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@seesjournal

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art criticism - now on App Store! - - independent/loud/comprehensive/free - art/theater/drag calendar - SF/SD/Seattle/Boston - more cities soon

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“Some shows you leave. This one loops.”

At UCSD’s Mandeville Art Gallery, Off-Screen Space gathers sixteen works about everything past the edge of the frame — Lorna Simpson’s empty theater seats on felt, a handwritten memory of a car crash with more drivers than the car ever had, moths circling on the ceiling, and a seventy-six-second film on a secondhand kitchen TV that Sisif J. Patrick calls the best single work he’s reviewed this season. Finally, a yes. Read his review of Alison O’Daniel’s exhibition, on view through December 4, at the link in bio.

📷 Installation view of “Off-Screen Space” at the Mandeville Art Gallery, UC San Diego (photo by Sisif J. Patrick / Sees Journal)

@ucsd.mandevilleartgallery @ucsdmfa @ucsandiego @ava.aviva.avnisan @surajisranicentercinema @zacharyepcar @dnadff @vvvfffuuu @levkalman @standard.fantastic @lforleisure @raraspeaks @platosbeard @youngjoonkwak @rajeesamarasinghe @lornasimpson @joshtonies @ktstudio @adrianatrujillo @jwest20011 @constellation.matters @zamboni.duet @ucsd.ah @ucsdvisarts taken in UCSD University Art Gallery by @seesjournal

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7 days ago

“San Diego, the minutes are open. Go see. Come back. Write it down.”

Sees Journal’s first editorial. In ten weeks this city filled rooms from Logan Heights to La Jolla — and almost nobody wrote it down. We looked for when the silence started and found it has anniversaries: 1992, 2010, 2019, 2025. The critics never left; the pages kept dying. So here is an argument for honest criticism over applause, a salute to the writers who kept San Diego’s minutes in other cities’ papers, and an open invitation — to writers, artists, institutions, and anyone who goes to things. Read “The Unwritten City” at the link in bio.

📷 Ten weeks, seven exhibitions, August 29 – September 25, 2026 (photos: Sisif J. Patrick / See Journal)

@athenaeumartcenter @athenaeummusicandarts @timkenmuseum @sdmesacollege @sdmesacollege_gallery @bestpracticeok @breadandsalt_sandiego @mcasandiego @sdsu_art @sdsuartgalleries @latimes @latimes_entertainment @leahollman @rlpincus @sandiegouniontribune @sandiegoreader @wsdipiero @e_rooklidge @hereinjournal @kpbs @juliadixonevans @artinamerica @usdcas @usdgalleries @ucsandiego @ucsd.mandevilleartgallery @insite_art @allankaprow @eleanor_antin @sandiegomuseumofart taken in San Diego, California by @seesjournal

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19 days ago

“The field is expanded, all right. The diagram is missing.”

At SDSU’s University Art Gallery @sdsu_art @sdsuartgalleries , Edgeless gathers four painters who cut, stitch, burn, and fire their way past painting’s borders — beeswax honeycomb lit with cotton wicks, kiln-fired counterfeits of canvas, thirty-one issues of a house-painters’ trade magazine strung on a clothesline. Sisif J. Patrick finds two artists with real reasons to leave the stretcher, and an exhibition hung with none — no beginning, no sequence, no edges where edges are the curator’s whole art. Read his review, on view through December 3, at the link in bio.

📷 Installation view of “Edgeless: In the Expanded Field of Painting” at the SDSU University Art Gallery (photo by Sisif J. Patrick / Sees Journal)

@mollyzuckermanhartung @monique_van_genderen @the_lizard_of_oz @annabetbeze @jacqueline______marino taken in SDSU School of Art and Design by @seesjournal

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22 days ago

“A disco ball at that height is a flag at half-mast.”

At MCASD @mcasandiego La Jolla, Visiones Nocturnas gathers thirteen Latine and Latin American artists around queer nightlife — real dance floors peeled up and hung like tapestries, six hundred broken bottles from border bars, a porcelain disco ball lowered to an inch above the ground, and Teresa Margolles’s portraits of trans women standing on the last square feet of Juárez’s demolished clubs. Sisif J. Patrick salutes the courage of the show, weighs it against the standard Félix González-Torres set in 1991, and finds a museum holding a wake and calling it a party. Read his review, on view through January 17, at the link in bio.

📷 Installation view of “Visiones Nocturnas: Queer Nightlife in Contemporary Art” at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego (photo by Sisif J. Patrick / Sees Journal)

@crummy_disposition @laura_aguilar_photo @_muneco @juuuanitx @aminacruz.studio @alexismartinezgutierrez @morenxx_x @lachicaboom @archivos_margolles @xelestialmorenoluz @andres_payan @lupewhat @homeboybeautiful @isa.ybarra taken in La Jolla, California by @seesjournal

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a month ago

“Grief dressed as labor, loss exhibited as heritage.”

