San Diego Art Institute

Many thanks to Seth Combs and The San Diego Union-Tribune for featuring the upcoming SD Practice exhibition! The show opens July 10 at both San Diego Art Institute and Bread & Salt, and will run through September 5. For more info, visit our website: https://www.sandiego-art.org/ Lux Art Institute City of San Diego

Amanda Kachadoorian, Central San Diego, 2020 Oil on canvas Amanda Kachadoorian City of San Diego Civic Art Collection, purchase, through a gift of Thomas O. Rasmussen

We are excited to announce SD Practice, opening July 10! Co-presented by San Diego Art Institute and Bread & Salt, SD Practice is a public art exhibition featuring 100 artworks acquired by the City of San Diego, purchased in support of local arts during the pandemic. The presentation of SD Practice at SDAI is co-curated by Lux Art Institute and ICA San Diego's Executive Director, Andrew Utt and Associate Curator, Guusje Sanders. Join us for the opening reception on July 10 from 4pm to 8pm. SD Practice will run through September 5. For opening reception tickets and more info on the exhibition, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org//sd-practice-opening-reception

Measurements of Progress featured artist, Alexandra Neuman presents Mother Goddess Creature Complex, a single-channel video that opposes the upright ‘human being’ through the figuration of an alien becoming. Alien becomings are allied with the grotesquevaginal openings, intestinal worms, bodily fluids, voluptuous swamps, reptilian secretionsanything too close to the fecundity of life, anything that carries the potential to disrupt the boundaries of self, anything possessi...ng a slithering primordial power. This figuration unleashes the song that has been buried in matter since the beginning of the universe. Animal, vegetal, and mineral coexist using the mud of the planet as moisturizer. Measurements of Progress is an exhibition in partnership with Lux Art Institute and runs until tomorrow, May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To RSVP a time to visit the exhibition before it closes, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org//4/23/measurements-of-progress. About the Artist Alexandra Neuman is an interdisciplinary reptile currently based in Brooklyn, New York. She is an MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at the University of California San Diego and received a BFA in Visual Arts and Anthropology from Sam Fox School of Art at Washington University in St. Louis. She has participated in the Arteles Residency in Haukijarvi, Finland; the PRAKSIS Residency in Oslo, Norway; and the Saas-Fee Summer Institute of Art in Berlin. Her films have been shown at Anthology Film Archive, Museum of the Moving Image, and the Eyeslicer. She is a Webby Award Honoree as well as the recipient of the Initiative for Digital Exploration of Arts and Sciences (IDEAS) grant at Calit2. Drawing on ideas from multi-species feminism and process philosophy, Neuman’s recent work focuses on mutating the identity of human by reshuffling naturalized systems of classification. In her practice, she cultivates ways to visualize, narrativize, perform, and facilitate speculative metamorphoses from ‘human being’ to ‘alien becoming’. She is interested in the category of ‘human being’ as a historically-situated and ideologically specific identity that serves to uphold millennia of patriarchal positionings, including the separation between mind/body, nature/culture, male/ female, self/world, same/other. By perforating the concept of ‘human being’ she is coaxing out an alternative identity that is characterized instead by liquidity and continuous transformation, where each ‘individual’ is reimagined as a co-emergent process with the ecologies and temporalities in which they are enmeshed. Alexandra Neuman, Mother Goddess Creature Complex, 2021, single-channel video

Measurements of Progress featured artist, Lauryn Smith presents Field Study, a large-scale textile installation that evokes the movement, feel, and experience of a field of dry grass, transporting memory to a new place that is familiar yet faded around the edges. Measurements of Progress is an exhibition in partnership with Lux Art Institute and runs through May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To attend this Saturday’s artist symposium and closing event and... to RSVP a time to experience the exhibition, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org/. About the Artist Lauryn Smith is an American artist based in Southern California. She is an MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at UC San Diego. Smith was born and raised in rural Northern New York and received her BFA in Fine Arts from Cornell University in 2018. Smith works with textiles alongside various sewing techniques and applications to create sculpture. Her practice is based around craft and material as well as concepts of memory, landscape, and phenomenological experiences. The process of making is essential to her practice, and while the work demands repetitive and laborious construction, the small details within each piece are carefully selected for their overall contribution to the work. Each work deals with its own set of concepts, but all of them are connected to craft, traditional practices of quilting, the body, movement, and the natural environment. Lauryn Smith, Field Study, 2020, chiffon and thread

