Alison O'Daniel: The Tuba Thieves
Guest curator, McEvoy Foundation for the Arts screening room program. In conjunction with "What is an edition anyway?" May 24 - September 7, 2019.
Alison O’Daniel’s "The Tuba Thieves" (2013–ongoing) comprises several short films that center on acts of listening and producing sound. This half-hour program highlights two scenes that reimagine legendary concerts: the 1952 premiere of John Cage’s 4’33” performed in New York, and a 1979 punk show and closing party of the Deaf Club in San Francisco. The poetic captioning in the third fictionalized narrative about a chorus of plants during a storm foregrounds O’Daniel’s collaborative process of commissioning the Deaf artist Christine Sun Kim to develop the soundtrack.
Alison O’Daniel’s "The Tuba Thieves" (2013–ongoing) comprises several short films that center on acts of listening and producing sound. This half-hour program highlights two scenes that reimagine legendary concerts: the 1952 premiere of John Cage’s 4’33” performed in New York, and a 1979 punk show and closing party of the Deaf Club in San Francisco. The poetic captioning in the third fictionalized narrative about a chorus of plants during a storm foregrounds O’Daniel’s collaborative process of commissioning the Deaf artist Christine Sun Kim to develop the soundtrack.
Pat O'Neill: Three Answers
Curator, Pat O'Neill: Three Answers, SFMOMA,
April 20-August 4, 2019
A pioneer of experimental cinema, the Los Angeles artist Pat O’Neill developed innovative techniques for radically altering imagery in the predigital era. His highly inventive 16mm films from the 1960s and 1970s explore dense layering and movement within a still frame.
In recent years, O’Neill has reworked several of his early films into multiple projections. The dynamic three-channel installation Saugus Series (1974/2014) will be joined by the films 7362 (1967) and Let’s Make a Sandwich (1978), a suite of related framed pieces, and an accompanying online screening program.
In conjunction with Pat O’Neill: Three Answers, SFMOMA will spotlight O’Neill’s contemporary moving image work in a June weekend presentation (June 6–9, 2019) in the Gina and Stuart Peterson White Box. A second June 22 program in the SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater will center on the Los Angeles Independent Film Oasis (1976–81), a collective founded by a group of filmmakers that included Pat and Beverly O’Neill.
April 20-August 4, 2019
A pioneer of experimental cinema, the Los Angeles artist Pat O’Neill developed innovative techniques for radically altering imagery in the predigital era. His highly inventive 16mm films from the 1960s and 1970s explore dense layering and movement within a still frame.
In recent years, O’Neill has reworked several of his early films into multiple projections. The dynamic three-channel installation Saugus Series (1974/2014) will be joined by the films 7362 (1967) and Let’s Make a Sandwich (1978), a suite of related framed pieces, and an accompanying online screening program.
In conjunction with Pat O’Neill: Three Answers, SFMOMA will spotlight O’Neill’s contemporary moving image work in a June weekend presentation (June 6–9, 2019) in the Gina and Stuart Peterson White Box. A second June 22 program in the SFMOMA Phyllis Wattis Theater will center on the Los Angeles Independent Film Oasis (1976–81), a collective founded by a group of filmmakers that included Pat and Beverly O’Neill.
Nothing Stable under Heaven
Co-curator, SFMOMA. March 3 - September 16, 2018
Artists: Kevin Beasley, Dawoud Bey, Andrea Bowers, Tiffany Chung, Tony Feher, Amy Franceschini, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Hans Haacke, Leslie Hewitt , Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Emily Jacir, Arthur Jafa, Rinko Kawauchi, An-My Lê, Glenn Ligon, An Te Liu, Kerry James Marshall, Mike Mills, Richard Misrach, Simon Norfolk, Lisa Oppenheim, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Trevor Paglen, Mauro Restiffe, Judith Joy Ross, Michael Rovner, Allan Sekula, Taryn Simon, Penelope Umbrico, and Tobias Wong.
"Nothing Stable under Heaven" reflects on the contested past, the turbulent present, and the unpredictable future, examining how individual and collective voices can be heard in an uncertain world. The title is taken from an essay by James Baldwin, in which he claims the role of the artist in society is to reveal its inherent instability. Featuring contemporary work from the museum’s collection by artists such as Andrea Bowers, Hans Haacke, Emily Jacir, Arthur Jafa, and Glenn Ligon, this exhibition explores the ways that these artists inform our understanding of social, ecological, and civic issues—including security and surveillance, evolving modes of communication, and political resistance.
"Nothing Stable under Heaven" is a collaboration between the Architecture + Design, Education + Public Practice, Media Arts, Painting + Sculpture, and Photography Departments.
Artists: Kevin Beasley, Dawoud Bey, Andrea Bowers, Tiffany Chung, Tony Feher, Amy Franceschini, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Hans Haacke, Leslie Hewitt , Jessica Jackson Hutchins, Emily Jacir, Arthur Jafa, Rinko Kawauchi, An-My Lê, Glenn Ligon, An Te Liu, Kerry James Marshall, Mike Mills, Richard Misrach, Simon Norfolk, Lisa Oppenheim, Jorge Otero-Pailos, Trevor Paglen, Mauro Restiffe, Judith Joy Ross, Michael Rovner, Allan Sekula, Taryn Simon, Penelope Umbrico, and Tobias Wong.
"Nothing Stable under Heaven" reflects on the contested past, the turbulent present, and the unpredictable future, examining how individual and collective voices can be heard in an uncertain world. The title is taken from an essay by James Baldwin, in which he claims the role of the artist in society is to reveal its inherent instability. Featuring contemporary work from the museum’s collection by artists such as Andrea Bowers, Hans Haacke, Emily Jacir, Arthur Jafa, and Glenn Ligon, this exhibition explores the ways that these artists inform our understanding of social, ecological, and civic issues—including security and surveillance, evolving modes of communication, and political resistance.
"Nothing Stable under Heaven" is a collaboration between the Architecture + Design, Education + Public Practice, Media Arts, Painting + Sculpture, and Photography Departments.
Jim Campbell: Tilted Plane
Curator, SFMOMA.
March 3 - September 16, 2018.
Stepping inside Tilted Plane, we are brought to the threshold of our perception. The immersive installation by Jim Campbell features a suspended grid of hundreds of lightbulbs whose filaments have been replaced by light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Each is programmed to represent a pixel of information translated from video imagery. First afforded a diffused view of the overall geometric form through a scrim, we are then invited to walk inside the space and among the array of bulbs, where we can experience the angled image plane from different perspectives. Though we are too close to the dispersed “pixels” for the picture to resolve as birds in flight, over time the rhythmic patterns of flickering light can become decipherable in our peripheral vision as shadowy forms in motion. Birds have a distinct double movement— flying from one point to another, with wings flapping at a different pace—that is recognizable even when reduced to the point of near abstraction seen here.
This San Francisco–based artist is known for his pioneering use of LED technology to create low-resolution moving imagery that explores the minimum amount of visual information needed to comprehend a scene. The concept of pulling the screen apparatus apart and into three dimensions was previously foregrounded in Campbell’s SFMOMA atrium commission Exploded Views (2011–12), a suspended cinematic light sculpture whose content became more
legible at a distance.
March 3 - September 16, 2018.
Stepping inside Tilted Plane, we are brought to the threshold of our perception. The immersive installation by Jim Campbell features a suspended grid of hundreds of lightbulbs whose filaments have been replaced by light-emitting diodes (LEDs). Each is programmed to represent a pixel of information translated from video imagery. First afforded a diffused view of the overall geometric form through a scrim, we are then invited to walk inside the space and among the array of bulbs, where we can experience the angled image plane from different perspectives. Though we are too close to the dispersed “pixels” for the picture to resolve as birds in flight, over time the rhythmic patterns of flickering light can become decipherable in our peripheral vision as shadowy forms in motion. Birds have a distinct double movement— flying from one point to another, with wings flapping at a different pace—that is recognizable even when reduced to the point of near abstraction seen here.
