UC Visual Arts @ 50

Title Extensions of Photography: A Visual Arts Faculty, Emeritus Faculty, and Alumni Exhibition

Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1vt6d51t

Authors UC San Diego Department of Visual Arts Sizonenko, Tatiana

Publication Date 2016-10-07

License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 4.0

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University Art Gallery Mandeville Center UC San Diego Emeritus Faculty, and Alumni Exhibition October 7 – December 9, 2016 A Visual Arts Faculty, Extensions of Photography

VA 50 Extensions of Photography

Amy Adler Eleanor Antin Kaucyila Brooke Becky Cohen Brian Cross Moyra Davey John Craig Freeman Kip Fulbeck Anya Gallaccio Katie Grinnan Nina Katchadourian Fred Lonidier Jean Lowe Kim MacConnel Babette Mangolte Rubén Ortiz-Torres Patricia Patterson Martha Rosler Elizabeth Sisco Deborah Small Phel Steinmetz Blaise Tobia Ruth Wallen Introduction Barthes’s theoretical writings Fine Arts degree in photography, has opened up a new way of thinking fully institutionalized a wide array about pictures and helped artists of conceptual strategies and forms. who, beginning in the 1960s, were Starting in the early 1970s with already experimenting with the the hiring of Phel Steinmetz and photographic medium to justify and Fred Lonidier, who spearheaded the expand their practice. Dissatisfied photography program, artists and with the pervasive commercialism of graduate students affiliated with UC fine arts photography, those artists San Diego have made a commitment In his seminal essay of 1961, “Pho- cal treatment, framing, etc) and were not interested in the aesthet- to non-formalist photography, and tographic Message,” Roland Barthes represents a coding of the photo- ic dimension of the photographic their artistic practice has contribut- discusses the photographic image graphic analogue…. The code of image so much as its role in culture ed to the expanded notion of what a operating like a semiotic system, as a connotation was in all likelihood and politics. They examined how work of art can be. particularly paradoxical sort of sign, neither ‘natural’ nor ‘artificial’ but photographs could be used to convey Over the years, a number of prolif- because it possesses simultaneously historical, or if it to be preferred messages, how such messages were ic artists who practiced photography, an “objective” and “invested” nature, ‘cultural.’ related to consumerism, and how video, and experimental film joined both natural and cultural. Barthes photography was employed to exert the department, for a fixed period postulates that the two fundamental Barthes thus skewers the genre of political control. Moreover, consid- of time or for the duration of their semiotic operations—denotation and photography that, because of its pre- ering the paradoxical complexity of academic careers, including Eleanor connotation—are inseparable within sumed “naturalness” or “neutrality,” the photographic image, they further Antin, Jean-Pierre Gorin, Helen the content of the pictures and con- viewers were predisposed to take for questioned the nature of its use in Mayer Harrison and Newton Harri- stitute their appeal. He writes: granted. He proposes that everyday relation to the images that populate son, Louis Hock, Allan Kaprow, Bar- images are complex signs rather our world. bara Kruger, Kim MacConnel, and The photographic paradox can than seemingly innocent and trans- Barthes’ writing about photog- Babette Mangolte. Some extremely be seen as the coexistence of two parent forms. Hence he underscores raphy aimed both to unmask its talented graduates subsequently messages, the one without a code photography’s inherent tendency “objectivity” and to account for how a taught in the department as well, (the photographic analogue), and to present itself as a “perfect ana- particular view of the world becomes such as Becky Cohen, Jean Lowe, the other with a code (the ‘art,’ or logue” without a style, while veiling naturalized. Thus it furnishes a Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, Eliza- the treatment, or the ‘writing,’ or its invented and highly structured convenient and constructive frame- beth Sisco, Deborah Small, and Ruth the rhetoric, of the photograph); meanings hidden behind those that work for this exhibition, which itself Wallen. The department has always structurally, the paradox is clearly arise almost accidentally. Barthes’s sets out to provide an understand- embraced interdisciplinary approach- not the collusion of a denoted mes- assertion about the play between the ing of the practice and concept of es to making art and, accordingly, sage and a connoted, it is that here denoted or literal and connoted or photography as it developed in the Professor Emeritus Particia Pat- the connoted message (or coded) symbolic/representational elements Department of Visual Arts at UC terson and former visiting lecturer message develops on the basis of a of the picture serves to delineate the San Diego over the past 50 years. Katie Grinnan have extended the message without a code…. Con- ways in which all photographic imag- Since its inception in 1967 by Paul practice of photography to painting notation, the imposition of second es, whether aesthetic/fine art objects Brach, and under the leadership of and sculpture, either by exploiting meaning on the photographic or merely chance snapshots, share David Antin, the department has photography as a practical tool in a message proper, is realized at the intrinsic properties that a skilled fostered ever-expanding photograph- sketchbook process that transforms different levels of the production practitioner can exploit in order to ic practices including video, perfor- photography into painting, or by of the photograph (choice, techni- produce expressive work. mance, and revisionist documentary integrating photographic images and approaches and, in the Master of photograms as structural elements in photo-sculptures and installations. ies between creative categories but Extensions of Photography inau- The show complements The Uses The work of current faculty, includ- also to blur the line between art and gurates VISUAL ARTS @ 50: ART of Photography: Art, Politics, and the ing Amy Adler, Brian Cross, Anya life. Promoting new and post-studio INTO LIFE, a series of exhibitions Reinvention of a Medium, 1968-1985, Gallaccio, and Rubén Ortiz-Torres, practices for art, their work has both and events celebrating the 50th anni- a major Southern California exhibi- further reflects the emergence of new introduced themes of everyday life versary of the Department of Visual tion running concurrently at the Mu- areas of photographic practice rang- and revealed the pressing histo- Arts in 2017. Developed by a select seum of Contemporary Art, San Di- ing from drawing to hip hop. ries of gender, class, and political committee of faculty, emeriti, and ego from September 24 to January 2. Since the mid-1960s, UC San resistance. The range of works also alumni, the anniversary program- It extends the theme of the MCASD Diego-affiliated artists, drawn to reflects how analog photography has ming will survey the impact and show and primarily covers the period photography’s inherent political and rapidly given way to its digital suc- achievements of the department and from 1985 up to the present day. social dimensions, have significantly cessor: carefully produced prints are help shape a narrative for the future broadened the notion of the photo- juxtaposed with works responding of visual arts at UC San Diego. —Tatiana Sizonenko, Ph.D., Art graphic image by fashioning new to a culture increasingly dominated History, Theory and Criticism, 2013 forms and formats, such as text-and- by virtual reality and screens with a image installations, photomontages, rapidly shifting content. photo-novellas, and film and video Extensions of Photography also productions that exploit photog- celebrates the work of recent alumni raphy’s fundamental capacity to, who went on establishing distin- within frames, multiply and capture guished artistic careers outside of time and movement. The conceptual the department. Work of Moyra practice of these artists has consis- Davey, John Craig Freeman, Kip tently extended the photographic me- Fulbeck, Nina Katchadorian, and dium to a broader cultural applica- Blaise Tobia represents new develop- tion, incorporating images from daily ments in photography over the past life to force the viewer to reconsider decade. They explore the processes, the social and political significance supports, and techniques of photog- behind the ever-present barrage of raphy; rematerialize the medium mundane images. through meticulous printing and dig- Extensions of Photography, there- ital technologies; and reassert how fore, seeks to highlight the artistic photographic images circulate. Their practices of former and current UC recent works further investigate the San Diego-affiliated artists and rules of photography and the nature alumni who have engaged with the of photographic representation and photographic image as a paradoxical reproduction, by taking the notion of sort of sign, who have contributed the photographic object beyond what significantly to the cultural life of it meant for Barthes. Reconceptual- San Diego and the United States ization of photographic practice by while helping redefine the medium current faculty and alumni carry on itself. The exhibition spotlights how the legacy of early experiments with these artists have employed photog- photography within the Department raphy in complex and layered ways of Visual Arts and remain central to not only to break down the boundar- its identity. Amy Adler Architect, 1999 Silver gelatin print, unique single edition 30 x 40 inches In the series Architect, Amy Adler raised in New York City, she gradu- Courtesy of Mr. Marcia and casts an unknown actor to play ated from Cooper Union in 1989 and Barry Maiten, , CA the role of an architect designing received an MFA in Visual Art from a presumed structure, which is UCLA and an MFA in Cinematic off-screen. The series includes four Arts from USC. Adler’s primary unique silver gelatin prints, single medium is drawing; her work is editions made from drawings that figurative, the subject matter com- were destroyed after being photo- ing from appropriated photographs graphed. In documenting a drawing and film stills as well as images she and then destroying it, and likewise constructs herself. Her work frequent- making a photograph that has no ly explores how actual and fictional edition, Adler explores the tension experience both influence identity; created by altering the presumptions it also questions how the stories we of each medium. grow up watching on screen affect our Amy Adler is Professor of Visual own choices, which in turn affect the Art at UC San Diego, where she has stories we see on screen. been teaching since 2004. Born and Eleanor Antin Who Are We, Where Are We Going from The Tree from The Last Days of Pom- Roman Allegories, 2004 peii, 2001 Chromogenic print Chromogenic print 48 1/2 x 61 1/2 inches 46 5/8 x 58 5/8 x inches Courtesy of the artist and Ronald Courtesy of the artist and Ronald Feldman Fine Arts, New York Feldman Fine Arts, New York

