CCA News
CCA Wattis Institute Presents The Magnificent Seven: Harrell Fletcher
Posted on Monday, November 30, 2009, by Brenda Tucker
The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts will present the exhibition The Magnificent Seven: Harrell Fletcher: Selections from the Life and Work of Michael Bravo from January 19 through April 24, 2010, in the Logan Galleries (lower level) on the San Francisco campus of California College of the Arts. The exhibition is free and open to the public, with an opening reception on Tuesday, January 19, from 6–8 p.m.
Harrell Fletcher, himself a renowned artist, is the curator of this unique, biographical exhibition featuring artworks by Michael Bravo, his mentor, family member, and friend. The presentation includes not only paintings, drawings, photographs, prints, and sculptures produced by Bravo over the past 50 years, but also a wide range of personal objects that Bravo created for Fletcher's family, including wooden ships, airplanes, and mobiles. It will also feature family snapshots and other ephemera from Bravo's life and career. The exhibition is part of The Magnificent Seven, the experimental new Wattis Institute program in which seven contemporary artists are integrated in numerous ways into the academic life of CCA.
Bravo married Fletcher's older sister when Fletcher was a baby. Fletcher grew up wanting to be just like him; Bravo was an artist, a builder, a musician, and a generally unorthodox person completely different from everyone else in the Fletcher family. Bravo was friendly and likable, often making toys for the kids, taking Fletcher fishing, and teaching him lithography at an early age. Bravo's artwork made a particularly early and deep impression; Fletcher recalls being confused and intrigued by Bravo's abstract, strange, and varied pieces.
Fletcher was 10 years old when Bravo and his sister divorced, and Fletcher didn't see his mentor again until he was 18 and enrolled at Humboldt State University, where Bravo was an instructor. Fletcher took every possible course with the artist for the next three years; it felt strangely familiar, he says, to be an official student of his early role model.
After Fletcher left Humboldt State University the two saw each other only occasionally over the next decade, but their lives continued to coincide in interesting ways. Fletcher attended graduate school at CCA, where Bravo had obtained his BFA and MFA degrees. In the same year that Fletcher accepted a tenure-track job teaching art at Portland State University in Oregon, Bravo retired from Humboldt State University after more than 25 years of teaching.
Bravo's life and artwork continue to serve as guideposts for Fletcher. Bravo instilled in Fletcher the idea that he could build a career and a life around what he valued. Although their work is very different, Fletcher appreciates Bravo's diverse, idiosyncratic, and very personal style.
About Michael Bravo
Michael Bravo was born in Oakland and raised in Sacramento. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Legion of Honor in San Francisco, and the Oakland Museum of California. He received his BFA and MFA degrees from California College of the Arts. From 1973 to 2004 Bravo was an instructor at Humboldt State University, and since retiring he has continued to live in that area.
About Harrell Fletcher
Born in 1967 in Santa Maria, California, Harrell Fletcher has worked collaboratively and individually on a variety of socially engaged, interdisciplinary projects for more than a decade. His recent traveling exhibition The American War, originated in 2005, has been presented at several art institutions across the United States, including White Columns, New York, and the MIT Center for Advanced Visual Studies in Boston. A book version of Fletcher's ongoing project Learning to Love You More, a participatory website launched in 2002 with the artist Miranda July, was published in 2007. Fletcher received a BFA from San Francisco Art Institute in 1990 and an MFA from California College of the Arts in 1994. He is currently a professor of art at Portland State University.
About California College of the Arts
Founded in 1907, California College of the Arts (CCA) 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 San Francisco and Oakland, CCA currently enrolls 1,800 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. For more information about CCA, visit www.cca.edu.
About the CCA Wattis Institute
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. For more information about the Wattis Institute, visit www.wattis.org.