This San Francisco–based artist is known for his pioneering use of LED technology to create low-resolution moving imagery that explores the minimum amount of visual information needed to comprehend a scene. The concept of pulling the screen apparatus apart and into three dimensions was previously foregrounded in Campbell’s SFMOMA atrium commission Exploded Views (2011–12), a suspended cinematic light sculpture whose content became more
legible at a distance.
New Work: Kerry Tribe
Curator, SFMOMA commission "Standardized Patient."
October 5, 2017 - February 25, 2018
New Work: Kerry Tribe premieres an SFMOMA commission by the Los Angeles–based artist and filmmaker that offers insight into the work of Standardized Patients—professional actors who portray patients in a simulated clinical environment as part of medical students’ training. The two-channel video installation explores questions of empathy, communication, and performance, and was developed through Tribe’s close collaboration with professional clinicians, communication experts, and Standardized Patients at Stanford University and the University of Southern California. In this, Tribe’s first solo exhibition at a major U.S. museum, the artist builds upon her history of engaging individuals from the acting and medical communities and exploring the willing suspension of disbelief.
October 5, 2017 - February 25, 2018
New Work: Kerry Tribe premieres an SFMOMA commission by the Los Angeles–based artist and filmmaker that offers insight into the work of Standardized Patients—professional actors who portray patients in a simulated clinical environment as part of medical students’ training. The two-channel video installation explores questions of empathy, communication, and performance, and was developed through Tribe’s close collaboration with professional clinicians, communication experts, and Standardized Patients at Stanford University and the University of Southern California. In this, Tribe’s first solo exhibition at a major U.S. museum, the artist builds upon her history of engaging individuals from the acting and medical communities and exploring the willing suspension of disbelief.
Soundtracks
Co-curator with Rudolf Frieling, SFMOMA. July 15, 2017 - January 1, 2018.
Artists: Guy Ben Ner, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Paul DeMarinis, Brian Eno, Bill Fontana, Jacqueline Kiyomi Gordon, Chris Kallmyer and Mark Allen, Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader, Ragnar Kjartansson, Christina Kubisch, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Amor Muñoz, Camille Norment, O Grivo, Amalia Pica, Susan Philipsz, Anri Sala, Sergei Tcherepnin, Richard T. Walker, Lyota Yagi.
Soundtracks is the museum’s first large-scale group exhibition centered on the role of sound in contemporary art. Focusing on the perceptual experience of space, the exhibition offers opportunities for discovering public architectural features and galleries throughout the newly expanded building. Spanning sculpture, audio and video installation, and performance pieces made since 2000, the show takes its point of departure from key works in the media arts collection. Select pieces address the association of “soundtracks” with film scores in unexpected ways, while others take various approaches to visualizing the relationship between sound and space. Moving beyond medium-specific histories of sound art and electronic music, this cross-generational presentation highlights past SFMOMA commissions by Brian Eno and Bill Fontana, as well as new and diverse work from over twenty contemporary artists, including Ragnar Kjartansson, Christina Kubisch, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, O Grivo, and Susan Philipsz. Soundtracks is accompanied by a map and an online catalogue.
Artists: Guy Ben Ner, Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, Paul DeMarinis, Brian Eno, Bill Fontana, Jacqueline Kiyomi Gordon, Chris Kallmyer and Mark Allen, Christine Sun Kim and Thomas Mader, Ragnar Kjartansson, Christina Kubisch, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, Amor Muñoz, Camille Norment, O Grivo, Amalia Pica, Susan Philipsz, Anri Sala, Sergei Tcherepnin, Richard T. Walker, Lyota Yagi.
Soundtracks is the museum’s first large-scale group exhibition centered on the role of sound in contemporary art. Focusing on the perceptual experience of space, the exhibition offers opportunities for discovering public architectural features and galleries throughout the newly expanded building. Spanning sculpture, audio and video installation, and performance pieces made since 2000, the show takes its point of departure from key works in the media arts collection. Select pieces address the association of “soundtracks” with film scores in unexpected ways, while others take various approaches to visualizing the relationship between sound and space. Moving beyond medium-specific histories of sound art and electronic music, this cross-generational presentation highlights past SFMOMA commissions by Brian Eno and Bill Fontana, as well as new and diverse work from over twenty contemporary artists, including Ragnar Kjartansson, Christina Kubisch, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer, O Grivo, and Susan Philipsz. Soundtracks is accompanied by a map and an online catalogue.
Nam June Paik: In Character
Co-curator, with Rachel Jans. SFMOMA
June 3, 2017 - January 1, 2018
This exhibition explores the pioneering career of Nam June Paik (1932–2006) through the prism of his close friendships with artists, including Joseph Beuys, John Cage, and Charlotte Moorman. Negotiating his identity between East and West, Paik developed an exuberant artistic language, incorporating Asian characters and symbols of his own devising that recur throughout his multi-faceted creations. Celebrating major gifts and acquisitions from the artist’s relatives, the Hakuta family, Nam June Paik: In Character showcases the late artist’s video sculptures, altered televisions, and an array of drawings and ephemera that have rarely or never been exhibited. Together, this selection spans Paik’s early Fluxus activity and performances to his final autobiographical works, tracing his playful vocabulary across geographic boundaries and artistic media.
June 3, 2017 - January 1, 2018
This exhibition explores the pioneering career of Nam June Paik (1932–2006) through the prism of his close friendships with artists, including Joseph Beuys, John Cage, and Charlotte Moorman. Negotiating his identity between East and West, Paik developed an exuberant artistic language, incorporating Asian characters and symbols of his own devising that recur throughout his multi-faceted creations. Celebrating major gifts and acquisitions from the artist’s relatives, the Hakuta family, Nam June Paik: In Character showcases the late artist’s video sculptures, altered televisions, and an array of drawings and ephemera that have rarely or never been exhibited. Together, this selection spans Paik’s early Fluxus activity and performances to his final autobiographical works, tracing his playful vocabulary across geographic boundaries and artistic media.
Runa Islam: Verso
Curator, SFMOMA.
December 10, 2016 - April 16, 2017.
This solo presentation of works by the British artist Runa Islam features the U.S. premiere of Cabinet of Prototypes (2009–10), a 16mm film installation that inspired the exhibition's exploration of the thresholds between film and sculpture. This artwork is shown together for the first time with Magical Consciousness (2010). Both works stem from Islam’s research as an artist fellow at the Smithsonian. Cabinet of Prototypes foregrounds the sculptural qualities of various stands and hooks that are used to present Asian art objects in the collection while, through black-and-white 16mm film, Magical Consciousness (2010) transforms the gilded back of a six-panel Japanese screen into a meditation on the silver screen of cinema. A selection of recent and new works further highlights these material shifts and includes Islam’s process of reclaiming the silver from exposed celluloid to create cast sculptures and drawings.
December 10, 2016 - April 16, 2017.
This solo presentation of works by the British artist Runa Islam features the U.S. premiere of Cabinet of Prototypes (2009–10), a 16mm film installation that inspired the exhibition's exploration of the thresholds between film and sculpture. This artwork is shown together for the first time with Magical Consciousness (2010). Both works stem from Islam’s research as an artist fellow at the Smithsonian. Cabinet of Prototypes foregrounds the sculptural qualities of various stands and hooks that are used to present Asian art objects in the collection while, through black-and-white 16mm film, Magical Consciousness (2010) transforms the gilded back of a six-panel Japanese screen into a meditation on the silver screen of cinema. A selection of recent and new works further highlights these material shifts and includes Islam’s process of reclaiming the silver from exposed celluloid to create cast sculptures and drawings.
The Campaign for Art: Contemporary
Co-organizer, SFMOMA, May 14 - October 30, 2016. Cross-departmental exhibition organized as part of inaugural presentations in the newly opened expanded SFMOMA building.
