Hip-Hop Globe-trot

Rap is a distinctly American music. It incubated and developed among the African-American and Afro-Carribbean youth of New York City in the 1970s. Rap quickly spread to urban centers all over the United States blossoming into a rich variety of regional styles and scenes. It has also moved from an underground urban setting to having a strong influence on mainstream youth culture. Rap and hip hop have helped to create distinctive styles of fashion, gesture, art and video-making.

It's not surprising that such an appealing culture would have have adherents outside of the United States. The following video presents rappers from 30 countries.

Rap around the world (30 languages!) - source: Youtube

While each of these rappers have absorbed aspects of rap's roots they all find ways to use this form to express their own personal and national identity.

World rap is subject that is just beginning to receive book length treatment.

Global Noise: Rap and Hip-Hop Outside the USA is a collection of essays that look at the scenes in a number of countries. This book includes articles in the Islamic world, among ethnic minorities the Basque and the Maori, and in Germany, Italy, Bulgaria, The Netherlands, Belgium, Japan, and Korea.

The Africanist Aesthetic In Global Hip-hop by Halifu Osumare is an analysis of rap in a number of countries. While not an easy read it looks at the social, political and aesthetic manifestions of rap and hip-hop in many settings.

Like Global Noise, Black, Blanc, Beur: Rap Music and Hip-hop Culture in the Francophone World is a collection of essays by many authors. This book looks at rap in France, Quebec and Gabon.

Hip-hop Japan: Rap and The Paths of Cultural Globalization by Ian Condry while focussing on one country looks at the subject from a number of angles. Condry examines the historical influence of Black culture in Japan, rap fans and their consumer culture, the Japanese language as a medium for rap, women rappers, and the economics of rap in Japan.

For those who can read other languages the library also owns Hip hop italiano: suoni, parole e scenari del posse power by Pierfrancesco Pacoda about the Italian scene and Can pi de rao she da ji hua - 參劈的饒舌大計劃 (translates as: Tri Poets’ Rapping Big Project) by the TriPoets, group of Taiwanese rappers.

For those wanting to explore this subject more deeply the Continuum Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World has four volumes by region that frequently index the term "rap." The Music Index, an annual print index of current articles about music includes references to current articles about rap and hip hop. They are found under the subject heading Popular Music Styles and are divided geographically.

For recordings in the San Francisco Public Library's collections follow these subject links:

Rap (Music) - China - Hong Kong
Rap (Music) - Cuba
Rap (Music) - Great Britain
Rap (Music) - Israel
Rap (Music) - Jamaica
Rap (Music) - Latin America
Rap (Music) - Mexico
Rap (Music) - Puerto Rico
Rap (Music) - Russia - Federation
Rap (Music) - Vietnam

Folk Song Index

San Francisco Folk Music Club, Feb. 1974, from the San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection

Folk Song Index: A Comprehensive Guide To The Florence E. Brunnings Collection, volume 252 of the Garland Reference Library of the Humanities, is an indispensable reference resource. This work is actually Florence E. Brunnings' personal index to her personal collection of recordings, books, songbooks and magazines. She wrote in the introduction to her book:

In 1969 I became angry at not being able to find a particular song quickly enough in one of my many songbooks to follow the tune on the radio. So I decided to take a few weeks of spare time and make an index of all the songs in all my books in my books and on my records. The project soon became an obsession and eleven years later I had collected 49,300 cards, one for every song and every variant of a song in the 1,115 books and journals and the 695 records in my collection.

While this index cannot claim to be complete, and may not even be entirely representative, as it reflects a tendency towards Anglo-American folk music, it provides access to many songbooks in our collection or helps us track down songs in collections owned by other libraries. Of particular importance is its cross-indexing of multiple song titles and title variants. Very frequently the greatest challenge in tracking down a folksong is learning its correct title.

The index opens with a numerical listing of the indexed books and journals, a bibliography of these works, a numerical list of recordings and index of performers on these recordings.

The late Mrs. Brunnings came to this task as an enthusiast. While employed at a bank she became active as an amateur folk musician in the Boston area, and was even a library volunteer. According to her obituary in the Quincy Patriot Ledger, "She taught herself to play guitar, autoharp, recorder and the spoons. She even took requests for songs while playing the spoons in front of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston." Her Folk Song Index is truly a labor of love.

Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities

Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities is an exhibit at the San Francisco Musuem of Modern Art from May 30 through September 7, 2009.