Since the early 2000s Eleanor tography and painting. Exploiting Antin has been making large-scale the pseudo-authenticity and pseu- photographic tableaux that use do-historicity of photography, Antin classical references and art history also fashions simulacra that evoke to reflect on current issues such as non-existent historical references. warfare and environmental destruc- tion. These bodies of work, like the Professor Emeritus Eleanor Antin ones that preceded them, are often works in photography, video, film, marked by wit and humor, even installation, performance, drawing, as they engage serious, even dark, and writing. Initially developing her subject matter. Working with staged practice amid New York’s artistic and photography rooted in academic literary avant-garde, Antin moved to painting and film, Antin embraced San Diego in 1969 with her husband conceptual photo-based representa- David Antin. She was a key figure tion and engaged in postmodern ap- within the vibrant community of left- propriation. Revealing a wide array ist artists and writers affiliated with of sources from sculpture to painting UC San Diego, where she taught from in the Western tradition, Antin 1975 until 2002. Beginning in 1972, freely borrows and translates both Antin has used fictional characters, singular poses and complex figura- autobiography, and narrative to tive compositions into photographic invent histories and explore what she tableaux. Reimagining The Last calls “the slippery nature of the self.” Day of Pompeii, Roman Allegories, In these theatrical dramatizations and Helen’s Odyssey, Antin explores of identity, she has brought together women’s agency and accomplish- traditional acting, performance art, ments in Western historical contexts photography, narrative, film-making, through characters both real and sculpture, assemblage, invented his- fictitious, while also commenting on tories and artifacts, and institutional the mutual interdependence of pho- critique. Kaucyila Brooke From Making the Most of Your Back- yard -The Story Behind an Ideal Beauty, 1991 Photomontage 40 x 32 inches Courtesy of the artist

Kaucyila Brooke was a lecturer at In Making the Most of Your Vis Arts, UC San Diego, from 1988- Backyard, an unseen narrator fixes 1991, and is currently faculty at her attention on the perfect object CALARTS. Brooke became known for of her desire and sifts through the her use of the photonovella or photo- ethics of courtly love and psychoan- graphic comic, whereby she presents alytic theory. Given that there is no strips of photomontage and text as a comparable marking for the litera- means for creating complex layered ture of lesbian romance in Western narratives that engage in theoretical Europe, the photonovella starts with discourse surrounding women and one of the first romance narratives in their representation. Brooke appro- Western literature, “The Romance of priates and subverts popular culture the Rose” by the 12th-century poet, while also questioning classical nar- Guillame de Lorris. Brooke’s series ratives, especially those that distort tries to reconcile the difference be- the representation of female desire. tween the garden/beauty in its ideal form and in its (her) less than perfect manifestation. Becky Cohen Swimmers, 1978/2010 Dudleya Pulverulenta Fine Art Hahnemühle prints Photographed for Robert Irwin Getty Courtesy of the artist Garden, text by Lawrence Weschler, 2002 In Swimmers, Becky Cohen exploits Becky Cohen is a M.F.A. Alumna and Pigment print the capacity of photography for serial was a Visiting Professor at Vis Arts Courtesy of the artist observation and raises issues about in 1983-84. She is best known for her the different relationships which can landscapes of the gardens designed exist between the artist and the per- by André Le Nôtre during the seven- son before him. These wonderfully teenth century in and near Paris, for tender and loving studies of the male Robert Irwin’s Central Garden at The nude (her husband Harold Cohen) J. Paul Getty Center in Los Ange- call for a new kind of symmetry les, and for her photographs of the between men and women in Western unclothed human figure. An Alfred society. While the series refers to Eisenstaedt Awards 2000 winner, the long tradition of the male nude Cohen’s photographs have been col- in Western art, Swimmers largely lected to major museums worldwide, exists outside of modernist conven- including The Stedelijk Museum, tions. Cohen strives to correct the Amsterdam; The Bibliotheque Natio- lopsided relationship between men nale, Paris; The Los Angeles County and women by overcoming society’s Museum; The Museum of Contempo- resistance to a woman examining a rary Art, San Diego; The Museum of man through a lens. Photographic Arts, San Diego; and have been published widely including in LIFE, , and Architectural Record. Brian Cross Ghostnotes: Music of the Unplayed, Dibiase’s Boom Box, Sketchbook 1991-2015 (Not shown) Parking Lot, The Little Temple, East Book Maquette (Excerpt in Progress) Hollywood, California, 2004 One sided color copy on paper Nacho and his 78s, Guadalajara, Mexico, 2000 Courtesy of the artist

Brian Cross: “Ghostnotes are the performed, not simply by eulogizing has tended to the photographic needs 2009 with Mulatu Astatke, Arthur unplayed sounds that exist between spaces but with a broad brush trying of the hip hop community. His prac- Verocai and the music of J. Dilla. hits in a rhythm. They are outside to use all the colors available.” tice is informed by a belief that hip He was the photo-editor at Rappages of agency, you do not set out to Brian Cross is an Assistant Professor hop does not just exist in the content from 1993-1997 and at Wax Poetics play them. They exist and they are of Visual Arts at UC San Diego. He of a work but in its conceptual frame- from 2004-2010. He was a director of activated through your playing. came to Los Angeles from Ireland work. He has executed more than one photography on the Oscar-nominated However all the great drummers in 1990 as a student of conceptual hundred album covers, several music documentary Exit Through the Gift have ghostnotes. Whether it is Earl art and a fan of hip hop. While at videos and short-form documentaries Shop. He is currently completing Palmer, Clyde Stubblefield, Bernard CalArts he began photographing hip including the award-winning, Keep- a new book of photographs entitled Purdie, Tony Allen or Questlove they hop culture. His work was collected intime: Talking Drums and Whisper- Ghostnotes to be published by Univer- are in many ways defined by their and published in It’s Not About a ing Vinyl, 2001, the feature length sity of Texas Press in 2017. ghostnotes. This unplayed space, Salary: Rap, Race and Resistance Brasilintime: Batucada com Discos, this extra figure in their music, its in Los Angeles, Verso, 1993. It was 2006 and the concert series Timeless rhythmic stamp to me is a wonderful nominated for the Rolling Stone way to explore or begin to describe music book of the year award, named the moments that exist in music that in New Musical Express as one of the words can only point at but barely do five best music books of that year, and any justice to. Ghostnotes is an at- listed by Harry Allen in Vibe mag- tempt to quantify this experience not azine as one of the top ten hip hop just using faces, not just using music books of all time. Since 1993 Cross Moyra Davey Adieu, 2015 Oozing Wall (R.L. triptych), 2014 2 C-prints 3 C-prints 12 x 18 inches 24 x 20 inches Courtesy of the artist and Murray Guy Courtesy of the artist and Murray Guy Gallery, New York Gallery, New York

