Inside/Outside: Artist Environments
March 6—May 24, 2009
Featuring Edgar Arceneaux and Watts Tower Project, Jacob Sockness,
Merritt Wallace, and Megan Wilson, along with historic
documentation of famed California environments,
and a new commission by Mike Shine
at San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Folk Art
www.mocfa.org
2 February 2009 – San Francisco, CA: From folk art environments to homes, artist environment builders blur the lines and push the boundaries of how we define art. From March 6 —May 24 at San Francisco’s Museum of Craft and Folk Art (www.mocfa.org) the new exhibit Inside/Outside: Artist Environments seeks the alternative cultural histories of artist environments that are often overlooked, or undervalued, by the art world and institutions.
“Looking back at the rich history of artist environments in California, this exhibition challenges our assumptions about folk art and asks the viewer to connect these outsider, folk art environments to contemporary art practices,” says Jennifer McCabe, MoCFA Executive Director. “Whether inside or outside the mainstream or inside or outside the gallery, the artists represented in the exhibition explore personal visions that speak to specific locales and histories.”
According to McCabe, more specifically, the exhibition examines the artist environment builders who generally transform their homes, yards, or other aspects of their personal surroundings into multifaceted works of art that embody and express the locale—time, era, place—in which each of them live and work.
A concise history of folk art environments is traced through the gallery in the form of photographs, maps, objects, and didactics that illustrate the unique visions of individual artists who, despite having limited resources, express personal and cultural experiences. Incorporating work of contemporary artists in the midst of documentation of some of California’s most famous environments offers a historical and contextual journey to environments that often sit on the edge of our awareness, but have influenced generations of artists. From folk art environments such as Sam Rodia’s monumental, handmade wire and metal towers, known as Watts Towers in Watts, California to Grandma Prisbrey’s beloved Bottle Village in Simi Valley made from recycled materials found mostly at the dump, California has a rich history of artist environments.
The artists in the exhibition incorporate parallel tactics of artist environment builders in a contemporary art practice. San Francisco-based artist Megan Wilson has a project, Home 1996 – 2008, which engages with artist environments, and blurs the line between art and life. Home 1996 – 2008 (dismantled in December 2008) was a site-specific installation/environment that utilized the interior space of the home to explore and challenge notions of comfort and protection, private and public, and the boundaries between art/life/architecture/design. Through the project she transformed the entire living/working environment using familiar aesthetics from her past -- textile patterns cut from discarded curtains of the seventies, tile carpeting, branded leather, and arts/crafts from her childhood (quilling, macramé, and fabric design) to cover all surfaces (walls, ceilings, floors, cabinets, fixtures, and furniture), creating new meaning and context. Wilson recreates a small installation representative of her Home environment in the Museum Gallery.
Using folk art environment Watts Towers as a point of departure, Los Angeles artist Edgar Arceneaux founded the Watts House Project, described as an "artist-driven urban revitalization initiative" centered on the landmark Watts Towers. Established as a project intended to expand and enhance the community, through exhibition spaces, artist-in-residence programs, educational and social programming and residential housing. His goal is to work directly and collaboratively with the residents of 107th street, along with local architects and designers, to completely overhaul the neighborhood with facade enhancements and streetscape improvements, all smartly and ecologically designed to meet the particular needs of the residents themselves. Arceneaux participates in the exhibition through a conversation scheduled for May 2009.
Watts Towers is a Los Angeles site built by Simon Rodia, over a thirty year period, which is comprised of several distinct components. Most notable, are the nine towers that are made out of metal pipes and rods that were shaped by hand, encased in cement, and finally decorated with mosaics. The tallest of the three towers is just short of standing ten stories tall. Other components of the site include a collection of large garden ornaments, pavilions and platforms, benches and alcoves, and a large model ship. The entire surface of the site is decorated in mosaics made of sea shells, stones, tiles, broken crockery, green ginger ale bottles and glass insulators, with occasional relief details made by pressing tools into the wet cement. To a certain extent, the significance of Watt Towers is that it was one of the first American art environments to gain international recognition.
Two artists, Jacob Sockness and Merritt Wallace, from Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland are represented in Inside/Outside. Creative Growth Art Center serves adult artists with developmental, mental and physical disabilities, providing a stimulating environment for artistic instruction, gallery promotion and personal expression. Artwork fostered in this unique environment is included in prominent collections and museums worldwide. Both Sockness and Wallace have strong idiosyncratic drawing styles depicting maps of urban environments that exist only in their imagination.
The feature of the exhibition is the recreation of one artist environment: Mike Shine’s Art Shack. Combining elements from surf/skate culture, along with the low-fi era of the 60s, the original shack in Bolinas, California is not only a handmade, customized environment, but also a site of community activities. Recreating the shack in the Museum site offers visitors the opportunity to engage with the work, thereby expanding the community and challenging the greater notions of what belongs inside and outside. The public is invited inside the shack to browse Shine’s reference library, to sit and read, to work on a zine, or to look more closely at the found and painted materials that make up the seaside, carnival-like shack: from upside skateboard decks functioning as shelves to painted driftwood.
Though the artists in Inside/Outside come from different locales, have different histories, ways of learning, and reasons for art-making, they all participate in the home-as-art-environment practice; each expresses the ineffable qualities of place according to unique understandings and insights, challenging the viewer to question pre-determined categories such as inside and outside, private and public, and to listen instead to the voice of the individual artists.
Inside/Outside is supported by The W A Gerbode Foundation and The Zellerbach Family Foundation. The Museum of Craft and Folk Art is generously supported by The Compton Foundation, Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund, The Walter and Elise Haas Fund, Gertrude and Harold Parker, The San Francisco Foundation, The Sato Foundation, Museum members, and friends. Independent Curator, Natasha Boas was curatorial advisor on Inside/Outside.
Special Events:
Opening Day: Thursday March 5
Member/Press preview 5-6pm
A discussion with artists Mike Shine and Megan Wilson facilitated by Independent Curator Natasha Boas, 6-7pm
Reception, 7-9pm with live music
Family Activity Day: Saturday April 25, 2pm ‘til 4pm
The exciting world of found objects and created environments will inspire you to discover the art in your own home! RSVP required to participate. Free with Museum admission.
Docent Tours:
1pm: First Tuesday of every month; 2nd and 4th Saturday of every month.
