OSA x Saint Denis
OSA Emporium
1805 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland
Feb. 13, 2025
Facing out from plate glass windows, stencil-cut portraits of Oaklanders past and present gazed at the rainy street, their legacies and the gentle interior lights of OSA’s latest outpost illuminating the curves of cheeks and eyebrows, lips and curls, a neck tattoo.
These portraits, created by the students of Oakland School of the Arts under the instruction of visiting artist Vincent Croguennec, were the base layer of a project aimed at capturing the spirit of Oakland. They were on display at what used to be Rudy’s Must Fail, which was replaced by a brightly and drunkenly-lit adult arcade chain Emporium, and is now OSA’s latest outpost: 1805 Telegraph has seen some things in the past 10 years, but here’s to hoping the still-spare, half-finished space remains under the control of OSA for years to come.
Croguennec brought French flavor and the similarly activist-minded energy of “art and resilience” of the city of outskirts-of-Paris Saint-Denis to the Town as part of a years-old partnership between the cities. (I could not find evidence of any sister-city linkage or other official relationship between the two cities—if you can call Saint Denis that?—but perhaps their shared reputations as dangerous younger cousin to nearby metropolis is enough). Under his tutelage the students learned to stencil and layer screen prints they designed to create complex compositions bearing messages about their hometown.
The layers were made of images of influential Oaklanders, representations of iconic landmarks and other physical representations of space, and finally, text with words and phrases pertaining to the Bay Area. The project required collaboration at each step, teaching “shared decision-making, problem solving on the spot,” and consideration of how all the elements would interact to create a whole, “final work that was more dynamic and interconnected than any one element on its own.”
Featuring musicians like Kehlani (an OSA grad), Goapele, and Del the Funky Homosapien, Black Panther Party leaders like Angela Davis, Elaine Brown, and Huey Newton, along with Kamala Harris and a handful of others, it was clear the students valued the city’s activist and artistic histories and present. Their chosen landmarks—Lake Merritt, the Fox Theater, BART signage, Victorian houses, the Bay Bridge, Stay Gold Deli, and Children’s Oholoneland (formerly Fairyland)— also made obvious their love of the spaces and places and cultural signifiers they have grown up around. Phrases included “Free the People”, “Oakland Gone Wild”, and “Welcome to Oakland,” suggesting some of the energy forever bubbling here, with singular words and zip codes, area codes — “Hella”, “Hype”, “415/510”, or simply, “Oakland”, succinctly embodying the Town spirit.
Three point five finished and two (top right) incomplete pieces.
Some compositions felt complete and near-professionally finished with others lagging behind in terms of cohesion and voice. With an identical set of materials and instructions at hand, I loved seeing how each team brought a wildly different approach to use of color, negative space, and complexity of content and interactions between elements. Delightful surprises upon closer inspection, such as a map of Oakland or Turf dancers, kept my eyes moving across the wall, but the incomplete works to be more arresting, their spareness a pleasant reprieve from the barrage of content beside them.
I also found myself missing a whole lot of information and detail behind the pieces. I wanted to know how teams were chosen, how that work was divvied up, how subjects and spaces and phrases were chosen. Who selected the color palette? And where will the pieces go from here? Sharing some of the elements of the process, like the stencils and scrapped, incomplete works was an excellent touch, but I longed for far, far more.
With no information on the school’s site (or elsewhere), we can only guess, but I will also hope for a more thorough exhibition in the future, with statements from students and, for other process-driven projects, more in-the-weeds elements shared and sketches and notes from students to ogle.