Comprised of contemporary art acquired through SFMOMA’s Campaign for Art, this exhibition highlights works in a variety of mediums that reflect the diversity of art being made since 1980. The Campaign for Art: Contemporary includes key figures that emerged in New York, such as Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, and Sherrie Levine; important California artists, such as Mark Bradford, Vincent Fecteau, and Charles Ray; and international figures, such as Doris Salcedo, Thomas Schütte, Luc Tuymans, and Ai Weiwei. The exhibition also includes an installation by Matthew Barney; animations by Jim Campbell, John Gerrard, and Takeshi Murata; and video works by Rivane Neuenschwander and Cao Guimarães, and Nicole Miller; as well as contemporary photography, including a large-scale work by Jeff Wall and a series by Cindy Sherman. This presentation serves not only as a celebration of works new to the museum’s collection, but also as an introduction to the extraordinary creativity of today’s art.
Photo: Nicole Miller, Untitled, 2011
Comprised of contemporary art acquired through SFMOMA’s Campaign for Art, this exhibition highlights works in a variety of mediums that reflect the diversity of art being made since 1980. The Campaign for Art: Contemporary includes key figures that emerged in New York, such as Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, and Sherrie Levine; important California artists, such as Mark Bradford, Vincent Fecteau, and Charles Ray; and international figures, such as Doris Salcedo, Thomas Schütte, Luc Tuymans, and Ai Weiwei. The exhibition also includes an installation by Matthew Barney; animations by Jim Campbell, John Gerrard, and Takeshi Murata; and video works by Rivane Neuenschwander and Cao Guimarães, and Nicole Miller; as well as contemporary photography, including a large-scale work by Jeff Wall and a series by Cindy Sherman. This presentation serves not only as a celebration of works new to the museum’s collection, but also as an introduction to the extraordinary creativity of today’s art.
Photo: Nicole Miller, Untitled, 2011
Organic Logic: Howard Fried, John Roloff, Mark Thompson
Guest curator, The Garage at the David Ireland House, 500 Capp Street Foundation, San Francisco.
February 4 - March 18, 2017.
Organic Logic: Howard Fried, John Roloff, Mark Thompson, the inaugural project in The Garage, takes its point of departure from John Roloff’s concept of “organic logic.” Roloff first arrived at the phrase preparing for a 1996 talk in Germany, encompassing the work of fellow Bay Area artists Howard Fried and Mark Thompson.
Roloff described organic logic as an intrinsic feature of certain Bay Area artistic practices in particular, an approach that “embraces complex, systemic, intuitive and process-oriented aesthetics and methodologies.” He further investigated this idea through guest co-editing, with critical theorist Mark Bartlett, the Fall/Winter 2000, “Organic Logic” issue of New Observations, a contemporary arts journal. From the base of Fried and Thompson’s artist sections, the expanded scope of the publication highlighted an array of local contributors across disciplines: visual and performing arts, earth sciences, and open source technology, foregrounding the role of artists’ research, writing, diagrammatic studies, and conversation.
Guest organized by Tanya Zimbardo, Organic Logic will feature key, but rarely seen pieces associated with the artists’ performance or event-based installations from the 1970s and 1980s including: Fried’s early public and private actions with multiple participants, Roloff’s outdoor site-generated kiln projects, and Thompson’s relational work with honeybees in the urban environment. Through their distinct approaches, Fried, Roloff and Thompson metaphorically address communication systems and investigated materials in relation to site.
Three evenings of Organic Logic artist-focused public programs such as talks will bring several of those contributors together – Amy Balkin, Sharon Daniel, Bernie Lubell, Jim Melchert, Stephanie Syjuco, Pamela Z, among others.
February 4 - March 18, 2017.
Organic Logic: Howard Fried, John Roloff, Mark Thompson, the inaugural project in The Garage, takes its point of departure from John Roloff’s concept of “organic logic.” Roloff first arrived at the phrase preparing for a 1996 talk in Germany, encompassing the work of fellow Bay Area artists Howard Fried and Mark Thompson.
Roloff described organic logic as an intrinsic feature of certain Bay Area artistic practices in particular, an approach that “embraces complex, systemic, intuitive and process-oriented aesthetics and methodologies.” He further investigated this idea through guest co-editing, with critical theorist Mark Bartlett, the Fall/Winter 2000, “Organic Logic” issue of New Observations, a contemporary arts journal. From the base of Fried and Thompson’s artist sections, the expanded scope of the publication highlighted an array of local contributors across disciplines: visual and performing arts, earth sciences, and open source technology, foregrounding the role of artists’ research, writing, diagrammatic studies, and conversation.
Guest organized by Tanya Zimbardo, Organic Logic will feature key, but rarely seen pieces associated with the artists’ performance or event-based installations from the 1970s and 1980s including: Fried’s early public and private actions with multiple participants, Roloff’s outdoor site-generated kiln projects, and Thompson’s relational work with honeybees in the urban environment. Through their distinct approaches, Fried, Roloff and Thompson metaphorically address communication systems and investigated materials in relation to site.
Three evenings of Organic Logic artist-focused public programs such as talks will bring several of those contributors together – Amy Balkin, Sharon Daniel, Bernie Lubell, Jim Melchert, Stephanie Syjuco, Pamela Z, among others.
Equilibrium: A Paul Kos Survey
Guest curator with Amy Owen, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art, Napa.
April 23 - July 10, 2016.
This exhibition explores the work of Paul Kos and reflects on the San Francisco-based artist’s longstanding engagement with the Western landscape, from his native Wyoming to his second home in the California Sierras. Throughout his career, Kos (b. 1942) has presented an expanded idea of sculpture and continues to employ diverse media and subject matter. He was among the first artists in Northern California to create performance-based film and video works as well as participatory installations. Kos, with his ephemeral outdoor installation at di Rosa, Lot’s Wife (1968–1969), experienced an artistic breakthrough on the property that would signal a major shift toward working with materials in relation to a site. He would soon thereafter become one of the leading figures of Bay Area Conceptual art.
Primarily drawn from the artist’s personal collection and the di Rosa holdings, Equilibrium features sculpture, installation, film, video, photography, and works on paper. Included are works that have not been shown for over 40 years, such as Kos’s groundbreaking rEVOLUTION (1970), a double Super 8 film and video installation documenting a performance by Kos at di Rosa.
Additional works by Kos spanning several decades are accessible by guided tour of di Rosa’s permanent collection, including the recently restored site-specific installations Zizi Va (1994), a pétanque court, and Tunnel/Chapel (1997, with Isabelle Sorrell), showcasing Kos’ 27-channel video masterpiece Chartres Bleu (1982–1986).
April 23 - July 10, 2016.
This exhibition explores the work of Paul Kos and reflects on the San Francisco-based artist’s longstanding engagement with the Western landscape, from his native Wyoming to his second home in the California Sierras. Throughout his career, Kos (b. 1942) has presented an expanded idea of sculpture and continues to employ diverse media and subject matter. He was among the first artists in Northern California to create performance-based film and video works as well as participatory installations. Kos, with his ephemeral outdoor installation at di Rosa, Lot’s Wife (1968–1969), experienced an artistic breakthrough on the property that would signal a major shift toward working with materials in relation to a site. He would soon thereafter become one of the leading figures of Bay Area Conceptual art.
Primarily drawn from the artist’s personal collection and the di Rosa holdings, Equilibrium features sculpture, installation, film, video, photography, and works on paper. Included are works that have not been shown for over 40 years, such as Kos’s groundbreaking rEVOLUTION (1970), a double Super 8 film and video installation documenting a performance by Kos at di Rosa.
Additional works by Kos spanning several decades are accessible by guided tour of di Rosa’s permanent collection, including the recently restored site-specific installations Zizi Va (1994), a pétanque court, and Tunnel/Chapel (1997, with Isabelle Sorrell), showcasing Kos’ 27-channel video masterpiece Chartres Bleu (1982–1986).
