Exhibit Archive
The Contagious Middle Ages in Post-Communist East Central Europe
November 7, 2007 — January 31, 2008| Townsend Center, 220 Stephens Hall
An exhibition, lectures, and films focused on the explosion of interest in real and imagined pasts, especially medieval pasts, since 1989, from Estonia in the north to Bulgaria in the south.
Nationalism, religious revival, political agendas, myth-making, spectacle all play a part—exuberant, poignant or pompous, at times constructive, too-often destructive, but certainly revealing for our understanding of the region and of similar phenomena elsewhere in the 21st century.
Organized by Randolph Starn and Gábor Klaniczay in collaboration with the Open Society Archive of the Central European University. Cosponsored by the Graduate Division, the Humanities Division, the Social Sciences Division, the Committee on Medieval Studies, the Consortium for the Arts, the Institute of European Studies, the Institute for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, the Department of History, and the Helen Fawcett Chair in History.
Hush, Hush: Paintings by Katherine Sherwood
Katherine Sherwood
March 11 – May 31, 2007 | Townsend Center, 220 Stephens Hall
Katherine Sherwood teaches in the Art Department at UC Berkeley. Her mixed-media paintings gracefully juxtapose abstracted medical images, such as cerebral angiograms of the artist’s brain, with calligraphic renderings of ancient symbols. Her paintings investigate the point at which the essential aspects of art, medicine, and disability intersect—playing with our striving to know more, to control our future.
Sherwood has exhibited her work in many solo shows and group exhibitions, including “Visionary Anatomies” at the National Academy of Sciences in 2005, “Inside Out Loud: Visualizing Women’s Health in Contemporary Art” at the Kempner Museum in 2004, and the Whitney Art Museum biennial in 2000. She has also exhibited in New York, Chile, Japan, and Thailand. She has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a National Endowment for the Arts Artist Fellowship, the Adaline Kent Award from the San Francisco Art Institute, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.
Disappearing: Recent Works by Ali Dadgar
Ali Dadgar
January 25 – March 2, 2007
On extended exhibit in the Townsend Center offices
Bay Area artist Ali Dadgar works in painting, experimental printmaking, digital photography, and performance. He explores various processes and techniques with a variety of objects and surfaces in order to reflect on and transform how meaning, function and value are created.
Born in Iran, Dadgar immigrated to the United States in 1978. A member of the Berkeley-based theater company Darvag since 1988, Dadgar collaborates with numerous visual and performing artists in the Bay Area. He is currently in the graduate Art Practice program at UC Berkeley.
Photographs and Texts by Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco
Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco
October 15, 2006 – January 10, 2007
Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco is Associate Professor of Spanish and Portuguese at UC Berkeley and the author of several books and articles on medieval political theory. His current projects are “The Invention of the Discourse on Peace in the Late Middle Ages” and “El Conflicto entre Caballería y ‘Res Pública’ en Castilla, Florencia y Borgoña, siglos XIV y XV.”
Recent Work by Lydia Nakashima Degarrod
Lydia Nakashima Degarrod
February 21 - April 15, 2006
Lydia Nakashima Degarrod is a visual artist and cultural anthropologist from Chile. Her stated aim is to expand the boundaries of the disciplines of cultural anthropology and art by using the knowledge of both to question the boundaries of ethnographic and artistic representations. Solo exhibitions include Pro Arts, Oakland, CA; California Institute of Integral Studies, San Francisco; David Rockefeller Center Gallery, Harvard University; Meridian Gallery, San Francisco; Center for Latin American Studies, UC Berkeley; University of Virginia, Charlottesville; and Municipal Art Gallery, Hermosa Beach, CA. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from UCLA.
What Vanishes
Jonn Herschend
October 28, 2005 - mid January 2006
An MFA Candidate at UC Berkeley, Jonn Herschend has exhibited at locations around the Bay Area, and in Portland, Nashville, and Norway. In 2002 he was artist in residence at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Hershend’s works have been critiqued in The New York Times Magazine and the San Francisco Examiner. He serves on the board for Out of Site, the center for art and architecture in San Francisco.
“I like my stories badly told. I like what happens when someone gets off the subject and tries to figure out how he got there. I like the phrase, “Where was I going with this?” This is the moment when the story seems to rock between going over the edge or going back to where it was before it went off track. When it goes over the edge, the story is no longer about a plot. It’s about the bare elements of narrative. It’s about letting everything collapse into a grayness in the hopes that there will be a way out. It’s a little like that and a little like trust. But it’s not about relying on any pre-established structure for reading or writing. It requires the reader, viewer, listener to rely on his or her wits, which—politically—is the most important act anyone can be asked to do these days. But I can’t remember where I was going with this.” - Jonn Herschend
Kazakh
Saule Suleimenova
September 14 – October 20, 2005
Saule Suleimenova’s style, says art historian and professor A. Mukhambetova, “is deeply individual and instantly recognizable. Many influences make up its pedigree, including European expressionism, symbolism and dada, the decorative component of Central Asian miniatures, Kazakh ornamental style…One should add God-given talent and hard work by the soul and mind, a unique psyche, both sensitive and dynamic, plus a heightened reaction to falsity, both in life and in creative work.”
