Until Today: Spectres for the International Hotel

Jerome Reyes

 Location: 868 Kearny at the International Hotel

Dates: Sept 3, 2010 to Dec 4, 2010, Wed-Sat 2-6pm

Opening Reception: Sept 2, 2010 7:30-10:00pm

Exhibition Curator: Julio César Morales

Until Today: Spectres for the International Hotel is a constellation of site-responsive spectres made in meditation of the I-Hotel’s charged socio-political history, its vernacular monuments and the everyday lives of the former and current residents. Converting what is now a senior community center in the heart of downtown San Francisco into a project space, this excavation of materials and phantoms engages in a series of situations, spatial projections, and live events to unfold throughout the duration of the exhibition. Provision of senior services will be held concurrently with the show's run, each informing the ongoing design of the project.

Until Today is an exhibition of events, sculpture, video, and architectural renderings that investigate I-Hotel sit(e)ings of (post)urban trauma, and reimaginings of land-use. Reyes' approach in the use of materials suggests possible architectural repair of the I-Hotel and as well as speculates on the significance of the I-Hotel struggle in translocalized imaginaries.

The I-Hotel, officially known as the International Hotel, was built in 1907 and served as a low-cost residential hotel located at the corner of Kearny and Jackson Streets in downtown San Francisco. The I-Hotel was also home to the hungry-i nightclub and the Mabuhay Restaurant, which later became the Mabuhay Gardens or “The Fab Mab” known as San Francisco’s Punk Rock palace. Targeted for demolition in the mid-1960s due to urban renewal efforts, the largely Filipino and Chinese American elderly residents of the hotel banded together with Bay Area activists to halt the evictions. However, the final residents were evicted on August 4, 1977 and the site remained empty until its 1981 demolition. After a long struggle, a new building opened in 2005, containing senior housing, a community center, and an archive of photography and ephemera commemorating the original I-Hotel.

As part of the exhibition, LAST NIGHTS: "There is not a problem I can’t solve because it is in the mix" invites people to rework key projects in the exhibition throughout its three-month duration. Several artists, curators, collectives, scholars, architects, musicians, designers, and I-Hotel tenants & activists,  will engage and extend collaborative research facilitated by Reyes, Morales and ko Robinson with David Palumbo-Liu, Nancy Chen and area students from San Francisco Art Institute, Stanford University, and Galeria de la Raza over the past year.

Guests and performers to join the reauthoring of Until Now's works in a variety of formats, karaoke performances, debates, think-tank and make-tanks, among others include lead singer of The Avengers Penelope Houston, author/publisher V. Vale, Torolab founder Raúl Cárdenas, and curator René De Guzman. A full list of participants and dates will be announced shortly. All events are free to the public.

The forthcoming site-specific exhibition catalogue, edited by tammy ko Robinson and designed by 21Trillion Collective, includes new essays about the legacy of the I-Hotel, and conversations between Jerome Reyes' works and Chester Hartman (The Poverty & Race Research Action Council), Dan Gonzales (San Francisco State University), David Palumbo-Liu (Stanford University), Estella Habal (San Jose State University), Hungying Chen (ARENA), Hyewon Lee (Art Historian/Curator, Deajin University), Julio César Morales (Artist/Curator/Founder of Queens Nails Projects), and Sudarat Musikawong (Siena College). All muse renderings are dedicated to those in struggle and to Mabuhay Gardens owner Ness Aquino and I-Hotel activist/poet Al Robles.

Bio:

Born in 1983, San Francisco CA, Jerome Reyes’ exhibition venues include the Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt, Germany, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts for Bay Area Now 5 Triennial, The Contemporary Museum Honolulu, Asian Art Museum, and was also a 2006 artist-in-residence at the M. H. deYoung Museum. Other venues include SF Camerawork and Queens Nails Annex.

Support:

Special thanks to the Manilatown Heritage Foundation, the San Francisco Arts Commission Cultural Equity Grant Program’s Individual Artist Commission for their vision and support of this site-specific exhibition. This I-Hotel project is also made possible in part with support from the Zellerbach Family Foundation and SFAI's City Studio (2008-2010) with thanks to the Surdna Foundation, the San Francisco Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.

Website: www.ihotelproject.com (launched on opening)

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