Wheels of Change; the Car Culture in California

Wednesday, November 4 ,2009
6- 8 PM
 
California Historical Society
678 Mission Street
San Francisco CA 94105




California is often seen as the land of freeways and bumper-to-bumper traffic, but the story of the state's long, enthusiastic involvement with the car has not been told. In Wheels of Change, historian Kevin Nelson tells the story of the personalities that have helped shape this story, from engineering wizards to rebels without a cause to gearheads and dry lake racers, and traces the narrative of a car culture unlike any other.

Nelson will begin his presentation with the car's initial glory days in California: the glamour Barney Oldfield brought to the early days of racing, the adventure and romance that Hollywood piled on, and the hot rods, drag racers, and custom cars that defined the postwar years. Designers like Harley Earl, the distinctive automobile stylist and designer of the Corvette, and the innovations developed by the design studios that dot Southern California today played key roles. And he documents the influence of the aircraft industry and and the early embrace of European sports cars and other imports changed the automobile in America forever.

It is not possible to think of California without the influence of cars, nor can anyone imagine how the modern automobile would have developed without California.

Afterward, we'll grab a quick bite and join other meetups at the opening night party at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to explore the culture of the tropics..

Presented by the California Historical Society: http://www.california...

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A "Vital Place" for Joy:
Contemporary Brazilian Music & Art

From California's car culture to Brazil's Tropicalia culture ...

Celebrate the art, music and spirit of the tropics with the World Music and Quirky Art Meetups at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

$12 in advance, $15 at the door
FREE for YBCA Members and a guest

We'll meet up at YBCA for the opening of its new exhibition, When Lives Become Form: Contemporary Brazilian Art, 1960s to the Present, with a party featuring contemporary Brazilian music and art, Campari cocktails and the hip and trendy YBCA crowd.

Music features Brazilian jazz pianist Marcos Silva Ensemble, in a musical fusion of Tropicália with contemporary Brazilian jazz, and Grupo Falso Baiano, an ensemble that blends joyous Brazilian choro with modern influences such as jazz and samba. (Choro is one of Brazil's earliest popular musics, dating back to the late 1800s, and, similar to jazz, it reflects the melding of African rhythms with a melodic and harmonic structure closely resembling Baroque Classical music.)

When Lives Become Form: Contemporary Brazilian Art, 1960s to the Present celebrates Brazil’s creative vitality through the works of artists, fashion designers and architects.

The exhibit, organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, highlights artists and creators who were part of, or inspired by, “Tropicália,” an artistic movement which arose in Brazil during the 1960s around the “originality of the culture of people who live in the tropics.” Its central figure, Helio Oiticica, took inspiration from Brazilian favelas, “a product of fantastic improvisation in creating a ‘vital place’ for communicating not form so much as joy.”