Bay Area Now 6
July 9–September 25, 2011
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street
San Francisco CA 94103
www.ybca.org
Debuting in the summer of 1997, Bay Area Now was a much needed platform for assessing the state of the visual arts in the San Francisco Bay Area region, and to bring to the public’s attention the work of artists who were already making waves in the local art scene. It continues to play a significant role in providing a platform, by marking the interplay between contemporary art and other innovative activities that have come to define the region.
Included in BAN6 is photography by Tammy Rae Carland and Sean McFarland; paintings by David Huffman and Robert Minervini; video works by Ranu Mukherjee and Richard T. Walker; sculptures by Mauricio Ancalmo, Suzanne Husky, Allison Smith, and Weston Teruya; conceptual work by Amy Balkin and Tony Labat; installations by Chris Fraser, Brion Nuda Rosch, Chris Sollars, and Sam Strand & Kirby McKenzie; and textiles by Ben Venom.
These artists investigate such subjects as the relationship between humans and nature with artworks involving back-to-the-land environmentalism as an alternative to economic overconsumption; a geopolitical uncovering of the questionable practices of capitalist ventures and the leniency of the US legal system toward these practices; nineteenth century musings on the sublime and the search for meaning updated; and the blurring of landscapes such that artificiality and truth are rendered inseparable.
Contemporary culture is also explored by artists who play with the idea of Americana in a deconstruction of colonial history and by subversively melding opposed lifestyles of the rural South; reinvent outmoded forms of cultural exchange and nation branding; solicit notions of nomadism in the age of globalization; and use the language of afrofuturism to speak about marginalized communities.
Featuring current artistic wisdom, BAN6 celebrates the local as a special place, coexistent with deep consciousness about larger social and political spheres. Here, artmaking is threaded with identification and references to other experiments in living and thinking that have come to define the Bay Area.
For more on BAN6, artist bios and visitor information, see www.ybca.org/ban6.
*Image above:
Clockwise from top left: Robert Minervini, A Gardened Earth, 2011, 60×96 in; Ben Venom: See You on the Other Side, 2011, 155×175 in; Tammy Rae Carland: I’m Dying Up Here (Bent Banana), 2010, Color photograph, 30×40 in; Ranu Mukherjee: Camper Van, Elisabeth Setten, 2010, Ink on paper, 19×19 in; Richard T. Walker: the speed and eagerness of meaning, (video still); Amy Balkin: LAND: Five Case Studies (Dawson, Yukon Territory; Huntington Beach, CA; Newark, CA; Tres Piedras, NM; Richmond, TX); All courtesy of the artist and Robert Minervini, courtesy of Marine Contemporary; Tammy Rae Carland, courtesy of Silverman Gallery; and Ranu Mukherjee, courtesy of Frey Norris Contemporary & Modern.