Since 2007, Davey has become obsession with certain snapshots known for a new type of photograph- collected and organized as a montage ic object, where photographic prints on the back of the rules board posted are folded to letter-size, taped at in his prison cell. Davey’s seemingly the edges, stamped, addressed, and modest work reclaims a practice of put in the mail, accumulating on photography grown out of contingen- their surfaces the attendant marks cy and accident. Her camera draws of their travel through the postal attention to the unseen and over- system. Davey’s work problematizes looked and reflects on possibilities of how photographic images circulate. producing and consuming, on writing Appropriating and reproducing and reading, and on novelty and fragments of epistolary writing, she obsolescence. explores the historical significance of Moyra Davey was born in Toronto photographs and the personal associ- in 1958. She earned a B.F.A. from ations they can evoke. Concordia University, Montreal, in Oozing Wall is another series of 1982, and an M.F.A. from UC San retrospective tableaux—compositions Diego in 1988. In 1989, she attended that might be thought of as talisman- the Independent Study Program at ic, votives to persons past and pres- the Whitney Museum of American ent. The series began in 1991 after Art, New York. Davey’s increasingly reading Jean Genet’s Funeral Rites, influential body of work comprises which described the main character’s photographs, writings, and video. John Craig Freeman Virtual Wuhan: Dazhimen Railway Virtual Wuhan: Old Wuhan Market, Station, 2016 2016 Archival inkjet print Archival inkjet print 11 x 14 inches 11 x 14 inches Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist

Produced by artist John Craig Free- John Craig Freeman is a public including London, Mexico City, Cal- commissioned by Rhizome.org and man, in partnership with the ZERO1 artist with over twenty-five years of gary, Havana, Kalinigrad, Warsaw, Turbulence.org and was awarded one American Arts Incubator, the U.S. experience using emergent technol- Zurich, Belfast, Venice, Istanbul, of the last Individual Artist Fellow- Department of State’s Bureau of Ed- ogies to produce large-scale public Copenhagen, Milano, Sydney, Sin- ships by the NEA in 1992. ucational and Cultural Affairs, the work at sites where the forces of gapore, Liverpool, Coimbra, Basel, Freeman received a Bachelor of U.S. Consulate General, Wuhan and globalization have impacted the lives Paris, and across the United States, Art degree from UC San Diego in K11 Art Foundation China. of individuals in local communities. as well as Hong Kong, Beijing, Xi’an, 1986 and a Master of Fine Arts de- Virtual Wuhan is a series of six Freeman expands the notion of public and Wuhan. In 2016 he traveled gree from the University of Colorado, archival inkjet prints of screenshots by exploring how networked digital to Wuhan as part of the U.S. State Boulder in 1990. He is currently a from a virtual reality experience technology is transforming our sense Department’s American Arts Incuba- Professor of New Media Art at Emer- which was created in April of 2016 of place. tor program administered by ZERO1. son College in Boston. on location in the city of Wuhan, Freeman is a founding member In 2015, he was the recipient of a considered one of the fastest chang- of the international artists collective commission from the Art + Technolo- ing cities in China and perhaps the Manifest. AR and has produced work gy program of the Los Angeles County entire world. and exhibited all around the world, Museum of Art. He has also had work Kip Fulbeck Shige Clients, Yokohama, 2014 21 x 84 inches Courtesy of the artist

Shige Clients by Kip Fulbeck meticu- and the Today Show, and has per- lously documents Japanese tattooing, formed and exhibited in over twenty an artistic practice revered in every countries and throughout the United country except in the country of its States. He is the author of several origin, where it still remains quasi-il- books including Mixed: Portraits of legal. In Japan, there is a very old Multiracial Kids; Permanence: Tat- stigma harbored about ink as being too Portraits; and Part Asian, 100% barbaric and backward, or used to Hapa, as well as directing a dozen mark criminals. These old prejudic- short films includingBanana Split es drove Fulbeck to photograph the and Lilo & Me. Fulbeck is Professor tattooed subjects for his book and the of Art at UC Santa Barbara, where resulting travelling exhibition Perse- he received the university’s Distin- verance: Japanese Tattoo Tradition guished Teaching Award and has in a Modern World. Shige Clients been named an Outstanding Faculty captures nude and loinclothed male Member five times. In recognition and female subjects bearing their for his work promoting multiracial body suits—slang for full-body awareness, he was awarded the tattoos—and keeping the Japanese inaugural Loving Prize at the 2009 tattoo tradition alive by showing the Mixed Roots Film & Literary Festival flora, fauna and folk figures needled and also named a Cultural Pioneer onto their skin. Each traditional tat- at Harvard University. In 2014, he too motif is rich with symbolism and was named a Local Hero by Southern historical meaning. California’s KCET Public Broad- Kip Fulbeck (M.F.A. Alum, 1992) casting Service and also received the is a pioneering artist, spoken word Community Builder Award at Van- performer, and filmmaker. He has couver’s Hapa-palooza Festival. been featured on CNN, MTV, PBS, Anya Gallaccio Silver Seed, 2005 silver gelatin prints on fiber based paper, oak frames 16 parts each 361 x 409 mm edition of 4 plus 1 artist’s proof Silver Seeds is a collection of photo- Smithson and Walter de Maria, and Courtesy of the artist and Blum & Poe graphic images by Anya Gallaccio their interest in entropy. Gallery, Los Angeles, CA produced with an electro-scanning Professor Anya Gallaccio emerged microscope at the Natural History in the late 1980s as part of the group Museum, London. Photographic of from Gold- studies of conifer seeds, their mag- smiths College in London. Since her nified interior and exterior surfaces, first appearance in the historic 1988 reveal details that are too small to exhibition, she has become see with the naked eye and produce internationally established, having unexpected and fantastic still-lifes. exhibited at the Sculpture Centre, Silver Seeds builds on Gallaccio’s New York and Palazzo Delle Pa- long-standing interest in natu- pesse, Sienna, and completed major ral materials and the beauty and commissions, including ‘Motherlode’ complexity of life as it is found in where she collaborated with vintner natural processes. Gallaccio is known Zelma Long to make six zinfandel for her early projects employing wines in Sonoma Valley. She has natural materials, including a room exhibited widely in the UK including painted with chocolate (1994), an Camden Art Centre, ICA, and the enormous ice block that melted over Serpentine in London; the Ikon Gal- the duration of the exhibition in the lery in Birmingham; and Bluecoat in Wapping Pumping Station (1996), Liverpool. Gallaccio was nominated and her intricate lawn design at for the and received the Compton Verney (2000). Gallaccio’s prestigious Sculpture Commission for work shifts paradoxically between the Duveen Gallery at Britain in minimal approaches to form and a 2003. In 2009 she prepared a major highly intuitive process, often using new work for ‘Radical Nature’ at the the strategies of , the Barbican, London. Gallaccio’s art is grid and modular units, yet over- held in a variety of public collections turning them through perishable including Tate, the Arts Council, the organic materials such as fruit, trees, British Council Collection, South flowers, ice, and sugar. The elemen- London Gallery, the Victoria and tal quality of these materials results Albert Museum, Seattle Art Museum, in natural processes of transforma- Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, tion and decay, often with unpredict- and the Museum of Contemporary able results that are in dialogue with Art in Sydney. 1960s land artists, including Robert Anya Gallaccio (cont.) Katie Grinnan Film, 2002 Friendly plastic, photos, pavement fragment 9.5 x 78 x 24 inches Courtesy of the artist and the Artist Pension Trust Institute

Katie Grinnan represents a new strategy, first initiated in Film and generation of artists who use expanded over time in her later photographs as material for sculp- work, extends the medium of photog- ture and by doing so deconstruct raphy to sculpture and establishes the medium in order to reconfig- the connection between casting and ure, renew, or recycle it. Film is photographic print. an experimental sculpture largely Katie Grinnan was a visiting made of photograms and inspired artist and guest speaker at Vis Arts by the cracks in the sidewalk seen several times at the end of the 1990s. by the artist in front of her studio She received her M.F.A. from UCLA in Los Angeles. The theme emerged in 1999. She has had solo exhibitions on her daily walks during the city’s at The Whitney Museum of American major upgrade of the neighborhood Art at Altria in New York, LAXART, sidewalks. Grinnan photographed and the Hammer Museum in Los the cracks, printed the images in the Angeles. Grinnan has been included darkroom, then cut the shape of the in many group exhibitions, including cracks out, and used them to make the 2004 Whitney Biennial at the photograms, exposing them multi- Whitney Museum of American Art, ple times to create the sensation of Real World: The Dissolving Space motion and instability in the singu- of Experience at Modern Art Oxford, lar image. Through cutting, disman- and The Artist Museum at MOCA. tling, repeating, and rearranging the Public collections include MOCA, fragmented images in her sculpture, the Hammer Museum, and LACMA, Grinnan shapes the perception of while her awards include a Guggen- space and time and exploits the heim fellowship and a Pollock-Kras- inherent plasticity of cinematic and ner grant. photographic images. This formal Nina Katchadourian Pretzel Landscape, From Seat Assign- Romeo and Juliet, From Composition ment, 2010 1993/2001 (Sorted Books, 1993-ongo- C-print ing), 2001 19 x 24 inches Digital c-print Courtesy of the artist and Catharine 13 ½ x 20 inches Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA Courtesy of the artist and Catharine Clark Gallery, San Francisco, CA