Suleimenova uses a rare technique: wax engravings on paper and cardboard with acrylic, gouache, and pastel. She also works with oil on canvas. She has exhibited her work nationally and internationally since 1987 and has had solo exhibitions in the Ular, Minoy, ARK, and other galleries in Kazakhstan. Suleimenova’s work is held in the Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union at Rutgers University. Her works are shown in galleries and private collections in Kazakhstan, Russia, France, the U.K., the U.S., Germany, Spain, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, and other countries.
The Public Artist
J. Ignacio Diaz de Rábago
April 14 - May 25, 2005
Ignacio Rábago was the Arts Research Center Artist-in-Residence from March 15 to April 30, 2005. Born in Spain and now based in Denmark, Rábago draws on his training in sculpture and painting to create large-scale, site-specific public art installations. His award-winning work has been exhibited widely at museums and galleries throughout Europe. He is particularly known for his Babel towers, monumental works made entirely out of books that he has installed in libraries in Oslo, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and elsewhere. This exhibit featured sketches by Diaz de Rábago of proposed installations for sites across the UC Berkeley campus. Rabago’s residency was co-sponsored by the Division of Arts & Humanities, the College of Environmental Design, Architecture, and the Townsend Center.
Jewish Life and Culture in Norway: Wergeland’s Legacy
A traveling collection of the Norwegian Consulate
April 7 - 11, 2005
Photographs and texts presenting the story of Jewish life in Norway as it flourished in the period from 1851 until the Second World War.
Portrait Selves
Alice Wingwall
February 17 - April 4, 2005
This show featured an in-depth look at the artwork of Alice Wingwall. A sculptor, photographer, and filmmaker, Wingwall experienced a progressive loss of vision as a result of retinitis pigmentosa. Her self-portraits and drawings attest to her deep knowledge of and relationship with architecture.
Ganga’s Daughters: Meetings with Women Ascetics, 1992-2002
Sheba Chhachhi
February 4-15, 2005
Sheba Chhachhi, an installation artist, photographer, activist, and writer based in New Delhi, India, was on campus for the month of February 2005 in a visit organized by the Women’s Studies department and funded by the Townsend Departmental Residency Program. Created in collaboration with women renunciates and ecstatics in various parts of India, the photographs in this exhibition seek to share the unusual lives of contemporary women sadhus—from the almost naked beatific to the power-dressing female mahant.
Don't Look Back: Photographs of Eastern Europe
Mimi Chakarova, Keli Dailey and Gosia Wozniacka
September - mid-October, 2004
After the collapse of communism, more than 200,000 young Moldovan women have been trafficked and sold abroad. Poverty and desperation are the prevailing factors in this modern-day flesh trade. Chakarova’s photographs examine the living conditions in the villages of the poorest country in Europe.
Islands of San Francisco
Ann Chamberlain
March 26 - May 18, 2004
Ann Chamberlain explains that “Islands of San Francisco is an exercise in mapping the city as a series of islands, imagining what is isolated, revealed, concealed, or adrift. Perhaps this is an exercise in mythologies of place—archipelagos or constellations, sacred mountains, gated enclaves, nature preserves, or even penal colonies—all linked by common species, activities, or interests. By mapping I hope to reveal some of these layers and associations, both the pinnacles and the underbelly of the city.”
Actors in Death: Commemorative Prints from the World of Kabuki
Memorial Prints of Kabuki Actors from the private collection of Professor Al Dien
January 27 - March 19, 2004
In Actors in Death: Commemorative Prints from the World of Kabuki, the Townsend Center presents memorial prints of Kabuki actors, woodblock prints from the collection of Stanford professor Albert Dien that date from the late 18th century through the early 20th century and the heyday of Kabuki theater in Japan.
On the death of popular Kabuki actors, memorial or commemorative prints (shini-e, literally, “death prints”) would be issued for fans to buy as mementos.
As represented in Professor Dien’s rich and fascinating collection, these prints, produced commercially by various publishers and hawked on the streets, are a trove of information about the contemporary theater, the actors’ lives, and beliefs and practices related to death and funeral practices in Japan. The prints often include a poem, called jisei, purportedly written by an admirer or by the deceased himself just before dying. Other props might include a rosary and a branch of the shikimi or anise plant that was associated with cemeteries. Since death was viewed as a journey, the deceased actor may be seen in traveling clothing on his way to Paradise, or at the bank of the Sanzu no kawa, or Japanese Styx, where he must pay a few coins to the ferryman to be taken to the other side.
