CCA Events

Americana: 50 States, 50 Months, 50 Exhibitions

Wattis Institute exhibition
September 5, 2007–May 31, 2012

Info: 415.551.9210 or www.wattis.org

Inaugurated in September 2007 and entering its fifth and final year, Americana: 50 States, 50 Months, 50 Exhibitions is a long-term program consisting of 50 one-month long exhibitions co-organized by the Wattis in collaboration with the CCA Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice. Each monthly installment concentrates on one of the 50 American states, presented in alphabetical order by state name, with the different exhibitions encompassing artworks, historical artifacts, curiosities, books, and other elements. All the presentations take place in the same exhibition space, the Mary Augustine Gallery, a special vitrine that has been configured in the shape of the United States. Presented in alphabetical order, the 2011-12 program will focus on 10 states, from South Dakota to Wyoming, and it will also roam to four U.S. territories and one district.

Founding support for CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts programs has been provided by Phyllis C. Wattis and Judy and Bill Timken. General support for the Wattis Institute 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.

Categories: Curatorial Practice Wattis Institute

Wattis Institute: John Baldessari: Class Assignments, (Optional)

January 19–March 31, 2012

Wattis Institute, San Francisco campus
San Francisco campus map (PDF)
Directions »

Reception: Thur., Jan. 19, 6-8 p.m.
Hours: Tues.-Fri., noon–8 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Info: 415.551.9210 or wattis.org

Students from CCA's Graduate Program in Fine Arts will exhibit works that they created based on Baldessari's teaching notes from his time as a professor at California Institute of the Arts (Cal Arts). The original course was titled Cal Arts Post Studio Art: Class Assignments (optional), 1970. Based on his class notes, students will, for instance, be instructed to "imitate Baldessari in actions and speech. Video," "Disguise an object to look like another object," or "Develop a visual code. Give it to another student to crack."

This exhibition pursues two of Baldessari's own concerns. The first is art making -- specifically his predilection for language's structure and arbitrary games, which have been a key element in his conceptual works of the 1970s, such as Throwing Three Balls in the Air to Get a Straight Line (Best of Thirty-Six Attempts) from 1973. The second is pedagogical. For many decades Baldessari has been directly engaged with the education of artists. He has continued working with students for nearly three decades, most notably between 1970 and 1986 when he taught at Cal Arts. Many of the strategies Baldessari deploys in his own work -- experimentation, rule-based systems, and the defiance of arbitrarily imposed limits -- are akin to contemporary pedagogical methods.

The participating MFA students are:
Fatema Abdoolcarim
Zafer A. Aksit
Andrea Bacigalupo
Simone Bailey
Teresa Baker
Kate Bonner & Rebekah Goldstein
Maureen Burdock
Caroline Charuk
Ji Eun Chun
James Coquia
Kimberlee Cordova
Kimberlee Cordova & Elizabeth Moran
Melissa Dickenson
Jeremy Ehling
Elizabeth Eicher and Helene Schlumberger
Katelyn Eichwald
Jamie Emerick
Will Emmert
Arash Fayez
Rachel Granofsky
Larissa Greer
Seth Gutierrez
Sadie Harmon
Jaimie Healy
Helga Hizer
Megan Lavelle
Cara Levine
Heidi Lubin
Leora Lutz
Lindsey Lyons
Phillip Maisel
Marc Manning
Yan Yan Mao
Nicole Markoff
Bruna Massadas
Senalka McDonald
Zoe McCloskey
Em Meine
Elizabeth Moran
Christie Yuri Noh
Alison Padgett
Alison Padgett and Andrea Gonzalez
Christine Pan
Maya Pasternak
Byron Peters
Christine M. Peterson
Aïdah Aliyah Rasheed
Joshua Reinstein
Neil Rivas
Michael Rothfeld
Ann Schnake
Diana Stapleton
Lauren M. Taylor
Maria Torres
Meghan Urback
Ben Vilmain
Alex Wang
Heather Watson
Heather Watson and Katelyn Eichwald
Heather Watson and Janey Smith
Tali Weinberg
Ansley West
Jacob Wick
Calder Yates & Helga Hizer
Jake Ziemann

Categories: Fine Arts Graduate Studies Public Calendar Wattis Institute

Wattis Institute: 101 Collection

Wattis Institute, San Francisco campus
San Francisco campus map (PDF)
Directions »

Reception: Thur., Jan. 19, 6-8 p.m.
Hours: Tues.–Fri., noon-8 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Info: 415.551.9210 or wattis.org

Route 3: Anthony Discenza Meets Mungo Thomson Meets Harrell Fletcher Meets Alicia McCarthy Meets Eleanor Antin Meets Jason Meadows Meets Rodney Graham Meets Pascal Shirley Meets Ari Marcopoulos Meets Paul McCarthy Meets James Welling Meets Catherine Opie Meets Tammy Rae Carland Meets Ed Ruscha is the third exhibition in an annual series to be drawn from the 101 Collection based in San Francisco. It examines the essential nature of an art collection -- an accumulation of objects gathered for personal interest, research, or presentation -- and attempts to provide an alternative organizational strategy to that of a thematic structure.

