Past University Library Art Gallery Exhibits

Charlotte Salomon – Life? Or Theatre?

This exhibit features the work of German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon (1917-1943), who grew up as the daughter of a surgeon and a singer in Berlin. The Nazi takeover in 1933 changed the family’s situation drastically, and Charlotte Salomon escaped in 1939 to her grandparents, who had already sought refuge in Southern France. Hiding in Nice, Salomon created an unusual autobiography through more than 1300 paintings that were created within 18 months between 1940 and 1942. Salomon decided to include 769 in her work that she entitled “Leben? oder Theater?” In 1943, the Nazis deported her to Auschwitz, where she was murdered upon arrival. She was 26 years old. Before her arrest she gave her complete work to a friend reminding him: “Please keep this safe: C’est toute ma vie! This is my entire life.”

This project is made possible, in part, by the Goethe-Institut San Francisco, Center for the Study of Holocaust and Genocide, SSU Department of Modern Languages and Literature, SSU German Club, Alliance for the Study of the Holocaust, and the University Library Associates.

Paper Progress

Paper Progress is an exhibition highlighting student works on paper. The Sonoma State University Art Department recently added an exciting new emphasis to their curriculum, Works on Paper. This emphasis includes photography, digital imaging, printmaking, and drawing. The works amassed in this exhibition demonstrate the enormous possibilities for new ideas and visual communication incorporating paper as a substrate. This exhibition also displays the Art Department’s tremendous talent and motivation among their studio art majors.

A Fine and Long Tradition: Stories from the Contemporary Women's Movement in Sonoma County

The stories of women involved in the contemporary women's movement as it played out in Sonoma County from 1960 to 1985 was the subject of a new exhibit at the Sonoma State University Library Art Gallery from August 15-September 28. A Fine and Long Tradition: Stories from the Contemporary Women’s Movement” was funded by the California Council for the Humanities "California Stories Initiative" and was coordinated by Michelle Jolly, SSU Professor of History.

The Spirit of the Dream

The Spirit of the Dream will be displayed in the University Library Gallery from June 17 to July 26, 2007. “The Spirit of the Dream” featured the work of thirty-six artists from Northern California and all over the United States and Canada who create art inspired by dreams. The works chosen represened a wide range of approaches to art-making and to dreams, and include paintings, drawing, collage, photography, sculptural objects, and artist books. Works ranged from representational to abstract, based on a specific dream, or a series of dreams, or a more complex interaction of dreaming and waking source material.

Change Channel by Phil Bekker

Change Channel by Phil Bekker will be displayed in the University Liobrary Gallery from May 8, 2007 to June 8 2007. On the right side of the image is a woman walking into a darken room. A bright light is behind her, and she is a siluouette. Phil Bekker was the recipient of the Edward C. Boyle Scholarship, which provided him the opportunity to study art in France. During his time, he moved away from painting to working with digital video. On exhibit were Bekker's video projects.

Life in Bold Colors: Haitian Art from the Collection of Patrick Jamieson

Life in Bold Colors, Haitian Art from the Collection of Patrick Jamieson. The dates on the image are March 12, 2007 to April 27, 2007. On the right side, is a circle,inside is a portrait of a woman with a bird on her right shoulder This exhibition ran March 12 – April 27, 2007, not only featured the works of sixteen Haitian artists but also depicted the unique interests of a specific collector, Patrick Jamieson, of Novato.

Many of the works shown in “Life in Bold Colors” were created with vivid colors -- an ironic contrast to the turbulence in Haiti over the last century.

Cultural Art Exchange: The Global Experience

;Black background with a quarter slice of the earth on the bottom right corner. 3 paper airplanes fly in space. Text says Cultural Art Exchange, The Global Experience. Student Works from Bay Area Colleges and Universities. Then the date the show runs December 6, 2006 to February 21, 2007. The Sonoma State University Library Art Gallery presented the exhibition Cultural Art Exchange: The Global Experience. The exhibition was organized by students enrolled in the Gallery and Museum Methods class, under the direction of Professor Michael Schwager.

Cultural Art Exchange: The Global Experience presented the work of eleven student artists from around the world who have traveled to (and from) Bay Area colleges and universities for the purpose of studying art. The goal of the exhibition was to provide a forum of exploration on the effects of how international travel and cultural exchange has inspired the artists and their work.

