Exhibitions and Related Events

hot_houseLRImage from Jenny Yurshansky: Blacklisted: A Planted Allegory

 

  • SPRING 2015

    Jenny Yurshansky: Blacklisted: A Planted Allegory
    January 24 – March 26, 2015
    Pitzer College Art Galleries

    Jenny Yurshansky is currently on-site at Pitzer College conducting active field research for her upcoming exhibition, Blacklisted: A Planted Allegory. Yurshansky is collecting, studying and researching plants found on the campuses of The Claremont Colleges and affiliated institutions. Restricting her investigation to vegetation classified as invasive by the California Invasive Species Advisory Committee (CISAC)—a scientific organization charged with creating a statewide “living list” of invasive species since late 2009—Yurshansky will determine which “so-called” invasive species have infiltrated this highly local site.

    Blacklisted: A Planted Allegory investigates the distinction between native versus invasive species as determined by the CISAC. The discourse surrounding a list of “invasive” or “alien” flora species has interesting and fruitful correlations to policies regarding immigration, multiculturalism and evolving ideas about national identities that are inherently tied to the identity of border cultures and a location that has carried the name of a number of nations through the historical record. The project allows viewers to engage in a meaningful and nuanced way with how these issues are thought of, in direct and applicable terms.

    Opening in January 2015, Blacklisted: A Planted Allegory will take a number of forms including a comprehensive index of the invasive species found on-site, a large-scale projection—a portrait of all the plants collected and a record of their growth during the month of June 2014—and a light box image of their incubated sequestration.  The exhibition will also feature two sculptural works, one of which is an index of the more than one hundred plants collected, in the style of a classic botanical herbaria rendered in detailed handmade paper silhouettes.  The second sculpture refers to the Harvard Natural History Museum’s Ware Collection of Blaschka Glass Models of Plants, which is a window into the common presence in 1892 of what are now rare California native plants. This piece, which features a seemingly empty vitrine, is a nod to the fears of the ultimate disappearance of natives in the wake of the encroachment by alien species that fuels the discourse around this issue.

  • FALL 2014

    Home Economics: communal housekeeping for the 21st Century

    This exhibition is taking place at Chaffey College’s Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art and was curated by Danielle Giudici Wallis. This group exhibition brings together artists who embrace the origins of what Home Ec was – a progressive interdisciplinary study with an emphasis on science as it applied to the individual, family and community with the mission of improving the quality of life. Originally dubbed “Oekology,” which later became “Ecology,” the founders of the discipline believed that our communal house extends well beyond any walls, and that this larger community could best be tended through the synthesis of the life and social sciences. The artists in Home ECOnomics continue the tradition by honoring the early tenets of Home Ec. They employ methods that range from biology, chemistry, and engineering, to sewing, cooking and animal husbandry to broaden our understanding of the environment and further our stewardship of it. Grant funding for this exhibition was extended through the community partnership developed as a part of Design Ecology and the Commons: Co-Composing our Urban Environments, taught by Prof. Berg and members of SPURSE. SPURSE is participating in this exhibition and will be leading a workshop at Chaffey College in October.

  • SPRING 2014

    Senior Thesis Exhibition: The Deep Sea Project

    Grant funding was extended to support studio art major Corinne Monaco’s senior thesis exhibition entitled The Deep Sea Project, which comprised a large room sized installation in which viewers explored a polluted underwater realm. In the young artist’s own words “terrestrial detritus, the stuff of junkyards and landfills, is strewn throughout the space in commentary of humankind’s uncanny ability to make a mess of all earth’s biospheres.”

  • FALL 2013

    Cattle in the Amazon: Despised Invaders to Prized Possessions
    October 10 – November 27, 2013
    Barbara Hinshaw Memorial Gallery, Grove House and the McConnell Living Room, McConnell Center

    artista-jaider-esbell-2Works by Jaider Esbell (Macuxi), with additional paintings by Carmesia Emiliano (Macuxi), Barto Patamona (Patamona), Luiz Mateus (Patamona), Amazoner Okaba (Wapixana), Mario Flores (Taurepang), Isaias Miliano (Macuxi), and Diogo Lima (Macuxi)

    Funded by the Art+Environment Program, Pitzer College presents a unique exhibit of artwork from the Brazilian Amazon. The Exhibition features paintings by indigenous artist Jaider Esbell and other Amazonian artists that touch on themes surrounding nature, sustainability and development. The exhibit opened in October of 2013 in the Barbara Hinshaw Memorial Gallery and the McConnell Living Room at Pitzer College.

    Esbell’s paintings explore the cosmologies and historical experiences of the Macuxi Indians. His work illuminates how the introduction of cattle in the Macuxi territory affected the environment and the ways that Macuxi Indians have understood and responded to both the cattle and the ranchers.

    Esbell lives in the state of Roraima in the northern Brazilian Amazon. He is spending the 2013-2014 year at Pitzer as a visiting artist and professor. A geographer as well as an artist, Esbell uses different forms of visual means to synthesize elements of Macuxi cosmology, history and the natural world.

    The exhibition takes place in conjunction with the anthropology course, Run to the Forest, co-taught by Associate Professor of Anthropology Leda Martins and Esbell. Curated by Jean M. Pitzer Professor of Anthropology and Professor of History Daniel Segal, Cattle in the Amazon runs from October 10 – November 27, 2013 at both the Grove House and the McConnell Living Room.

    The exhibition is also funded through the Pitzer College Art Galleries, Pitzer’s Office of Study Abroad and International Programs, and the College’s Institute for Global/Local Action & Research.

    Emerging Artist Series #8: Danielle Adair: On the Rocks in the Land

    The documentary-performance-video installation, On the Rocks, In the Land took place in the Lenzner Family Art Gallery (Sept. 19-De. 6, 2013). This exhibition analyzed the role of the “tourist-observer,” within contemporary “conflict zones,” and questioned how a “tourist” perceives and experiences sites of historic and contemporary political significance. The project incorporated experiences of and around the peace lines of Belfast, the Berlin Wall, the Stone Walls of New England, the US-Mexican border in Ciudad Juarez and the Occupy Wall Street Movement. By highlighting these sites, the exhibition explored the notion of play as a persistent and ethical form of resistance in relation to the physicality of a wall as defined by these specific locations. Although exploring the intersection of place, politics and play in these sites, the project resists the urge to enforce a dominant narrative, seeking instead to excavate unfamiliar forms of resistance and protest.