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1/10/2004

It's About Time

San Jose Museum of Art, San Jose

Celebrating 35 Years

San Jose Museum of Art Celebrates 35 Years with exhibition of over 50 artworks selectedfrom hundreds of newly donated pieces

San Jose, Calif. - In 1969, a group of community leaders and San Jose State University professors joined forces to found the San Jose Museum of Art (SJMA). From the beginning, a populist spirit was at the heart of the Museum's charter. Unlike many museums that are founded by wealthy collector-philanthropists, SJMA was the product of a collective, grassroots effort of civic-minded citizens. Thirty-five years later, the institution remains as committed as ever to the community it serves. Yet today's Museum is hardly recognizable from the original fledgling organization. Situated in a city that is now the tenth largest in the country and the capital of Silicon Valley, the San Jose Museum of Art has become one of the leading arts organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area.

In celebration of its 35th birthday, the Museum will present It's About Time: Celebrating 35 Years, a selection of works of art acquired on the occasion of this historic event. The exhibition will showcase the tremendous support the Museum has gained in recent years. Incredibly, the hundreds of artworks donated in honor of the 35th anniversary have nearly doubled the value of the permanent collection-powerful testimony to the generosity of the Museum's supporters and the quality of their gifts.

The gifts slated for display reflect the collecting goals that make the San Jose Museum of Art unique among Bay Area institutions. From the start, the Museum has been strongly committed to art of the West Coast and the Bay Area in particular. The Museum has made a special effort to introduce emerging and under-recognized talent, as well as art that falls outside the art-world mainstream, especially varieties of expression particular to the region. For example, in keeping with the Museum's location in Silicon Valley, one of the most significant areas the Museum has targeted in recent years is new media. This exhibition will feature two major gifts of electronic art: Jennifer Steinkamp's dazzling kinetic Fly to Mars (2004), a 3-D computer animation, and Tony Oursler's surreal fantasy, Slip (2003), a recent fiberglass sculpture with DVD projections and sound.

Another area the Museum has singled out for emphasis is ceramic sculpture, an art form with deep roots in the Bay Area as the residence of the country's two most important pioneers of ceramic sculpture, Robert Arneson and Peter Voulkos. This exhibition will feature significant examples, including Viola Frey's monumental Fire Suit (1983), Peter VandenBerge's whimsical Demoiselle (2003), and Stephen De Staebler's stately Figure Column XXI (2002).

Certainly among the most daring avenues of collecting the Museum has identified over the past several years is contemporary realism, which is just now gaining currency among major institutions. Among the gifts representing this genre will be Sandow Birk's witty update of Dante's Divine Comedy, Inferno (2003); Chester Arnold's meditation on environmental destruction, Entropic Landscape (1999); F. Scott Hess's enigmatic Night Gardener's Escape (1995); Paul Wonner's playful Peaceable Kingdom (1988); and Bruce Cohen's feat of formalist realism, Untitled (Corner of the Studio), (2003).

Finally, but not the least of the Museum's collecting interests, is art dealing with contemporary political and social themes. Works in this genre will include Robert Arneson's Five Times for Harvey #1 - #5 (1982), Enrique Chagoya's Their Freedom of Expression . . . The Recovery of Their Economy (1984), and Masami Teraoka's Semana Santa/Cloning Eve and Geisha (2003).

Other major gifts will include Elmer Bischoff's spectacular Two Women in Vermillion Light (1959) and Alexander Calder's vintage mobile, Big Red (1959). Without giving away all the surprises in the exhibition, here are a few more teasers: major works will be featured by Joan Brown, Jamie Brunson, Amy Kaufman, Frank Lobdell, Irving Norman, Nathan Oliveira, Raymond Saunders, Raimonds Staprans, Fred Stonehouse, and Jacqueline Thurston. Many additional gifts in honor of the Museum's anniversary will be shown in an upcoming exhibition of the permanent collection opening in November of 2004.

On the occasion of the Museum's 35th anniversary, SJMA will publish a 288-page, full-color catalogue of the permanent collection, with an introduction by Susan Landauer and essays by JoAnne Northrup, Ann Wolfe, and Lindsey Wylie. The book will be available at the Museum Store.

MUSEUM HOURS AND FREE ADMISSION:
Tuesday through Sunday, 11am – 5pm; closed Monday. Admission: FREE.
Docent Tours : Available every day at 12:30pm and 2:30pm.
For 24 hr. information, call (408) 294-2787 or visit the website.

For more information, check the Museum web site or contact Gary Landis at (408) 271-6865.

Image: Robert Arneson, Five Times for Harvey #1, 1982. Mixed media on paper, five parts 30 x 24 inches; Promised gift of J. Michael Bewley, in honor of the San Jose Museum of Art's 35th Anniversary.

Gibson Family Gallery and Plaza Gallery, New Wing
San Jose Museum of Art
110 South Market Street
San Jose, CA 95113
408-271-6840

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