Seat Assignment by Nina titles, and resequencing the book and private collections including The Ceremony is currently included in Katchadourian consists of photo- spines into clusters so that the titles Metropolitan Museum of Art, Blanton Explode Every Day: An Inquiry graphs, video, and sound works, all can give a new idea. The final results Museum of Art, Morgan Library, San Into the Phenomena of Wonder at made in-flight using only a camera are shown either as photographs of Francisco , the MASSMoCA. A new commission phone and improvising with ma- the book clusters or as the actual Margulies Collection, and Saatchi entitled Floater Theater opens at the terials close at hand, from pretzel stacks themselves, often shown on Gallery. The Tang Museum exhibited Exploratorium in San Francisco on crumbs to in-flight magazines. The the shelves of the library they came Katchadouria’s first museum survey October 1, 2016. On October 21, 2016, project began spontaneously on from originally. Taken as a whole, in 2005, and on March 12, 2017, The Museum of Modern Art in New a flight in March 2010 and as of the clusters are a cross-section of Curiouser, a traveling exhibition of York will present Dust Gathering, March 2015 comprises a body of that library’s holdings that reflect its Katchadourian’s work, will open at Katchadourian’s audio tour on the work generated over 157 flights.Seat particular focus, idiosyncrasies, and the Blanton Museum in Austin, TX, subject of dust, as part of the Artists Assignment tests both the limits and inconsistencies. They sometimes also with an accompanying monograph. Experiment program. Katchadourian possibilities of mundane materials function as a portrait of the particu- Her new video The Recarcassing has won grants and awards from the and of the photographic medium by lar book owner. giving life back to objects frequently Nina Katchadourian (M.F.A. Alumna overlooked or underestimated and by 1993) is an interdisciplinary artist seeing what hadn’t been seen before. whose work includes video, perfor- The reconfiguration and reordering mance, sound, sculpture, photogra- of things is born from an invest- phy, and public projects. Her video ment in thinking on one’s feet, from Accent Elimination was included in optimism about the artistic potential the Armenian pavilion at the 2015 that lurks within the commonplace, Venice Biennale and won the Golden and from curiosity about the produc- Lion for Best National Participation. tive tension between freedom Exhibitions have included shows and constraint. at the Serpentine Gallery, Turner The Sorted Books project began Contemporary, de Appel, Palais de in 1993, and it has taken place on Tokyo, Istanbul Museum of Modern many different sites over the years, Art, Turku Art Museum, Museum of ranging from private homes to spe- Contemporary Art San Diego, ICA cialized book collections. The process Philadelphia, Museum, typically comprises sorting through a Artists Space, Sculpture Center, and collection of books, pulling particular MoMA PS1. Her work is in public Nina Katchadourian (cont.)

New York Foundation for the Arts, and the Nancy Graves Foundation. the American-Scandinavian Founda- Katchadourian lives and works in tion, the Anonymous Was a Woman Brooklyn and is an associate profes- Foundation, the Tiffany Foundation, sor on the faculty of NYU Gallatin. Fred Lonidier Allan Points, 1975 3 Art Talks, 1975 Vintage photograph Vintage photograph 16 x 20 inches 16 x 20 inches Courtesy of the artist and Michael Courtesy of the artist and Michael Benevento Gallery, Los Angeles, CA Benevento Gallery, Los Angeles, CA

This series of vintage photographs rigorous critique and reflects a new pedagogy of intense debate taking within . As my anti- by Fred Lonidier captures the spirit approach to photography that un- place in cloistered spaces. war commitment transformed into of teaching and learning in the dermined the fixation on technique Fred Lonidier: “Like a few others the leftist politics of class struggle, mid-1970s, when the department and reinvented documentary tradi- in this historical exhibition, I came I joined the University Council/AFT included a singular group of influen- tion by introducing art-based and into the arts from another back- local on campus and became a del- tial teachers and students including language-based works. The series ground. With a degree in sociology, egate to the Central Labor Council. Martha Rosler, Phel Steinmetz, responds to a photographic practice and later using 35 mm cameras in The “Health & Safety Game” was Alan Secula, and Lonidier himself. that took the form of both art and the Peace Corps and then the an- my first attempt to bring documen- Lonidier’s work was central to the critical writing. Taken in classrooms ti-war movement in Seattle, I started tary photography, sociology and formation of a certain genre of Con- in the brand-new Mandeville Art wondering if I could find a place for union activism together. So, for over ceptual Art that became later known Center, which became a permanent sociological documentary photogra- thirty years, I have been making as the San Diego School. This series home to the Visual Arts Department phy. Thanks much to David Antin, and exhibiting documentary photo/ both explores the dialectics of “art” in 1975, the photographic series when I arrived in San Diego in 1969 text/video installation works for, by and “life” that were at the heart of a gives a glimpse into the department’s I found a home for such a practice and about class struggle. The only Fred Lonidier (cont.)

significant thing to add is that I was at the Houston Center for Photogra- able to bring that practice to bear phy, the Oakland Museum, the Long about twenty miles south with labor Beach Museum, the San Francisco rights struggles in the maquiladoras Art Institute, the Focus Gallery, the in Tijuana from the mid-1990s on.” Kitchen, the New Museum of Contem- Professor Emeritus Fred Lonidier porary Art in New York City, the Los studied at Yuba College and San Angeles Institute for Contemporary Francisco State (graduate work in Art, the Whitney in New York, the sociology and photography) before Friends of Photography in Carmel, becoming a member of the M.F.A. and many other venues. Courses program at UC San Diego, where he taught by Lonidier have included joined the faculty in 1972. Lonidier’s Introduction to Photography, Photo- work deals with the sociological pos- graphic Strategies, Camera Tech- sibilities of photography applied to niques, Generating the Narrative, social change and has been exhibited and Art and Politics. Jean Lowe Men’s Interest, 2013 Motivation and Self-Help, 2013 Unique inkjet on poly-metal prints 54 x 37.5 inches Courtesy of the artist

Beginning in the 2000s, Lowe has photographic image as an unbiased Ucross Residency Prize, and The been exhibiting nationally in galleries created amazing papier-mâché books witness of reality. SD Art Prize cash grant presented since 1988, including Quint Gallery, that satirize familiar themes, from Jean Lowe received her B.A. from by San Diego Visual Arts Network. San Diego; McKenzie Fine Art Inc., self-help to gender politics. Using UC Berkeley in 1983 and her Her artworks are in the collections NY; Gracie Mansion, NY; and Holly photography as a tool and exploit- M.F.A. from UC San Diego in of the Athenaeum Music & Arts Solomon, NY. Her works have also ing its presupposed veracity, Lowe 1988. From 1992 to 2008 she was a Library, La Jolla, CA; California been seen in numerous museums blurs the distinction between image lecturer at Vis Arts. She has re- Center for the Arts Museum, Escondi- such as the Museum of Contemporary and reality while also engaging in a ceived numerous awards and grants do, CA; Prudential Corporation; San Art, San Diego; Madison Center for humorous social critique. Blown to including two WESTAF/NEA Diego Children’s Museum; San Diego the Arts Contemporary Arts Center, life-size, conceptual and decorative Regional Fellowships (sculpture), a Museum of Art; Museum of Contem- Cincinnati; Kohler Arts Center, She- displays with papier-mâché books Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant, porary Art, San Diego, La Jolla; Har- boygan, WI; List Visual Arts Center, are rendered as photo-realistic and a California Art Council grant; the rison Museum of Art, Utah State MIT, Cambridge; Whitney Museum, thus undermine the reliability of the Alberta duPont Bonsal Foundation University, Logan; 21C Museum NY; Contemporary Arts Museum, Purchase Award, CalArts/Alpert Hotel, Louisville, KY; and University Houston; and McNay Art Museum, of California, San Francisco. She has San Antonio. Kim MacConnel Sultan of the Shoes, 2000 Local Labor, Al Dahar, 2010 C-print on panel, cardboard, wood, C-print on panel, cardboard, wood, plastic, and jewels plastic, and jewels Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist

