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Defining his conceptual practice as [i]dea oriented situations not directed at the production of static objects, Tom Marioni's work poses questions about where and when the presence of his artwork is constructed and perceived. Here, and while engaging with media including drawing, painting, sculpture, installation, and photography, the narratives Marioni sets around his individual works consistently emphasize processes that precede or surround his presentation of objects, installations, events, and actions.

Locally, in just a dozen years, we can look to the total reinvention of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the merger of the collections of the de Young Museum and the Palace of the Legion of Honor - and the renovation and expansion of the latter - and the construction of new museum buildings at Stanford University and in San Jose. The process continues unabated. Irreparably damaged by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989, the M.H. de Young Memorial Museum in Golden Gate Park, after a number of setbacks, is on the way to being replaced by a new, stylish state-of-the-art facility designed by Swiss architectural hotshots Herzog & de Meuron. The new de Young will not just be a new building, however. Under the leadership of Fine Arts Museums director Harry S. Parker III and chief curator Steven A. Nash, and with the often painful input of San Francisco's vocal citizenry, the de Young is being reconceived from the ground up.

Ruscha was calmly handing out bottles of Pacificos from the fridge, without breaking into a sweat or even much of a conversation, aside from the occasional \"here ya go\" or \"want a beer?\" Does Ruscha, known for his graphic punch and visual wit, think that drinking beer is the highest form of art? \"I don't know about a form of art; a form of life maybe,\" he says. Like many guests, she had never met Marioni, who is best known as a precursor of artists like Rirkrit Tiravanija and Carsten Holler who do things like cook Thai food in galleries and run nightclubs in the name of art, a loose movement that's rather flavorlessly called \"social sculpture\" and even more blandly \"relational aesthetics.\"

\"[Tom Marioni]: Trees and Birds, Drawings 1969-1999\" was organized by Marcia Tanner, who also contributed a succinct but enlightening essay to the show's catalog that places Marioni's drawing in the context of his larger career and conceptual art internationally. The exhibition serves both as a good introduction to the art of the dean of Bay Area conceptual artists and a welcome reminder of his achievement to those who are familiar with it. The \"trees\" in the show are part of an ongoing series in which the artist makes marks on a sheet of paper (or linen or printing plate) that measure the span of his reach. The earliest work in the series, \"Drawing a Line as Far as I Can Reach,\" was made during a seven-day performance at San Francisco's Reese Palley Gallery in 1972. Sitting on the floor in a lotus position in front of a large sheet of brown wrapping paper taped to the wall, Marioni made vertical pencil marks upon the paper, more than 1,000 of them clustered in the center, until the pencil was worn down. The resulting work looks like the tall thin trunk of a tree, sprouting growth at its tip and shooting roots out at its base. The \"birds\" in the show are made by another equally non-focused procedure. Attaching a sheet of paper to a drum, Marioni drums with both hands a tattoo on the surface, leaving traces of the steel brushes on it. Each hand leaves a different pattern, the right more horizontal, the left more vertical, that together create the image of a bird in flight. Marioni also sees the right hand pattern as feminine and the left as masculine, so that the image merges both genders into a unity.

Photo(s); 1. [Hope Ginsburg] photographs artist [Erwin Wurm] attempting one of his \"One Minute Sculptures\" with a red sweater as part of the BMA's \"Work Ethic.\" Ginsburg's art is also represented in the exhibit. 2. - 3. Paul Taylor examines his salad plate, part of [Alison Knowles]' \"Make a Salad,\" which he had the artist autograph. [Tom Marioni]'s contribution was to create a bar scene called \"The Act of Drinking Beer with Friends Is the Highest Form of Art.\" 4. Baltimore artist [Hugh Pocock] drills for water in the BMA sculpture garden. Student Janine Slaker assists.; Credit: CHRISTOPHER T. ASSAF : SUN STAFF PHOTOS

Jim Dine leads the way with a 1976 etching of the Eiffel Tower exploding like an oil well above the words, \"Paris Smiles\" in sans-serif lettering. He is accompanied by Frank Stella in his \"lyrical\" Minimalist mode with a 1973 lithograph of two striped squares, one black and white, the other in color. With the appearance of William Brice's small etchings, monochrome and colored, emerges a hint of the dealer's preference -- for small shapes drawn in fine lines and suspended against smudgy backgrounds. Grace Markham, an artist new to this observer, achieves a similar effect in \"Foxtrot,\" a rectangle in which shapes -- a house, vegetation and possibly clouds -- hang like doodles touched here and there with color. Tom Marioni's color woodblock of the pi symbol, printed in blood red on white silk, looks as Oriental as \"Flying Yen\" in the same medium. But neither symbol offers clues to the artist's past as the enfant terrible of Bay Area Conceptualism.

''One of our principal goals is to nurture the development of the individual creative artist in America,'' said Frank Hodsoll, the endowment's chairman. ''These grants will provide encouragement and support for a group of outstanding visual artists.''

Brent Riley, a figurative painter who has lived in Cincinnati all his 39 years, said the phrase \"Banned in Boston\" had long been the cliche of censorship. \"But Boston is a far more enlightened city,\" he said. \"I hope they come up with a new phrase: \"Banned in Cincinnati.' I almost think the city should be punished.\" Neither artists who live in Cincinnati nor those who have left were startled by the indictments. \"The whole controversy is consistent with everything I remember about Cincinnati,\" said [Joseph Marioni], who worked as an assistant to the director of the Contemporary Arts Center in 1970. One of the best-known artists who have left Cincinnati for the wider world is Jim Dine, who was born in Cincinnati in 1935 and moved to New York City in 1959.

Prosecutor Craig Brooks, arguing no plea agreements had been made with [Jerry Jay Larson], objected to Larson's request to withdraw his pleas. According to police reports, Larson, a caterer, snuck into [Tom Dey]'s Cazadero home on April 2 and hid in the shower. When Dey arrived home that night, Larson accosted him with a gun and demanded to know why Dey had broken off their relationship of 2-1/2 years. That relationship ended nine months earlier. After being held at gunpoint for 3-1/2 hours, Dey was able to escape on a ruse. He went to a neighbor's house for help. When sheriff's deputies arrived,Larson was gone with Dey's pickup. He was arrested two weeks later.