creepy; sculptures of insect bodies with baby heads bursting out of them, crawling everywhere; overpriced simple black & white drawings; bullshit paint colors placed together with titles that call itself bullshit & “It Is What It Is” [that was honestly one of my favorite moments from that day]; & a lot more pieces & places that we didn’t get to because a lot of the galleries closed around 9.

 

It was an experience – a unique experience into the lives of 20-somethings.  The art scene of the now that I’ll probably have to get used to [like Anthony Bourdain having to get used to them in food scenes, I suppose.]  But I wish I had experienced it as an older person – like @ least 21.  I felt so out of place being so young in the large masses of people, & even with my mini group.  Even THEY were shocked that I was such a “baby.”  But I am.  I’m only 18 amongst everyone who’s so much older than me.  But then again, in a way, I’m used to that.  I’ve always been with my parents going to their “high culture” things; so why should it be any different now?

 

But then again it wasn’t so “high culture” because the place was crawling with hipsters [but I guess people would still consider hipster-filled spaces more high culture than a simple block party; but that’s how the patriarchy just rolls sometimes.]  & I wish it didn’t have so many hipsters.  But that’s life.  & I guess they add to the ambiance, too, with their ironic antics.  Perhaps.  But I won’t be joining them.   I hope I never join them.

 

 

Pictures will be coming up later.  Because my phone is very very dead & must recuperate.