Kim MacConnel has been recognized decorated with modernist patterning, Gallery of Art. Notable exhibitions of as one of the founders of the so-called the artist staging a purposeful inter- his work include: Decoc Terrae Afri- Pattern and Decoration art move- play of photographic documentation cano, at the Aspen Museum of Art, ment. Embracing the language of and caricatural folklore. MacConnel’s 1990; Hotel Beauregard, at the Holly “dots, dashes, and zigzags,” he has multilayered representation has Solomon Gallery; New York,1991; created works that draw inspiration been understood as a witty critique Bull Story at the Museum of Contem- from wide-ranging and multicul- of the Modernist construction of porary Art San Diego, 1993; Stair- tural resources including textiles of Africa in its combination of prim- way of the Ancients, a part of INSITE numerous world regions, souvenir itivism and collage, both of which ‘94, in Tijuana, Mexico; Age of Plas- postcards, and found graphic images. are complementary elements of the tic, at Thomas Solomon’s Garage, Los Beginning with Decoc Terrae Afri- early modernism of Picasso and Angeles and Holly Solomon Gallery, cano, a 1990 solo exhibition at the Braque. As Kenneth Silver wrote in New York, 1994; Fifty Views of Fuji, Aspen Art Museum, MacConnel his influential review: “MacConnel’s Holly Solomon Gallery, New York, turned to photography as an artistic work collaged Africa in a violation of 1997; Zoo Story, University Art Gal- tool to reflect on his travels in West, early Cubism’s parceling out of key, lery, UCSD, 1999; The Millennium Central, and North Africa, voyages hidden values of cultural stasis and Show, Whitney Museum of American that at the time he called “searching movement, making Africa radically Art, New York, 1999; Arabia Felix for Picasso’s ghost.” Picasso was in- impure.” and New China, Photo Constructions terested in sculptural pieces that he Kim MacConnel received his B.A. from Yemen and China, Rosamund then “lifted from background,” “made from UC San Diego in 1969 and Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica, 2002; them “foreground,” and created “the M.F.A. in 1972. He has taught in the and, most recently, Parrot Talk, A fabric of Modern Art,” as MacCon- Visual Arts Department in various Retrospective of works by Kim Mac- nel puts it. In contrast, this series capacities between 1976 and 1980, Connel, at the Santa Monica Museum of works intends to “metaphorically and permanently since 1987. His of Art, Santa Monica. MacConnel has re-insert the ‘subject’ back into the work has been exhibited in the Whit- also been included in Painting and decorative context from which it ney Museum of American Art Bienni- Sculpture since 1940, An Ameri- originally came.” Conceived as giant al Exhibition’s in 1975, 1977, 1979, can Renaissance, Sam Hunter; The didactic panels, Sultan of the Shoes 1981, and 1985; the Museum of Mod- History of Modern Art, 3rd edition, and Local Labor, Al Dahar depict ern Art’s An International Survey of Harvard Arnason; The Power of traditional life in Egypt. Documen- Recent Painting and Sculpture, 1984; Feminist Art, Norma Broude and tary photographs are collaged and the Venice Biennale, 1984; and is rep- Mary Garrard, Harry Abrams, 1995; inserted into geometric scaffolding resented in the Morton G. Neumann as well as Irving Sandler’s 1996 Art Family Collection at the National of the Postmodern Era. Babette Mangolte Trisha Brown’s choreography Lateral Richard Foreman Pain(t) Diptych Pass from 1985 with set and costume made in 2010 from images from the by Nancy Graves: Richard Foreman’s play Pain(t) from Dancers Randy Warshow lifting Vicky 1974 Shick Performers Kate Mannheim, and Mimi Courtesy of the artist Johnson Courtesy of the artist

Babette Mangolte: “The main incu- straight definitions of specialization, because of a compulsive desire to bator of my artistic practice has been neither about what art should be channel how creative outbursts could New York City in the 1970s, both or what art should do. Past tradi- flourish, that attempts were made the city itself with its orderly grid tions were tossed aside. New was to create, from scratch, communities map and its chaotic activities and the in the air. It was a time of activities that would foster interdisciplinary people I met when I arrived, the film- exploding outside the gallery walls. methods to produce what makers, writers, dancers who were Intellectual stimulation was provid- had happened haphazardly in so passionate about what they were ed at every turn. The art world was the New York downtown scene doing. I first saw New York in late small and you could interact with twenty years before.” October 1970. It was a time of great artists by accident just meeting them Professor Babette Mangolte (Ameri- ferment in the art community in in the street. Disciplines were never can, born in France) is a nationally films, dance, performances, theatre, discussed. Chance was an integral recognized and internationally ex- a time when people didn’t abide by part of your life. It is in academia, hibited experimental filmmaker also known for her photography of dance, theater and performance works. She had two complete retrospectives of her films and camerawork, in 2000 in Germany (organized by Madeleine Bernstorff and Klaus Volkmer) at the Berlin and Munich Cinematheque, and in 2004 at Anthology Films Archives in New York City with the opening of her 2003 film Les Modèles de Pickpocket. Her film Seven Easy Pieces by Marina Abramovic (2007) premiered at the Berlinale 2007. She has recently been creating new works from her photo archives that highlight specific movement in known choreography Rubén Ortiz-Torres Olmec Head in Mayan City, Mexico Aztec Butt. Himeji, Japan, 2009 City, 2007 32 x 46 inches 48 x 63 inches Platinum print Platinum print Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist

The photographs of Rubén Ortiz-Tor- but some architects and designers res don’t just document a simula- probably did. crum but also reflect on how analog Professor Rubén Ortiz-Torres was photography has become an archeo- born in Mexico City in 1964. Edu- logical relic and digital imagery an cated within the utopian models of re- illusory reality. Former sites of an- publican Spanish anarchism he soon cient civilizations have become tour- confronted the tragedies and cultural ist destinations, and avid entrepre- clashes of the post-colonial Third neurs have recreated some of these World. Being the son of a couple of sites in different locations around Latin-American folkloric musicians the world, far from their original he soon identified more with the nois- settings. Ortiz-Torres documents the es of urban punk music. After giving perhaps more exotic reproductions of up the dream of playing baseball in the marvels that with globalization the major leagues, and some archi- are popping up all over the world, tecture training (Harvard Graduate losing their link to a specific culture School of Design), he decided to study or nation. During the 19th century art. He went first to one of the oldest traveler photographers documented and most academic art schools of the the original sites in the Yucatan or Americas, the Academy of San Carlos larts in Valencia, CA. After enduring seum of Modern Art in New York, the the Holy Land to show a European in Mexico City, and later to one of the Mexico City’s earthquake and pollu- Metropolitan Museum of Art in New and North American public the exot- newest and more experimental, Ca- tion he moved to Los Angeles with York, the Museum of Contemporary ic marvels of these distant lands, and a Fullbright grant, only to survive Art in Los Angeles, the Los Angeles Ortiz-Torres uses similar processes riots, fires, floods, more earthquakes, County Museum of Art, Artspace in to those used by the traveler pho- and proposition 187. During all this San Antonio, the California Museum tographers, such as salt, platinum, he has been able to produce artwork of Photography in Riverside, the Cen- and cyanotypes. However, to be able in the form of paintings, photo- tro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo to do that, he has to make digital graphs, objects, installations, videos, in Mexico City, and the Museo Na- negatives using a hybrid process that films, customized machines, and even cional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in creates a fake representation of the an opera. He is part of the permanent Madrid, among others. After showing past like the architecture it portrays. Faculty of UC San Diego and has his work and teaching art around the Ortiz-Torres does not use digital participated in several international world, he now realizes that his dad’s software to create the often-absurd exhibitions and film festivals. His music was in fact better than most montages encountered in the images, work is in the collections of the Mu- rock’n roll. Patricia Patterson Kids at the Lake Casein on canvas 20 ½ x 20 ½ inches Courtesy of the artist and Quint Con- temporary Gallery, La Jolla, CA