This traveling exhibition, organized by the Georgia O’Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, is the first to compare the works of two major twentieth century artists: Georgia O’Keeffe (1887-1986) and Ansel Adams (1902-1984). At a time when the art world was dominated by men, O’Keeffe revolutionized the role of women artists with her lyrical, abstract paintings of desert mountains, flowers, plants and bones. Ansel Adams, a photographer and conservationist, helped legitimize photography as an art form with his haunting landscapes of the American West. They met for the first time in 1929 at a gathering of artists and writers in the Taos home of a mutual friend.

Despite the differences in their personalities, age and working methods, O’Keeffe and Adams developed a lifelong friendship through their mutual love of the natural world. The exhibition brings together approximately 100 works from both artists which reveal and contrast the similarities and differences of their views of the environment.

San Francisco Public Library has recently acquired the catalog that accompanies this SFMOMA exhibition for its reference collection. Georgia O’Keeffe and Ansel Adams: Natural Affinities (New York: Little, Brown, and Co., 2008) has superb reproductions of paintings and photographs, as well as insightful essays on both artists. The book is located in the Art and Music Department of the Main Library and may be used inside the library.

In addition to this book, the library also owns a variety of titles on both artists that may be checked out.

Books on Ansel Adams

Ansel Adams, An Autobiography with Mary Street Alinder. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1985).

Ansel Adams: Letters and Images, 1916-1984, edited by Mary Street Alinder. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1988).

Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs by Ansel Adams. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1983).

Our National Parks by Ansel Adams. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1992).

The Portfolios of Ansel Adams edited by Tim Hill. (Boston: New York Graphic Society, 1977).

This Is The American Earth by Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhall. (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1960).

Yosemite And The Range of Light by Ansel Adams. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1979).

Books on Georgia O’Keeffe

The Art & Life of Georgia O’Keeffe by Jan Garden Castro. (New York: Crown, 1995).

Georgia O’Keeffe. (New York: Penguin Books, 1987).

Georgia O’Keeffe by Lisa Mintz Messinger. (New York: Thames & Hudson, 2001).

Georgia O’Keeffe: An Eternal Spirit by Susan Wright. (New York: New Line Books, 2006).

Georgia O’Keeffe and the Calla Lily in American Art, 1860-1940 by Barbara Buhler Lynes. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).

Georgia O’Keeffe, Art and Letters by Jack Cowart and Juan Hamilton. (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1987).

Georgia O’Keeffe: Nature and Abstraction by Richard D. Marshall. (Italy: Skira, 2007).

Mark Rothko and Film

And what is art, if not a world in a frame?

(from David Anfam’s essay)

The library’s most recent book on Mark Rothko, entitled simply Rothko explores works created during the last decade of the artist's life. These works, called the Seagram Murals, are a set of nine large-scale paintings donated to the Tate under the condition that they always be displayed together. Among the essays in this book are two, 'The World in a Frame' by David Anfam and 'Rothko and the Cinematic Imagination' by Morgan Thomas, which reinterpret Rothko's later paintings and their relationship to film, through the lens and language of cinema.

From comparisons between Rothko's forms and the black monolith in Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) to the shared thematic concern with identity in John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966), these essays explore the conversation between these two mediums

This book also reveals direct influences between the painter and filmmakers. In an account involving Michelangelo Antonioni, one learns that the filmmaker, while in New York presenting his L'eclisse, paid a visit to Rothko. For over an hour, the painter brought out his work one piece at a time and was full of anxiety due to Antonioni's complete silence. When the latter finally spoke through an interpreter he stated that they both had the same subject matter: nothingness. Another version has it that the filmmaker said, "Your paintings are like my films. They are about nothing . . . with precision." Antonioni's Il Deserto Rosso was made after his meeting with Rothko and is considered a departure from Antonioni’s signature style of filmmaking.

For more related library materials on Rothko and/or Antonioni please see:

The Artist's Reality: Philosophies of Art by Mark Rothko; edited and with an introduction by Christopher Rothko.

Mark Rothko, 1903-1970: Pictures As Drama by Jacob Baal-Teshuva.

Mark Rothko: Subjects In Abstraction by Anna C. Chave.

Antonioni: The Poet of Images by William Arrowsmith; edited with an introduction and notes by Ted Perry.

The films of Michelangelo Antonioni by Peter Brunette.

The Architecture of Vision: Writings And Interviews On Cinema by Michelangelo Antonioni.

In addition, for readers with a purely technical interest in Rothko’s Seagram Murals, pages 86-87 of this title thoroughly document the paint and chemical substances used in the ground, field, glaze and figure of each of these nine paintings.

If you missed the exhibition...