The Grass Family (Gramineae) work by Wopo Holup in collaboration with Lew Minter

Slice of one of the panels of the Grass Family. “The Grass Family” consists of 164 panels, which were the result of Holup’s 1999 commission by the New York Dept. of Transportation to create a large-scale public art piece for the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE); thus Holup created “Common Ground” a monumental granite sculpture covering the expanse of the BQE underpass. It was through the process of transforming original drawings to granite for “Common Ground” that Holup began experimenting with digital imaging. Her experimentation resulted in the creation of a second art piece “The Grass Family (Gramineae),” which was on display in University Library August 15 to November 12, 2006.

SSU COMMEMORATES 100 YEARS OF QUAKE HISTORY WITH “THE 1906 EARTHQUAKE:SONOMA STORIES”

Vintage photograph of men standing before a building damaged by an earthquake It became known as “The Great Quake of 1906.” April 18, 2006 marked the centennial anniversary of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake. In commemoration of this event, Sonoma State University Library Art Gallery hosted the exhibition “The 1906 Earthquake: Sonoma Stories".

The exhibit featured items from the University Library collections. The photographs used were primarily vintage prints from the Henry A. Hoyt Earthquake Photograph Collection. The newspaper articles and letters came from a variety of special collections including the Gaye LeBaron files, which are filled with rich resources on the history of the county. Some items in the exhibit came from other special collections such as the Leopold Justi collection and the Jack London collection.

Melanie Kent Steinhardt: The Life and Art of an Émigré

Painting by Melania Kent Steinhardt, the title is Torment of the Agnostic Melanie Kent Steinhardt was an aspiring Bohemian Jewish artist who left Europe in 1939 and finally settled in California in 1941. This diverse and compelling collection of compositions, portraits and landscapes blends European Expressionism with an émigré’s troubled impressions of two World Wars, a woman’s place in a male dominated world, and her new life in America.

The artist’s residency in Inglewood, amid the burgeoning military industrial complex of 1940s Southern California, informed some of her most compelling work, and provided her an opportunity to reconnect with her estranged family.

BIBLIOTHÈQUE

3 shelves of library books, in the middle row, the books have been replaced by a pile of cameras. Using the University Library as a starting point, “Bibliothèque” included a broad spectrum of student responses to the idea of “what is a library today?” and more specifically “what is our University Library in particular?” Some artists started with the architectural structure of the building itself, while others concentrated on its mechanical systems. Still others focused upon books themselves, either the physical design or their nature as repositories of knowledge. The notion of the library as social space was examined, from the group experience to the individual.

To create the works in the exhibition, students were given wide latitude in their approach to the subject matter and great access within the University Library. The photographs exhibited in "Bibliothèque" provide a fine sample of various approaches to a singular photographic subject, from the formal to the conceptual, from the traditional to the experimental.

Worth a Thousand Words: the Book as Image

A large egg shapped head with nose ressed into book. Although libraries are no longer simply storehouses of printed materials, it is still true that when people hear the word library, the image that most often comes to mind is the traditional building filled with books. Worth A Thousand Words: The Book as Image looks at the book objectified, its message not revealed by the text on its pages but by its very image.

Curated by library staff member and ITDS graduate student Darren Sargent, Worth a Thousand Words: the Book as Image exhibited the work of both two and three dimensional artists who have created work objectifying the book and in so doing make it an aesthetic or conceptual component in their work. In the works presented, the artists did not use the book to convey information with written language or series of images on successive pages; instead, each artist used the image of the book itself as the conveyor of communication.

Studio Stories: Narratives in Two Dimensions

Logo for Studio Stories Members of Professor Michael Schwager’s Spring, 2005, “Gallery and Museum Methods” developed Studio Stories: Narratives in Two Dimensions. The work in Studio Stories was created by Sonoma State University art students, juried by students, and the exhibition designed and installed by students. The student curators worked to collectively present the artists’ individual stories and yet meld them into one cogent exhibition and ultimately an interesting anthology.

Survivors: A Personal Journey

Color photograph of man who had survives ethnic, political, or religious persecution. Sonoma State University Library art gallery presented a photographic exhibit by Dr. Phil Rasori entitled Survivors: A Personal Journey. The exhibition featured 35 large, color photographs of indigenous peoples who have survived ethnic, political, or religious persecution. “Survivors: A Personal Journey serves as both a witness and protest to what they have endured,” said Rasori.“It also is a celebration of the courage of the survivors who, despite the nightmares, the flashbacks, the memories of loved ones still missing, have the will to go on and preserve their traditions and culture for their children.”