Dien explains that throughout these shini-e there is an underlying sense of melancholy. The prints deal with the sadness of human existence as man faces death, and yet, there is often a vitality shown here that transcends that message and that reflects the color and excitement of the Kabuki theater itself.
Taking Pictures Seriously: The Art of Perception in Photography
Stephen Palmer
October 27 - December 19, 2003
Stephen Palmer, Professor of Psychology and Cognitive Science at UC Berkeley, explores the connections between visual perception—the focus of his research and teaching—and his recent work in color photography.
Many of Palmer’s photographic images can be linked directly to his interests in visual perception and the structure of light. The images highlight particular visual situations: vivid translucence from light filtering through colored leaves and flowers; mirrored light distorting objects reflected in water or glass; or geometric structure and symmetry becoming apparent in natural patterns. Palmer’s work also takes note of striking contrasts in color, shape, or texture between figure and ground, and explores the perceptual completion of objects beyond the borders of the photograph.
Palmer is the author of Vision Science: Photons to Phenomenology, an advanced, interdisciplinary textbook on visual perception. He is currently working on a new book about color, Reversing the Rainbow: Reflections on Color and Consciousness. A selection of Palmer’s work can also be seen at www.palmer-photoart.com.
Organum
Greg Niemeyer, Chris Chafe, Christine Liu
August 28 - October 16, 2003
The Townsend Center, in conjunction with the BAM show Gene(sis), presented a suite of 22 film stills from Organum, the computer graphics animation film by Greg Niemeyer, Chris Chafe, and Christine Liu. The stills present a linear narrative on which the complete film is based (although the film itself is non-linear). Organum premiered in a screen version at the Pacific Film Archive on October 30, 2003 and in a Dome-Theater version later that year at the LodeStar Planetarium in Albuquerque, NM. Organum is a surreal computer graphics animation about semi-human creatures who wander a desolate valley living, fighting, mating, and always singing. Their internal organs, especially the vocal tracts, are visible to plain sight, and respond to waves of sound in the air. Their day-to-day struggle is to find enough water to survive. But into their midst is thrown a catalyst of change—a technology that promises to help them, but will ultimately change them forever. Organum was funded by the University of New Mexico, The Rockefeller Foundation, Intel Corporation, UC Berkeley, the Hellman Foundation, and the Townsend Center for the Humanities.
Obsolescence and Relevance
>John Jenkins and Eric Theise
March 31 - May 30, 2003
Recent scholarship suggests that contemporary photographers are returning to photography’s origins, resurrecting obsolete photographic technologies in their work. Such artists are “looking forward by looking backward.” This exhibition explores the relevance of obsolete technologies to contemporary photographic practice. Eric Theise’s work provides a re-engagement with the technology of the pin-hole camera and the print technique of photogravures. His labor-intensive and time-consuming process refuses the instantaneity associated with photography and the snapshot aesthetic, and results in a smudgy, tactile surface. John Jenkins’ artwork also carries the signs of touch, as he actually paints and/or collages directly upon the photographic surface, building it up into a rich texture. Jenkins uses another outmoded photographic technology: that of the Polaroid. The blurry, colorized shapes produced by Polaroid technology are emphasized and ironized through Jenkins’ painterly touch.
Recent work by Linda Connor
Linda Connor
February 3 - March 20, 2003
Recent work by photographer Linda Connor features photographs taken in 2002 in Turkey and India, including eight images of the Bedrock Church in Cappadocia.
Connor’s work, exhibited in more than 60 one-person exhibits, includes “Stones of Faith, Stones of Peace,” at the Jewish Museum, San Francisco, 1996; “The Heavens” at the G. Gibson Gallery, Seattle, 1998; and ”Towards Light,” at the Yancey Richardson Gallery, New York, 2002. In over 300 group exhibits throughout the U.S. and abroad, Connor’s work has addressed “Constellations” (University of Missouri, 1998); “Degrees of Stillness” (August Sander Archive, Cologne, Germany, 1998); “The Universe: A Convergence of Art, Music, and Science” (Armory Center, Pasadena, 2001); and “The MicroCosmic: From the Stellar to the Cellular” (Photo-Eye Gallery, Santa Fe, 2002).
Forms of Mediation
Amanda Hughen
November 1 - December 1, 2002
Amanda Hughen, MFA candidate in the Department of Art Practice, explores the boundaries between the natural and the synthetic through patterns formed from geometric shapes. She explores specific dichotomies—the intuitive and the rational, the mass-produced and the unique, precision and imperfection, chaos and order—with particular attention to the thin line that separates these seemingly opposite states.