At Bread & Salt @breadandsalt_sandiego , Logan Heights’ own Bryan Ali Sanchez @bryan_ali_sanchez returns from Yale @yaleschoolofart with wall-sized herds of bulls — painting’s oldest subject, handled with real skill. Sisif J. Patrick finds the show’s truest moments in two first-person canvases, an arm reaching for a downed animal and a view from the saddle, then asks what kind of first person is doing the reaching. Read his review of “Raíces en el Campo” at the link in bio.

📷 Installation view of “Bryan Ali Sanchez: Raíces en el Campo” at Bread & Salt, San Diego (photo by Sisif J. Patrick / Sees Journal)

#loganheights #artreview #sisifjpatrick #artsandiego #artcritic by @seesjournal

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a month ago

“A show full of needles. Not one of them moves.”

At BEST PRACTICE @bestpracticeok in Logan Heights, noé olivas @noe.e.olivas gilds a border fence, razor wire and all, un-weaves a cactus-shaped hole in its mesh, and turns tires to ceramic. Sisif J. Patrick traces every gesture to its precedent — a door in the fence in 1988, the fence painted into sky in 2011, barbed wire on the loom for thirty years — and asks what’s left when the craft is real but the card is pre-printed. Read his review of “Tierra y Cielo,” on view through October 17, at the link in bio.

📷 Installation view of “noé olivas: Tierra y Cielo” at BEST PRACTICE, San Diego (photo Sisif J. Patrick / Sees Journal)

#seesjournal #artcritique #sandiego #sandiegoart #sisifjpatrick taken in San Diego, California by @seesjournal

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a month ago

Your next good thing is already happening. SeesJournal is now on the App Store! An independent guide to art, theater, and drag across San Diego, San Francisco, Seattle, and Boston. See what’s on today, this weekend, and beyond, from official venue sources.

Bookmark the maybe. Star what you saw. Build a journal of the nights that stayed with you. And when you want more than a listing: the app finds what’s worth seeing — chief art critic Sisif J. Patrick argues about whether it was.

Three verdicts up now at seesjournal.com. Free, no account needed. Download at the link in bio. Go see.

#ArtCriticism #SanDiegoArt #Theater #Drag #AppStore by @seesjournal

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a month ago

“The art happened once, and it was made of tape.”

At the Mesa College Art Gallery @sdmesacollege_gallery , muralist Thao Huynh French’s @thaofrenchart debut solo show Future Flowers holds a smuggled refugee archive, a Lunar New Year festival impounded behind police tape, and an opening where some in the room were moved to tears. Sisif J. Patrick asks what produced those tears — the history or the exhibition — and finds they are not the same thing. Read his review, on view through September 17, at the link in bio.

📷 Installation view of “Thao Huynh French: Future Flowers” at the Mesa College Art Gallery, San Diego (photo by Sisif J. Patrick / Sees Journal) taken in San Diego, California by @seesjournal

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a month ago

“Death earned its place in Arcadia by being as beautiful as Arcadia. This one doesn’t try.”

For her residency at the Timken Museum of Art @timkenmuseum , Margaret Noble @margaret.noble surrounds a projected Boucher pastoral with a car-sized skull, crows, and creeping shadows, painted in ink on the museum’s wall. Sisif J. Patrick weighs the intervention against the painters who first put death in paradise — and against the painting itself, hanging thirty steps away. Read his review of “Drift,” on view through September 6, at the link in bio.

📷 Installation view of “Margaret Noble: Drift” at the Timken Museum of Art, San Diego (photo by Sisif J. Patrick / Sees Journal) by @seesjournal

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2 months ago

“In the club, you are the vibrating material. Here, hazelnuts have the experience on your behalf while you observe from a respectful distance.”

Ess Whiteley’s @ess_whiteley sound installation at the Athenaeum Art Center @athenaeumartcenter fills upturned speaker cones with rocks, ping-pong balls, and hazelnuts, wires the lights to the buzzing, and asks visitors to marvel that sound moves matter. Sisif J. Patrick had already learned that lesson, standing too close to a subwoofer. Read his review of “listening materials,” on view through October 17, at the link in bio.

📷 Installation view of “Ess Whiteley: listening materials” at the Athenaeum Art Center, San Diego (photo by Sisif J. Patrick / Sees Journal) by @seesjournal

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2 months ago

Yay! taken in San Diego, California by @seesjournal

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2 months ago

Welcome to our new art calendar for San Diego, CA! taken in San Diego, California by @seesjournal

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3 months ago