closure of BAM celebration

3:30 pm  Chris Kallmyer creates music based on the architecture of BAM/PFA.  It was very discordant and minimalist and pleasurable in its unexpectedness!

We attended the final moments of the closing of the Berkeley Art Museum on the Solstice, in which one door would close and participants marched down to the structure of the new building under construction which will open in 2016.


4:00 pm  Performance artist Dohee Less says a ritual farewell to the space, with a Chinese flute accompanied by Chinese drums....and large cries, from a minority tradition.

A quiet moment being appreciated in the shadows and light of this
brutalist (starkly honest)(building.  Designated a Berkeley landmark 

In the Movies: 

 The 1975 movie Mr. Ricco, starring Dean Martin, was filmed at BAM/PFA - the shootout scene exploits the dramatic sight lines of the atrium.  Sound designer Ben Bertt recorded the sound for the Star Wars trash compactor scene in BAM/PFA's freight elevator. 

In 2001, Ciampi articulated a metaphysical origin for the orientation of BAM/PFA, suggesting that the long cantilevered sections were laid out on two axes aligned with energy centers in the Egyptian zodiac. 

Sarah Cahill chatting,  Her husband Jon Sanborn
and her daughter are in attendance.

 The founding director, Peter Selz, who had been the curator of Painting and Sculpture at the MOMA said the museum was created to make "an aesthetic statement of its own."  In 1963, Hans Hofmann who taught at Berkeley in the 1930s donated 47 paintings and $250,000 to support the creation of a museum.  Mario J. Ciampi won the competition for the design of a new building.   In 2001, Ciampi articulated a metaphyical origin for the orientation of BAM/PFA, suggesting that the long cantilevered sections were laid out on two axes aligned with energy centers in the Egyptian zodiac.  

A large crowd of members and artists and supporteres gathered to say fare thee well! 

Laurence Rindler, Director, introducing one of the living architects
of this stucture and the first curator in the audience, and saying
farewell to this building.  

A last look at the Tribute to James Cahill.   There is one Ming scroll
 of Mt Lu (Lushan)of the great waterfalls.  I climbed down to the foot of this falls
and stood in the very spot pictured here.
 

The" delightful" (says Laurence Rindler)  Sarah Cahill
 introducing the Poeme Symphonique 

The final act:  The 100 metronomes wound and played in community
Sarah Cahill, Programmer. Ligeti's Poeme Symphonique.  

A parade leader 

A T sister 

A

T-Sisters, leaders of the parade down to the new museum site