THE COLLAGE PARTY 3

August 20 - 23, 10am - 4pm
EXHIBITION OPENING: Friday, August 24 from 5-8pm
with Taco Pop-Up by Tacos Oscar
and Music by DJ Lloyd Cargo

Join us as we take over the Creative Growth Gallery with collage! Organized by Winnipeg artist and curator Paul Butler, The Collage Party is a participatory studio where everyone is invited to cut, paste, and create alongside Creative Growth artists and guest artists. The week of collage making culminates in a celebration and exhibition of the week’s creations from 5-8pm on Friday, August 24. We are thrilled to bring this popular and historic event back to our space for the third time.

The Collage Party is free and open to everyone to participate. Stop by the Creative Growth Gallery anytime Monday, August 20 through Thursday, August 23 from 10am-4pm to join in the collage making. Live music, DJ sets, and a spin-your-own record table will be on throughout the week to inspire music-themed collage on album covers. When the week of collective art making comes to a close, Paul Butler will install a one-night-only exhibition of selected work made during the week. All proceeds from the evening will go to support Creative Growth and the 160+ artist who call the studio home.

The Collage Party is a nomadic, participatory studio produced by Paul Butler since 1997. Paul Butler’s multi-disciplinary practice is rooted community, collaboration and artist-run activity. In addition to his longstanding studio practice, Butler has also produced projects that include: The Other Gallery (2001-2011) – a nomadic commercial gallery with a focus on overlooked artists; and Reverse Pedagogy (est. 2008)– a touring, collectively directed residency. Butler has served as the Curator of Contemporary Art at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, and the director of 2/edition in Toronto. He has exhibited at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; White Columns, New York City; Creative Growth Art Center; Asia Art Archive, Hong Kong; and La Maison Rouge, Paris. He has contributed his writing to the books The Life and Times of Bill Callahan, and Decentre: Concerning Artist-run Culture as well as publications including Border Crossings and Canadian Art. Butler's work is held in numerous private and public collections including the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Winnipeg Art Gallery, the Bank of Montreal, the Royal Bank of Canada, and TD Canada Trust.

Materials, refreshments, and food for The Collage Party generously donated by Contact Records, the Creative Growth community, Temescal Brewing, and Dough & Co.

John Martin featured | Institute 193 1(B) | NYC

Creative Growth is thrilled to be one of the first exhibition partners in a new collaborative art space in New York City's East Village called Institute 193 1(B).

From Institute 193:

On the heels of a major grant from the Andy Warhol Foundation, we're opening a collaborative project space called Institute 193 (1B) in New York City’s East Village on September 26, 2018. Located at 292 E. 3rd Street between Avenues C and D, 1B will introduce new and larger audiences to the work of Southern artists. The inaugural exhibition features the work of Eddie Owens Martin aka St. EOM, presented in collaboration with Columbus State University and the Pasaquan Preservation Society.

1B is a multi-year project space that will produce exhibitions in partnership with museums, universities, galleries, and non-profits whose programming features Southern artists. Phillip March Jones, Institute 193’s Curator-at-Large, will oversee the content and execution of those projects. Confirmed exhibition partners include: Atlanta Contemporary Art Center (Atlanta, GA), Creative Growth Art Center (Oakland, CA), Good Weather (Little Rock, AR), Nixon (Mexico City), Tops Gallery (Memphis, TN), and the University of Kentucky Art Museum (Lexington, KY).

Since 2009, Institute 193 has hosted 54 exhibitions, produced 15 publications, released 3 records, and collaborated with hundreds of artists, musicians, and writers on projects that document the cultural production of the modern South. Operating from a 310-square-foot storefront in Lexington, Kentucky, Institute 193’s traveling exhibitions, books, concerts, records, and art fair projects have reached audiences across the globe. Taken together, these efforts illuminate a region that is diverse, steeped in talent, and constantly evolving, despite or perhaps because of its rich and complicated history.

For more information, please contact Phillip March Jones: phillip@institute193.org.

Institute 193 (1B) is located at 292 E. 3rd Street, 1B, New York, NY 10009.