Public Works: Artists' Interventions 1970s - Now
Guest co-curator with Christian L. Frock, Mills College Art Museum, Oakland.
September 16 - December 13, 2015.
Organized by the Mills College Art Museum, Public Works examines strategies of public practice by women artists from the 1970s to the present. The exhibition presents photography, prints, audio, video, and installations from a number of important historical and contemporary projects that explore the inherent politics and social
conditions of creating art in public space.
Public Works moves beyond traditional views of public art as monumental and/or permanent artworks and instead focuses on often small but powerful temporary artistic interventions online and in the urban environment. Through various tactics, Public Works explores themes of public space, public expression, public action, public platforms, and public life through the evolving lens of participatory projects, socially engaged performance and political action, among other media.
Featuring works by Amy Balkin, Tania Bruguera, Candy Chang, Minerva Cuevas, Agnes Denes, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Karen Finley, Coco Fusco, Guerrilla Girls, Sharon Hayes, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Jenny Holzer, Emily Jacir, Suzanne Lacy, Marie Lorenz, Susan
O’Malley, Adrian Piper, Laurie Jo Reynolds | Tamms Year Ten, Favianna Rodriguez, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Stephanie Syjuco, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Off-site commissions by Constance Hockaday and Jenifer K. Wofford, organized in collaboration with Southern Exposure.
Featuring a full-color publication with an introduction by Mills College Art Museum Director Stephanie Hanor, PhD, essays by curators Christian L. Frock and Tanya Zimbardo, and conversations and texts from María del Carmen Carrión, Courtney Fink, Leila Grothe, Valerie Imus, and Meredith Johnson.
Selected press: Artforum, College Art Association, East Bay Express, KALW, KQED, San Francisco Arts Quarterly, San Francisco Chronicle.
September 16 - December 13, 2015.
Organized by the Mills College Art Museum, Public Works examines strategies of public practice by women artists from the 1970s to the present. The exhibition presents photography, prints, audio, video, and installations from a number of important historical and contemporary projects that explore the inherent politics and social
conditions of creating art in public space.
Public Works moves beyond traditional views of public art as monumental and/or permanent artworks and instead focuses on often small but powerful temporary artistic interventions online and in the urban environment. Through various tactics, Public Works explores themes of public space, public expression, public action, public platforms, and public life through the evolving lens of participatory projects, socially engaged performance and political action, among other media.
Featuring works by Amy Balkin, Tania Bruguera, Candy Chang, Minerva Cuevas, Agnes Denes, Tatyana Fazlalizadeh, Karen Finley, Coco Fusco, Guerrilla Girls, Sharon Hayes, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Jenny Holzer, Emily Jacir, Suzanne Lacy, Marie Lorenz, Susan
O’Malley, Adrian Piper, Laurie Jo Reynolds | Tamms Year Ten, Favianna Rodriguez, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Stephanie Syjuco, and Mierle Laderman Ukeles. Off-site commissions by Constance Hockaday and Jenifer K. Wofford, organized in collaboration with Southern Exposure.
Featuring a full-color publication with an introduction by Mills College Art Museum Director Stephanie Hanor, PhD, essays by curators Christian L. Frock and Tanya Zimbardo, and conversations and texts from María del Carmen Carrión, Courtney Fink, Leila Grothe, Valerie Imus, and Meredith Johnson.
Selected press: Artforum, College Art Association, East Bay Express, KALW, KQED, San Francisco Arts Quarterly, San Francisco Chronicle.
Versions: Kristin Lucas and Judy Malloy
Guest curator / research residency, Krowswork, Oakland.
May 2015.
Judy Malloy infiltrated the tech community in the role of president of her own R&D companies—OK Research(1980‒82), OK Genetic Engineering (1983‒85), and Bad Information(1986‒88). She solicited technical information from various industries through official letterhead, tradeshows, and visits to Silicon Valley companies. Her knowledge of how best to make an approach and to whom was facilitated by years of working as a librarian and information specialist. The Berkeley-based poet incorporated the language from the disparate materials she collected, including advertising slogans from vendors, into these artistic projects, which encompassed mail art, experimental books, performances, and installations.
As publicity for OK Genetic Engineering (OKGE) in 1983, Malloy drove her company car, a station wagon with “OK Genetic Engineering – Quality Clones since 1984” painted on the sides, and asked passersby about their attitudes toward the field. Her public interventions in the Bay Area included making handmade matchbooks with Xerox copy and leaving them on tables at restaurants, as free handouts at art events, and distribution by mail. Small reproducible combinations of words and images formed the basis of her reports dealing with various aspects of the biotechnology industry and her related products: the HLIV (Human Lust Inducing Virus), SH gene (Shrinkage Hormone Gene) and NFD bacteria (Nuclear Fuel Devouring Bacteria). The current exhibition revisits Malloy’s prescient examination of the role of technology in our society through documentation of this key information art project as represented in the OKGE Files (1986) and OKGE Briefcase (1991).
Versions pairs Malloy’s OKGE with Kristin Lucas’s Refresh (2007), another landmark public intervention in the Bay Area addressing perceptions of change and promise of technology. The artist became the most current version of herself when she succeeded in legally changing her name from Kristin Sue Lucas to Kristen Sue Lucas in a Superior Court of California courtroom in Alameda—to “refresh” herself as if she were a web page.
For Lucas, the outcome she sought was a new vantage point or intervention into her own life. This action was also analogous to putting a virus into the system, an imperceptible change that would cause a wave of legal red tape and discussions with various agencies processing the same name change. The idea of a distributed sense of self is mirrored in the iterative nature of the project, which has included participatory readings of the philosophical debate between Lucas and the presiding Judge in the courtroom transcript, and is represented in this presentation as an installation of a take-away Refresh zine (2014). Lucas performs a monologue about staying current in a data-driven climate in the multi-channel video installation, Air on the Go (2014). Her text is culled from online forums and user-generated product reviews about tools and apps designed for monitoring and tracking the human body and atmospheric conditions. The artist roams the suburbs like a moving node on a map. She used several small cameras mounted on a monopod to capture a 360-degree view, created through video stitching software, which erases the equipment she carries like a magic wand or scepter.
Both Lucas and Malloy employ found language to describe perceived shifts in the media landscape and our sense of being in the world.
May 2015.
Judy Malloy infiltrated the tech community in the role of president of her own R&D companies—OK Research(1980‒82), OK Genetic Engineering (1983‒85), and Bad Information(1986‒88). She solicited technical information from various industries through official letterhead, tradeshows, and visits to Silicon Valley companies. Her knowledge of how best to make an approach and to whom was facilitated by years of working as a librarian and information specialist. The Berkeley-based poet incorporated the language from the disparate materials she collected, including advertising slogans from vendors, into these artistic projects, which encompassed mail art, experimental books, performances, and installations.
As publicity for OK Genetic Engineering (OKGE) in 1983, Malloy drove her company car, a station wagon with “OK Genetic Engineering – Quality Clones since 1984” painted on the sides, and asked passersby about their attitudes toward the field. Her public interventions in the Bay Area included making handmade matchbooks with Xerox copy and leaving them on tables at restaurants, as free handouts at art events, and distribution by mail. Small reproducible combinations of words and images formed the basis of her reports dealing with various aspects of the biotechnology industry and her related products: the HLIV (Human Lust Inducing Virus), SH gene (Shrinkage Hormone Gene) and NFD bacteria (Nuclear Fuel Devouring Bacteria). The current exhibition revisits Malloy’s prescient examination of the role of technology in our society through documentation of this key information art project as represented in the OKGE Files (1986) and OKGE Briefcase (1991).
Versions pairs Malloy’s OKGE with Kristin Lucas’s Refresh (2007), another landmark public intervention in the Bay Area addressing perceptions of change and promise of technology. The artist became the most current version of herself when she succeeded in legally changing her name from Kristin Sue Lucas to Kristen Sue Lucas in a Superior Court of California courtroom in Alameda—to “refresh” herself as if she were a web page.