Featured artist for Measurements of Progress, Alan Skelton presents Display Unit 1, Display Unit 2, and Garment Hooks (Souvenir). This series of objects questions how society consumes both goods and knowledge. With the internet, mass producing information, and consumerism ever expanding, his sculptures mimic the adaptability and ever changing environment in which we devour discriminatorily and with fetishized fervor. Measurements of Progress is an exhibition in partnership ...with Lux Art Institute and runs through May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To RSVP a time to experience the exhibition, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org//4/23/measurements-of-progress About the Artist Alan Skelton was born in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1983. He received his BFA and BA in Art History from the University of North Texas. Skelton is an MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at UC San Diego. Skelton’s work explores the transmission and reception of objects, images, and materials. With a focus on the mass production of consumer goods, Skelton considers how ways of displaying, sales, and distribution have a seductive and magical allure. He utilizes appropriated and found images, materials, and objects in his work and strives to better understand life by laying bare the underlying systems within consumer culture that guide our behavior. Alan Skelton, Garment Hooks, 2021, concrete and epoxy resin casts Alan Skelton, Display Unit 1, 2021, steel, aluminum, inkjet print on acetate, hardware Alan Skelton, Display Unit 2, 2021, peanut butter, BBQ, chicken Nyla Bones, climbing holds, steel, aluminum, inkjet print on acetate, hardware

Measurements of Progress featured artist, Carolina Montejo presents a 3-channel installation based on her film Rizomas, which outlines a framework of justice, utopia, and revolution that seeks to confront diverse systems of oppression, while elevating the materiality of nature. Through an eclectic fusion of documentation, performance, and animation, Montejo’s piece includes multiple voices and landscapes that flow between memory, virtuality and possibility. Measurements of P...rogress is an exhibition in partnership with Lux Art Institute and runs through May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To RSVP a time to experience the exhibition, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org//4/23/measurements-of-progress About the Artist Carolina Montejo is a Colombian-American artist based in Southern California. She is an MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at UC San Diego. Montejo has exhibited at ArtBo international Art Fair in Bogotá, Colombia; ArtexArte Gallery in Buenos Aires, Argentina; San Diego Art Institute, CA; CAA 108 Annual Conference, Chicago, IL, and the San Diego International Airport amongst others. She is a member of Green New Deal at UC San Diego and is a Teaching Assistant in the Writing Department at Thurgood Marshall College. Using film & video, performance, and installation, Montejo’s works are concerned with feminist eco-pluralistic thought, as well as human and more-than-human embodiment and intersubjectivity. Her work is informed by future and ancestry, by psychedelic experience, and intellectual inquiry. Her films shift through groundedness and speculation seeking to reestablish broken links between life forms, as well as building new environments for them to inhabit. The outcome takes shape through visual and literary poetics that decenter the self without denying determination, and experiment with form and concept in the spirit of renewal. Carolina Montejo, Rizomas, 2021, single-channel video projection

Join us this Saturday, May 29 for an exclusive in-person symposium and closing event for Measurements of Progress at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. The symposium features artists from the exhibition and is composed of four 45-minute panel conversations running from 1pm to 5pm and a closing reception to follow from 5pm to 6pm. To reserve a seat for this free event, visit https://www.sandiego-art.org/upcoming. Lux Art Institute UC San Diego