part of the process of conceiving and the San Diego Museum of Contempo- creating subjects in her paintings rary Art in La Jolla. Most recently, that otherwise have no place in histo- Patterson has presented installations ry, like a quiet conversation, a dream at the Quay Gallery in San Francis- in bed, a dog rolling on a lawn, and co, the Los Angeles County Museum children smiling at a lakeside. of Art and the Newspace Gallery in Professor Emeritus Patricia Patter- Los Angeles. Her big retrospective ex- son, nationally recognized and based hibition Patricia Patterson: Here and in San Diego, is highly regarded for There was held in California Center her vibrant palette, gestural brush- for the Arts in Escondido in 2011. At work, and sophisticated lines that the Department Patterson taught Art render “ordinary things.” Using and Politics in Utopian Societies (a domestic material in her works, graduate seminar examining a series Patterson creates intimate scenes that of 19th and 20th century communi- invite the viewer to participate and ties of social reformers including the complete the storyline of represent- Shakers), English Arts and Crafts ed episodes. After graduating from Movement (where special attention Parsons School of Design in New was given to the political writings of York, Patterson joined the Visual John Ruskin and Thomas Carlyle), Arts Department in 1975. Prior to and courses on the Bauhaus, the coming to San Diego, she taught art Russian Avant-Garde, and the Dutch Kids at the Lake is from a series of into the art object but expanded the in Catholic grammar schools in the De Stijl movement. She also taught recent works focused on daily life field to include Southern California Bronx and ’s Lower East critical writing and painting at the on the Aran Islands, Ireland, New so that the work became a metaphor Side as well at as the New School for graduate level. At the undergraduate York, and San Diego, presenting for communication between two Social Research. She has exhibited level Patterson taught Painting, Ani- the land and its houses, rooms and cultures. For Patterson, art equals at the Downtown Whitney and P.S. 1 mal Drawing, Calligraphic Drawing, inhabitants as intimately conceived life and domestic life equals art. in New York, American Foundation the Decorative Object and the Deco- theatrical tableaux. In her most The current installation includes for the Arts, Mills College in Oak- rative Environment. Her courses for recent exhibition at the Escondido Paterson’s photographic sketchbook land, in exhibits of Artists’ Books the Introduction to Art-Making series Center for the Arts, Patricia Patter- illuminates her process of translation which have toured the country, as concentrated on folk and popular tra- son: Here and There (2011), she con- of life encounters with people into well as the Navy Pier and the Nancy ditions, in particular Mexico’s Day of tinued the imaginative importation art. Cutting, cropping, and painting Lurie Gallery in Chicago, L.A.C.E. in the Dead festival, Amish quilts, and of people and places of the life-world photographs constitutes an integral Los Angeles, San Jose State Univer- newspaper cartoons of the first half of sity, San Diego State University, and the 20th century. Patricia Patterson (cont.) Martha Rosler Photoshop, Havana, 1981 Hairdressers at Hair Salon “Ella,” Trin- Silver gelatin type LE print idad, 1981 11 x 16 ¼ inches Silver gelatin type LE print Courtesy of the artist and Mitchell- 8 x 24 inches Innes & Nash Gallery, New York, NY Courtesy of the artist and Mitch- ell-Innes & Nash Gallery, New York, NY

Cuba photographs by Martha Rosler cooking in women’s lives, from fam- were taken in 1981 from behind the ily to fast-food joints to immigrant Caribbean Iron Curtain. Frozen in household workers, and her work time, they survey people and scenes in performance, writing, and video of everyday life, from nail techni- often addressed this theme, often with cians and waitresses to working humor. Her video Semiotics of the class men and women hanging off an Kitchen (1975) has become a staple, overcrowded bus, driving mid-centu- while her forthcoming book The Art ry American cars, perching at lunch of Cooking: A Mock Dialogue between counters, or sitting in doorways. Julia Child and Craig Claiborne, is Havana’s empty stores, brutalist based on a manuscript from the mid- architecture, and portraits of Che 1970s. serve as a backdrop for public life. In early 1981, Rosler and a group Rosler took these photographs while of other artists joined a cultural tour on a tour organized by Ana Mendieta organized by Ana Mendieta and and Lucy Lippard, only two months Lucy Lippard. Traveling around the after Ronald Reagan’s election as island, Rosler photographed shops, president. By fashioning her subjects buildings, and people as well as the as ordinary rather than revolution- posters and billboards that punctuat- ary people, Rosler breaks away from ed the roads and urban spaces. Jan- the tradition of liberal documentary uary 1981 marked not only the new and the dense political propaganda decade but the space between Rea- that focuses on a critique of the Com- gan’s election and his inauguration, munist Project while obscuring the after the discourses of détente, human island entirely. rights, and egalitarianism and before Martha Rosler (M.F.A., UCSD, the onslaught of neoliberalism, an- 1975) works with multiple media. ti-terrorism and militarist adventur- Her interests center on the public ism and supply-side “trickle-down” sphere and landscapes—actual and rhetoric masking the huge upward virtual—of everyday life, especially redistribution of wealth. The Mariel as they affect women. An important “boatlift” from Cuba to Florida had early theme was the role of food and just ended in October, but the mean- Martha Rosler (cont.)

ing of the 1980s—for the American raphy (Germany, 2005) and the visitors as well as for the Cubans they Oskar-Kokoschka Prize (2006). She met—had yet to be realized. Rosler was the United States Artists’ Nimoy first exhibited her photos, constitut- Fellow in 2008 and a Civitella Ran- ing 40 images in black and white and ieri Fellow in 2009, and she held a color, in 2012, along with scans of her DAAD artist’s residency in Berlin in notes taken during the two-week trip. 2011-12. In 2010 she was awarded a Also in 2012, the Museum of Modern Lifetime Achievement Award by New Art in New York presented Rosler’s York’s Guggenheim Museum, and in Meta-Monumental Garage Sale, April 2012 she received the Asher B. culminating a series of iterations of Durand Award from the Brooklyn her Garage Sale project, first held Museum. In 2103 she received the at the Undergraduate Art Gallery at College Art Association Distinguished UCSD in 1973. This work—a real Feminist Award and in 2016 the In- sale of real objects— highlights the augural $100K Prize from The New differential value systems applied to Foundation Seattle, for a woman art- cultural and household objects while ist whose work is dedicated to social exploring the liminal space in which justice, and in 2017 she is slated to women often operate, between the receive the Women’s Caucus for Art’s affective economy of the home and the Lifetime Achievement Award. Rosler cash economy of the world “outside.” has received honorary doctorates Rosler has had numerous solo from the Nova Scotia College of Art exhibitions and participated in many and Design (Halifax); the Courtauld group shows on several continents. Institute (London); and the Rhode She has published almost 20 books Island School of Design (Providence). and has been the recipient of many Rosler taught at the Städelschule in honors and awards, including five Frankfurt and at Rutgers University NEA fellowships, the Spectrum in New Jersey before her retirement. International Prize in Photog- Elizabeth Sisco The Migra Game, 1982 If the U.S. Doesn’t Want Me, 1982 Photo/Text, black and white silver Photo/Text, black and white silver print print 14 x 23.5 inches 14 x 24 inches Courtesy of the artist Courtesy of the artist

Elizabeth Sisco is a contemporary received international radio, TV, the USA, Mexico, and Europe. She School of the Museum of Fine Arts American photographic artist best and newspaper coverage for her is the recipient of several National in Boston, and California College of known for her photo/text installa- provocative projects and has contrib- Endowment for the Arts Grants. She the Arts at Valencia. Building on her tions and collaborative public art uted to video works aired on public graduated Cum Laude from UC San teaching expertise, Elizabeth complet- projects. She is one of the leading television internationally and shown Diego in 1978, and earned her M.F.A ed the four-year Feldenkrais Method figures in the new school of documen- at film festivals in the USA, Mexico, from the Department of Visual Arts of Somatic Education program at the tary photography that emerged in and Portugal. Her installations and in 1981. Feldenkrais Institute of San Diego San Diego in the early to mid-1980s. photographs have been shown in Elizabeth Sisco is Professor Emeri- in 2010 and currently has a private Sisco’s work reveals the tus in the Division of Fine Arts and practice in San Diego as a Guild social cost of conditions Humanities at Southwestern College Certified Practitioner of Somatic in society, especially for (Chula Vista) since 2010, following Education. Her current art projects immigrants in California. a 25-year teaching career finishing include computer-based graphic de- The series of photographs as Department Chair. She has been sign for media distribution and small on display casually a Visiting Lecturer at UC San Diego, entrepreneur job creation. document lives of her CSU San Marcos, UC Irvine, the neighbors and intention- ally correct the media’s mendacious representa- tions of Mexican “illegal aliens” by substituting them with good, truthful pictures. By exploiting photo-text strategies, Sisco’s work has transfig- ured the medium of press photography described by Roland Barthes in “The Photographic Message” and given a voice to people who were cate- gorically absent from media reports. She has Deborah Small The Bathroom Site Project: Mono Lake, 1978 Porcelain Courtesy of the artist

