SOMA Speakeasy Opens -- for Just Six Weeks

This limited-time-only, private drinking den/art installation at New Langton Arts promises to be *quite* very. All the elements for radness are in place:

• The venue is Langton's huge, new "garage" space, in its first months of use (NLA being one of *the* top small venues for cutting edge installation art in San Francisco -- catch photos of the new space in use at the OPEN City dinner 9.13.08)

• An opening night piece by Tom Marioni, who, you'll recall, ran a drinking club installation within Yerba Buena Center for the Arts a few years ago
  

• Open only Fri-Sat, each night featuring a different artist or author (including my old roomie Clair Farley and her twin brother Mark Oliver, who will show their excellent doc about twinship and gender transitioning, Red Without Blue, on Sat Nov. 1 -- it was a total hit at Frameline and at Sundance's Slamdance last year!)

THE COLONY ROOM
Anne Colvin and Guests
Fridays and Saturdays, 7pm-11pm
September 26 - November 6, 2008

Opening Night: Friday, September 26
Featuring Tom Marioni
$5 entry

More on the event from New Langton Arts:

Artist Anne Colvin was invited to conceive the first project in The Garage at Langton, a 2,500 square foot space now part of New Langton Arts. The Colony Room is a celebration of the legendary Colony Room Club, London Soho's notorious private drinking den. Situated at the top of a shabby staircase, this down-at-heel but welcoming space has been a favorite haunt for British artists ever since it was started in 1948. The club was owned and run up until 1979 by the infamous free spirit, Muriel Belcher, who paid the young Francis Bacon ten pounds a week and free drinks to bring in the clientele. He did, and Lucian Freud, Frank Auerbach, and Henrietta Moraes were among the regulars.

Housed in The Garage at Langton, a raw industrial space, The Colony Room is a bar - complete with Francis Bacon prints and 'chandelier' by Zachary Scholz - open two nights a week. Each night features a guest artist invited to do an informal reading, screening, or intervention.

San Francisco conceptual artist Tom Marioni will be the guest of honor on opening night, Friday, September 26, paying homage to his club where "The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends is the Highest Form of Art". At 8pm Tom will reenact his seminal "One Second Sculpture" piece in public for the first time since 1969 followed by a book signing of his memoir "Beer, Art and Philosophy."

Other guests and actions over the course of six weeks will include conceptual art costume band extraordinaire Rubber O Cement; eclectic poets and writers, Bill Berkson and Emily Wilson; the outrageous Shalo P; sound scientist Marcella Faustini; temporarily conceited Anne Colvin; Tim Etchells, founder of "Britain's most brilliant experimental theater company" Forced Entertainment; edgy Silverman Gallery owner Jessica Silverman with stylist Carolina Amaris; notorious twins Mark Oliver and Clair Farley and manic Glasgow-based Alex Hetherington. Screenings will include an interview with Francis Bacon; Ryan Tercatin's "sensationally anarchic" (Holland Cotter, NY Times) video I-Be Area; award-winning film Red Without Blue; Annika Larsson's video of Tobias Bernstrup's live performance at Concerto Scenografica, Berlin and the premiere of screen footage from Owsley Brown and Jerome Hiler's work in progress Untitled (Louiseville Orchestra Project). An Abba disco night, a fashion mis-en-scene, hand stamps, 80's sounds from Scotland and a 'Muriel' cocktail are some of the other surprises in store.

The Colony Room is run by an artist, supports artists, and stands as a haven for artists, exiles, and maverick spirits. You are invited!

Ticket information
Single night admissions to The Colony Room are $5 at the door. You may also purchase a membership to the Colony Room for $50 at the door - members receive free admission every night. Any member of New Langton Arts at the $50 or above level is automatically a member of The Colony Room and recieves free admission as well.

Artist Bio
Anne Colvin is an artist, curator, and the co-founder of TART, an internationally renowned project space based in San Francisco. Anne has most recently shown at Gavin Brown's Enterprise, New York; Lowsalt Gallery, Glasgow; The Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop; and Worksound Gallery, Portland; and has been included in projects at Matt's Gallery, London; Gasworks, London; The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery; Art LA; and The Poetic Research Bureau, Los Angeles. She has also shown at Spencer Brownstone Gallery, New York; Debs & Co. New York; and The Photographers' Gallery, London, among others. Upcoming shows and projects include FACT Liverpool; The NY Art Book Fair; and Montgomery, Berlin. She has received awards from Kodak US, Fuji UK, The British Council and The Delfina Trust, London.

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New Langton Arts
1246 Folsom Street
San Francisco, CA 94103-3817
For further information: 415.626.5416
www.newlangtonarts.org

Because secret + temporary = exciting. Plain and simple.

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p.s. Did you know that you can work off your parking tickets by volunteering at New Langton Arts? That's right, a city entity called Project 20 allows you to work off parking tix at any participating non-profit. Langton has their fabu annual art auction + gala coming up in November; now would be the perfect time to hop on that train, my friends.