December 10-18, 2010
BOOM!Juror: Astria Suparak, Director, Miller Gallery at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh
Exhibition Dates: December 10 - December 18, 2010
Opening Reception: Friday, December 10, 6:00pm - 9:00pm
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 12:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Announcing BOOM! Artists:
Steven Barich
David Bayus
Andrew Benson
Mark Benson
Bryan Boyce
Iris Charabi-Berggren
Tedd Colt
Taylor Crawley
Robert Donald
Rives Granade
Julie Henson
Chris Hood
Mike Kimball
Erin Klenow, Nick Sung & Najeeb Tarazi
Vicky Knoop
Noah Krell
Ace Lehner
Niana Liu
Lindsey Lyons
Martin Machado
Pablo Manga
Nining Muir
Colleen Mulvey
billy ocallaghan
Raoul Ollman
Brandon Walls Olsen
Meryl Pataky
Hilary Pecis
Monica Jane Peck
Laura Plageman
Tiffany Quach
Michelle Ramin
Carlos Ramirez
Kit Rosenberg
Yoram Savion
Alphonzo Solorzano
Adam Wier
Doug Garth Williams
Southern Exposure’s juried exhibition has become the premiere showcase of cutting-edge contemporary artwork by promising local talent. Each year a different theme is selected to inspire and encourage a broad level of artistic expression. By leaving the theme and media open to the artists' interpretation, the work is conceptually and aesthetically diverse, drawing from as many insights and forms of expression as possible.
Unlike many open calls for work that charge a submission fee, Southern Exposure's juried exhibition does not require artists to pay to enter their work. The exhibition is open to any artist living in Northern California north of King City and south of the Oregon border. Over the course of two days, over 500 Northern Californian artists entered their work, attesting to the extreme popularity of the show. The final pieces were selected by juror, Astria Suparak, who made her decisions by blind process. For many of the artists selected, this is their first major exhibition and an important step in advancing their career.
Without is a themed exhibition of works by California MFA students curated by Meleko Mokgosi, graduate student in the UCLA Department of Art. This exhibition begins with the stipulation that all featured artists are either from or descendants of "non-Western" regions and cultures. As there is no trenchant division between "Western" and "non-Western," especially given today's transcultural context, we apply these terms in the loosest sense. Our definition of "non-Western" includes countries—specifically those in Africa, Asia and Latin/Central America—whose cultural and material histories have often been excluded within the Western canon of art history.
Observing individual artistic practices will re-locate the need for specificity in the gallery context; a need that has been lost within many contemporary trends that ignore differences in order to produce a more uniformed, global (and arguably more digestible) culture. Biographical details—where someone is from, receives an education and currently resides—are inescapable factors contributing to one's creative production. This exhibition will not only further engage viewers' sensitivities to geographical and cultural diversity but also examine how "non-Western" art is displayed and historicized.