The Bathroom Site Project: Mono ment Programme (UNEP) Sasakawa exhibitions for art museums, tribal museum curators, and scholars. The Lake by Deborah Small is one of the Environment Prize testifies: “Person- museums and offices, libraries, com- work culminated in two collaborative most successful public art projects, ally, as a former head of California’s munity organizations, and nature exhibitions titled Native American helping to decide the fate of Cali- Resources Agency, I experienced interpretive centers. Small presenta- Cultural Revitalization in Southern fornia’s Mono Lake. Early in her how an artist with a brick helped in tions have been screened for the US California. Small’s photographic career, while still an art student, the 1970s effort to save Mono Lake. Forest Service, Fish and Wildlife, work also played a significant role in Small effectively used photography Mono Lake is a place of breathless the EPA, BLM, and Caltrans to an exhibition that travelled through- as a tool, creating identifiable repre- beauty located below the Sierra persuade government agencies to out California, Seaweed, Salmon, sentations of Mono Lake on porce- Nevada Mountains and a bit south of change restrictive gathering policies Manzanita Cider: A California lain bricks, along with the written Yosemite Park at the edge of the des- and herbicidal spraying regimes on Indian Feast, based on a book of the documentation that accompanied the ert. I doubt the outcome would have public lands. She and her collabora- same title. In 2015, Small and Rose pieces that she sent to different pub- gone our way had the brick not been tors also encourage agencies to work Ramirez published the Ethnobota- lic agencies and political figures. On put on our desks. I remain grateful with indigenous people as stewards of ny Project, Contemporary Uses of one side of the brick are instructions to the artist, Deborah Small, for her public lands to protect culturally and Native Plants: Southern California how to place the brick in the water brick art statement that woke me ecologically significant native plant and Northern Baja Indians. In 2016, tank of a toilet to displace and there- up, and all those who did the hard communities. Small collaborated with the Chia by conserve a portion of the water part: The Mono Lake Committee; the In 2010, Small and Rose Ramirez Café Collective to produce a native in the tank. On another side of the Audubon Society; Antonio Rossmann, (Yaqui/Chumash photographer) foods cookbook titled the Chia Café brick is written, “One brick in every the lead attorney; and others whose produced a large-format calendar Collective: Cooking • Culture • Los Angeles toilet tank could save dream became an important historic titled Edible, Medicinal, Material, Community. The work is featured in Mono Lake. Yet it is so much cheaper precedent.” Ceremonial: Contemporary Ethno- the exhibition California Continued to destroy it. For the sake of that il- Deborah Small (M.F.A. Alumna) botany of Southern California Indi- at the Autry Museum of Western Art, lusion, the crystal world shatters.” A is Professor in the School of Arts ans. The work explores twelve plants, and Heyday Press will take over dis- limited edition of 50 handmade por- at California State University San each of profound importance to the tribution of the book in 2017. celain bricks were mailed to Califor- Marcos and is someone whose work contemporary intellectual, spiritual, nia and Los Angeles water resources has had a strong public dimension. and cultural vitality of Indian people officials and politicians in order to Her collaborative work now focuses in the region. In 2012-2013, Small persuade them and change the policy on documenting traditional and con- participated in the preservation and governing water consumption in an temporary indigenous knowledge and revitalization of indigenous cultur- effort to save Mono Lake. The brick uses of native plants in the southern al knowledge and practices as an had an instant impact. As Huey D. California region through photogra- artist, photographer, and writer on Johnson is President of the Resource phy, writing, video, and an extensive an interdisciplinary team of tribal Renewal Institute and winner in ethnobotany blog at: deborahsmall. community members, biologists, 2001 of the United Nations Environ- wordpress.com. She has produced botanists, public health professionals, Phel Steinmetz Self-Storage, 2001 (from book “Self Storage: The Topography and Psy- chology of Suburban Development in Southern California, 1981-2001,” co-authored with Gene Kennedy) Permanent pigment prints 15 5/8 x 20 inches Courtesy of the Estate of Phel Stein- metz and SILBERKUPPE, Berlin

phy with Ansel Adams and Bennett ney Museum in New York, the San Meyers and became a master of the Francisco Art Institute, and galleries darkroom process. For a short time and museums in Italy, Germany, and he worked as a commercial photog- other international locales. His shows rapher. He then joined the UC San were reviewed in Artweek, Art in Diego Visual Arts Department faculty America, the Los Angeles Times, the in 1971. In his early years, he and San Francisco Chronicle, and other fellow faculty member Fred Lonidier publications, and his photos were defined the photography program published in numerous books, jour- as one that combined art practice, nals, and magazines. The importance criticism and theory. Steinmetz is of his work was recognized with UC among the UC San Diego artists who San Diego Academic Senate Research are widely regarded as pioneers of Grants, a Distinguished Teaching conceptual art in California, a group Award, a Muir College Fellowship that also includes David and Eleanor and a National Endowment for the Antin, Helen and Newton Harrison, Arts grant. Steinmetz is represented Allan Kaprow, Fred Lonidier, Mar- by SILBERKUPPE, Berlin, and Tom- tha Rosler, and Allan Sekula. Over Works, Los Angeles. In early 2015 the years, Steinmetz’s photos and Silberkuppe mounted an important Fully exploiting the semiotic po- driveways, apartment complexes, videos were shown at the Museum of two-person exhibition ‘Studio 410W’ tential of the photographic image, and private security systems speak Modern Art and the downtown Whit- of his work together with Fred Lon- given its conscious conception and eloquently of utopian dreams dying idier. His work is in a number of in- treatment, Self-Storage, A Suburban in the dusty earth. stitutional collections including that Odyssey by Phel Steinmetz examines Phel Steinmetz was born Feb. 20, of the University of Chicago Booth the oppressive mundanity of life in 1944, in Des Plaines, Illinois and School of Business. His work is also suburbia and documents the radical passed away on Oct. 30, 2013 in La included in the photographic survey transformation of the natural land- Jolla, California. He grew up on a exhibition The Uses of Photography: scape by suburbanization and the au- small ranch in El Cajon, a few miles Art, Politics, and the Reinvention of tomobile with an eye to ecological de- east of San Diego. He decided to a Medium, currently at the Museum struction. Superhighways windings become a photographer at age 11 fol- of Contemporary Art San Diego, through dry scrub, desolate tracks of lowing a mystical experience viewing La Jolla. parking lots, suburban garages and a photograph. He studied photogra- Blaise Tobia Poor Mao: Shopping in China, 2008 State Tourist Store (Beijing) Nostalgia Ship (Yangshuo) Inkjet prints, printed hardcover book 13 x 19 inches Courtesy of the artist