CHROMA KEY

June 28 - August 15, 2018
Exhibition Opening: Thursday, June 28, 5-8pm

Creative Growth is pleased to present Chroma Key, an exhibition featuring digital and video work. In the Creative Growth Digital Media Lab, artists explore the potentials of new media using programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, and Final Cut Pro to create and edit original video and digital pieces. Rarely exhibited, the work in Chroma Key represents the last few years of new media art produced by Terri Bowden, Janis Danker, Heather Edgar, Carlos Fernandez, Rosena Finister, Susan Janow, Paulino Martin, Nick Pagan, Jordan King, Kim Clark, Stephanie Hill, and Gregory Stoper.

A long-time producer, writer, and collaborator in the Digital Media Lab, Susan Janow’s most recent short film, Questions, is a departure from her characteristically narrative-driven videos of the past. In Questions, Janow silently sits, facing the camera as we hear an audio track of Janow asking a series of questions. The questions shift seamlessly between standard interview-like queries to more personal inquiries about one's preferences and experiences. Neither confrontational nor entirely comfortable, the viewer is left to reflect not only on one’s own responses, but also the motivations and responses of the enquirer herself.

Gregory Stoper’s second episode of “History in a Minute with Gregory Stoper” will also be on view. For this series, Stoper researches and then writes, directs, narrates, and performs in biopics focused on singular historical figures; in this case Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Blending found video with performed scenes, the sepia-toned film becomes a meditation on the key moments of Gandhi’s life and the way in which history is told. Watch the first episode of "History in a Minute with Gregory Stoper" and other past work from the Creative Growth Digital Media Lab here.

Chroma Key will also include a site-specific installation by Terri Bowden, who will be presenting digitally manipulated portraits alongside her current fascination - the Union Jack flag. Visitors will have the opportunity to immerse themselves in Bowden’s world, while listening to her ambient musical compositions.

Visitors will also have the opportunity to have a multi-sensory experience of a new extra large work by Barry Regan. Inspired by synesthesia and courtesy of Ryan Wolff, visitors will strap on sub-woofer backpacks and headphones to see, feel, and hear Regan’s artwork.

Judith Scott featured | Outliers and American Vanguard Art

January 28 - March 18, 2018

Work by Judith Scott is included in the exhibition Outliers and American Vanguard Art curated by Lynne Cooke. The exhibition originated at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. and is currently on view at The High Museum of Art in Atlanta, GA until September 30. It will travel to Los Angeles County Museum of Art from November 18, 2018, through March 18, 2019.

From the National Gallery of art: Their classification may have varied—from folk and primitive to naïve and visionary—but intermittently throughout the history of modern art, gates have opened, boundaries have dissolved, and those creating art on the periphery have entered the art world. Outliers and American Vanguard Art is the first major exhibition to explore those key moments in American art history when avant-garde artists and outsiders intersected, and how their interchanges ushered in new paradigms based on inclusion, integration, and assimilation. On view in the East Building of the National Gallery of Art, Washington, from January 28 through May 13, 2018, the exhibition brings together some 250 works in a range of media by more than 80 schooled and unschooled artists, such as Henry Darger, William Edmondson, Lonnie Holley, Greer Lankton, Sister Gertrude Morgan, Matt Mullican, Horace Pippin, Martín Ramírez, Betye Saar, Judith Scott, Charles Sheeler, Cindy Sherman, and Bill Traylor.

Spanning more than a century, paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs, books, and mixed-media assemblagesare organized into three sections, each of which focuses on a distinct period when artists, art institutions, and audiences engaged intensively with the work of self-taught artists, or autodidacts: c. 1924–1943; c. 1968–1992; and c. 1998–2013. These pivotal periods of social, political, and cultural upheaval stimulated artistic interchanges that challenged or erased traditional hierarchies. While the show's first two sections historicize the evolving identities and roles of the distinctly American versions of modernism's "other," the last section proposes models for exhibiting art created on the periphery with that of the mainstream in ways that differ from today's prevalent approaches. Beyond bringing to light little-known or overlooked artists, Outliers and American Vanguard Art probes prevailing assumptions about creativity, artistic practice, and the role of the artist in contemporary culture.