The curator, David Kasprzak (MA Curatorial Practice 2011) has completely relinquished the decision-making process, instead inviting the artists in the 101 Collection to select the works themselves. In addition, he delegated his curatorial tasks to colleagues within the Wattis and CCA. The chief preparator, who typically follows the installation plan and instruction of a curator, has installed the exhibition. The institution’s designer has created the graphic identity. All texts have been generated by the institution's managing editor.

Featured artists: Anthony Discenza, Mungo Thomson, Harrell Fletcher, Alicia McCarthy, Eleanor Antin, Jason Meadows, Rodney Graham, Pascal Shirley, Ari Marcopoulos, Paul McCarthy, James Welling, Catherine Opie, Tammy Rae Carland, and Ed Ruscha

101 Collection: Route 3 is sponsored by Kadist Art Foundation.

Categories: Curatorial Practice Public Calendar Wattis Institute

The Way Beyond Art: Architecture in the Expanded Field

Presented by the CCA Wattis Institute and the Architecture Program
March 8–April 7, 2012

from the Flux: Architecture in a Parametric Landscape exhibition at CCA, 2009

Wattis Institute, San Francisco campus
San Francisco campus map (PDF)
Directions »

Reception: Thur., Mar. 8, 6-8 p.m.
Hours: Tues.–Fri., noon-8 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Info: 415.551.9210 or www.wattis.org

As a part of the series The Way Beyond Art, the Wattis Institute presents WBA3: Architecture in the Expanded Field by Douglas Burnham/envelope a+d and CCA Director of Architecture Ila Berman. This exhibition will examine the emerging "expanded field" of architectural installation through a self-reflective, immersive, and didactic exhibition structure.

WBA3 will be an architectural installation, operating both within and outside of the Wattis gallery, that supports an embedded exhibition presenting the mapped expanded field of art and architectural installation. Operating on the fundamental conditions of the architectural, the installation will extend the spatial, perceptual, and material territory within which both artists and architects are working. Similarly it will enable the investigation of ideas, experimentation with emerging technologies, and the distillation of perceptual and experiential conditions without the limitations imposed by the permanence of architecture. Blurring the boundaries between art and architecture, this exhibition will explore a broad terrain of installation practices whose conceptual, spatial and material trajectories have generated an expanding network of relations between architecture, sculpture, interiors, and landscape.

RSVP for this event »

Categories: Architecture Public Calendar Undergraduate Exhibitions Wattis Institute

Lecture by Ryan Gander

Presented by the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts
Tuesday, March 27, 2012, 7–9 pm

Ryan Gander, "Bauhaus Revisited" from the series "An Incomplete History of Ideas," 2003

Timken Lecture Hall, San Francisco campus
San Francisco campus map (PDF)
Directions »

Info: 415.703.9521 or wattis@cca.edu

Note: This event was originally scheduled for March 13

The Wattis Institute is pleased to host a lecture by the London-based artist Ryan Gander, our spring Capp Street Project artist in residence and one of the featured artists in the Wattis's ongoing program The Magnificent Seven. Gander's idea-based practice appropriates elements from different disciplines -- from architecture to urbanism, design, or language -- to suggest narratives that defy artistic conventions and evade popular culture or personal experience. Loose Associations (2002) was an ongoing performance work that rapidly gained him international recognition. Taking the form of a lecture series, the piece allowed Gander to engage in verbal digressions through topics as diverse as "desire lines," furniture design, and Morse code. Puzzles also play a key role in Gander's practice. In recent years he has produced curios and complex works, for instance Bauhaus Revisited (2005), a chess set based on Joseph Hartwig's 1924 didactical redesign of the game.

Gander studied at Manchester Metropolitan University, the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, and the Jan van Eyck Akademie. Recent projects include ILLUMInations at the 54th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale; Intervals at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; and the Public Art Fund, New York. He has had recent solo shows at Dazaifu Tenmangu, Fukuoka, Japan; 1223 Gendaikaiga, Tokyo; YU-UN Viewing Room, Tokyo; Okinawa Prefectural Museum; and Haus Konstruktiv, Zurich. He recently published a monograph, Catalogue Raisonnable Vol: 1.

Categories: Lecture Series Public Calendar Wattis Institute

Curatorial Practice Thesis Exhibition

April 19–May 19, 2012

Wattis Institute, San Francisco campus
San Francisco campus map (PDF)
Directions »

Reception: Thur., Apr. 19, 6-8 p.m.
Hours: Tues.-Fri., noon-8 p.m.; Sat., 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
Info: 415.551.9210 or www.wattis.org

Graduating students in the Graduate Program in Curatorial Practice investigate the notion of the apology within the current age of precariousness and sociopolitical unrest.

Categories: Curatorial Practice Graduate Studies Public Calendar Wattis Institute