Cielo/Sky Part II curated by Shelby Graham
work from Santa Cruz, CA to travel to
Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain
Opening: 11 February – 12 March, 2010
at the Sala de exposiciones del Parque García Sanabria
A cultural exchange project sponsored by Sister Cities of Santa Cruz, CA, The Canary Islands Government, Septenio, Porter College and the UCSC Arts Division Arts Research Institute
[image credit Jennifer Parker SolarSENSE a project by SonicSENSE]
PRESS:
Santa Cruz artists included are Elliot Anderson, Barbara Benish (visiting artist from the Czech Republic at UCSC), Andrea Borsuk, Jim Denevan, Janet Fine, Susan Friedman, Newton and Helen Mayer Harrison, Diana Hobson, Isabelle Jenniches, Victoria May, Charlie Sloan, and Jennifer Parker & Barney Haynes with UCSC DANM Mechatronics Project Group: Lyes Belhocine, Andre Marquetti, Elizabeth Travelslight, Levi Goldman, Kyle Mckinley
The cultural exchange between sister cities Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands and Santa Cruz, California was launched in November, 2009, with Part I of the exhibition series Cielo/Sky at three Santa Cruz venues. Curated by digital media artist Miriam Durango from Tenerife, and organized by local curator and photographer Shelby Graham .The second part of the exchange, curated by Shelby Graham of the UCSC Sesnon Gallery, will feature the work of Santa Cruz artists and UCSC faculty members working with the same theme of sky exhibiting their work in Tenerife. With this group of artists, the theme is applied environmentally, conceptually and metaphorically. The exhibition will take place at the Sala de exposiciones del Parque García Sanabria. Shelby Graham will travel to Tenerife to install the work and meet with cultural leaders February 8–14, 2010.
UCSC professors Elliot Anderson and collaborative team Jennifer Parker and Barney Haynes will exhibit their current research. Anderson uses a digital compilation to average hundreds of cloud photographs into single images. Parker and Haynes created a site-specific interactive installation using solar wind data to drive the components. Local environmental artists and UC professors Newton and Helen Harrison will present a video on greenhouse gases, and video artist/photographer Susan Friedman will show her documentary “What’s Up in the Universe?” Cabrillo faculty and staff members Victoria May, Andrea Borsuk and Janet Fine will contribute works depicting the sky metaphorically in the form of an installation, balancing snow globes and photo allegories. Artist Jim Denevan will project a view of his large-scale sand drawings “from the sky,” while Diana Hobson questions the origin of the sky itself. Charlie Sloan, Barbara Benish and Isabelle Jenniches will exhibit mixed media paintings, altered photos and web cam images that capture the light, texture and vastness of stormy skies.
Shelby Graham has an MFA in photography and is a practicing artist exhibiting her work in the US and Japan. She has been director of the Mary Porter Sesnon Art Gallery at UCSC since 1999 and her curatorial works include Some Assembly Required: race, gender and globalization, 2009; Interruptions of Hierarchies, 2008; Image as Object, 2006; Hank Willis Thomas: Signifying Blackness, 2006; and The Rhetoric of the Pose: Rethinking Hannah Wilke, 2005. Graham is on the executive planning committee for a new Center for Art and Visual Studies at UCSC. She has taught courses in photography, contemporary art, and museum practices at the University of California, Santa Cruz; Cabrillo College; and Seinan Gakuin University in Kyushu, Japan.