San Francisco museums have been lucky to host and to curate world class art exhibits, but it’s not always possible to see every show that passes through. Luckily, San Francisco Public Library has been collecting the catalogs from these exhibits and they are available year-round. Below is a selective list of important exhibits that have originated in or travelled through San Francisco. There are many more in the collection. If you’d like to find others please search the catalog with the keyword search: "exhibition catalog and San Francisco." It is also possible to search for a particular museum or a specific show. Please come to the Art, Music and Recreation Center in the San Francisco Public Library and the knowledgeable and friendly librarians would be happy to assist you.

• Afghanistan : hidden treasures from the National Museum, Kabul. Afghanistan: Catalog of an exhibition held at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, 25 May-27 Sept. 2008; the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco, 24 Oct. 2008-25 Jan. 2009; the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 22 Feb.-17 May 2009; and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 23 June-20 Sept. 2009.

Masters of bamboo : artistic lineages in the Lloyd Cotsen Japanese Basket Collection. Catalog to accompany the exhibition held at the Asian Art Museum, Feb. 2-May 6, 2007

• The sculpture of Louise Nevelson : constructing a legend. Catalog of an exhibition held at the Jewish Museum, New York, May 5--September 16, 2007; and Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, de Young, October 27, 2007--January 13, 2008.

Outdoor Sculpture in San Francisco

Outdoor Sculpture in San Francisco: a Heritage of Public Art is a well-rounded introduction to the sculpture of the City. The authors included work based on artistic merit and historic significance. Other requirements for inclusion were that the sculpture was located in San Francisco, out-of-doors and in a public space. It is organized roughly by chapters based on location or theme, in chronological order. The title not only gives a thoughtful artistic assessment of many pieces, but provides context to the political machinations of the time as it affected the art and its placement. Some background information on individual sculptors and on different spheres of the sculpting world – in California, the United States and Europe is also helpful. Crisp black and white photographs give illustrative detail.

San Franciscans and visitors to the City will recognize many familiar pieces, and enjoy learning new details. The first chapter discusses the work placed in Golden Gate Park. A monumental piece by James Happersberger memorializing the recently assassinated president, James Garfield, was the first sculpture to be placed here, and many other memorials followed. Douglas Tilden’s Mechanic’s Monument is noted in the second chapter on the downtown area, its dynamism still a defining feature. As the decades progress, readers are treated to works by Benjamin Bufano, Henry Moore, Ruth Asawa and a great number of other important sculptors.

Back matter includes notes, photography credits, and a directory organized alphabetically by sculptor’s name, giving the title of the piece and location. The bibliography is divided into sections by material type. A brief background on the authors and lastly, an index are also included.

For other resources on sculpture in San Francisco the exhibition catalog American Sculpture: the Collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco provides a brief biography on featured sculptors and interesting details on some of the works. The Checklist of the Collection lists all sculptors alphabetically by name and title of sculpture.

For those interested in seeing the sculpture, art and other sights of San Francisco on foot, Cityguides is an excellent way to learn about the history and culture of different neighborhoods of the City. Tours are given by volunteers who do extensive research on their topic and are free for individuals. Group tours can be arranged, (there is a charge for these) and proceeds benefit the San Francisco Public Library.

A popular outdoor exhibition, Hearts in San Francisco shows the work that could be found in the City from Valentine's Day through November, 2004. Local artists were given a heart shaped form in either steel or fiberglass on which to create a unique work. These pieces were eventually auctioned off to benefit the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation.

Musikey

Musikey is a bi-monthly periodical that serves as a catalog of sheet music in print. Because sheet music comes in and out of print very quickly, this publication is an indispensable resource for music stores and for libraries with extensive sheet collections like the San Francisco Public Library. We use Musikey to help us build our score and sheet music collection and to help us answer reference questions. It allows us to better search the song anthologies already in our collections, or to make referrals to other libraries and to music stores.

Musi*key Songs indexes all popular songs that are currently in print in the United States and provides a list of song anthologies that include each song. It additionally gives the songbook's price, publisher, as well as its instrumentation or arrangement--for instance for piano and voice, fakebook, easy piano, guitar tablature, etc.

Musi*key Books details all of the song anthologies currently in print, listing their contents, format (arrangement), publisher and price. It also includes an index by arrangement, i.e., by instrumentation or level of ability. There is also an index by "Personality" that lists the collections by the name of the performing artist.

We have also recently begun subscribing to a quarterly publication, Musikey Instrumental. This periodical indexes classical music sheet music that is currently in print by composer, title, and by instrumentation.

Musikey is one of a multitude of reference resources that we use to help library patron's track down sheet music. Please consult Searching for Songs at the San Francisco Public Library for more information and guidance.