SF Beautiful Muni Art 2020
Jocelyn Li Langrand is the winner of the Muni Art Award. She is one of the five artists whose artworks, interpreting this year’s theme Hidden Gems of San Francisco, were displayed in 100 San Francisco buses, transforming these spaces into rolling art galleries for thousands of daily commuters to enjoy.
San Francisco Biker 1/8
Photo credit: Jordan Bosse
Photo credit: @Scarlet_Foxtrot from twitter
Theme title
I CLOSE MY EYES AND SEE
“This is a series about discovering the wonders of San Francisco through the unseen. Often when I love a place, it’s the memories, feelings, and people that I attach to it, they became the stories of my art. I create what’s true at the moment through tiny details and emotions. One of my favorite author Germano Zullo said, ‘The tiny details are not made to be noticed, but discovered. One is enough to enrich the moment. One is enough to change the world.’ ”
P1. Award ceremony with City Program Director Darcy Brown (left) and Thomas Butler (right). P2. Muni Art Project press conference at the SF City Hall. P3. Interviews with local TV stations and Newspapers.
The Muni Art project is held by San Francisco Beautiful, a city non-profit organization advocate for civic beauty, neighborhood character and accessible public art for all in San Francisco since 1947.
San Francisco Home 2/8
San Francisco Café 3/8
8 original artworks were displayed in 100 buses. 5 of them were created based on Jocelyn’s interpretation of 5 poems written by renowned Bay Area poets.
4/8
THE ANTIDOTE TO FASCISM IS POETRY
dear hidden gems
riding on the bus
your green glow
has something to say
to the artificial mind
alive in those buildings
where time’s spiders
were invented to eat
the continual terrible
boredom we emanate
looking down at our phones
instead of a tree
under that cloud
that looks like a door
by Matthew Zapruder
5/8
BAKER BEACH
Close your eyes on that startled
vision: fishing line strung taut
by the waves’ tall pressure: cold sugar
of a fish’s mouth clamping the bait’s steel
surprise. Hold fast against the tide, its spray
finer than pleasure against your sun-
ruddy face. Understand there’s nowhere
to go. I mean you have nowhere
you must go. What we trust is the sound
of the sea, its chill shock, our faith
in its change. Rolling together and under
and up and apart and on to the next
body. This is the pacific.
by Melissa Stein
6/8
LISTENING TO THE CARYATIDS ON THE PALACE OF FINE ARTS
The curve of roof echoes the roll of golden
coast hills solidified in travertine
marble. In front, the reflecting pool’s eye,
where the dome, the city’s past, floats is split
by swans. Once a city built from redwood
plank and gold dust, until earth shook it down
to mud and ash. In 1915, twelve
plaster palaces bloomed from the ruined
Marina. For nine months, San Francisco
grew fat again with visitors and fame.
The exhibition ends. Palaces razed.
Only this mute Roman structure remains
crowned in weeping stone maidens who,
whisper back to us in sea wind, bird song.
by Iris Jamahl Dunkle
7/8
TRAIN THROUGH COLMA
But will anyone teach
the new intelligence to miss
the apricot trees
that bloomed each spring
along these tracks?
Or the way afternoons
blazed with creosote
& ponderosa?
Spring evenings flare
with orange pixels
in the bay-scented valley—
where in the algorithm
will they account for
the rippling ponies
that roamed outside Fremont?
When the robots have souls,
will they feel longing?
When they feel longing,
will they write poems?
by Tess Taylor
8/8
THE LONG VIEW
Two lovers sit atop
Dolores Park: they stop
their argument to see
a church, a bridge, a sea.
They play a little game:
each man proceeds to name
his list of lovers, dead.
There’s no one left unsaid.
Anxious pigeons wait for crumbs to fall.
It’s late.
The weather starts to shift:
all fog, all love, will lift.
by Randall Mann