Watch the Recording of our Studio Visit with Faheem Majeed

If you missed our program last Friday on the sculpture of Black newspapers, Freedom's Stand, now is your chance to watch the recording and get some background on why we brought this program to SFPL. 

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New York City's iconic raised park, The High Line, where the sculpture is on exhibit, released an email heralding the recording on Saturday 2/24/24:

Faheem Majeed, Freedom's Stand, 2022. Photo by Lawrence Sumulong.

The inspiration and research behind Faheem Majeed's "Freedom Stand"

One hundred and eighty-seven different newspaper front pages have graced Faheem Majeed’s towering Freedom’s Stand over the course of the past year. From prominent people to notable events, these newspapers have given snapshots of US history through the lenses and words of Black America—spanning the last 200 years and from all across the 50 states.

“The Black voice is not myopic—it’s expansive and also conflicting,” Majeed says of the materials he found during the making of Freedom’s Stand. “That’s what’s so exciting about this [project]… The expanse is really fascinating to think about, [especially] when the Black voice is oftentimes pigeonholed and controlled.”

Watch this recent San Francisco Public Library talk with Majeed where he and his research assistant, Shola Jimoh, delve into the inspiration and the archival research behind his artwork for the High Line.

 

From one coast to another, newspapers ring out as an insight of the Black view on the nation's news. Watch the talk and tell us what you think of the sculpture and the research process in the comments. 

Speaker: Faheem Majeed’s Freedom’s Stand, A Sculpture of Black Newspapers

 

Speaker: Faheem Majeed’s Freedom’s Stand, A Sculpture of Black Newspapers

Friday, 2/16/2024
11:00 a.m.

Virtual Library

Register On Zoom

 

Unpack artist Faheem Majeed’s sculpture Freedom’s Stand to learn more about the significance of the African American press and how it inspires today’s modern artists. 

In September 2022 Majeed premiered the site-specific sculpture that features a rotating selection of front pages of historical and contemporary African American newspapers and magazines at the High Line in New York City, and the sculpture’s exhibition will close in April 2024. Learn how Majeed developed the idea for this sculpture’s content and form, and why he drew inspiration for the sculpture from the structures of the Dogon granaries in West Mali. Majeed will be joined by his research assistant Shola Jimoh to discuss the selection process for the publications and front-page headlines that have rotated through the display for the past year and a half. Go deeper as we investigate not only the informational value of Black newspapers, but also the social, spiritual and artistic significance these publications continue to bring to bear in our current culture. 

About

Faheem Majeed is an artist, educator, curator and community facilitator. He blends his unique experience as a non-profit administrator, curator and artist to create works that focus on institutional critique and exhibitions that leverage collaboration to engage his immediate community, as well as the broader community, in meaningful dialogue. He is the co-founder/co-director of the arts collective Floating Museum. Majeed received his BFA from Howard University and his MFA from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).  

Shola Jimoh is currently a second-year Ph.D. student in the Department of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. She graduated from the University of Illinois-Chicago in 2022, receiving a Bachelor of Arts in Public Health with the highest distinction. Under the leadership and guidance of Faheem Majeed, Shola has served as a research assistant on several interdisciplinary archival projects concerning black American (hi)stories within the arts and beyond.   

Connect 

Faheem Majeed – Website | Faheem Majeed – Facebook | Faheem Majeed – Instagram  

Faheem Majeed, Freedom’s Stand, 2022. A High Line Commission. On view September 2022 – April 2024. Photo by Lawrence Sumulong. Courtesy of the High Line.

Faheem Majeed, Freedom’s Stand, 2022. A High Line Commission. On view September 2022 – April 2024. 📸: @timothyschenck. Courtesy of the High Line.

Faheem Majeed, Freedom’s Stand, 2022. A High Line Commission. On view September 2022 – April 2024. 📸: @timothyschenck. Courtesy of the High Line.

Faheem Majeed, Freedom’s Stand, 2022. A High Line Commission. On view September 2022 – April 2024. 📸: @timothyschenck. Courtesy of the High Line.

Faheem Majeed, Freedom’s Stand, 2022. A High Line Commission. On view September 2022 – April 2024. 📸: @timothyschenck. Courtesy of the High Line.

 

Underground Newspapers on Microfilm: San Francisco Oracle

The Underground Newspaper Microfilm Collection in the San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch, comprises a twentieth century revolution in graphic arts, journalism, politics, morality and culture. The reporters, editors, idealists, students, activists, crusaders and adventurers who created the alternative print culture of the 1960s were the original dreamers; precursors to the electronic architects of counter-culture Internet media today. In a time of growing social, political, and philosophical polemics, the San Francisco Oracle was born from the need to express a more visual and transcendent cultural radicalism.

Or, as co-founder Allen Cohen once said, "The Oracle was not planned, it was discovered."