Artist or Politician?

Image of politcial buttons, many of them blacked out. Artist or Politician? opened August 16 and ran until October 15, 2004. This exhibit chronicled 35–years of Darling's pro-bono political action in the context of his other works. While the exhibit included examples of his early public works, such as urban acupuncture, his involvement in Mail Art, and examples of his ongoing series Hollywood Archaeology, it highlighted his political campaigns including his 1978 gubernatorial campaign against incumbent Governor Jerry Brown.

OutCast

Outcast The University Library Art Gallery and the Art Department at Sonoma State University presented Outcast, an exhibit juried by SSU advanced ceramics students and featured the works of SSU art students.

Four Sculptors

In celebration of Women's History Month, The University Library Art Gallery at Sonoma State University, in conjunction with the Women's Resource Center, presented "Four Sculptors." Work by four international women artists, Gigi Janchang of Taiwan, Kyunghee Lee of South Korea, Jann Nunn of the United States, and Ulrike Palmbach of Germany.

A Way of Seeing: An Anthropologist’s Eye

Image for A WAY OF SEEING AN ANTHROPOLOGIST'S EYE The University Library Art Gallery at Sonoma State University opened the spring semester with “A Way of Seeing: An Anthropologist’s Eye,” an exhibit of photographs by Professor Albert Wahrhaftig.

All of the images were taken in the town of Tepoztlán, Morelos, Mexico.

SSU Now

SSU Now showcased the work of 18 current Sonoma State University Art Studio majors working in a variety of media, including ceramics, drawing, painting, printmaking, photography and sculpture. Students from the Fall 2003 Gallery and Museum Methods course selected the pieces on display, designed the exhibit, and installed all the work.

Altars of Extinction

Alters of Extinction This exhibit was a beautiful and moving exhibit of altars to California species that, within the last one hundred years, have gone extinct.

The Obsessive Poetics of Collage

Image of Obsessive Poetics of Collage The exhibit featured the works of four artists: Jenny Honnert Abell, Sandra Ortiz Taylor, Pamela Kessler and Sherry Parker who use one of the contemporary art world’s more popular mediums: collage.

“Obsessive Poetics” offers the viewer a broad perspective on collage because each artist approaches the medium in a unique way. In defining this exhibition, the artists state, “this collection of work vigorously exemplifies the obsessive, poetic, symphonic and the absurd, all in the service of our goal of a liberating visual purity.”

synesthesia n. (sin´is-the´zh)

Image of Synesthesia banner synesthesia n. (sin´is-the´zh), an exhibition of work by nine Sonoma County sculptors. These emerging artists began with the idea of exploring the artist’s relationship to current social events. What does it mean to be an artist-activist?

Thinking About Freedom: Works from the San Quentin Arts Program.”

Image [Thinking About FreedomWorks from the San Quentin Arts Program] The Thinking About Freedom exhibit is part of a campus-wide exploration of the concept of freedom. Inspired by Harry Belafonte’s “The Long Road to Freedom,” the idea was initiated by the Center for Performing Arts faculty, who have developed a multi-disciplinary production exploring this vast concept.

“We Want Freedom”

The title of the exhibit, “We Want Freedom,” is from the first three words of the Party’s Platform and Program of 1966. “We Want Freedom” displays over 40 black and white photographs taken from 1968 to 1970 at public events organized by the Black Panther Party in the Bay Area. The images tell the story of the events of the times beginning with the memorial march and rally for Lil’ Bobby Hutton who, at 16, was killed by Oakland Police, to the great May Day demonstration at the San Francisco Civic Center.

The University Library Takes Flight!

The Bird Show The University Library in the Jean and Charles Schulz Information Center at Sonoma State University celebrates the gift of over 900 books, donated by renowned ornithologist Charles Sibley and his family, with an arts and lectures series devoted to birds.

"A Passionate Journey: The Work of Pele deLappe"

[Image : Self-portrait] DeLappe, a life long social realist, is a lithographer, painter, cartoonist, activist, and educator admired for her ability to capture human emotions, both poignant and comical, and the conditions from which these emotions arise. Now in her eighties and living in Petaluma, California, deLappe provides 21st century audiences a rare glimpse into the many intersections of art, politics, labor, and culture of the 20th century.

For more information about Pele deLappe's life and work, read "Love's Labor Won: Petaluma artist Pele deLappe's passionate journey" by Gretchen Giles in The Bohemian.