"This groundbreaking exhibition considers how, and in what terms, self-taught art has been represented in the past, and how institutions like the Gallery might present it today," said Earl A. Powell III, director, National Gallery of Art, Washington. "As the nation's collection of fine art, we are proud to initiate this discussion of what has been left out of American modernism's dominant narrative, and why it should be included."

The exhibition was on view at the National Gallery of Art from January 28 through May 13, 2018; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, from June 24 through September 30, 2018; and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art from November 18, 2018, through March 18, 2019.

Creative Growth at the 2018 SF Art Book Fair

The 2018 SF Art Book Fair

1275 Minnesota Street
San Francisco, CA 94107
Booth #C1

Preview - Friday, July 20th - 6pm – 10pm
Saturday, July 21st - 11am – 6pm
Sunday, July 22nd - 11am – 5pm

The 2018 SF Art Book Fair is an annual multi-day festival of artists' publications. This event is FREE and OPEN to the public and will feature artists’ books, art catalogs, monographs, periodicals, zines, printed ephemera, and artists' multiples. These works will be presented by over 100 independent publishers, antiquarian dealers, artists, collectors, and enthusiasts. Over the course of the weekend, the fair will be complemented by a diverse range of talks, discussions, book launches, on and off-site special projects, exhibitions and signings.

The mission of the fair is to foster the unique art publishing community of the Bay Area while providing a platform for national and international publishers to exhibit their work to a new audience.

Last year we welcomed 110 exhibitors and over 10,000 visitors. We aim to reach an even larger audience this year and create an event that continues to showcase some of the most interesting publishers and booksellers in the world.

The SF Art Book Fair will be held at Minnesota Street Project. The project’s landmark location, 1275 Minnesota Street, houses 10 galleries, a not-for-profit, temporary exhibitions spaces, media room, and a recently opened restaurant.

Click here for more information.

Carl Hendrickson featured | SOMArts | San Francisco

Work Creative Growth alumni artist Carl Hendrickson is featured in Something (you can't see, on the other side, of a wall from this side) casts a shadow at SOMAarts, curated by Juana Berrío.

From SOMArts:

SOMArts is proud to present Something (you can’t see, on the other side, of a wall from this side) casts a shadow, a multi-disciplinary exhibition curated by Juana Berrío exploring the politics of space in the urban landscape. The exhibition includes a selection of sculptures, videos, photographs, graphic scores, and paintings by a multi-generational group of artists from around the world.

“By shifting the focus away from real estate or city development and towards the human body, this exhibition emphasizes individuals who claim and appropriate public space in ways other than property ownership. The show includes a range of works where bodies, particularly those who have been historically less privileged and more vulnerable, challenge the forces that threaten to make them invisible, especially when urban planning, economic growth, public policy, and underlying societal stigmas seem to overshadow and disempower them,” curator Juana Berrío remarked on her curatorial debut at SOMArts.

SOMArts, located just a few steps from the new Airbnb headquarters and several other young startups and businesses, is also located in a neighborhood that has one of the largest homeless populations in the Bay Area. Situated in this paradox at the intersection of 9th and Brannan, SOMArts is one of few spaces remaining in San Francisco dedicated to preserving the fierce creative experimentation that makes the Bay Area so unique. Something (you can’t see, on the other side, of a wall from this side) casts a shadow invites viewers to engage this paradox in their own lives — to situate our bodies in the complexities of urban space in order to challenge the dynamics of gentrification and displacement.

The exhibition opens with David Wojnarowicz’s What is this little guy’s job in the world (1990), a photograph of a hand holding a small frog accompanied by a series of powerful questions: “What is this little guy’s job in the world? If this little guy dies does the world know? Does the world feel this? Does something get displaced? If this little guy dies does the world get a little lighter? Does the planet rotate a little faster?” This focus on the relevance of an individual’s journey and his or her presence in the world also appears in stanley brouwn’s rarely-shown note cards and drawings of how he navigates the streets and in Yuji Agematsu’s sculptures of small bits of trash contained within the clear cellophane wrapper from cigarette packs.

Senga Nengudi’s R.S.V.P. Reverie-0 (2015) is made with worn women’s pantyhose that have been pulled, stretched, knotted, and filled with sand. In the words of the artist, nylon mesh “relates to the elasticity of the human body… From tender, tight beginnings to sagging… The body can only stand so much push and pull until it gives way, never to resume its original shape.” On the other hand, Delcy Morelos covers a large fiber mesh in many layers of earth-colored paint and then folds it, solidifying and compressing its presence.