Oscar Magallanes, featured artist for Measurements of Progress, presents The Creation of Race. The work draws upon cultural and popular iconography, along with pre-colonial to contemporary barrio and Chicano signifiers, which serve to simultaneously delineate and demarcate through visual vocabularies. This is reflected in the work’s use of iconography that cannot, through a western lens, be entirely or even at times partially understood in regard to the original meaning. Whil...e the entirety of the images are at first glance seemingly disparate, every image is carefully researched and every line in the work designed with a specific intent: there is much that can be read into the connections that are made by the individual viewer. Measurements of Progress is an exhibition in partnership with Lux Art Institute and runs through May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To RSVP a time to experience the exhibition, visit https://www.sandiego-art.org//4/23/measurements-of-progress. About the Artist Oscar Magallanes is a Los Angeles-based artist. He is an MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at UC San Diego and received his BA in Art from UCLA. His work has been exhibited at the North Carolina Museum of Art in Raleigh, NC; Museo CEART de Baja California Mexicali, Mexico; the National Museum of Mexican Art in Chicago, Illinois; the McNay Museum in San Antonio, Texas; and is part of the permanent collections of the National Museum of Mexican Art, La Salle University Art Museum and the McNay Museum. In addition to his solo practice, Magallanes in 2016 founded 3B Art Collective that focuses on large-scale site-specific and public artworks. He has also curated several exhibitions including two for the Getty’s LA/LA initiative. Magallanes’ paintings, sculptures, and mixed media are influenced by the cultural and social elements of his upbringing in a Mexican-American barrio east of downtown Los Angeles. Mixed with colonial period Mexican codices, texts, and artworks his work is drawing parallels to the plurality of existences. Oscar Magallanes, The Creation of Race [La creación de la raza], 2019, mixed media on wood

Measurements of Progress featured artist, Ik Kaya presents Crude, a single-channel video that investigates the United States’ relationship with oil. The hunger for this resource has defined the nation’s politics for decades and has poisoned landmasses around the world. In Los Angeles and its vicinity, home to the country’s largest urban oil field and refineries, America is being transformed into a bizarre engine, the pacemaker of the passing age of petroleum. The installati...on Crude depicts this engine as a complex web of constantly working machines. It is an audiovisual meditation on the conundrum of progress and self-destruction that is inherent to capitalist societies. Measurements of Progress is an exhibition in partnership with Lux Art Institute and runs through May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To RSVP a time to experience the exhibition, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org//4/23/measurements-of-progress About the Artist Ik Kaya is an mfa candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at UC San Diego and holds a BA degree in Photography & Videography from Istanbul Bilgi University where she studied with the support of a full scholarship. She is the 2021 David Antin Prize awardee and has participated in exhibitions at the Royal Geographic Society in the UK; Die Digitale Dusseldorf in Germany; Kunsthalle Darmstadt in Germany; CEAAC in France; Galerie de L’Escale in France; CICA Museum in South Korea; and Soho Photo Gallery in the United States among others. Kaya’s lens-based practice explores the ways in which humans shape the contemporary landscape. She focuses on traces of economic infrastructures to examine politics in built environments and how man’s dominance over nature finds its manifestation in everyday architecture. She erases the physical distance in between existing structures and creates dense compilations of industrial fragments to construct new landscapes that look both alien and familiar. By framing her subjects exclusively at night, she aims to accentuate these artificial and uncanny qualities of urban environments. Ik Kaya, Crude, 2020, single-channel video

Measurements of Progress featured artist, Kirstyn Hom, presents Sutured in Sweetness, a series of embroidered fabric panels inviting multiple readings of a poem that deals with holding grief and embodying joy. This piece is influenced by Frances Chung’s book of poetry, Crazy Melon and Chinese Apple, in which she plays with words and their corresponding images to articulate notions of belonging. Working with gestures of stitching and fraying allows Hom to create the in-between... spaces that she occupies across language, culture and time. Measurements of Progress is an exhibition in partnership with Lux Art Institute and runs through May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To RSVP a time to experience the exhibition, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org//4/23/measurements-of-progress About the Artist Kirstyn Hom is an interdisciplinary artist based in Southern California. She is an MFA candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at UC San Diego, received her BA in Art Practice from UC Berkeley, and studied abroad at Leeds University’s textile department in the UK. Hom’s practice reflects on her grandmother’s experience as a seamstress in the apparel industry and larger conversations around intergenerational trauma. She constructs sculpture, installations, and performances to explore the relationship between language and textiles. Her process consists of long durational sewing, which parallels writing through gestures of repetition, layering, and erasure. Hom’s work questions how subverting craft methods can offer ways to navigate memory and loss. Kirstyn Hom, Sutured in Sweetness, 2021

