Upcoming Exhibitions
 

Reframing America

Reframing America is the unifying theme for SBMA's five exhibitions in the fall that address, each in a distinctive or even idiosyncratic way, the concept of America. Each show can be said to exemplify in one regard or another an idea proposed by Van Wyck Brook in his seminal essay, On Creating a Usable Past (1918). The author advocated the embrace of the creative impulse in forming a distinct, American history free from conventional constraints, including those of what was then, considered the European establishment. Embracing the freedom of invention inherent in this notion, all five exhibitions imagine America differently, while also examining it as not just a place, but also as an idea--one with a past, a present, and a future.

This exhibition features works by artists whose inspiration rises from both fiction and fact, and the surprising results of the conflation of the two. References to literature, history, allegory, and fantasy converge in these works, posing new fictions and realities, and challenging the fine line between the two. Archetypal American subjects dominate these works, which range in reference from colonial history, to religious iconography, to 1970s literature and comics, and to contemporary film and pop music. All appears to be fair game for these artists in their inventive, wry, poignant and thought provoking works. Artists include Eric Beltz, Dawn Clements, Erin Cosgrove, Noah Davis, Kerry James Marshall, Aaron Morse, Allison Schulnik, Jeni Spota, Devin Troy Strother, Frohawk Two Feathers, and Nicolau Vergueiro.

Tony de los Reyes deftly merges iconic subject matter and historic aesthetic styles in his paintings, drawings and sculpture. For the past five years, his attention has been fixated on what is referred to as the Great American Novel—Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851). The style of these works, which are the focus of this exhibition, references Abstract Expressionism and Minimalism, movements associated with rugged individualism and "pure" materiality. The depiction of various nautical imagery with various materials, including dark inks and bronze, alludes to the complex multiple perspectives in the narrative. Yet the most powerful effect of this work is its examination of Melville's epic as a mythic vision of America. The artist's distinctive comparisons of Ahab and the U.S. enhances the insatiable and potentially self-destructive nature of both.

Ansel Adams, Cloud and Mountain, 1927. Parmelian print. Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Museum purchase with funds provided by the Wallis Foundation.
 

Yosemite: Then and Now
October 2, 2010 - January 23, 2011

From the moment the first photographs of Yosemite were seen, that unparalleled landscape became a photographer’s mecca. From the traditional landscape views, made by Carleton Watkins and Eadweard Muybridge in the 1860s, to modern abstractions by David Stroup and Kate Jordahl, Yosemite is both sublime subject and spiritual metaphor. The 22 photographs in this exhibition demonstrate not only the changing medium of photography but also the changing perception of this iconic national park.

Drawing from the growing collection of photographic images in the permanent collection of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, the exhibition ranges from the 1860s to 2004 and includes mammoth-plate images by the pioneers of the 19th century, the well-known views of Ansel Adams in the 20th century, and the time-lapse images of Trevor Paglen in the 21st century.

An American Century: 20th-Century Master Drawings from the Collection
October 9, 2010- January 2, 2011

SBMA’s extensive collection of works on paper, assembled over nearly 70 years, reveals the exceptional and varied ways in which American artists of the last century have contributed to the development of a uniquely American style, the freedom and confidence of expression, and choice of subject matter that reflects dramatic changes in the country’s history during that time. 

Many of the more than 75 works represented in this exhibition are directly tied to the realities of life in American cities such as those by the early Ashcan realists and the radical modernists of New York City who strove to express the dynamic growth and vitality of cities.  They illustrate a broad range of the subject matter of 20^th century American artists including an atypical landscape sketch by Edward Hopper, watercolor masterpieces by Charles Sheeler, elegant still life studies of Charles Demuth, and major works by John Steuart Curry, Charles Burchfield, and William James Glackens.  American modernists are also well represented by Mark Tobey, Morris Graves, Milton Avery, and Joseph Stella.  The many California artists included range from Arthur Matthew in drawings from early in the century, to Larry Bell more than 50 years later.

American Modernism: Selections from the Permanent Collection
October 9, 2010 - January 2, 2011

To complement the An American Century exhibition, we have drawn on one of the strengths of the collection in modernist American art, and examined the ways in which American artists and audiences experienced modernity, in the crucial period between the World Wars. By the start of World War II, rapid changes in technology, cultural fashions and mass media, let alone economic upheavals, had erased much of nineteenth-century America from everyday experience. Reactions to these changes varied from whole-hearted embrace to complete rejection. In this exhibition we explore more ambivalent feelings, and contrasted the work of painters with photographers.

Major works range from Georgia O’Keeffe’s stark image of a dead tree to Annie Brigman’s photographs of female nudes, from Marion Post Wolcott’s enthusiastic dancers to Walt Kuhn’s assertive figure of Trude, a vaudeville performer. We conclude with a gallery devoted to the work of Alfredo Ramos Martinez, a Mexican artist who negotiated a career between Mexico and the United States, an indigenous past and Southern Californian realities.

Charles Garabedian: A Survey
January 22 - April 17, 2011

Organized by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, this exhibition represents the first important museum presentation and catalog in 28 years devoted to the art of Charles Garabedian. Bringing together approximately 60 works created by the artist, the exhibition represents his entire career with an emphasis on paintings and drawings produced during the years since his first (and last) major solo museum exhibitions in 1983.

With a career that spans nearly 50 years, Garabedian explores themes of war, music, the body, dismemberment, heroism, comic pretension, love, and death—all conveyed with a sense of immediacy, intimacy, and poignancy. Underlying the work is the artist’s own elegiac confrontation with the joys and struggles that pervade our daily lives. Each painting or drawing creates its own world yet also reflects the turbulent times in which it was made.

Garabedian's accomplishments and influence among artists on the West Coast in the last 30 years have been substantial. His persistently individual exploration of figure, landscape and subject matter paved the way for new generations of artists who demonstrated a renewed focus on imaginative representations of the figure. Such artists, including George Condo, Laura Owens, and Dana Schutz, for instance, are clearly indebted to Garabedian; as are others who have been directly inspired by his work, including Lari Pittman, Tom Wudl, and many others. This, and his works’ relationship to an even younger generation of artists who emphasize narrative, attest to the continuing vitality of his work.