AK Burns’s sculpture creates a threshold and an obstacle that divides the physical space with a metal gate. The gate’s bars spell out the word “known” twice, once from either side, playing with the readable as well as the unreadable nature of what we think we already know.

Phillip Greenlief, an experimental saxophonist and composer, presents a selection from his MAP SCORES series, collages and drawings of cities and different geographies that constitute a musical score. Greenlief will perform a newly commissioned map score, inspired by San Francisco’s public spaces at the opening reception on Saturday, July 14, 6:00–9:00 pm.

The title of the exhibition is borrowed from a writing exercise that poet Ed Roberson gave to his students while he was a Visiting Professor at UC Berkeley in 2014. The assignment appears in Dodie Bellamy’s essay “In the Shadow of the Twitter Towers,” published in her collection When the Sick Rule the World (Semiotext(e), 2015), which forms the basis for a reading room that is also part of the exhibition.

Something (you can’t see, on the other side, of a wall from this side) casts a shadowExhibiting Artists Yuji Agematsu stanley brouwn A.K. Burns Abraham Cruzvillegas Shannon Ebner Phillip Greenlief David Hammons Carl Hendrickson Zoe Leonard Delcy Morelos Senga Nengudi Catherine Opie Gordon Parks Davina Semo Stuart Sherman David Wilson David Wojnarowicz

RELATED EVENTS

Opening Reception Saturday, July 14, 6–9pm The opening night celebration features the performance of a newly commissioned map score by experimental composer Phillip Greenlief.

Artist Panel DiscussionThursday, July 26, 6–8pm Panel discussion in response to the themes of the exhibition with writers Dodie Bellamy, Daphne Gottlieb, and Tongo Eisen-Martin.

HOME SHOW

May 3 - June 22, 2018
Exhibition Opening on Thursday, May 3 from 5-8pm
Live Music: FRUIT HOSPITAL, Creative Growth family band
Members' Preview: 11am-2pm

Creative Growth’s annual Home show features a large selection of artwork and homewares, including pillows, woven blankets, ceramic planters, wood sculptures, and for one-night-only, an installation of artist-created table settings complete with dishes, linens, and artwork.

This year, Creative Growth’s Home show focuses on Togetherness and the complexities of gatherings and personal connection. Do we gather to celebrate and share in one another’s life or do we come together due to proximity or familial obligations? Do we blend together or remain distinct? What happens when the longed for connection is not reciprocated? Gatherings can feel harmonious, like the throng of whales in Larry Randolph’s ceramic pod, or ambivalent, like the two figures sharing a tension filled space in Ying Ge Zhou’s watercolor work. Interpersonal relationships can be full of complication and full of love; Rosena Finister explores this strife of through her painting of anthropomorphized talking birds and Zina Hall immortalizes familial dynamics in her hand-embroidered “Good Times” handkerchief.

With work by over 50 Creative Growth artists, Togetherness explores the myriad ways we come together and for the exhibition’s opening, there will be a one-night-only opportunity to gather together, as communities often do, around the dinner table. This year’s Home show includes a presentation of complete table settings of one-of-a-kind ceramics, tablecloths, and artwork; each setting of tableware is the creation of a single artist. Join us on the evening of May 3 when the artist tableware will be on display and for sale throughout the gallery and studio.

Creative Growth Film Screening With Erica Milsom at The New Parkway

Thursday, July 12, 5:00 - 6:30pm
The New Parkway Theater
474 24th Street, Oakland, CA 94612
$10 Suggested Donation- Reserve Tickets Here

Creative Growth is proud to present a series of new short films from artists in our Digital Media Lab; the program is screening for one night only on the big screen at The New Parkway Theater in Oakland. See new animations, experimental films, music videos, and live-action shorts created by Creative Growth artists Avery Babon, Gregory Stoper, Rosena Finister, John Hiltunen, Susan Janow, Jordan King, Paulino Martin, Nick Pagan, and Ryan Williams followed by a Q&A with the artists and Digital Media Lab instructor Helena Gonzalez, moderated by filmmaker Erica Milsom of Pixar Animation Studios.