Grace Grothaus, featured artist for our current exhibition, Measurements of Progress, presents These Delicate Lines (that divide us). The installation is a flag that presents a warning image of a potential future for our world: one in which all the polar ice has melted. The work asks us to reconsider our worldview as we look closer to our planet instead of what is beyond. Additionally, the flag is a deconstruction of nationalism and instead proposes a new perspective on the ...approach needed as a global society. Measurements of Progress is an exhibition in partnership with Lux Art Institute and runs through May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To RSVP a time to experience the exhibition, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org//4/23/measurements-of-progress About the Artist Grace Grothaus is a mfa candidate in the Department of Visual Arts at UC San Diego. She was amongst those that represented the United States in the 2012 World Creativity Biennale. Furthermore, she exhibited and is in collections both nationally and internationally. She received a merit award from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts and the Art365 Fellowship. Her art has been featured on the cover of Art Focus magazine and This Land Press. Grothaus is an interdisciplinary computational media artist. Her practice-based artistic research encompasses physical computing, environmental sensing, algorithmically generated imagery, and speculative futurity. She is deeply concerned with fostering empathetic relationships between human beings and our more-than-human environs in order to address our current critical climatological issues, particularly the pressing ecological crisis of biodiversity loss. Grace Grothaus, These Delicate Lines (that divide us), 2020

Many thanks to Julia Dixon Evans, KPBS Arts editor, for featuring our Illumination exhibition and our SDAI 360 virtual video program! Check out the feature here: https://www.kpbs.org//san-diego-weekend-arts-events-music/ You can experience our Illumination exhibition and SDAI 360 Illumination on our website: https://www.sandiego-art.org/illumination-onli

For our current exhibition, Measurements of Progress, featured artist, Thien Hoang Doan presents 30 Years, 1 Second, a single channel video that addresses issues of social justice through particular references to war, geopolitical borders, and refugees. Embedded in the work are reminders of past and current conflicts and a warning for the future. About the Artist Thien Hoang Doan, was born in Vietnam in 1991 and now lives in Southern California. He is an MFA candidate in t...he Department of Visual Arts at UC San Diego. Doan was awarded the Research Grant from Wichita State University to develop his knowledge of the cyanotype process. He worked in collaboration with the International Rescue Committee in Wichita to create an exhibition of photography in recognition of World Refugee Day. In 2018, he received a Koch Cultural Trust grant to make a video Hazy Days of May in Hue City, Vietnam. Doan moved from Vietnam to the United States in 2011 and his work draws on the experience of cultural destabilization and histories of immigration. His work combines historical photographic processes with digital technology and incorporates other media such as video and sound. Social justice issues particularly war, geopolitics, refugees, and immigration figure heavily in his recent projects. Measurements of Progress is an exhibition in partnership with Lux Art Institute and runs through May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To RSVP a time to experience the exhibition, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org//4/23/measurements-of-progress Thien Hoang Doan, 30 years, 1 second, 2020, single-channel video

The Regional Artists Market has several exclusive art prints from artists who use a variety of mediums including watercolor, screen print, pencil, Ink, and acrylic. Check them out here: https://sandiegoartinstitute.company.site/Prints-c76058199

