THE WEATHER IS NOWADAYS CRAZY is an exhibition anchored by 10 collaborative India ink drawings by Etel Adnan and Lynn Marie Kirby made in the winter of 2018, in Paris, on two shades of blue paper. The gallery is animated on various Saturdays by further collaborations – all organized by Kirby – that embrace the spirit of improvisation, accident, and mistranslation.

Adnan and Kirby were longtime friends, and co-authored a number of performances, films, interventions, and broadsheets together over the past twenty years. Oracular Transmissions, a chronicle of their collaborations, was published by X Artists’ Books in 2019.

Etel Adnan was a poet, novelist, essayist, and visual artist. Lynn Marie Kirby is an artist and filmmaker based in San Francisco.

A broadsheet by Kirby and writer Gloria Frym marks the exhibition’s opening and is available at the reception. It is inspired by Joan Mitchell’s small works combining painting and poetry and Etel Adnan’s Olivetti typewriter and ribbon.

Subsequent events are at 5pm and have a corresponding broadsheet take-away:

December 18, oracular chorus
Miranda Mellis, Sean Negus, and Lynn Marie Kirby
A chorus performs a collaborative text.

January 8, a line and two shakes
Simone Bailey and Lynn Marie Kirby
Cellist Mia Pixley, dancer James Kirby Rogers, and video artist Kedar Lawrence perform to a score composed in response to the surrounding neighborhood.

January 22, i am a lover of the Night & i am a lover of the Moon
A 15-minute play starring two characters, the Night and the Moon. Featuring live percussion by Tom Hemphill and site-specific video projection.

Denise Newman is a poet and translator; her next book is The Redesignation of Paradise, forthcoming from Kelsey Street Press. Tom Hemphill, a former short order cook, was a percussionist in the San Francisco Symphony for over 46 years.

SOLD OUT

January 29, walk to walk
Christoph Steger and Lynn Marie Kirby, with composer Anne Hege
A site-inspired media intervention generated from walks, marks, and glyphs.

SOLD OUT

Cushion Works is open Fridays 4–6pm, Saturdays 2–5pm, and by appointment.

Special thanks to Simone Fattal and Tugce Evirgen Ozmen. Photos by Phil Maisel.