For Lucas, the outcome she sought was a new vantage point or intervention into her own life. This action was also analogous to putting a virus into the system, an imperceptible change that would cause a wave of legal red tape and discussions with various agencies processing the same name change. The idea of a distributed sense of self is mirrored in the iterative nature of the project, which has included participatory readings of the philosophical debate between Lucas and the presiding Judge in the courtroom transcript, and is represented in this presentation as an installation of a take-away Refresh zine (2014). Lucas performs a monologue about staying current in a data-driven climate in the multi-channel video installation, Air on the Go (2014). Her text is culled from online forums and user-generated product reviews about tools and apps designed for monitoring and tracking the human body and atmospheric conditions. The artist roams the suburbs like a moving node on a map. She used several small cameras mounted on a monopod to capture a 360-degree view, created through video stitching software, which erases the equipment she carries like a magic wand or scepter.
Both Lucas and Malloy employ found language to describe perceived shifts in the media landscape and our sense of being in the world.
Scores for a Room: David Haxton and Jim Melchert
Guest curator, Worth Ryder Art Gallery, UC Berkeley.
September 17 – October 17, 2014.
Scores for a Room: David Haxton and Jim Melchert brings together for the first time historic works by these two artists, exploring their different approaches to the description of space through structured activity performed for the camera. Both renowned artists turned to the projected image in the seventies, highlighting the shifting awareness of spatial perception in the interaction between illusionistic filmed space and a physical location.
In November of 1970, Jim Melchert, a professor at UC Berkeley, created site-responsive slide installations at the University’s Powerhouse Gallery as part of a faculty exhibition coinciding with the opening of the University Art Museum. Location Project #3 features three artists, and alums, chosen because “they knew how to play”, who were asked to improvise movements in relation to a defined area of the exhibition space. In a sequence of eighty phases, Robert Armstrong works with the angle between wall and floor, Carl Dern relates to the horizontal planes of wall and floor, and Jim Pomeroy addresses the vertical plane of the wall, climbing up and down the art gallery’s ladders.
For his series of Location Projects, Melchert projected selected slides at a one-to-one scale, often activating the same space where the action had been carried out. As Melchert observed of his overall body of slide photography, “In the process of making these projection pieces, I became as interested in how a particular personality would handle the assignment, as in the assignment itself.” The Oakland-based artist was part of the first generation of Conceptual artists in California, working in various media, including slide projection, performance, film, and graphite rubbings of found photographs with accompanying text.
David Haxton began creating his first films and film installations in 1970 as a faculty member of San Diego State University, reconstructing his studio environment within an exhibition space. He continued to produce short, silent 16mm films over the decade in his Soho studio in New York. These self-reflexive works center on the continuity of a performer’s movement back and forth and across the picture plane. Using a static camera and without editing, Haxton created various illusions through his inventive use of negative film and manipulation of lighting. His highly choreographed, but low-key pieces feature the artist or another performer utilizing elements from the studio such as backdrop paper, masking tape, light stands, and ladders. Haxton notes that, “sets created in the filmed space are designed so that the activities of the performers will gradually reveal the three dimensionality of the space while continually referring back to the flatness of the screen and the physicality of the light producing the filmed image.” His still color photography dovetailed with his moving image work in the late seventies, initially taking the leftover materials of his film sets as its point of departure.
Shot from an overhead angle in both black-and-white and color negative, the performer in White, Red and Green Lights (1978) rearranges fluorescent tubes on the floor to emphasize the vertical plane of the screen and edges of the film frame. Lyrically synthesizing aspects of his previous films, Painting Room Lights (1980) likewise uses negative imagery and light sources to manipulate the sense of depth and definition of the studio. On a seemingly blank surface of the image, the artist appears to paint the outlines of a room, and then erases this drawn illusion.
This exhibition will offer the Bay Area a unique opportunity to experience these time-based installations, and for many of the Worth Ryder Art Gallery’s visitors, may provide an important introduction to the artists. Haxton has revisited and digitized his filmic work in the past decade. Melchert’s Location Project #3 was last exhibited in 1975 at SFMOMA in a monographic survey of his slide projection works.
September 17 – October 17, 2014.
Scores for a Room: David Haxton and Jim Melchert brings together for the first time historic works by these two artists, exploring their different approaches to the description of space through structured activity performed for the camera. Both renowned artists turned to the projected image in the seventies, highlighting the shifting awareness of spatial perception in the interaction between illusionistic filmed space and a physical location.
In November of 1970, Jim Melchert, a professor at UC Berkeley, created site-responsive slide installations at the University’s Powerhouse Gallery as part of a faculty exhibition coinciding with the opening of the University Art Museum. Location Project #3 features three artists, and alums, chosen because “they knew how to play”, who were asked to improvise movements in relation to a defined area of the exhibition space. In a sequence of eighty phases, Robert Armstrong works with the angle between wall and floor, Carl Dern relates to the horizontal planes of wall and floor, and Jim Pomeroy addresses the vertical plane of the wall, climbing up and down the art gallery’s ladders.
For his series of Location Projects, Melchert projected selected slides at a one-to-one scale, often activating the same space where the action had been carried out. As Melchert observed of his overall body of slide photography, “In the process of making these projection pieces, I became as interested in how a particular personality would handle the assignment, as in the assignment itself.” The Oakland-based artist was part of the first generation of Conceptual artists in California, working in various media, including slide projection, performance, film, and graphite rubbings of found photographs with accompanying text.
David Haxton began creating his first films and film installations in 1970 as a faculty member of San Diego State University, reconstructing his studio environment within an exhibition space. He continued to produce short, silent 16mm films over the decade in his Soho studio in New York. These self-reflexive works center on the continuity of a performer’s movement back and forth and across the picture plane. Using a static camera and without editing, Haxton created various illusions through his inventive use of negative film and manipulation of lighting. His highly choreographed, but low-key pieces feature the artist or another performer utilizing elements from the studio such as backdrop paper, masking tape, light stands, and ladders. Haxton notes that, “sets created in the filmed space are designed so that the activities of the performers will gradually reveal the three dimensionality of the space while continually referring back to the flatness of the screen and the physicality of the light producing the filmed image.” His still color photography dovetailed with his moving image work in the late seventies, initially taking the leftover materials of his film sets as its point of departure.
Shot from an overhead angle in both black-and-white and color negative, the performer in White, Red and Green Lights (1978) rearranges fluorescent tubes on the floor to emphasize the vertical plane of the screen and edges of the film frame. Lyrically synthesizing aspects of his previous films, Painting Room Lights (1980) likewise uses negative imagery and light sources to manipulate the sense of depth and definition of the studio. On a seemingly blank surface of the image, the artist appears to paint the outlines of a room, and then erases this drawn illusion.
This exhibition will offer the Bay Area a unique opportunity to experience these time-based installations, and for many of the Worth Ryder Art Gallery’s visitors, may provide an important introduction to the artists. Haxton has revisited and digitized his filmic work in the past decade. Melchert’s Location Project #3 was last exhibited in 1975 at SFMOMA in a monographic survey of his slide projection works.
Zarouhie Abdalian: Occasional Music
Co-curator with Jenny Gheith, offsite SFMOMA commission in area around Frank Ogawa Plaza, Oakland. Part of the 2012 SECA Art Award exhibition.
September 14 - November 17, 2017.
Zarouhie Abdalian creates subtle interventions into everyday perception. Often bordering on the edge of invisibility, her minimal installations engage with the specifics of a site. Through researching a location’s history and physical features, she addresses the dynamics between visitors and a given space, arriving at simple adjustments that transform a viewer’s physical or emotional understanding of an environment. Her refined modifications have included making a window flutter with Mylar and illuminating an abandoned building with lights set on timers.