Merging the Haight-Ashbury community it served with experimental graphics and journalism in tune with an acid-tinged Orientalia redolent of pacifism and generational promise, the Oracle was a triumph of both quixotic impracticality and newly-available offset printing. With the ability to bring 'camera ready' pages (heavy on the art and graphics, lighter on the text) to an offset print shop at drastically reduced rates (far less than the old letterpress costs of operation), the monthly Oracle was an immediate creative and countercultural citywide success by late Fall of 1966. Artistically peaking with original run issues #4 through #12, the Oracle embraced the talents of Steve Levine, Travis Rivers, Gabe Katz and many others who wrote and designed the paper on site in the Haight at Jay and Rod Thelin's Psychedelic Shop. This fleeting period of seventeen months coincided with San Francisco's 'flower-power' era, and the Oracle bled with illuminated rainbows of split fountain colors and blossomed with an almost utopian insistence . . . .

It was the San Francisco Oracle that called together, on New Year's Day, 1967, the youth enmasse Golden Gate Be-in . . . "a union of love and activism...will finally occur ecstatically when Berkeley's political activists and hip community and San Francisco's spiritual generation all over California meet for a gathering of tribes . . ."

Historically tied to the first generation of underground American newspapers as much by chronology as by a hopeful and sincere spirit of community, the Oracle reflected an inexplicable vision of artful, intricate, childlike fantasy and a genuine humanist affirmation predating the psychedelics of commodity and the sort of cynical, fast food, turned-on hippie paraphernalia designed for sale to tourists. The Oracle's mission was to be "a graphic expression of man's highest ideals: music, art, ideas, prophesy, poetry and the expansion of consciousness through drugs."

To view the San Francisco Oracle (and our entire collection of Underground Newspapers) on microfilm, visit the Magazine and Newspapers Center on the fifth floor of the San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch. See also our San Francisco History Center for related items of interest.

Punk Passage Reads

The first wave of San Francisco's punk rock scene in images and memorabilia is on view now at the Main Library.

PUNK PASSAGE SAN FRANCISCO

FIRST WAVE PUNK 1977-1981

The Magazines and Newspapers Center on the Fifth Floor of the Main Library offers archived microfilm of the newspapers and magazines that chronicled the New Wave and Punk scene unique to San Francisco.

Come see the exhibits and attend the events on our Lower Level (through December 6th). Then come upstairs and research the innovative music, creative explosion, and the generation that made up a scene fresh with both passion and militancy. From our periodicals collection, trace all the tumultuous events just as they happened.

Our selection includes Search and Destroy (featuring many Ruby Ray photographs) in our Underground Newpapers collection, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, as well as East Bay publications like Bay Area Musicians and the Berkeley Barb.

It happened here. Do it yourself. Find out more of your local history, music and culture. It's at your library.

Art in the Periodicals Reading Room

Did you know you can go up to the sixth floor of the library by taking the spiral staircase in the Periodicals Reading Room of the Magazines & Newspapers Center? This staircase, part of an art piece designed by Alice Aycock, was unveiled in 1996 at the opening of the New Main Library.

Excerpted from Art Works of the Main Library

Functional and Fantasy Stair and Cyclone Fragment

Artist: Alice Aycock

"Alice Aycock has designed a spiral stairway between the fifth and sixth floors of the suspended, glass-enclosed reading room that projects into the library's great atrium space. The staircase wraps around a cone tipped at an angle, and as the two-story cone appears to unravel, it sheds fragments of false or imaginary stairs. The conical composition echoes the structure of a nearby atrium skylight. The cone, in fact, is an inversion of the skylight.

A second element, the Cyclone fragment, is suspended in the adjacent atrium and functions as a ghost projection of the spiral stair. If the stairs suggest knowledge unfolding, the Cyclone symbolizes knowledge in its most dynamic and transitional state. For the artist, her work in the library is the culmination of years of ongoing dialogue with the architect James Ingo Freed."

Furniture and Furnishings

Now that you’ve installed the floors correctly under your feet, and placed the ceiling where it belongs, over your head, what comes next? You decorate!

Gentlemen—Are you looking for that incredible 100-inch, thinner-than-paper, so-real-that-you-can-almost-touch-it picture quality, plasma television set? What about that ergonomic, electronic, full-body massage, leather chair to put in front of the TV?

Ladies—Are you looking to balance understated dramatics with contrast and hue, use concepts of feng shui to arrange furniture, or choose colors to establish mood and harmony?

Before the design of your room looks like “Death Star meets Martha Stewart,” check out Electronic House, Home, Home Theater, House Beautiful, and Interior Design at the Magazines and Newspapers Center for some decorating ideas:

Electronic House - Covers home automation and smart electronic systems that offer more security, entertainment, convenience, and fun.

Home - Emphasizes home design and architecture, including creative yet practical ideas aimed primarily at the average middle-income homeowner.

Home Theater - Dedicated to the home theater market, covering the latest in audio, video surround sound, movies and music.

House Beautiful - Articles cover home decorating and remodeling, architecture, travel, leisure and entertaining, gardening, and other topics.

If you can afford the 100-inch, plasma television set, you might consider:

Interior Design - For professionals who design office, commercial establishment, and residential interiors.

Christopher Columbus

Photo courtesy of San Francisco History Center, San Franciso Public Library

Did you know a statue of Christopher Columbus has a permanent residence in the city of San Francisco? Perched high atop Telegraph Hill in front of Coit Tower stands the once-reputed Italian explorer who thought he had discovered America. To view photographic images of this statue, check out the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection:

1. Go to the SFPL Home Page and select “SFPL-Created Research Tools.”

2. Under the “San Francisco Resources” category, select SF Historical Photograph Collection.”

3. On the left-hand side, select “Search Digitized Images."

4. Enter the keywords “Christopher Columbus” into the search box.

5. From the list of results, select “View Image” to see a larger version of each photograph.

The San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection, located in the San Francisco History Center, contains over 250,000 rare and historical photographs of San Francisco and California from 1850 to the present. This collection also includes the photo morgue of the San Francisco News-Call Bulletin, a daily San Francisco newspaper published in the early 20th century. The Magazines and Newspapers Center has copies of this newspaper dating back to 1959 on microfilm.

The Divine Comedy

He was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. His monumental epic, The Divine Comedy, took readers through an allegorical journey through hell, purgatory, and paradise. Over six centuries ago today, Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) passed away, but his work continues to endure, intriguing students of classical world literature and influencing works of art around the world.

To learn more about this Italian poet and his influential works, check out the Literature Resource Center:

1. Go to the SFPL Home Page and select Articles & Databases. You will need a San Francisco Public Library card to access the databases from outside the Library.

2. Under the Categories side bar on the left, select “Literature & Books,” then “Literature Resource Center.”

3. In the search box, enter “Dante.”

4. Select “Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)” to read an introductory overview of Dante’s life and classical works. Explore various aspects of his life and works by selecting the tabs along the top of the screen.

The Literature Resource Center, a complete literature reference database, contains biographical profiles of writers and criticism of major literary works in fiction, nonfiction, poetry, drama, history, journalism, and more.

An online magazine for Bay Area classical music lovers

The Library subscribes to several titles, such as American Record Guide, Opera News, The Gramophone, and BBC Music Magazine, that cover classical music events from all over the world.

However, one of the best sources for those interested in the local classical music scene is available only on the web. It is called the San Francisco Classical Voice and it is published every Tuesday. These "issues" can be received by signing up for e-mail delivery or by RSS feed.

From the San Francisco Classical Voice's About page:

"SFCV is an online magazine that offers reviews and previews of the Bay Area's wide range of classical music performances; insightful features from leading writers; news about the music scene; and the most complete calendar of events. With arts coverage shrinking in most media outlets, SFCV has become a leading source of information to the Bay Area community and a model for other cities around the country."

"Since September 1, 1998, SFCV has published, in addition to our weekly features, Music News, and Listening Ahead columns, over 2,700 reviews of Bay Area performances by symphony orchestras, recital presenters, opera companies, chamber groups, new-music ensembles and programs, early-music ensembles, choral groups, music festivals, chamber orchestras, musical theater groups, world music groups, youth music ensembles, and other organizations."

The Future How?

Good design used to require creative talent, but now it involves a wide range of skills that include visual skills, collaboration and project management skills, technical and programming skills, and ultimately the ability to synthesize these capabilities into a coherent and engaging design.

How magazine showcases articles on all these factors to help you both understand good design in the networked and wireless age as well as how to implement them in your own design work.

Today, everyone is a writer, designer, and media producer. Everyone is part of the global audience using a variety of media and devices. Take a look at How magazine and see how the world of information and design is converging.

To learn more about How magazine, go to http://www.howdesign.com/.

To find out about SFPL holdings for this magazine, click here.

American Bungalow

What is a bungalow?
Where does the term “bungalow" come from?
How does a bungalow’s architectural style differ?
Can you name various bungalow types?
Did you know all these questions can be answered at the San Francisco Public Library’s Magazines and Newspapers Center which has issues of American Bungalow back to 2001?

American Bungalow focuses on the preservation and restoration of 20th century homes called bungalows. This lavish, glossy quarterly provides insight to design ideas for restoring, remodeling, and even building new and updated bungalows. Colorful photographs illustrate the interiors and exteriors of featured houses. The magazine covers such topics as antiques and accessories; history; furnishings; events; the arts and crafts movement; landscaping; books and more. You will become thoroughly educated about these unique homes!