Tom Sachs "Space Program: Europa" @ Yerba Buena Center for the Arts In San Francisco

Tom Sachs and his team of astronauts set their sights on the next frontier of space exploration in Space Program: Europa. Targeting Jupiter’s icy moon, Europa, this expansive sculpture exhibition offers an unprecedented view into Sachs’ extraordinary artistic output and advances his quest to find extraterrestrial life with bricolaged sculptures. The exhibition will fill YBCA with everything his astronauts need to successfully complete their voyage—including the Mobile Quarantine Facility, Mission Control, the Apollo-eraLanding Exploration Module (LEM), and special equipment for conducting scientific experiments—immersing the audience in a universe of sculpture occupying the entire downstairs galleries in addition to YBCA’s public spaces. Sachs has also created a new site-specific installation, Logjam Café. Logjam Café will be open to the public as a neighborhood coffee shop, occasional bar, and OCD rehab center, where visitors can experience firsthand the artist’s obsession with the tools of his craft. Space Program: Europa will be on view until January 17, 2016 at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. photographs by Annabel Graham

Three Way: A Trilogy of Vintage Erotica

"It's rarely a bad idea to show some sex films. I mean...really. This is a small series and is intended, certainly, to entertain. But it's also intended to investigate both the fantasies and realities of sexual representation — that uncomfortable space where we so often find a huge gap. When you place a slick, erotic daydream like Camille 2000 against the gritty reality of A Labor of Love, the difference becomes all the more stark. And then there's The Wild Pussycat, a masterpiece of what-the-fuck-is-this-ism. It combines erotic scenes with some pretty rough sadism — but somehow becomes an intense, unintentional black comedy instead of a just another crappy 60s sexploitation picture. Combined, I hope the three films illustrate some of the perils and positives of depicting sex, and raise questions about how, or if, anything has ultimately changed. Stay tuned for 'Three-Way Redux: A Trilogy of Contemporary Erotica,' coming soon." — Joel Shepard, Film & Video Curator, Three Way: A Trilogy of Vintage Erotica is showing the weekend at the Yerba Buena Center in San Francisco. www.ybca.org