California College of the Arts Fine Arts Department
Graduate Program in Fine Arts
On July 16, 1945 the Trinity Atomic test in New Mexico unleashed a manmade force that approached those of the natural world – unwinding matter to release cosmic scale forces and in so doing igniting the atmosphere and shaking the ground at the scale of a meteoric impact or earthquake. At that moment humanity crossed a line! The complex interplay between scientific inquiry, emerging technologies, the military industrial complex, secrecy and propaganda, the natural and the manmade, the cosmic and the terrestrial, the geological and the geopolitical all came into brilliant focus at that moment and have continued to resonate througho
The artists in this group each address aspects of this trajectory as we encountered them on a 1400 mile, 4 day road trip and pilgrimage through the Great Basin to the Nevada Atomic Test Site north of Las Vegas.
Artists: Angela Berry , Amy Lange , Clancy Magnuson, Kristin Landowski, Piper Grosswendt, Prima Sakuntabhai, Russ Baldon, Donald Fortescue, Christine Metzger0
Embark Gallery’s newest exhibition, #simulacra, asks how Jean Baudrillard’s philosophical treatise “Simulacra and Simulation” is relevant in the digital era. We live in a visual culture in which it is increasingly easy to participate. Images are all-important, and no longer mere symbols of truth. As Baudrillard predicted, reality itself has begun to imitate what was once its model. This medium-specific show explores signs, memory and documentation from a diverse sampling of perspectives.
Mike Cole and Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim both stray from traditional photography, utilizing the mark of the artist’s hand in two different takes on landscape, one manufactured and pixelated, the other ethereal and ephemeral. Shisi Huang’s video piece addresses voyeurism and the blurred line between public and private realities in an age where we are often being recorded. Marcela Pardo Ariza’s playful photographic sculpture references the unraveling of the meaning of images in the contemporary moment, whereas Qian Zhao’s deliciously colorful prints evoke a surreal nostalgia. Tamara Porras investigates the past without nostalgia, exposing how photographs can take on a new life of their own once those pictured are gone. Shaghayegh Cyrous’ work is planted firmly in the present, taking the form of a live feed from an apartment in Tehran, Iran. The piece references the malleability of time and place made possible by new technologies and questions the nature of reality in an increasingly global world.
If no one Instagrams it…did it ever really happen?
Artists in this exhibition include: Mike Cole (UC Davis), Shaghayegh Cyrous (CCA), Shisi Huang (SFAI), Jacqueline Sherlock Norheim (Mills), Marcela Pardo Ariza (SFAI), Tamara Porras (CCA), and Qian Zhao (CCA).
Exhibition of new works by CCA MFA Majors created during CCA Faculty Linda Geary’s New York Studio Class
Please join the Community Arts Program over the next 2 weeks as we take up residence in the College Avenue Galleries. We have invited the MFA and MA graduate students in Social Practice to research, present and make work along side us. A schedule of events will be posted soon including one-day residencies, workshops, a back patio reading group, meals, critique, faculty presentations. Stay Tuned.
October 5th + October 12
OPEN HOUSE
Social and Interactive projects, literary readings, performance, live music
5:30-7:30PM
Friday October 14
TALK: Brett Cook
2016 Visiting Faculty in Community Arts
3:00-4:00PM
