Katy Grannan followed Dorothea Lange's path along Route 99, and Grannan's photos, both black and white and color, are monumental, timeless and sleazy. Hers is an in-your-face nation of bathers and motel signs, the squinty and grand despair of humans looking into the sun. Katy Grannan's content feels almost too large for the photos. It is like the sound was turned off and the resulting silence that you can't pull away from is agonizingly private and political.

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The Istanbul Biennial is a key event in the international contemporary art scene -- a highly visible, highly respected exhibition that draws more than 100,000 visitors to the city and exposes them to some of the most engaged and relevant art being made today. In its opening week, the 12th Istanbul Biennial (which remains open through November 13) was attended by almost 4,000 guests, including critics, curators, museum and gallery administrators, and approximately 400 members of the press from 50 different countries. Everything they saw (whether they realized it or not) bore the marks of a CCA affiliate's hand -- specifically two CCA curators, one CCA graphic designer, and one CCA editor. They also saw the work of one faculty member and three alumni; all three alumni had entire galleries devoted to their work.

CCA President Stephen Beal, chair of the Board of Trustees F. Noel Perry, other trustees, and several members of the CCA Curator's Forum (a dedicated group of Wattis Institute supporters) flew to Istanbul for the opening weekend. Stephen Beal remarked, standing at the biennial entrance, "It is very gratifying to see the college so prominently represented here. It is evidence of the major relevance, at the international level, of what we are doing, and the kinds of experiences and access that CCA makes available to its community."

The Curators

It was almost two years ago that Wattis Institute director Jens Hoffmann accepted the invitation to co-curate the 12th Istanbul Biennial. Beginning with that moment, what began as a single thread of connection between the college and the city of Istanbul expanded into a densely packed web involving multiple individuals.

San Francisco, Calif., September 1, 2011—The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts is hosting the contemporary artist Harrell Fletcher as the Capp Street Project artist in residence for the fall 2011 semester. During his residency, Fletcher will collaborate with another artist, Travis Souza, on a project in which over the course of four weeks, Souza will walk the 432-mile route of the proposed high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco. Fletcher and Souza will host a culminating discussion about the project on Friday, September 30, 2011, the day Souza walks into San Francisco. This event is free and open to the public and will take place at 7 p.m. in Timken Lecture Hall at California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco.

See also: Wattis exhibition Painting Between the Lines

San Francisco, Calif., September 1, 2011--The CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts will present the exhibition More American Photographs from October 4 through December 17, 2011, in the Logan Galleries of California College of the Arts, 1111 Eighth Street, San Francisco. The exhibition is curated by Jens Hoffmann, director of the Wattis Institute. It is free and open to the public, with an opening reception on Tuesday, October 4, from 6-8 p.m.

As the United States slowly recovers from its most significant economic downturn since the Great Depression, the Wattis Institute reexamines the well-known 1935-44 photography program of the Farm Security Administration (FSA), which employed such iconic artists as Walker Evans, Ben Shahn, Dorothea Lange, and Marion Post Wolcott. Inspired by their example, the Wattis commissioned 12 contemporary photographers to travel the United States, documenting its land and people. In the exhibition, the new images will be presented alongside a number of photographs by the FSA photographers.

The FSA was implemented as part of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, a program that sought to create relief, recovery, and reform after the devastating years of the Great Depression. Over a period of almost nine years, headed by Roy Stryker, director of the Historical Section, the FSA employed a number of photographers, tasking them with bringing to light the “third of a nation” that President Roosevelt defined as “ill-housed, ill-clad, ill-nourished.” Many of the 250,000 FSA photographs have endured and become iconic. Stryker prepared the photographers with shooting scripts, listing all of the subjects he wanted pictures of for his famous “file”: “chicken dinners,” “18th Amendment,” “corner drug store.” These notes led to incredibly thorough and engaging photographic documentation of American culture and habits in the 1930s and 1940s. The Wattis Institute employed Stryker’s scripts and borrowed from his methodology to brief the contemporary photographers.