The Digital Media Lab was started in 2004 by Michael Hall to provide a space for artists to explore the potentials of new media at Creative Growth. Using programs like Photoshop, Illustrator, Premiere, and Final Cut Pro, the artists create and edit original video and digital pieces.

Among the films shown is Susan Janow’s most recent short film, Questions. A departure from her characteristically narrative-driven videos of the past, in Questions, Janow silently sits, facing the camera as we hear an audio track of Janow asking a series of questions. The questions shift seamlessly between standard interview-like queries to more personal inquiries about one’s preferences and experiences. Neither confrontational nor entirely comfortable, the viewer is left to reflect not only on one’s own responses, but also the motivations and responses of the enquirer herself.

Gregory Stoper’s second episode of “History in a Minute with Gregory Stoper” will also be included in the evening’s program. For this series, Stoper researches and then writes, directs, narrates, and performs in biopics focused on singular historical figures; in this case Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi. Blending found video with performed scenes; the sepia-toned film becomes a meditation on the key moments of Gandhi’s life and the way in which history is told.

Also screening will be John Hiltunen’s most recent installation of his action-packed animated collage spy series “Jon Bon,” Nick Pagan’s wry instructional video on best behaviors, the premiere of animated shorts by Jordan King, Ryan Williams, Rosena Finister, and more.

We are thrilled to be joined at the Q&A by Erica Milsom. By day, Erica is a Documentary Director telling stories about the creative process at Pixar Animation Studios. When the lights go down on her day job, Erica makes independent films. In 2017 Erica’s first fiction film, “So Much Yellow” hit the festival circuit taking home the prestigious awards across the nation. In 2015 she completed a feature documentary, “Snow Day - Life, Death and Skiing” about a group of senior skiers whose dedication to the sport and their friendship proves that adventure is truly ageless.

Reserve your tickets for this one-time-only screening at Eventbrite.
Suggested Donation $10. All proceeds from the evening provide support for the 160+ artists working at Creative Growth.

CG Youth Program Artists featured | We Rise | Los Angeles

Work by CG Youth Program artists Alex Beltran, Christopher Hernandez, Erik Kadono, Lena Salk, Madison Bandy, Naomi Minaka, and Will Glasser is included We Rise in Downtown Los Angeles. The exhibition is open May 30 - June 10, Monday-Friday 2-9pm and Sat-Sunday 2-10pm.

We Rise is a 10-day pop-up festival of art and community building, uniting collective efforts to stand up and help create a city, state, nation and world that fosters empowerment of health and wellbeing as a civil right. Through programming, live performances, immersive workshops, wellness events, and a world class art exhibition, together we will manifest an era where youth are supported to reach their fullest potential and our communities can thrive. Held in downtown L.A., this event is free and open to the public. Visit www.werise.la for event details and specific times.

The Creative Growth Youth Program is offered from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM on Saturdays to young adults ages 16-22 with developmental disabilities. It gives high school students with artistic inclinations the opportunity to explore art with the possibility of transitioning into the Creative Growth adult program.

Terri Bowden Featured | Sheer Fantasy | Campbelltown Arts Centre, Australia

A printed wallpaper by Creative Growth artist Terri Bowden was commissioned for and featured in Sheer Fantasy at Campbelltown Arts Centre in Australia. Curated by Western Sydney artist, David Capra, Sheer Fantasy suspends time to confront the role of the fantastical and how it plays within our collective conscious. In this exhibition, the world as we know it bends and shifts, making room to indulge in our greatest fantasies.

The exhibition includes a number of newly commissioned works, where artists have contemplated private and internal landscapes that have long influenced their practice. Manifested in bold architectural additions to the gallery spaces, these backdrops provide an immersive experience of constructed escapisms that are strangely familiar; referencing movie sets of Hollywood Westerns, candy-coloured theme parks and fanciful theatrics. Nostalgic tropes surrounding the notion of make-believe are questioned, loosened and pulled apart, allowing the imagination to run free.