For Occasional Music (2013), Abdalian’s largest public commission to date, the artist programmed brass bells to simultaneously ring from rooftops radiating out from Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, at 14th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland. The artist first noticed the site’s potential in 2010, when gatherings were held there in support of Oscar Grant’s family during the Johannes Mehserle trial. Created for the city where the artist lives, this experience-based work shifts our attention and awareness of this city center, a historic place associated with community gathering, performance, and protest.
Abdalian is interested in the way that “bells regulate the activities of social spaces — announcing the passing of hours, shift changes, festivals, calls to service, and emergencies — and become powerful mechanisms by which the listener is situated in space.” She chose to use brass ship bells for their clear, bright tone and because they are “utilitarian sound-producing devices.” Since the bells are out of view from those who hear them, their sound has no visual anchor, an absence accentuated by the empty bell tower atop City Hall. Activated for several minutes once a day at varying times, each bell plays a randomized rhythmic structure of accelerated and slowed tempos, causing them to sound different every time. The surrounding environment, consisting of natural and built elements, also ensures that the ringing is never heard the same way, as the bells articulate space in this downtown area and adds to its layered textures.
Production assistance: Daniel McAnulty and Joseph Rosenzweig
Commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, courtesy the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco; with special thanks to the City of Oakland Public Art Program and Public Art Advisory Committee; Cultural Arts and Marketing Division, Department of Economic and Workforce Development for their generous assistance.
September 14 - November 17, 2017.
Zarouhie Abdalian creates subtle interventions into everyday perception. Often bordering on the edge of invisibility, her minimal installations engage with the specifics of a site. Through researching a location’s history and physical features, she addresses the dynamics between visitors and a given space, arriving at simple adjustments that transform a viewer’s physical or emotional understanding of an environment. Her refined modifications have included making a window flutter with Mylar and illuminating an abandoned building with lights set on timers.
For Occasional Music (2013), Abdalian’s largest public commission to date, the artist programmed brass bells to simultaneously ring from rooftops radiating out from Frank H. Ogawa Plaza, at 14th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland. The artist first noticed the site’s potential in 2010, when gatherings were held there in support of Oscar Grant’s family during the Johannes Mehserle trial. Created for the city where the artist lives, this experience-based work shifts our attention and awareness of this city center, a historic place associated with community gathering, performance, and protest.
Abdalian is interested in the way that “bells regulate the activities of social spaces — announcing the passing of hours, shift changes, festivals, calls to service, and emergencies — and become powerful mechanisms by which the listener is situated in space.” She chose to use brass ship bells for their clear, bright tone and because they are “utilitarian sound-producing devices.” Since the bells are out of view from those who hear them, their sound has no visual anchor, an absence accentuated by the empty bell tower atop City Hall. Activated for several minutes once a day at varying times, each bell plays a randomized rhythmic structure of accelerated and slowed tempos, causing them to sound different every time. The surrounding environment, consisting of natural and built elements, also ensures that the ringing is never heard the same way, as the bells articulate space in this downtown area and adds to its layered textures.
Production assistance: Daniel McAnulty and Joseph Rosenzweig
Commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, courtesy the artist and Altman Siegel, San Francisco; with special thanks to the City of Oakland Public Art Program and Public Art Advisory Committee; Cultural Arts and Marketing Division, Department of Economic and Workforce Development for their generous assistance.
David Wilson: Arrivals
Co-curator with Jenny Gheith, offsite SFMOMA in multiple outdoor locations including the Presidio, San Francisco. Part of the 2012 SECA Art Award exhibition.
September 14 - November 17, 2013.
David Wilson’s works on paper and performance-based pieces explore what he describes as “the many lost corners and in-between stretches of natural and developed space” in Northern California. He has organized events at such locations as Angel Island, Wildcat Canyon, and the Marin Headlands. Whether he is working in large groups or in one-on-one exchanges, Wilson’s ephemeral projects often involve collaboration with a rich community of musicians, filmmakers, and other artists. He frequently announces his participatory gatherings and site-specific installations through invitations that include folded maps with directions and sketches meant to guide attendees to carefully composed situations. The performative and social aspect of his work stems from repeated, solitary visits to an area, which are reflected in the plein air studies he creates in drawing and watercolor on found paper.
David Wilson’s Arrivals (2013), a series of six self-guided journeys to outdoor sites throughout San Francisco, begins at a reclaimed redwood trailhead in front of the closed SFMOMA museum building at 151 Third Street. Approximately every two weeks, the artist will leave new takeaway maps there. Each map will provide instructions for the experience and lead visitors to sites where Wilson and his collaborators have recorded songs, music, and sound-based performances. Participants are invited to listen to these recordings upon locating a tape player at each of the sites. The performances draw in part from In Song Sing On (2012–ongoing), a publication project for sing-alongs Wilson is producing in collaboration with artist Colter Jacobsen. Creating a sense of shared intimacy despite distance, Arrivals facilitates a private listening experience that connects each individual with both the performers and with fellow future audience members.
The first map leads visitors to a eucalyptus grove in the Presidio, where the artist has installed an elaborate, sixteen-foot-high ink drawing that will be on view throughout the exhibition. Spread over twenty-four sheets of paper, it depicts Frog Woman Rock, a landmark rock formation in the Russian River Canyon in Northern California that the artist associates with expectation and arrival. Over the course of the exhibition, Wilson will regularly develop new sites and drawings in different corners of the city, from freeways to alleys. “I’ve tried to find areas with a sense of autonomy and privacy, that have a beautiful, forgotten quality,” he says. “They are often places whose jurisdiction is in a gray zone, and maybe you can feel like it’s yours for a minute.”
Specific walking and public transportation instructions are indicated on the takeaway maps.
September 14 - November 17, 2013.
David Wilson’s works on paper and performance-based pieces explore what he describes as “the many lost corners and in-between stretches of natural and developed space” in Northern California. He has organized events at such locations as Angel Island, Wildcat Canyon, and the Marin Headlands. Whether he is working in large groups or in one-on-one exchanges, Wilson’s ephemeral projects often involve collaboration with a rich community of musicians, filmmakers, and other artists. He frequently announces his participatory gatherings and site-specific installations through invitations that include folded maps with directions and sketches meant to guide attendees to carefully composed situations. The performative and social aspect of his work stems from repeated, solitary visits to an area, which are reflected in the plein air studies he creates in drawing and watercolor on found paper.
David Wilson’s Arrivals (2013), a series of six self-guided journeys to outdoor sites throughout San Francisco, begins at a reclaimed redwood trailhead in front of the closed SFMOMA museum building at 151 Third Street. Approximately every two weeks, the artist will leave new takeaway maps there. Each map will provide instructions for the experience and lead visitors to sites where Wilson and his collaborators have recorded songs, music, and sound-based performances. Participants are invited to listen to these recordings upon locating a tape player at each of the sites. The performances draw in part from In Song Sing On (2012–ongoing), a publication project for sing-alongs Wilson is producing in collaboration with artist Colter Jacobsen. Creating a sense of shared intimacy despite distance, Arrivals facilitates a private listening experience that connects each individual with both the performers and with fellow future audience members.
The first map leads visitors to a eucalyptus grove in the Presidio, where the artist has installed an elaborate, sixteen-foot-high ink drawing that will be on view throughout the exhibition. Spread over twenty-four sheets of paper, it depicts Frog Woman Rock, a landmark rock formation in the Russian River Canyon in Northern California that the artist associates with expectation and arrival. Over the course of the exhibition, Wilson will regularly develop new sites and drawings in different corners of the city, from freeways to alleys. “I’ve tried to find areas with a sense of autonomy and privacy, that have a beautiful, forgotten quality,” he says. “They are often places whose jurisdiction is in a gray zone, and maybe you can feel like it’s yours for a minute.”
Specific walking and public transportation instructions are indicated on the takeaway maps.
Josh Faught: BE BOLD For What You Stand For, BE CAREFUL For What You Fall For
Co-curator with Jenny Gheith, offsite SFMOMA commission of three sculptures in the Neptune Society Columbarium in San Francisco. Part of the 2012 SECA Art Award exhibition. September 14-November 16, 2013.