Bailey Davenport, a featured artist for our current exhibition Measurements of Progress, presents a series titled Outnumbered, in which they set out to paint a portrait of every woman who has disclosed being sexually assaulted by Donald Trump. Their work combines elements of painting and photography with archival documentation, ritual, and public interaction to create speculative non-linear narratives that are part documentation and part call to action. Davenport is a mfa ca...ndidate in the Department of Visual Arts at the UC San Diego. Davenport received their BFA from Webster University in St. Louis in 2008. They have exhibited at the Contemporary Art Museum St Louis, Save Art Space in LA, The Every Woman Biennial, and have been featured in Hyperallergic. Davenport creates portraits of women who have survived sexual violence, depicting them in the tradition of heroic painting. As a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, they have encountered the negative stigma carried by many survivors of sexual violence and they hope to represent fellow survivors in a positive and empowering light as a means to work toward changing the shame often associated with being a trauma survivor. Measurements of Progress is an exhibition in partnership with Lux Art Institute and runs through May 30 at the San Diego Art Institute in Balboa Park. To RSVP a time to experience the exhibition, visit: https://www.sandiego-art.org//4/23/measurements-of-progress Bailey Davenport, Outnumbered, 2020, 34 paintings, various dimensions

As we bid farewell to this challenging year, we would like to thank you for your continued support, encouragement, and patience as we remain closed due to the pandemic. We’re moving ahead into the new year with renewed optimism, and we are looking forward to welcoming members and guests into the gallery again. From all of us at SDAI, have a safe and healthy New Year!! LUMINO-INTERACTION: Memory of Touch by Elsoldelrac, from the Illumination Exhibition

We are extremely thankful for the support you have provided to the amazing group of artists behind the Regional Artists Market (RAM). As we approach the gift giving season, it’s the perfect opportunity to continue the ongoing support for these artists, who are still being greatly impacted by the pandemic. The offerings on RAM include everything from face masks and hand-dyed textiles, to ceramics and exclusive prints. Artists receive 70% of the proceeds. And through the holiday season, shipping is on us! Shop RAM here: https://sandiegoartinstitute.company.site/

Documentary photographer, filmmaker, and current RAM artist, Teanna E. Woods Okojie wrote an article for Ethical Storytelling discussing the need for ethical representation in documentary photography and why ethics in visual storytelling matters. Follow the link for the article: http://ethicalstorytelling.com/documentary-photography/ You can also purchase Teanna's beautiful prints and postcards here: https://sandiegoartinstitute.company.site/Teanna-Woods-Okoj

Teanna E. Woods Okojie is a photographer with a passion for ethical representation in documentary and humanitarian photography. Her resume includes extensive work throughout the continent of Africa and continued photographic series in Lagos, Nigeria. Purchase Teanna's photographic postcards and prints on the Regional Artists Market (RAM) now. Shipping is free through the holidays for the entire site!

Many thanks to Jeff Terich, PACIFIC and The San Diego Union-Tribune for featuring our Regional Artists Market and the many artists who are participating. There are just two days left to pick up socially conscious and functional art from some of the best regional artists around. Photo by Candice Eley https://www.pacificsandiego.com//san-diego-art-institute-l RAM shop: https://sandiegoartinstitute.company.site/

As a poetization of the current situation, Elsoldelrac places us in a dystopian territory in a constant "ready to go/use what you got" lifestyle where everything is ephemeral and nomadic. From this perspective, we can all be aware and ready to act while still looking good. Shop Elsoldelrac bags now at the Regional Artists Market. #Reginalartistsmarket #ArtoftheMoment #SDAI

Available now on the Regional Artists Market: A series of exclusive mixed textile sculptures by Elsoldelrac. I work with the body, the mind and the seek of them emancipation through deconstruction of languages using plastic arts, confection, installation and process-art. - Elsoldelrac #ArtoftheMoment #regionalartistsmarket

Now available at the Regional Artists Market: Studded face masks by Elsoldelrac. These masks are an embodiment of what we can all become. In an environment where society is destroyed, we are all bandits and naturally emancipated. Click on the photos to purchase.

The Resting Chill Skincare set by Elsoldelrac continues to evoke the deconstruction by juxtaposing the beautiful with the bizarre. Made with all natural elements including sea salt, rosemary, cacao, activated carbon, and red clay, this set appeals not just to the eyes, but the skin as well. Click here to purchase: https://sandiegoartinstitute.company.site/ELSOLDELRAC-Resti

Elsoldelrac is one of the multi-talented featured artists from our Regional Artist Market (RAM). A Tijuana based artist, Elsoldelrac plays with deconstruction by juxtaposing the beautiful with the bizarre. To check out his collection of face masks, clothing and skin care, and thought provoking artwork on RAM, visit: https://sandiegoartinstitute.company.site/ELSOLDELRAC-c6016

We’ve been working hard at curating new artists and items for our Regional Artists Market (RAM). Our newest, Sofia V. Gonzalez, is based in San Diego and was recently an Artist in Residence at Art Produce. Sofia uses the process of sewing, staining, and color to explore the senses of space. Check out her shibori dyed textiles, masks and cards, all available now at RAM. https://sandiegoartinstitute.company.site/Sofia-Gonzalez-c6

Rising Arts Leaders of San Diego Arts Fest 2020 is happening now and runs through September 19. The festival’s focus is to give local artists and creatives a platform to share their work through performances, talks, and workshops. For a full schedule, visit: https://www.risingartsleadersofsandiego.org//rising-arts-/

BIPOC artists in San Diego County have been greatly impacted by COVID-19. As a result, leaders of our arts community have organized a fund to provide hope and care to BIPOC artists in need. Please consider joining us in solidarity to support these artists. San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition https://www.gofundme.com/f/sdartistrelief... #sdartistrelief

Caitlin Cherry, a wonderfully talented artist from our ILLUMINATION exhibition, is featured in a brand-new online exhibition from the gallery of Luis De Jesus Los Angeles. The presentation includes an essay that considers art, technology, codes, and Cherry’s Black femmes. Check it out here: https://viewingroom.luisdejesus.com/viewing-/caitlin-cherry Axiom, 2020 by Caitlin Cherry

Check out Balboa Park's list of specially designed face masks available from several Park organizations, including SDAI. Links to purchase masks currently available: WorldBeat Cultural Center http://www.worldbeatcenter.org/support-our-cultural-mask-fu... San Diego Zoo https://shopzoo.com/collections/face-masks San Diego Museum of Art https://www.sdmart.org/product/cotan-still-life-mask/ San Diego Art Institute via JG Indie LLC by Jolonzo Goldtooth https://sandiegoartinstitute.company.site/Jolonzo-Goldtooth Masks coming soon from: Museum of Photographic Arts https://shop.mopa.org/ Timken Museum of Art https://timkenshop.square.site/ San Diego Model Railroad Museum https://www.sdmrm.org/ If you visit the Park and forget your mask, the Visitors Center has masks available, as well. https://youtu.be/u9be-GvKEY0

Outstanding Forging Territories visual artist, Texas Isaiah was featured in The New York Times piece "Sources of Self Regard: Self-Portraits from Black Photographers Reflecting on America." https://www.nytimes.com//black-photographers-self-portrait Texas Isaiah also released gorgeous new prints for the Regional Artists Market. Check out the RAM site to purchase: https://sandiegoartinstitute.company.site/Texas-Isaiah-c491

The California Arts Council, in partnership with the Center for Cultural Innovation have announced an exciting grant opportunity for artists and cultural practitioners who have been affected by COVID-19. More than 900 artists will be supported. To apply, visit: http://arts.ca.gov/news/atcdetail.php

Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP), a science partner for our ILLUMINATION exhibition, recently announced a milestone discovery of a drug to reactivate dormant HIV and then eliminate them, an approach they call shock and kill. We are excited about SBP's progress in the fight against HIV and we are proud to be working with them. To read more, visit: https://www.sbpdiscovery.org//new-drug-candidate-reawakens