Selected Exhibitions
2020
Kathleen Henderson: Watch Me Make You Disappear
Track 16, Los Angeles.
Kathleen Henderson takes on human folly in the face of extinction in her emotive drawings. Man bumbles through the world, tripping farcically, as the litany of crises mount and our world is poisoned by unrelenting greed. Henderson never really points the finger. Instead her drawings make us all complicit in the fate that awaits us. Henderson’s primary medium is oil stick on white paper and these drawings make ample use of red and green, suggesting a bloody rawness and a queasy toxic ooze. Thirty-five new drawings anchor the main gallery, and a grid of smaller drawings on one wall is composed of "outtakes," or clippings, from discarded works. Made over a longer period of years, the outtakes provide a key to unlock Henderson's complex world view.
2017-2018
¡Murales Rebeldes!—L.A. Chicana/o Murals under Siege
LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, Los Angeles; California Historical Society, San Francisco; California Museum, Sacramento
¡Murales Rebeldes! presents the stories of eight murals in Southern California that were censored, whitewashed, or destroyed. Through photographs, sketches, documents, film footage, and rescued fragments, ¡Murales Rebeldes! tells the stories of murals—by artists Barbara Carrasco, Yreina Cervántez and Alma López, Roberto Chavez, Ernesto de la Loza, East Los Streetscapers, Willie Herrón III, and Sergio O’Cadiz Moctezuma —whose messages were almost lost forever. The exhibition celebrates the creative spirit and the power of urban art, while recognizing the work we must do to assure that urban murals find their rightful place in art history.
¡Murales Rebeldes! is presented jointly by LA Plaza and the California Historical Society as part of the Getty’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative.
Curators: Jessica Hough, Erin Curtis, and Guisela Latorre
2017
Hugo Crosthwaite: In Memoriam Los Angeles
Museum of Social Justice, Los Angeles
Hugo Crosthwaite brings together portraiture of ordinary people, comic book characters, street signage, and mythological references into dense compositions that reflect the character of frenetic urban settings like Tijuana where the artist lives. Fear, hope, sorrow, and celebration are all represented in a single mural as he incorporates observations of daily life. For In Memoriam Los Angeles, Crosthwaite will work in an improvisational manner to complete a mural that incorporates the urban life of downtown Los Angeles. Working only during the museum’s open hours when visitors can observe, he engages the public allowing the interactions to influence the mural. At the close of the exhibition, Crosthwaite will paint out the mural one small section at a time until it has been completely erased.
Organized in conjunction with the California Historical Society
2016
Out Our Way
Manetti Shrem Museum, UC Davis
The inaugural exhibition of the new Manetti Shrem Museum explores the development of the revolutionary UC Davis Department of Art, founded in 1958. The exhibition revives the “spirit of defiant provincialism” which, in merely 10 years, propelled the Department to be recognized as one of the most courageous and wildly inventive communities of artists working in the world. Artists included Wayne Thiebaud, Robert Arneson, William T. Wiley, Roy De Forest, Roland Petersen, Manuel Neri, Ralph Johnson, Ruth Horsting, Daniel Shapiro, Tio Giambruni, Jane Garritson and John Baxter.
Co-curated with Rachel Teagle
2014
Yosemite: A Storied Landscape
California Historical Society, San Francisco
Yosemite, in all its profound beauty, is often imagined in a pristine state untouched by humankind, but its history spans millennia. About 6,000 years ago, humans came to the Yosemite Valley. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Ahwahneechee had lived there for generations and had little contact with non-natives. Then, beginning in 1849, the Gold Rush shifted the focus of the nation and the world to California—and Yosemite was forever changed.
At this 150-year anniversary of the Yosemite Grant, establishing the Yosemite Valley and the Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias as the nation’s first protected wilderness, we look anew at this remarkable place. Yosemite: A Storied Landscape brings to life surprising, poignant, revealing, and sometimes tragic stories that inhabit this land as densely as its waterfalls and trees. By uncovering its human stories—through photographs, video, artwork, and historic objects —we can know Yosemite better and love it more deeply.
2012
A Wild Flight of the Imagination: The Story of the Golden Gate Bridge
California Historical Society, San Francisco
Organized on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the completion of the Golden Gate Bridge and in conjunction with a city-wide celebration. The exhibition was composed of over 300 items including rare materials from the collection of the Bridge District. Also included were artworks by Ansel Adams, Maynard Dixon, and Chesley Bonestell, architectural drawings of early designs, progress photographs of steel workers and divers at work on the pylons, a unique scrapbook from the steel manufacturer in Pennsylvania, and telegrams between the San Francisco mayor and the War Department.
