SFR Picks: Synecdoche/Santa Fe

Think of Jared Weiss' paintings as a vast stage on a fault line. The set is based largely on the American Midwest, the cast is comprised of the artist's Santa Fe friends, and the script features contributions from a trio of famous psychoanalysts. Something rumbles, and these elements come crashing together on canvas in unsettling combinations.

Since resurfacing in Santa Fe last summer, Weiss has been scattering sawed-off set pieces from the massive performance in art spaces around town. "It's like a theatrical production that's unfolding in front of you," says Weiss. "You sense that they're actors. They're part of a strange world that's slightly off-kilter." If you've caught Weiss' past shows, you'll recognize recurring—but oddly warped—plotlines in his new exhibition at the Center for Contemporary Arts' Cinematheque Lobby Gallery. There's a stooped figure in a striped shirt that first starred in Fathoms at Radical Abacus this July, and a shadowy lumberyard from Weiss' childhood in Ohio that also appeared in his solo show at the Adobe Rose Theatre in May. Weiss is playing a long game: As he echoes and shifts his imagery, he's collaging over the memories of his viewers. The artist recently earned his MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute, and returned to his adopted home in the Southwest with a brain full of Freudian, Lacanian and Zizekian theories. They've guided him as he brings his memories, or the "screen memories" that may have replaced them, into the present. Blurred faces, dark shadows and shockingly bright hues obscure Weiss' recollections, lending the work a sense of fragmented déjà vu that will only compound as we watch this body of work grow. "As much as I speak about memory, they're very much about constructing my life now and pointing to the place that I'm from," says Weiss. "It's always this 'now' moment. Good painting is always alive, and if it's always alive it's always right now." When you shake the artist's hand at the opening reception, know that you too run the risk of getting pulled onto the boards. (Jordan Eddy)

Jared Weiss: The Worst
5 pm Friday Aug. 12. Free.
Center for Contemporary Arts,
1050 Old Pecos Trail,
982-1338

Sand People

A cadre of Tibetan Buddhist monks from the Drepung Loseling Monastery in Atlanta converge this week at the Museum of International Folk Art to create a gorgeous mandala with colored sand as part of the

Sacred Realm

exhibit. The painstaking process will take four days and, shortly after its completion, the piece will be destroyed as paen to impermanence. “The … monks who will be leading the program decided that an

Amitabha Mandala

and a

Tara Puja

will be most appropriate based on the exhibit’s cross-cultural nature and wide-ranging ideas of blessings,” curator Felicia Katz-Harris tells SFR. (Alex De Vore)

Sand Mandala Opening Ceremony:
Noon Wednesday August 10. By admission.
Museum of International Folk Art,
706 Camino Lejo,
476-1200

Young Upstarts

Upstart Crows of Santa Fe has made Shakespeare’s works accessible for youth from the ages of 10 to 18 since September 2014. “We started with three kids doing a workshop of

Twelfth Night

,” says Upstart Crows founder and artistic director Anna Farkas. Since that time, the troupe has grown in popularity, with some kids traveling from as far as an hour away to perform. The Upstart Crows’ production of

Henry IV, Part I

boasts two alternating casts made up of 24 young actors. Farkas tells SFR, “You could technically come two nights and see two entirely different performances.” (Andrew Koss)

Henry IV, Part I:
7 pm Thursday Aug. 11 . $5.
Performing Arts Center at Santa Fe High School,
2100 Yucca St.,
467-2400

Flora and Family

Sarah Zurick is the educational coordinator and family program manager at the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum and, every month, she leads a family-oriented program in the museum’s Education Annex. This month program,

Trees and Leaves

, offers an opportunity to immerse your children in a creative experience. “The kids will be collaging, drawing and learning simple”—Zurick stresses the “simple” part—“printmaking techniques.” The artist has been collaging with kiddos for about eight years and welcomes all ages. “I am really adaptable,” she says. “I can handle anything.” (Maria Egolf-Romero)

Trees and Leaves:
9:30 am Saturday Aug. 13. Free.
Georgia O'Keeffe Museum Educational Annex,
217 Johnson St.,
946-1000

Santa Fe Reporter