Artists: Mark Shorter, Polly Borland, Archie Moore, Michael Parekowhai, Raquel Caballero, Pat Larter, Terri Bowden, Javier Lara-Gomez, Kim Novak, The UFO & Paranormal Research Society of Australia, Esme Timbery, William Wegman, 1000 BCE

More information about the exhibition can be found at c-a-c.com.au

Aurie Ramirez featured at CONDO with Et al. | Mexico City

April 14 - May 5, 2018

Et al. gallery presents Butteryfly's Nautilus at CONDO Mexico, City at Celaya Brothers. The exhibition features work by Matt Borruso, Anthony Discenza, Katelyn Eichwald, Koak, Lily Ludlow, Aurie Ramirez, and Dennis Witkin

CONDO Mexico City @ Celaya Brothers Mérida 241, Roma Nte., 06700 CDMX, Mexico For more information on CONDO, visit: condocomplex.org For more information on Et al. visit: etaletc.com

Gail Lewis featured | Soft Bytes animation festival | Los Angeles

Animations by Gail Lewis and former Creative Growth artists Maria Bustillos and Bre-esha Wynn will be screened at Soft Bytes, a female and feminist identified animation festival, held at TSALA on May 19th at 7:30pm by the Association of Hysteric Curators.

From the Association of Hysteric Curators: This event is a product of our community by way of an open call for 1 minute or less videos and curated works by AHC. Using Lucy Lippard’s “moving targets” as a theoretical starting point, our screening emphasizes intersectionality, a non-ableist and a democratized vision of our virtual selves.

Soft Bytes considers the various ways our artists have encoded the habitual, reimagined myths, bodies and blurred reality within the realm of experimental animations, GIFs and VR. Our event includes an interactive video game by Yasmine Batniji and AR installation by Feminist Pornographic Collective Consciousness (Echo Theohar, Xin Xin). Our screening includes works by Alison Davis, Allison Zigadlo, Andrea Taylor, Anne Isensee, Ashley Lane, Blake Roten, Cassie Shao, Christina Ko, Cindy Miyashiro, Courtney Richter, Deveron Richard, Diana Rodriguez, Diane Lindo, Eden Mitsenmacher, Elizabeth Leister, Eubene Kim, Heather Scholl, Jay Martinovic, Jose Martin, Karen Hochman Brown, Kat Ball, Kate Sikorski, Kim Deleon, Linda Ravenswood, Maria Perez Ortega, Marilyn Schmidt, Marjan Vayghan, Michele Jaquis, Michiko Yao, Nicole Antebi, Paris Baillie, Rachel Finkelstein, SL Benz, Stephanie Medeiros, Tavarus Blackmonster, Tracy Miller-Robbins, Vi Ha and Virginia Jeffery.

Longer works include Gyuri Cloe Lee’s “National Gymnastics,” Gail Lewis’ Meowy for Max, Maria Bustillos’ “Nature Stories,” Bre-esha Wynn’s “Ice Force,” and Sarah Telkamp’s “You’ll be Back.”

Judith Scott featured | ONCE Foundation Bienal de Arte Contemporáneo | Madrid, Spain

Work by Judith Scott is featured at ONCE Foundation's 7th International Biennial of Contemporary Art in Madrid, Spain. The Biennial is open May 24 - September 16, 2018. More information on the Biennial can be found at bienal.fundaciononce.es.

One of the objectives of the ONCE Foundation since its creation 30 years ago is to achieve the full inclusion of people with disabilities in all areas of life. The ONCE Foundation focuses a large part of its efforts on the labor insertion of people with disabilities, being aware that other areas such as culture cannot be forgotten in order to achieve total normalization in the lives of the people who make up this group.

For this reason, the ONCE Foundation organized in Madrid in 2006 the 1st International Biennial of Art ONCE Foundation, with the primary objective of recognizing and disseminating the work of artists with some type of disability, as well as enhancing their access and participation in the art market.

But it was also intended to evoke the attention of the world of culture and art about the reality of the world of disability and its enormous potential. Due to the success obtained in the first edition of its International Biennial, the ONCE Foundation once again committed to the organization new editions and, with the aim of continuing with the foreseen objectives and improving the results of the previous editions, poses the VII International Biennial of Contemporary Art from May to September 2018.