The Fela exhibit, Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, at Yerba Buena is worth seeing. (Fela was major Nigerian singer and also anti-colonial activist. Interesting intersection between popular art and politics. The show is art in homage to him.)

A lot of weird stuff. And then one really amazing piece by Kendell Geers who took a classic Mumuye ficture from E. Nigeria and wrapped it in Chevron tape. (The sort of tape that police use to make hazard areas here.) Very haunting. I think it really hit me because I'm writing this piece on early modernism and the article keeps falling into a discussion of Primitivism.

Some of the work is a little less resonant. And the art copy, or whatever those little descriptions that get put on the wall beside the piece of art are called, also doesn't do a lot of the work a great service. I went with Dan Bouchard who was visiting from out of town and we kept laughing at some line that went: Fela: saint or sinner? sexist or romantic? Also, Fela died of AIDS, which does get mentioned, but Fela's insistence that AIDS did not exist or was a con by the colonizer does not get mentioned in the exhibit.

Poetry spouse alert: Lee Ann Brown's husband Tony Torn is one of the husbands of Stepford in the new Stepford Wives.