Sam Francis: Five Decades of Abstract Expressionism from California Collections
August 11, 2013 - January 5, 2014
The exhibition celebrates internationally acclaimed California native Sam Francis (1923–1994), one of the state’s most historically significant artists. Featuring a colorful range of the artist’s paintings and unique works on paper, this survey highlights different periods of the artist’s oeuvre as represented in extraordinary public and private California collections, starting from the early works that the artist made in the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1940s, and leading up to the artist’s influential and expansive body of work created between the 1950s and the 1990s. Represented are works made in the artist’s California studios in Palo Alto, Point Reyes, Santa Monica, and Venice, as well as those made when Francis was living in New York, Switzerland, and Japan. The exhibition is organized by the Sam Francis Foundation in collaboration with the Pasadena Museum of California Art and the Crocker Art Museum.
Sam Francis, Untitled (SFF.630), 1973. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 42 x 30 inches. Collection: Sam Francis Foundation, California. Artwork © Sam Francis Foundation, California/ Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
Ignite! The Art of Sustainability
August 11, 2013 - January 5, 2014
Green Museums Initiative (GMI) of the California Association of Museums hosted statewide dialogues on regional ecological issues and the role museums might play in building healthy communities, both human and in nature. Contemporary artists from each region joined museum leaders, scientists, environmentalist, and community stakeholders for the daylong discussions. Ignite! The Art of Sustainability exhibits the dynamic works created by these artists based on their discussions and the issues that arose in each regional dialogue. Thirteen of California’s foremost environmental artists collaborate to communicate a heightened connection to their natural surroundings through rich imagery using a variety of media from the traditional (photographs, painting, and video) to the unconventional (smog /particulate matter on porcelain). Together, their approach is multidisciplinary, drawing on art, science, spirituality, and social justice. What emerges are the unique traits of California’s ecological regions and the range of extremes present in our state.
Ignite! The Art of Sustainability is a traveling exhibition from Exhibit Envoy, in conjunction with the California Association of Museums’ Green Museums Initiative, and funded by The James Irvine Foundation.
Penelope Gottlieb, Cirsium vulgare, 2012. Acrylic and ink over Audubon print.
Somewhere In Between: Los Angeles
August 11, 2013 - January 5, 2014
In Somewhere In Between: Los Angeles artist Bia Gayotto investigates what it feels like to navigate and inhabit two or more places and cultures. Through an open call, residents will be invited to participate in an interview and video shoot that relates to twenty-one neighborhoods along Route 66 from Pasadena to Santa Monica. The two-screen installation will juxtapose cityscapes, architecture, and domestic settings with portraits of the participants performing simple, everyday actions. The soundtrack will consist of music, ambient sound and voiceover, revealing a state of mind typical of those who live in an intercultural space. The result is intended to be a multilayered portrait of the greater Los Angeles area, mixing images of the city and its people with stories that reveal their sense of self and place in the world.
Bia Gayotto, Still from Somewhere in Between: Silicon Valley, 2012. Two-screen video installation with sound. TRT 18 min. Courtesy of the artist.
