CCA Wattis Institute Presents May and June Passengers
San Francisco, April 16, 2008
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts Passengers exhibition, a permanent, rotating presentation of emerging international contemporary artists, will feature Gareth Moore and Roman Ondák in May and June, respectively. As with all the artists featured in Passengers, these will be their first solo presentations in a public arts institution in the United States.
Located in the Wattis Institute's upper gallery, Passengers is divided into two components: One is a group show of 11 artists, and the other is a solo show. At the end of each month, the solo artist leaves the show completely, a new artist is introduced into the group show, and one of the group-show artists moves into the solo exhibition space. The participating artists work across a wide range of media and practices and come from countries as diverse as Portugal, Brazil, Slovakia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Mexico as well as the United States. "Passengers confirms the Wattis Institute's commitment both to supporting artists at early stages of their careers and to developing unique and unorthodox exhibition formats," says Wattis Institute Director Jens Hoffmann.
On the first Tuesday of each month there is an informal opening event for the new solo-show artist. (Roman Ondák is an exception; his opening will take place on May 27.) At the opening event, the artist gives a gallery talk from 5–6 p.m., followed by a reception from 6–7 p.m. All Wattis Institute exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public.
Upcoming Passengers solo artists will include Valérie Mréjen (July 2008), Federico Herrero (August 2008), Tauba Auerbach (September 2008), Kris Martin (October 2008), Dirk Stewen (November 2008), Kirsten Pieroth (December 2008), and Colter Jacobsen (January 2009).
Gareth Moore
Exhibition: May 6–24, 2008
Opening: May 6, 5–7 p.m.
The Vancouver-based artist Gareth Moore is concerned with restoring use value to the discarded. Always working in direct response to a specific place, he reconfigures existing elements and found objects in gently subversive ways to focus attention on the overlooked or the mundane. His Transformers (2003) project involved walking through Vancouver and looking for abandoned articles of clothing on the streets and in dumpsters. For each item that he found, Moore swapped the same article that he was wearing until his clothing had entirely changed.
Moore's pieces often materialize from exercises in economics, subtly examining the habits of consumerism and the concept of recycling. In one of his best-known works, St. George Marsh (2005–6), he ran a small corner shop in Vancouver together with his collaborator Jake Gleeson. In an investigation of worth and worthlessness, the shop sold an eclectic mix of items, from exotic sodas and candy to sticks, rocks, and broken media equipment, while also providing free books and presenting displays of things that were not for sale at all.
Roman Ondák
Exhibition: May 27–June 28, 2008
Opening: May 27, 5–7 p.m.
To create his installations, photographs, drawings, and performances, the Slovakia-based artist Roman Ondák invites the participation of people that he often does not know. Asking them to follow his instructions while also interjecting their own creativity, the result is a controlled study of collective imagination. Common Trip (2000), for example, is a series of drawings and sculptures of places where the artist has traveled, made by people who have never been to those places but to whom the artist described his memories. To make Passage (2004), Ondák gave chocolate bars to 500 steel factory workers in Kitakyushu, Japan, and asked them to make sculptures from the foil wrappers; the hundreds of tiny artworks were then displayed in an exhibition in Kitakyushu, essentially forming a collective, creative view of the factory.
Our City in 3000 (2007), a new work featured in the Passengers exhibition, is a selection of drawings made by a diverse group of children from across San Francisco. The artist asked each of them to imagine the city in the year 3000 and to make a drawing of the future that included a self-portrait. Suggesting that the future can be glimpsed through the eyes of a younger generation, the drawings convey some consistent themes, but also numerous unique and original visions.
Founding support for CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts programs has been provided by Phyllis C. Wattis and Judy and Bill Timken. Generous support provided by the Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Grants for the Arts / San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, Ann Hatch and Paul Discoe, and the CCA Curator's Forum.
About the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts was established in 1998 in San Francisco at California College of the Arts. It serves as a forum for the presentation and discussion of international contemporary art and curatorial practice. Through groundbreaking exhibitions, the Capp Street Project residency program, lectures, symposia, and publications, the Wattis Institute has become one of the leading art institutions in the United States and an active site for contemporary culture in the Bay Area.
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts is noted for the interdisciplinarity and breadth of its programs. It offers studies in 20 undergraduate and seven graduate majors in the areas of fine arts, architecture, design, and writing. The college offers bachelor of architecture, bachelor of arts, bachelor of fine arts, master of architecture, master of arts, master of fine arts, and master of business administration degrees. With campuses in Oakland and San Francisco, CCA currently enrolls more than 1,600 full-time students. Noted alumni include the painters Nathan Oliveira and Raymond Saunders; the ceramicists Robert Arneson, Viola Frey, and Peter Voulkos; the filmmaker Wayne Wang; the conceptual artists David Ireland and Dennis Oppenheim; and the designers Lucille Tenazas and Michael Vanderbyl.