Our weekend arts picks include site-specific visual art installations, outdoor works, a brand new play and two drive-in classical music performances to sweeten up your weekend.
Credit: Michael James Armstrong
Above: Detail of sculptural materials gathered from the Bread and Salt site and Logan Heights neighborhood, used by artist Joshua Moreno in a new exhibition at ICE Gallery, opening Friday, Feb. 12, 2021.
We have lots of options for your art and culture fix across San Diego this weekend — regardless of whether you’re celebrating Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day or a blissful nothing. I love that we could almost take a mini art tour with all the outdoor visual art options available this weekend. Plus, with an appointment-based site-specific work at ICE Gallery, drive-in classical chamber music and a few streaming arts options, there’s plenty to pick from.
Joshua Moreno, ‘Everything Is Temporary’
Visual Art
Joshua Moreno’s new work at ICE Gallery (part of the Bread and Salt complex) depends on the light of the sun, so they’re booking appointments to view it from sunrise to just before sunset. It wasn’t until I clicked through the reservation system myself that I realized they really mean starting 6:30 a.m. in the morning. Don’t worry, there are plenty of afternoon options too.
Moreno’s exhibition is made up of two site-specific installations. One, “Apparitions,” features graphite drawings directly on the walls at ICE. They’re tracings of the temporary shadows, reflections and flickers of light throughout the day. The other work, “The Structure of Things,” is a sculpture made only of objects and materials Moreno found in the direct vicinity: within the Bread and Salt building or in the nearby streets of Logan Heights — site-specific in multiple ways.
Moreno, who formerly lived in San Diego, will be on-site for any appointments this weekend.
Details: On view by appointment, booked online Friday through May 8. 1955 Julian Ave., Logan Heights. Free.
‘Run/Fire’
Theater
The second of Cygnet Theatre’s “Finish Line” new play commissions, Aurin Squire’s “Run/Fire” is a look at justice and empathy. It’s set in a college town, with a college student caught up in a chain reaction of crime. This piece was workshopped publicly over the course of a week in January, directed by Lamar Perry, and the final product is viewable on-demand just until Sunday night.
Squire is a writer for the NBC show “This Is Us” and other television shows, and is an award-winning playwright as well as a reporter. And with Perry’s direction and a week of intense workshopping, I’m excited to see the finished reading. Tickets are pay-what-you-can for this virtual performance, with pricing options starting at $5.
Details: Stream on demand through Sunday. $5-50.
Mainly Mozart Drive-In Shows: ‘Mozart, Tchaikovsky and The Barber of Seville’ and ‘The Four Winds of Mozart’
Music
Mainly Mozart’s Festival of Orchestras is this week, taking over the Del Mar Fairgrounds parking lot with members of the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the San Francisco Symphony. David Chan, the Met Opera’s orchestra concertmaster, will conduct. I’m recommending two separate shows here, depending on your tolerance for Valentine’s-themed events. First, Saturday’s performance features Mozart’s “Concerto for Flute and Harp in C Major” (who doesn’t love the harp?), a one-act opera by the Italian composer Mascagni, Tchaikovsky’s “Variations on a Rococo Theme” for solo cello and orchestra, and Rossini’s iconic overture from “The Barber of Seville.”
And for the romantics out there, celebrate Valentine’s Day on Sunday with Mozart’s “Sinfonia Concertante for Four Winds,” which is actually a lost text, with the version we now know based on an anonymous manuscript that came forward nearly a hundred years after Mozart penned it. So you’ll get a pleasant dose of oboe, flute, bassoon and French horn and a little bit of international mystery. They’ll round out the evening with Bizet’s “Symphony in C,” which the French composer wrote when he was 17. Nothing more romantic than spending Valentine’s day comparing your own teenage accomplishments to this.
Details: Saturday and Sunday at 6 p.m. 2260 Jimmy Durante Blvd., Del Mar. $49-100.
More music: For a quieter, at-home serving of music, pianist Gloria Cheng takes on some fantastic contemporary compositions, including works by UC San Diego’s Lei Liang, John Adams, Phyllis Chen (a toy piano piece!), Ravel’s “Mother Goose Suite” and more. Livestreamed from the Athenaeum‘s beautiful music room, Monday at 7 p.m.
Even more music: One of my recent local faves, 18Scales, are part of the lineup in the Casbah‘s jam-packed Monday night free hip hop livestream, alongside CALiENS, Skinny Veny, Kahlee and Daygo Fatts, hosted by Nate Whitsell. Monday at 8 p.m.
A Mini-Tour Of New Outdoor Visual Art Across Town
First three stops: ‘Civil Liberties’
Catch not one, not two but three brilliant women artists in the Civil Liberties Project virtual walkthrough on Saturday at 6 p.m. And you can spend an afternoon on a real scavenger hunt across town checking out each of the three individual exhibitions, which are all set up to be experienced from outside. Kristi Lin’s “Borrowed Scenery” is at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park, Natalia Quintero’s “Mending” is at The Front in San Ysidro, and Famo Musa’s “Fragments of Memory” is at You Belong Here in City Heights. You can read my feature on the artists and the Civil Liberties fellowship here.
Next stop: Art Crossing
Barrio Logan-based art and event group Walk The Block and Ground Floor Murals have teamed up for Art Crossing, a new outdoor project featuring the work of more than 30 artists along Logan Avenue, from the 2060 block through the intersection with 26th St. It’s self-guided and all the works are viewable 24/7, so start walking along with your eyes peeled for art. Each artist was given a 4 x 4′ wooden panel and a support beam to create a freestanding structure. Opens Saturday and runs through Feb. 28th.
‘Newz!’ Mural
While you’re tooling around town looking for outdoor art, head to La Jolla to check out the newest installment in the Athenaeum’s Murals of La Jolla project, just unveiled a few weeks ago. It’s at 7766 Fay Avenue, and it’s a work by LA-based contemporary multidisciplinary artist Math Bass. The mural, “Newz!” is very geometric and abstract while also being sort of cartoonish — I feel like art nerds and toddlers will love it equally. You can find a list of addresses of all the other murals on the program’s site.
For more arts events, check out the KPBS/Arts calendar, or sign up for the weekly KPBS/arts newsletter.
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Julia Dixon Evans
Arts Calendar Editor and Producer
I write the weekly KPBS Arts newsletter and edit and produce the KPBS Arts calendar. I am interested in getting San Diegans engaged with the diversity of art and culture made by the creative people who live here.
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