Mining rich histories of craft, Josh Faught creates sculptures that pair traditional textile and homespun techniques, such as loom-weaving, knitting, and crocheting, with everyday objects that reference domesticity and often feature political slogans and elements of kitsch. His assemblages typically start with raw fibers that he hand dyes with organic materials, such as ground-up cochineal bugs, or covers with artificial substances like spray paint or nail polish. His labor-intensive sculptures draw on histories of gender and sexual politics, precariously balancing an urgent sense of anxiety with a nostalgic view of the present.
Faught’s BE BOLD For What You Stand For, BE CAREFUL For What You Fall For (2013), a constellation of handwoven sculptures, responds to the historical importance and emotional resonance of the Neptune Society Columbarium, a repository for cremation urns in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood. Housed in a 19th-century neoclassical building, it is the only nondenominational cemetery within city limits and is home to more than 8,000 inurnment niches. It is the final resting place for many generations of San Franciscans, including cultural figures, artists, and other notable residents. Faught, based in San Francisco, is particularly interested in the ways that the Columbarium reflects the historical presence of the queer community. His installation is inspired by the visual language of the memorials that pay tribute to the deceased. These often include flowers and photographs augmented by holiday decorations, personal items, and lighthearted knickknacks. Incorporating similar sentiments of remembrance and humor, his sculptures are embellished with objects such as plastic snacks, activist buttons, and greeting cards. For the artist, these materials represent forms of emotional support.
Sited throughout the Columbarium, his installation includes two freestanding works of crocheted and woven yarn on wooden armatures and one large textile consisting of strips of loom-woven fabric that engages with the central rotunda. For this commission, he restricted his color palette to hues that artist and designer William Morris articulated in the early 20th-century Arts and Crafts movement, such as cochineal pink, indigo blue, walnut brown, and weld yellow. “Each of these natural dyes has a somewhat fugitive quality, which extends to some of the thematic narratives in the content of the work around transition and time,” Faught explains.
Mining rich histories of craft, Josh Faught creates sculptures that pair traditional textile and homespun techniques, such as loom-weaving, knitting, and crocheting, with everyday objects that reference domesticity and often feature political slogans and elements of kitsch. His assemblages typically start with raw fibers that he hand dyes with organic materials, such as ground-up cochineal bugs, or covers with artificial substances like spray paint or nail polish. His labor-intensive sculptures draw on histories of gender and sexual politics, precariously balancing an urgent sense of anxiety with a nostalgic view of the present.
Faught’s BE BOLD For What You Stand For, BE CAREFUL For What You Fall For (2013), a constellation of handwoven sculptures, responds to the historical importance and emotional resonance of the Neptune Society Columbarium, a repository for cremation urns in San Francisco’s Inner Richmond neighborhood. Housed in a 19th-century neoclassical building, it is the only nondenominational cemetery within city limits and is home to more than 8,000 inurnment niches. It is the final resting place for many generations of San Franciscans, including cultural figures, artists, and other notable residents. Faught, based in San Francisco, is particularly interested in the ways that the Columbarium reflects the historical presence of the queer community. His installation is inspired by the visual language of the memorials that pay tribute to the deceased. These often include flowers and photographs augmented by holiday decorations, personal items, and lighthearted knickknacks. Incorporating similar sentiments of remembrance and humor, his sculptures are embellished with objects such as plastic snacks, activist buttons, and greeting cards. For the artist, these materials represent forms of emotional support.
Sited throughout the Columbarium, his installation includes two freestanding works of crocheted and woven yarn on wooden armatures and one large textile consisting of strips of loom-woven fabric that engages with the central rotunda. For this commission, he restricted his color palette to hues that artist and designer William Morris articulated in the early 20th-century Arts and Crafts movement, such as cochineal pink, indigo blue, walnut brown, and weld yellow. “Each of these natural dyes has a somewhat fugitive quality, which extends to some of the thematic narratives in the content of the work around transition and time,” Faught explains.
Jonn Herschend: Stories from the Evacuation
Co-curator with Jenny Gheith. Online SFMOMA commission. Part of SECA Art Award exhibition. Multiple locations. September 14-November 16, 2013.
Jonn Herschend investigates emotional truth, confusion, and absurdity in everyday life through video, film, installation, and performance. His work questions the ways we interpret the validity of information, often through corporate communications tools like PowerPoint and informational videos. He has addressed the institutional messaging of arts organizations in several works, filming reenactments of museum visitors’ mundane experiences and installing fictional “disorientation” videos at exhibition entrances. His work often employs the literary device of the unreliable narrator, a technique that turns his self-described “site-specific fictions” into personal and confused dramas that reveal multiple interpretations of a given situation. With deadpan humor, his films and videos speak to the poetics of failure and the ambiguity inherent to life.
Stories from the Evacuation (2013), shot on location at SFMOMA in spring 2013, uses the building’s closure for expansion as the point of departure for a behind-the-scenes look at the museum’s temporary art and administrative relocation. The artist interviews several key staff involved with this undertaking. Exploring narratives of risk and personal transition, the film investigates the disjuncture between public- and private-facing identities. The camera moves through spaces typically inaccessible to visitors and in a state of transition: the offices, the basement woodshop and library, and the fifth-floor galleries, used as a temporary storage space for paintings and sculptures being packed. Herschend’s narrative begins with the tremendous collaborative effort involved in this transition and becomes increasingly focused on one interview subject’s personal backstory. “With all stories, there is a front of the house and a back of the house,” the artist says. “There are stories we present to the world, and there is the complicated and sometimes messy reality of how these things happen.”
Jonn Herschend investigates emotional truth, confusion, and absurdity in everyday life through video, film, installation, and performance. His work questions the ways we interpret the validity of information, often through corporate communications tools like PowerPoint and informational videos. He has addressed the institutional messaging of arts organizations in several works, filming reenactments of museum visitors’ mundane experiences and installing fictional “disorientation” videos at exhibition entrances. His work often employs the literary device of the unreliable narrator, a technique that turns his self-described “site-specific fictions” into personal and confused dramas that reveal multiple interpretations of a given situation. With deadpan humor, his films and videos speak to the poetics of failure and the ambiguity inherent to life.
Stories from the Evacuation (2013), shot on location at SFMOMA in spring 2013, uses the building’s closure for expansion as the point of departure for a behind-the-scenes look at the museum’s temporary art and administrative relocation. The artist interviews several key staff involved with this undertaking. Exploring narratives of risk and personal transition, the film investigates the disjuncture between public- and private-facing identities. The camera moves through spaces typically inaccessible to visitors and in a state of transition: the offices, the basement woodshop and library, and the fifth-floor galleries, used as a temporary storage space for paintings and sculptures being packed. Herschend’s narrative begins with the tremendous collaborative effort involved in this transition and becomes increasingly focused on one interview subject’s personal backstory. “With all stories, there is a front of the house and a back of the house,” the artist says. “There are stories we present to the world, and there is the complicated and sometimes messy reality of how these things happen.”
Ed Osborn: Night-Sea Music
Co-organizer, collection artwork presentation on Floor 3 landing in 2012, SFMOMA.
Fifty Years of Bay Area Art: The SECA Awards
Co-curator with Alison Gass, SFMOMA.
December 7, 2011 - April 3, 2012.
Celebrating the unique and long-standing role of SFMOMA's SECA award program, this presentation brings into dialogue works by a number of past award recipients. In concert with an oral history project and a comprehensive book, the exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the museum's distinguished art interest group SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art), which honors the achievements of Bay Area artists. The exhibition offers a lens onto some of the key artistic approaches that have contributed to the vitality and breadth of contemporary art here.