2007-09
Painting the Glass House: Artists Revisit Modern Architecture
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield CT; Yale School of Architecture, Architecture Gallery, New Haven; and Mills College Art Museum, Oakland.
Recognizing the enormous interest among emerging artists in architecture of the modern period, the exhibition brings together sixteen artists working in different parts of the world. In their work, they engage the utopian ideas that these buildings represent, but also the sense of a passing idealism and lost opportunity. The exhibition includes work by Alexander Apostol, Daniel Arsham, Gordon Cheung, David Claerbout, Angela Dufresne, Mark Dziewulski, Christine Erhard, Cyprien Gaillard, Terence Gower, Angelina Gualdoni, Natasha Kissell, Luisa Lambri, Dorit Margreiter, Russell Nachman, Enoc Perez, and Lucy Williams.
Curators: Jessica Hough and Mónica Ramírez-Montagut
Organized by The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum with the Yale School of Architecture Gallery
2007
Don’t Let the Boys Win: Kinke Kooi, Carrie Moyer, Lara Schnitger
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland
Each of the artists in Don’t Let the Boys Win produces work that is imbued with an empowered female perspective. The title of the exhibition, borrowed from a sculpture of the same name by Lara Schnitger, highlights the provocative playfulness of the work, which shares a common use of humor, eroticism, and ornament. Kinke Kooi, based in Arnhem, Netherlands, imbues such ordinary objects with a talisman-like quality and humorous eroticism. Carrie Moyer balances specific feminist tropes in her paintings with references to the history of abstract painting, reclaiming a history often associated with male painters. Lara Schnitger’s sewn fabric “skin” stretches tightly over irregular wooden armatures giving her works an animated physical presence reinforced by provocative titles such as Fun Bags and Show me your flower.
2008 Ginger Wolfe-Suarez: AS LONG AS I LIVE YOU WILL LIVE
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland
2007 Laleh Khorramian: Surface to Air
Mills College Art Museum, Oakland
2007 David Abir: Tekrar
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield CT
2007 Arturo Herrera: Castles, Dwarfs, and Happychaps
The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2006 Work in Progress: Martin Bromirski, Tom Burckhardt, Chrissy Conant, Byron Kim, João Onofre, Douglas Paulson and Ward Shelley
d.u.m.b.o. Art Center, New York
2006-2008 Catherine Opie: In & Around Home 2006-08
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Orange County Museum of Art, MoCA Cleveland, Weatherspoon Art Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
2006 Land Mine: Laleh Khorramian, Wangechi Mutu, and Michael Zansky
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2006 Tom Burckhardt: FULL STOP
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2006 Todd Hebert: 2005 Aldrich Emerging Artist Award Recipient
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2006 Cyrilla Mozenter: More saints seen
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2006 Josh Azzarella: Emerging Artist Award Exhibition
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2005 Alyson Shotz: Light, Sound, Space
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2005 Shannon Plumb: Behind the Curtain
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2005 Karkhana: A Contemporary Collaboration
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2005 Lisa Sigal: A House of Many Mansions
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2004-5 Shahzia Sikander: Nemesis
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT, Tang Teaching Museum, Skidmore College
2004 Jonathan Seliger: Politeness Counts
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2004 Into My World: Recent British Sculpture
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2004 Jon Conner: Self-sufficient Barnyard (The annual amount of livestock needed to feed a family of four)
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2003 A River Half Empty: Artists Engage Connecticut’s Environment
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2003 Janice Caswell
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2002 Family
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2002 Haluk Akakce: No Way Forward No Way Back
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2002 Yuken Teruya: 2002 Emerging Artist Award Exhibition
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2002 The Brewster Project
Brewster, NY
2001 Prototype: Bruce Busby, Paul Johnson, Heather McGill, Jenna Spevack
The Arts Center of the Capitol Region, Troy, New York
2000- 2001 Glee: Painting Now
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Palm Beach ICA
2000 Olafur Eliasson: New Work
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
2000 Faith: The Impact of Judeo-Christian Religion on Art at the Millennium
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
The Nude in Contemporary Art 1999
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
Alexis Rockman: A Recent History of the World 1999
Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT
Roger Phillips: A Retrospective 1999
Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY
Liberating Tradition: Byron Kim, Yinka Shonibare, Shahzia Sikander 1998
Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY