Building the Art House

Join us for the Opening Party on:
Thursday, May 4, 5-7:30 pm, 2nd floor Rosenberg Library.

Three Exhibitions on Southeast San Francisco!
Rosenberg Library, City College

Bling Blang, You Bring the Hammer, I’ll Bring a Nail:
Artworkers in Southeast SF
Madeleine Haas Russell Gallery, 2^nd Floor Atrium
April 28-November 2, 2017

Cutting the Rug: Capturing the Night Life
Collaboration with the CCSF Journalism Department
4th Floor Atrium
April 28- October 26, 2017

Digging in: Our Green Spaces
A collaboration with YAX/Youth Art Exchange
3rd Floor Atrium
May 4-November 16, 2017

Can we build a shared cultural life in Southeast San Francisco? Building the Art House answers that question with a resounding yes! And offers a compelling example of how this might look. A multigenerational roster of artists brings this swathe of working class San Francisco to life in the Rosenberg Library at City College of San Francisco. Building the Art House assembles three exhibitions that explore visual art, gardening, and performance. Work comes from the Bayview-Hunters Point, Portola, Excelsior, Visitacion Valley and Ingleside districts. Building the Art House gives insight into the cultural production and gathering places that few outside the neighborhoods are aware of.

At the edge of Southeast San Francisco, City College stands as a resilient emblem of survival in a fast changing city. This convergence of exhibitions and programs at City College invites artists to identify with other cultural producers of Southeast SF. This is an opportunity to explore the regional history and possible future of this vibrant corner of the City. The vision for Building the Art House grew out of the Moving Art House Project, a mobile cultural space created by Kate Connell and Oscar Melara (Book and Wheel Works) in Southeast SF in 2015. In this series, guest curator Emma Spertus brings a new perspective and complementary artists to Book and Wheel’s Southeast SF expertise and extensive creative partnerships.

In addition to the exhibitions on display during the spring and fall 2017 semesters, Building the Art House will include an art fair, a tour, a publication and an artists’ panel in fall 2017.

Bling Blang participating artists:

Adam Weiss, Anne Seeman, Andrew Kleindolph, Anthony Ryan*, Andy Vogt*, Arthur Koch, Caitlyn Galloway, Carey Lin*, Cecilia Peña-Govea, Charles Dabo, Charlene Tan, Diane Olivier, Emory Douglas, Estelle Akamine, Floyd Solder, Gustavo Vazquez, Jarrel Phillips, Keith Scott Ferris, Juan Fuentes, Lisa Magruder, Mark Myers, Matt Christienson, Mel Prest, Micholiano Forks, Nancy Hom, Nathan Watson, Lereneo Neo Ve’ave’a, Phillip Hua*, Refa 1, Ron Moultrie Saunders, Sarah M. Newton, Sarah Smith*, Tine Ferrer, Kate Connell and Oscar Melara

*These artists also contributed commissioned site specific backdrops for the exhibition to hang on top of or sit upon.

Download Building the Art House Press Release

For more information:
Guest Curator, Emma Spertus, espertus@gmail.com or
Library Exhibition Curator, Kate Connell, kconnell@ccsf.edu

          

 

We Have a Voice! Celebrating Youth Artists in San Francisco

November 18, 2016-May 4, 2017
Rosenberg Library, 3rd floor
Ocean Campus
Library Hours

 

See the work of young artists working with Youth Art Exchange (YAX), a non profit neighbor of City College.

Come to the YAX special event:
On Friday, December 2, SOMArts and YAX host a gallery preview, happy hour, and youth film festival. From 5–6PM, get a sneak peak at the visual, technical, and multimedia arts in the gallery, and enjoy a happy hour with wine and beer (21+), non-alcoholic drinks, and hors d’oeuvres. At 6PM, enjoy nachos and popcorn while being dazzled with a curated collection of youth-produced films on the big screen. More information here!

About the Rosenberg Library Exhibition: Youth Art Exchange sparks a shared creative practice between professional artists and public high school students, furthering youth as leaders, thinkers, and artists in San Francisco. To accomplish this, Youth Art Exchange offers citywide arts, high quality education programming, field trips, events, and more.

Students at Youth Art Exchange represent the diversity of San Francisco. Some come to Youth Art Exchange because of a self-identified love of the arts, or they say they absolutely must get into the Black & White Photography class. Others are looking for something, anything, to do after school. Others are coerced by their friends to come and try something totally new, or are lured by the free snacks. Some are squeezing Youth Art Exchange in with five other clubs, sports or jobs; while others are at Youth Art Exchange anytime they’re not at school and our door is open. They take classes at Youth Art Exchange because their school doesn’t offer arts classes, or not the ones in which they’re interested. They take classes with us because they can get high school elective credit through SFUSD for them and feel like they’re really working- but also having fun, too. They take classes with us because “free” is within their budget.

The majority of students who come to Youth Art Exchange end up staying on for multiple sessions. They stay with us because they make friends from outside of their school and neighborhood, because they explore relevant themes that they come up with themselves, and because they get to know their city better. Finally, they stay because they and the faculty artists leading their classes become each other’s biggest fans.

Our youth are diverse, and what they share in common is motivation, curiosity, and a willingness to put themselves out there and try something new. They help create what Youth Art Exchange is, and it is a place that is safe to do all of those things – to be weird, to be serious, to be unsure but try it anyway. It’s a place where they can learn how to best articulate their ideas and have the space to share them.

Click here for the Assignment and a list of books and more on how to make things.

 

 

 

Rosie the Riveter: Icon of Beauty, Brawn and Power

November 11, 2016-April 27, 2017
Rosenberg Library, 4th Floor
Ocean Campus
Library Hours

The image of Rosie the Riveter became a powerful icon during World War II. As men left their manufacturing jobs to join the military, women were recruited to work in the growing defense industry to support the war effort. Positive images of women doing non-traditional “masculine” jobs while remaining “feminine” were created to change gender norms around work roles. Rosie the Riveter got her name in a 1942 song by Redd Evans and John Jacob Loeb and was further popularized when Norman Rockwell’s Rosie painting was featured on the cover of a 1943 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. Rockwell’s muscular Rosie defies convention, equipped as she is with a jackhammer in her lap and work goggles.

Artist J. Howard Miller created the most famous version of Rosie in his poster featuring an arm-flexing, bandana-wearing factory girl under the slogan “We Can Do It!” Over the last six decades, this image became a symbol of empowerment for women and has been reproduced and repurposed in a multitude of ways, gracing everything from lunch boxes to political posters. Rockwell’s image was better known during the 1940s, but Miller’s version was not restricted by copyright and has since become a cultural phenomenon through its widespread use in social media.

This exhibition explores the history of the original Rosies in U.S. shipyards during World War II, the way in which the icon of Rosie has been altered in the service of political activism and the inventive ways that women have made Rosie their own.

For this exhibition, the CCSF Library continues its longstanding collaboration with the Labor Archives and Research Center at San Francisco State University.

The Labor Archives and Research Center preserves the rich, lively labor history of the San Francisco Bay Area.  The Center is open to the public and holds more than 6,000 feet of primary source material, predominantly from the 20^th century. The Labor Archives collects union records, personal papers, scrapbooks, photographs, posters, oral histories, and artifacts documenting local working people and labor organizations. Founded in 1985 by trade union leaders, historians, and university administrators, the Labor Archives is a unit of the J. Paul Leonard Library at San Francisco State University.

Votan Henriquez, “Warrior Wombyn (aka Rezzie the Riveter).”

Click for the Rosie the Riveter library exhibition assignment and list of books, websites and articles.

 

Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here: Transcendent Hope

Exhibition: October 29, 2016-April 13, 2017
Madeleine Haas Russell Gallery, 2nd Floor, Rosenberg Library
Library Hours

Opening Event: Art as Activism, Art as Memorial, artists’ panel moderated by Art Hazelwood in conversation with Kahlil Bendib, Golbanou Moghaddas, Nancy Hom and Juan R. Fuentes
Wednesday, November 2, 2016, 3:45-4:40, Room 305 Rosenberg Library Light Refreshments to follow in the Gallery

On March 5th 2007, a car bomb exploded in the booksellers district, Al-Mutanabbi Street, in Baghdad. Poet Beau Beausoleil working from his bookstore in the Sunset district sent a plea to the cultural world to stand in solidarity with the victims of this tragedy and preserve its memory. He did this for his fellow booksellers in Iraq, but also in defense of culture against those who would destroy it. The project has been embraced by poets, broadside printers, and artist book makers.

This exhibition is a selection of prints, broadsides and artist books. The printmaking on display represents the work of fifty artists from around the world.

Click here forthe Al-Mutanabbi Street Starts Here exhibition assignment and list of library resources.

Artists represented in the exhibition include:

Prints

Hassan Alnawar, Monterey, CA 

Kathy Aoki, Santa Clara, CA

Khalil Bendib, Berkeley, CA

Sarah Bodman, Bristol, UK

Kristine Bouyoucos, Rochester, NY

Valeria Brancaforte, Barcelona, Spain

Moutushi  Chakraborty, Kolkata, India

Liz Chalfin, Florence, MA

Khalifah Christensen, San Quentin State Prison, CA

Deborah Cornell, Boston, MA, 

Dennis  Crookes, San Quentin State Prison, CA

Angela Tu Dai, Guangzhou, China 

Annette C. Disslin, Waschenbeuren, Germany

Christine Felce, Stroud, UK

Juan Fuentes, San Francisco, CA

Amy Haney, Omaha, NE 

Andrea Hassiba, San Francisco, CA

Art Hazelwood, San Francisco, CA

Nancy Hom, San Francisco, CA

Raluca Lancu, Boston, MA

Fumi Ishida, Kobe, Japan

Sarojini Jha Johnson, Muncie, IN

Cathy King, Exeter, UK

Anita Klein, London, UK

Ronni Komarow, Allston, MA

Csilla Kosa, Chicago, Illinois 

Mario LaPLante, San Francisco, CA

Grendl Lofkvist, Oakland, CA 

Josh MacPhee, Brooklyn, NY

Mary Marsh, Oakland, CA

Fernando Marti, San Francisco, CA

Heather Matthew, New South Wales, Australia

Katya McCulloch, San Anselmo, CA

Doug Minkler, Berkeley, CA

Golbanou Moghaddas , San Francisco, CA

Emmanuel C. Montoya, Berkeley, CA 

Michael O’Shea, San Francisco, CA 

Claudio Orso-Giacone , Oberlin, OH,  

Frederick P. Tinsley, San Quentin State Prison, CA

Mokhtar Paki, Berkeley, CA

Patrick Piazza, San Francisco, CA

Carrie Ann Plank, San Francisco, CA

Karen Rush, Mountain View, CA 

Wael Sabour, Cairo, Egypt

Bessie Smith Moulton, Falmouth, Me, 

Kristen Struebing-Beazley, Boston, MA 

Sarah Taibah, Saudi Arabia

Bob Tomolillo, Lynn, MA. 

Nanette Wylde, Redwood City, CA

Melanie A.  Yazzie

Artist Books 

Aileen Bassis, US

Jesseca Ferguson, Boston

Tara Bryan, Flatrock, Canada

Nancy Bardos, Ashland, OR
Frances Jetter, New York
Friederun Friederichs, Herrenberg, Germany

Amaranth Borsuk, Seattle
Kathleen O’Connell, Lima, Perú
Laurie Alpert, US

Art Hazelwood, San Francisco

Sara Bowen, New South Wales, Australia
Wuon-Gean Ho, London

Allison Bianco and Lara Henderson, Providence, RI

Maddy Rosenberg, New York

Bev Samler, Devon, UK

Miriam Schaer, New York

Lizanne van Essen, UK

Broadsides

Anne Marie Munn, California 

Bettina Pauly, California 

Megan O’Connell, Michigan 

Andrew Morrison, UK 

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See our sister exhibition at the San Francisco Public Library

Sept. 17, 2016 – Jan. 1, 2017

Skylight Gallery

Main Library, Sixth Floor

Literary Event: Dec. 4, 1 p.m.

Deema Shehabi, Art Hazelwood, Zaid Shlah, Cathy DeForest,

Fred Norman, Grendl Lofkvist, Felicia Rice, Katya McCulloch,

Esther Kamkar, Elly Simmons, Beau Beausoleil

San Francisco Public Library
Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room,

Main Library, Lower Level

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I am San Francisco: Black Past and Presence

April 16-November 2, 2016
Rosenberg Library, Ocean Campus, 3rd & 4th Floors, Atrium

I AM SAN FRANCISCO makes visible the existence, depth, and diversity of Black life and culture in San Francisco. The exhibition is created in response to the overwhelmingly widespread impression that black life in San Francisco has faded away. This belief only serves to perpetuate the lack of acknowledgement and cultural awareness in San Francisco that is affecting all of us.

San Francisco has always been a city in transition, and it has also always been characterized by its commitment to cultural diversity and creative communities. The evolution of anything naturally involves the evolution of all its parts. We are doing our part to make sure we are not overlooked so that we can grow together with our city. In the words of James Baldwin “We are the San Francisco that no one talks about.”  We are not here to fight, struggle, or prove anything. Our intent is to share our insight on our ever-changing city by recognizing the depth, beauty, complexity, and abundance prevalent within ‘Black life’ in San Francisco—culturally, communally, and individually.

This exhibition is Part II, a sequel to Part I, curated by Kheven LaGrone, I Am San Francisco: (Re)collecting the Homes of Native Black San Franciscans, featured earlier this year at the San Francisco Main Public Library. I am San Francisco is inspired by conversations I have had with my uncle, Kheven LaGrone, regarding diversity within Blackness in the wake of Black Lives Matter.