Blaise Tobia: “‘This Ain’t China’ is made a deliberate wordplay based the bottom far right is of the classic a theme that kept running through on the similarity of the English word Mao image having been transformed my head throughout my first visit to ‘shopping’ and the name ‘Xiaoping’ – into a fine art collectible in the U.S.” the People’s Republic, in 2008. It was of the premier who had indeed made Blaise Tobia entered the M.F.A. an ironic self-reference to a work of shopping the central concern of the program at UC San Diego in 1974, that title, by Allan Sekula, that I had Chinese people. Going down to the directly after earning his B.A. in Fine first seen upon my arrival at UC San right, the classic image of Mao has Arts at Brooklyn College. Forty years Diego in 1974. The story depicted slipped a bit in its frame, in a tourist later, what it means to be a political concerns a group of college students souvenir shop. The Mao image and artist and, specifically, a political working at a local restaurant; they U.S. (according to our tour guide). those of other revolutionaries appear photographer, remains for Tobia an imagine a more just society in Mao’s It has become a kind of joke that, no in several other photos, generally as open question. He has explored the revolutionary China. What I was ex- matter whom you asked in China, nostalgia-based merchandise, mixed meaning-generation capacities of the periencing in 2008 was nothing like they would say of Mao: ‘He was 30% with images of the current shop- photographic image, especially those the China the students were imagin- right but 70% wrong.’ The full set ping-oriented China. The photo at expanded by text/image combination ing in 1974, and it wasn’t even much of images that makes up this series like the China I had imagined right may be seen in the book Poor Mao: up to my arrival there. The Cultural Shopping in China. The grid on dis- Revolution was a faint memory for play is a selection of twelve images most of the people I met, and 450,000 from the series meant to represent it millionaires had blossomed since in an abbreviated form. It begins at Deng Xiaoping had declared the ac- the top left, with the classic image of cumulation of wealth to be glorious, Mao dominating the entrance to the just a few years after Mao’s death. Forbidden City in Beijing, looking Mao’s vision was no doubt seriously out over Tiananmen Square. Going flawed, as 80 million people died in to the right from Mao, there is an im- the violence and famines of his lead- age of an official of the Chinese state ership. But the economic miracle of – a policeman in Xian – being shaded modern China, directly benefits only by an umbrella provided by the a quarter of its population, leaving local McDonald’s franchise. Going roughly a billion people barely better down from Mao, there is an image of off than they were before Deng, the Shopping Gallery in Shanghai, with even less of a ‘socialist’ support whose actual name in Mandarin is network than the one we have in the Xiaoping Gallery. The owner had Blaise Tobia (cont.)

and by image/image combination, the Hillyer Art Space in Washington and experimented widely in terms DC later this year. of formal structures for work that Tobia has taught at Drexel Uni- remains essentially documentary in versity since 1985. He was co-founder nature. Aided by digital technologies, and director of its program in pho- he has also produced time-based tography, and directed its pioneering works and works in book format digital imaging lab. The major in (such as Poor Mao: Shopping in photography, when it launched in China). A particular concentration 1989, was among the first to require for Tobia has been pairing images, digital technology courses. He went to the extent that his 2013 show at on to help create, and then teach in, O.K. Harris Works of Art was entitled Drexel’s program in Digital Media “Binary Codes.” A very different set (now ranked in the top ten nation- of paired images, based on the social ally). He is presently part of the self-presentation practices of the Department of Art and Art History, Amish, was shown at the Museum of teaching a variety of fine arts and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in contemporary art history courses, Beijing in 2008. Another area of in- as well as design courses for media terest has been image capture via the students.met—had yet to be realized. direct scanning of three-dimensional Rosler first exhibited her photos, objects. One body of scanned images, constituting 40 images in black and printed at extreme enlargement, was white and color, in 2012, along with shown at Amos Eno Gallery in New scans of her notes taken during the York in 2009, and will be shown at two-week trip. Ruth Wallen Cascading Memorials: Can We Heed the Cry of the Dying Oaks? 2012 Two panels from series, 30 x 80 and 30 x 78 inches Photomontage, permanent pigment print Courtesy of the artist

In the last hundred years, San Diego the sky, are an eloquent plea directed immediate reality or to reject that nature walks at Carmel Mountain, County has experienced an astound- to the audience whose future choices seeming reality as a mere illusion. San Bernardino Children’s Forest, ing rate of population growth--from will make the difference to the fate Ruth Wallen is a multi-media artist Tijuana River Estuary and Chaco 60,000 to over three million inhabi- of this region’s environment, which and writer whose work is dedicat- Canyon National Historical Park. tants. Correspondingly, the county is without further intervention and ed to encouraging dialogue about Her art work has been supported by home to more threatened and endan- collective action will soon be extinct. ecological and social justice issues. two Puffin grants, Light Work, the gered species than any other county Wallen’s work invites us to confront She has created many web sites and California Arts Council, San Diego in the continental United States. photography’s ability to document outdoor interactive installations and County, and more. Ruth writes crit- Ruth Wallen’s Cascading Memorials, intractable reality and also manip- participated in innumerable solo and ically about ecological art and race, large-scale printed photomontag- ulates our sense of time. Roland group exhibitions, including solo in- gender and visual culture, publish- es constructed of images collected Barthes famously postulated that stallations at Franklin Furnace, New ing in anthologies and periodicals over a period of time, reflect on the the photograph, while insisting on Langton Arts, Sushi Gallery, Con- including Leonardo, Exposure, High natural habitats that are rapidly the immediacy of presence, conjures temporary Photography and Visual Performance, The Communication changing or disappearing due to the past, present, and future in the form Arts Center (CEPA), SDSU Calexi- Review, Women’s Studies: An In- combined effects of urbanization and of a single image, and insists on the co, and the Athenaeum, and group terdisciplinary Journal, With Other climate change. Wallen relies on the inexorable movement from one phase exhibitions from Virgin Territory at Eyes: Looking at Race and Gender in photographic medium’s capacity for to the next. Therefore, Wallen’s the Long Beach Museum of Art to Visual Culture, and more. Among the objectivity to document an increas- digitally constructed and processed Weather Report: Art and Climate many places her work is discussed ingly desiccated landscape in the photomontages emanate an almost Change at the Boulder Museum of are The Lure of the Local and On mountains surrounding San Diego. prophetic power and eschatological Contemporary Art, curated by Lucy the Beaten Track by Lucy Lippard These images of fallen or dying trees, warning. The choice is ours, to accept Lippard. She has created interpre- and Jewish Identities in American their twisted branches reaching to photography’s capacity to evoke an tative presentations and interactive Feminist Art: Ghosts of Ethnicity by Ruth Wallen (cont.)

Lisa Bloom. Currently Wallen is col- the Armand Hammer Visual Arts laborating with scientists at Scripps Award’s first prize that year. She Institute of Oceanography as part has been a lecturer at UC San Diego of the upcoming exhibition Weath- since 1989, teaching in both Visual er on Steroids: the Art of Climate Arts and Communications. In 1995- Change Science, working on a project 1996 she was a Fulbright Lecturer at envisioning changes to San Diego’s the Autonomous University of Baja ecology due to a changing climate. California. Since 2000 her primary Ruth Wallen received her B.A. appointment has been on the faculty with a special major in Environ- of the M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary mental Science (Biology/Anthro- Arts Program at Goddard College, pology) from Swarthmore College. where she recently served as director She graduated from UC San Diego of the program. with her M.F.A. in 1987, winning Extensions of Photography October 7 – December 9, 2016 A Visual Arts Faculty, Emeritus University Art Gallery Faculty, and Alumni Exhibition Mandeville Center 216 Mandeville Lane/9500 Gilman Dr La Jolla, CA 92093-0327

Extensions of Photography is curated Special Acknowledgements: by Tatiana Sizonenko, Ph.D., 2013 The Department of Visual Arts sin- cerely thanks participating artists, Catalogue design: alumni, and several art galleries Gabi Schaffzin for their generous support, loans of works, coordination of shipments, This exhibition and catalogue made and enthusiasm that helped to make possible with support from the this exhibition a reality. We would Department of Visual Arts at particularly like to recognize APT UC San Diego. Institute, Los Angeles; Blum and Poe Gallery, Los Angeles/New York/ Special thanks to Jack Greenstein Tokyo; Catherine Clark Gallery, and the 50th anniversary committee, San Francisco; The Estate of Phel including Sheena Ghanbari, Monique Steinmetz; Mr. Marcia and Barry van Genderen, Kim MacConnel, Fred Maiten; Michael Benevento Gallery, Lonidier, Sheldon Nodelman, and Los Angeles; Mitchell-Innes & Nash Susan Smith Gallery, New York; Murry Guy Gal- lery, New York; Quint Gallery, San Exhibition installation assistance: Diego; Ronald Feldman Fine Arts Garrett Pointer, Angelica Fuentes, Gallery, New York; and SILBERK- Lucas Coffin, and Tad Linfesty UPPE Gallery, Berlin. Signage and website design: Gabi Schaffzin Editorial contributions: Dr. Gareth Davies-Morris

VA 50 Amy Adler Eleanor Antin Kaucyila Brooke Becky Cohen Brian Cross Moyra Davey John Craig Freeman Kip Fulbeck Anya Gallaccio Katie Grinnan Nina Katchadourian Fred Lonidier Jean Lowe Kim MacConnel Babette Mangolte Rubén Ortiz-Torres Patricia Patterson Martha Rosler Elizabeth Sisco Deborah Small Phel Steinmetz Blaise Tobia Ruth Wallen

VisArtsFifty art into life