Aero Foto: Surveying the Bay Through Time with George E. Russell
Stillhere art/science collaborative
through October 21, 2002
The Stillhere collaborative of Robin Grossinger and Christine Reed uses the captivating images of George Russell, an under-recognized 20th-century aerial explorer, to continue their investigation of the rapid transformation of the physical landscape of the Bay Area. In this exhibit, selections of Russell’s work, rescued from a Fresno chicken coop, are accompanied by a series of intricate graphic stories combining photographs, old maps, and fragmentary biographic details. Based upon studies of landscape change by Grossinger, Brewster, and other researcher at the San Francisco Estuary Institute, these materials extend Russell’s vision backward and forward in a dynamic landscape where change has outstripped memory.
African American Writers: Portraits and Visions
Lynda Koolish
April 1 - May 22, 2002
Photographer and literature scholar Lynda Koolish celebrates in her work the “passion, the ethical and creative genius” of the writers whose work she deeply admires. In describing her photographs, Koolish explains: “Despite the intensely personal quality of my work, it is, in its deepest sense, a collaboration. I try to listen with my eyes, pay profound attention to the self that someone else is revealing to me. As an artist, a photographer paints with light. How the subject looks psychologically and visually is determined by how the light falls, the way shadows form, creating and reflecting a sense of inner luminescence. I try to photograph at the moment of spontaneous convergence of what is visually exciting and what moves me emotionally. Sometimes, the photograph, like a poem, becomes a window filled with light.”
Koolish’s work has been exhibited at The Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and at the Jewett Gallery of the San Francisco Public Library.
The exhibition was co-sponsored with Pen West (American Center) and the Department of African American Studies.
Everyday Constellations: Photographs, Photograms, and Sunprints
Susanna Hays
January 22 - March 15, 2002
Susannah Hays uses photography to illuminate the complex structures of simple things—a leaf, a bottle, a shadow on the ground She brings to light delicate networks of line, hidden geometrical patterns, strange blind spots, and unexpected flashes of brilliance that can’t be seen with the naked eye, thereby connecting the realms of the mundane and the infinite. But Hays’ photographs also stage an inquiry into the nature of photography itself—its mutual dependence on light and darkness, optics and chemistry, science and art. In this regard, her vision is as much alchemical as perceptual: a single leaf becomes a map to a forgotten city, a city sidewalk becomes a fallen sky.
Hays received her MFA in photography from the San Francisco Art Institute. She was awarded the Eisner Prize in Photography at UC Berkeley and is currently completing her thesis, “Between Cedar & Vine,” in Visual Studies at the College of Environmental Design.
South Indian Notebook: Photographs from Kerala and Karnataka
Stanley Brandes
November 1 - December 15, 2001
South Indian Notebook features a small selection of black-and-white images shot by Professor Stanley Brandes in May 1998, when he was living in Bangalore, capital of the state of Karnataka. Brandes traveled throughout Karnataka and also visited Kochi, on the coast of Kerala, where he took photos of the so-called “Chinese” fish nets and of the inland waterway.
The Notebook contains photos of a wide range of individuals: tourists, manual laborers, religious worshipers, Muslims, Hindus, Jains, men and women, children, and the aged. A highlight of the collection, in Brandes’ view, is a series of images taken during a Hindu festival, which he encountered accidentally while meandering through the Karnataka countryside. For an anthropologist with a special interest in popular ritual and religion, this was a particularly engrossing and evocative “accident.” And yet, without speaking Kannada, the local language, he says, he was unable to probe into its meaning. “Were I to return to this village, I would use the photographs as a lens through which to explore further the site and the ceremony. They would prompt me to ask questions that would penetrate to the heart of the culture, society, economy, and polity of the place.”
From Mongolia to Central Africa
Eric Gillet
September 1, 2000 - January 10, 2001
In 1993, Eric Gillet set out for Mongolia with Philippe Simon, a Belgian writer and independent filmmaker, and in 1994 they made their way toward Central Africa. They never reached their final destinations, but achieved their goal nonetheless: to experience the process of traveling which makes reaching a destination less important. The relationship between the travelers and their encounters provide a series of stunning black-and-white photographs in which the photographed “other” looks directly back at the world of the photographer.
Retrospective: Margaret Peterson (O'Hagen)
Margaret Peterson (O'Hagen)
September - October 1999
Work influenced by a long association with the Indians of Vancouver Island marks the painting of Margaret Peterson (O’Hagan). Peterson, described by former colleagues and students as a “brilliant” critic of student work and a “passionate” teacher, was an Associate Professor of Art who resigned her position at UC Berkeley in protest against the loyalty oath. Although Peterson went on to a long career in painting, with many exhibits and prizes to her credit, she never returned to the university. Peterson graduated from Berkeley in 1926 and received the M.A. in 1931, studying under Worth Ryder. She began teaching in the Department of Art in 1928. Peterson died in 1997 at the age of 94.