Artists include Tauba Auerbach, William Allan, John Bankston, John Beech, Rosana Castrillo, Kota Ezawa, Chris Finley, Desiree Holman, Hung Liu, Chris Johanson, Jordan Kantor, Barry McGee, Trevor Paglen, Mitzi Pederson, Maria Porges, Laurie Reid, Will Rogan, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Kathryn VanDyke, among others.
December 7, 2011 - April 3, 2012.
Celebrating the unique and long-standing role of SFMOMA's SECA award program, this presentation brings into dialogue works by a number of past award recipients. In concert with an oral history project and a comprehensive book, the exhibition marks the 50th anniversary of the founding of the museum's distinguished art interest group SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art), which honors the achievements of Bay Area artists. The exhibition offers a lens onto some of the key artistic approaches that have contributed to the vitality and breadth of contemporary art here.
Artists include Tauba Auerbach, William Allan, John Bankston, John Beech, Rosana Castrillo, Kota Ezawa, Chris Finley, Desiree Holman, Hung Liu, Chris Johanson, Jordan Kantor, Barry McGee, Trevor Paglen, Mitzi Pederson, Maria Porges, Laurie Reid, Will Rogan, Bonnie Ora Sherk, Kathryn VanDyke, among others.
2010 SECA Art Award: Mauricio Ancalmo, Colter Jacobsen, Ruth Laskey, Kamau Amu Patton,
Co-curator with Apsara DiQuinzio, SFMOMA. December 7, 2011 - April 3, 2012.
This year's SECA Art Award exhibition showcases four Bay Area artists whose innovative works, while diverse in form and subject matter, reflect overlapping affinities. Mauricio Ancalmo combines various found mechanical instruments in a film-based installation to form a structural dialogue that is both poetically and philosophically inspired. Colter Jacobsen's meticulous drawings, watercolors, and installations often incorporate found ephemera to explore reflection and longing. Ruth Laskey employs weaving, using a traditional floor loom, to expand on the painterly tradition of geometric abstraction. And Kamau Amu Patton synthesizes works in a range of media to investigate the interzone of sound, materiality, and perceptual experience. Established to recognize Bay Area artists of exceptional promise and talent with an exhibition, accompanying catalogue, and cash prize, the biennial award is administered by SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art), an SFMOMA art interest group celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011.
This year's SECA Art Award exhibition showcases four Bay Area artists whose innovative works, while diverse in form and subject matter, reflect overlapping affinities. Mauricio Ancalmo combines various found mechanical instruments in a film-based installation to form a structural dialogue that is both poetically and philosophically inspired. Colter Jacobsen's meticulous drawings, watercolors, and installations often incorporate found ephemera to explore reflection and longing. Ruth Laskey employs weaving, using a traditional floor loom, to expand on the painterly tradition of geometric abstraction. And Kamau Amu Patton synthesizes works in a range of media to investigate the interzone of sound, materiality, and perceptual experience. Established to recognize Bay Area artists of exceptional promise and talent with an exhibition, accompanying catalogue, and cash prize, the biennial award is administered by SECA (Society for the Encouragement of Contemporary Art), an SFMOMA art interest group celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2011.
The More Things Change
Co-curator, SFMOMA cross-departmental collaboration.
November 10, 2010 - November 6, 2011.
The More Things Change draws from SFMOMA's collection to present an extraordinary range of works made since 2000, offering a selective survey of the art of the last 10 years and a thematic and psychological portrait of the decade. Revealing the museum's collection as a seismograph of shifts in contemporary culture, this continually evolving exhibition considers how the past persists in the present and how art engages with the world at large.
November 10, 2010 - November 6, 2011.
The More Things Change draws from SFMOMA's collection to present an extraordinary range of works made since 2000, offering a selective survey of the art of the last 10 years and a thematic and psychological portrait of the decade. Revealing the museum's collection as a seismograph of shifts in contemporary culture, this continually evolving exhibition considers how the past persists in the present and how art engages with the world at large.
The Studio Sessions
Curator, SFMOMA. July 13 – September 13, 2009. Artists: Kevin Atherton, General Idea, Christian Jankowski, Mads Lynnerup, Joe Sola.
Taking a behind-the-scenes look at art production, The Studio Sessions explores the theme of the artist in conversation, turning the dialogue about one's art into the subject of the work itself. Professional situations in which artists introduce their ideas and answer questions — studio visits, artist talks, TV appearances — are usually considered secondary to making or showing work. In these humorous, conceptually driven works, artists adapt or subvert these forms of presentation in order to reflect on their process, engaging in a larger discussion about the roles of promotion and audience reception in art. Performance-based videos by Kevin Atherton, General Idea, Christian Jankowski, Mads Lynnerup, and Joe Sola offer insights about the realities of being an artist.
Taking a behind-the-scenes look at art production, The Studio Sessions explores the theme of the artist in conversation, turning the dialogue about one's art into the subject of the work itself. Professional situations in which artists introduce their ideas and answer questions — studio visits, artist talks, TV appearances — are usually considered secondary to making or showing work. In these humorous, conceptually driven works, artists adapt or subvert these forms of presentation in order to reflect on their process, engaging in a larger discussion about the roles of promotion and audience reception in art. Performance-based videos by Kevin Atherton, General Idea, Christian Jankowski, Mads Lynnerup, and Joe Sola offer insights about the realities of being an artist.
SFMOMA Media Arts exhibitions
Assisted with over twenty Media Arts special exhibitions and collection-based presentations at SFMOMA, including the retrospective "Suzanne Lacy: We Are Here" and the surveys "Stage Presence: Theatricality in Art and Media" and "William Kentridge: Five Themes."
photo: "Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Frequency and Volume," 2013 SFMOMA installation view
photo: "Rafael Lozano-Hemmer: Frequency and Volume," 2013 SFMOMA installation view
Downtime: Constructing Leisure
Co-curator, New Langton Arts. Artists: Bureau d’etudes, Tacita Dean, Josh Greene, Doug Hall, Jonathan Hernandez, Luis Jacob, Tobias Putrih, Pedro Reyes, Steven Shearer, Melinda Stone and Mungo Thomson.
Curated by the inaugural class of the MA Program in Curatorial Practice, California College of the Arts (CCA): Maria del Carmen Carrion, Joseph del Pesco, Cecilia Foote, Meredith Johnson, Jenee Misraje, Lee Plested, Aldo Sanchez, Anuradha Vikram and Tanya Zimbardo.
New Langton Arts and the California College of the Arts (CCA) present Downtime: Constructing Leisure (2005), an exhibition that explores our lives off the clock. The eleven international artists in Downtime use photography, film, installation, sculpture and sound to investigate spaces of leisure, looking at the physical and social structures associated with pastimes, tourism and retreat.
The exhibition includes commissions by Bay Area artists Josh Greene and Melinda Stone, as well as the French collective Bureau d’etudes, and West Coast premieres by Luis Jacob and Jonathan Hernandez. A full-color catalog, with three contextual essays, an interview with Dean MacCannell, author of The Tourist (1999), and artists’ pages; complements and documents the exhibition.
Curated by the inaugural class of the MA Program in Curatorial Practice, California College of the Arts (CCA): Maria del Carmen Carrion, Joseph del Pesco, Cecilia Foote, Meredith Johnson, Jenee Misraje, Lee Plested, Aldo Sanchez, Anuradha Vikram and Tanya Zimbardo.
New Langton Arts and the California College of the Arts (CCA) present Downtime: Constructing Leisure (2005), an exhibition that explores our lives off the clock. The eleven international artists in Downtime use photography, film, installation, sculpture and sound to investigate spaces of leisure, looking at the physical and social structures associated with pastimes, tourism and retreat.
The exhibition includes commissions by Bay Area artists Josh Greene and Melinda Stone, as well as the French collective Bureau d’etudes, and West Coast premieres by Luis Jacob and Jonathan Hernandez. A full-color catalog, with three contextual essays, an interview with Dean MacCannell, author of The Tourist (1999), and artists’ pages; complements and documents the exhibition.
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