I Am San Francisco: Black Past and Presence features art from San Francisco natives and residents. We must remember that one story could not capture the magnitude of our presence, to quote Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, “The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

Storytellers and artists represented in I Am San Francisco include:

Aliyah Dunn-Salhuddin; Alma Robinson; Dr. Andrew Jolivette; Emory Douglas; Sophie Maxwell; Dr. Joseph Marshall; Thea Matthews; Virginia Jourdan; Kali O’Ray; Stewart Shaw; Blanche Brown; Bongo Sidibe; Ras K’dee; Carol Tatum; Edward Jackson; Isaih Ball; Joanna Haigood; Maya Rogers; Liz Jackson-Simpson; Marco Senghor; Megan Dickey; Sydney “Sage” Cain; Sabrina Lawrence; Dr. Toye Moses, Theo Ellington; Thomas Simpson; Wanda Holland-Greene; Jacqueline Francis; Wanda Sabir; William Rhodes; Michael Ross; Rhiannon MacFayden; Devorah Major; Gregory Harden; Xavier “Chavi Lopez” Schmidt; Tania Santiago; Samoel “Urubu Malandro” Domingos; Halima Marshall; Careem Conley; Mohammed Bilal; Kristine Mays; Michole “Micholiano” Forks; Jess Clarke; Christine Joy Ferrer; Kheven LaGrone; and the Three Point Nine Collective. The Collective is “an association of African American artists, curators, and art writers. Their work represents their creative contribution to the African American existence, enriching the greater San Francisco artistic community with their narratives and perspectives born from being members of a diasporic community.”

Jarrel Phillips
CCSF Guest Curator
Executive Director, AVE
Member, Three Point Nine Collective
I am a product of San Francisco and San Francisco is a product of me.

Christine Joy Ferrer, Exhibition Panel Designer
EO MVMNT  Media + Design Founder

Window Installation: Sydney “Sage” Cain

Download Assignment and list of library resources: I am SF

Read the related article in Race, Poverty & The Environment

The Paper Bag Test

Rosenberg Library, 4th Floor
April 28-May 6, 2016

Artist IlaSahai Prouty invites people to write their stories and comments on a series of paper bags. Each bag has been coated with a color and printed with a word that describes skin tone.  Words from a variety of sources reflect in the construction of race, for example: Porcelain, Olive, Brown Sugar, Yellow, Fair, and Ebony.

Prouty’s personal experiences as a person of mixed decent led her to explore how we construct racial identities in part through language. She has expanded the paper bag test, originally used to distinguish ‘light’ and ‘dark’ African Americans, into a piece that asks people “to think about how we use words to describe, imply and evaluate race, to ask people to reflect on how they see their own skin tone and the skin tones of others, and to present race as a social, as opposed to scientific, construction.”

“Paper Bag Test, City College”, an interactive work by IlaSahai Prouty of North Carolina, will be at the Louise & Claude Rosenberg, Jr. Library on the main campus of City College of San Francisco.

Prouty will discuss her work at 3:30 pm, Thursday the 28^th, in room V-115 (Visual Arts Building of Ocean Campus) at City College.

This exhibit and talk are sponsored by the Art Department of the City College of San Francisco, and the Louise & Claude Rosenberg, Jr. Library, to coincide with the Open Engagement Conference at the Oakland Museum.

Compositions: A San Francisco Filipino American Experience

Madeleine Haas Russell Gallery
2nd Floor, Rosenberg Library
Ocean Campus
March 4-October 13, 2016
Library Hours

Please Join us for a reception! 
 Thursday, October 13, 12 noon-2:00 pm
 Madeleine Haas Russell Gallery
 2nd Floor, Rosenberg Library, City College Ocean Campus
 Meet Janet Alvarado and learn more about the work of her father,
 Ricardo Ocreto Alvarado
 Light refreshments, Free

Event co-Sponsored by School of Social Sciences, Behavioral Sciences and Multicultural Studies, TULAY-The Filipino american Student Success Program, Pilipinos for Education Art Culture and Empowerment (PEACE) and the Multicultural Retention Center.
The reception is co-produced by the Alvarado Project.

Compositions: A San Francisco Filipino American Experience is curated by Janet Alvarado. Black and white photographs taken by Alvarado’s father, Ricardo Ocreto Alavarado, fill the Madeleine Haas Russell Gallery on the 2^nd floor of the Rosenberg Library. Ricardo Alvarado documented the Filipino American community in San Francisco during the 1940s and 1950s. Photographs of family gatherings, house parties, street scenes, musical and social events were taken south of Market, on Bernal Heights, in the Western Addition, the Fillmore District, at the Alemany Farmers Market and in the Presidio. The photographer’s warm and observant eye captured a rich, engaged community spread across San Francisco. Commentary from well-known Filipino Americans—Emil Guillermo and musician/composer/educator Melecio Magdaluyo among them, describe the community that Ricardo Alvarado photographed.  An accompanying anthology, Claiming Our Stories, now in the CCSF Library collection, includes essays by contemporary Filipino American writers Oscar Peneranda, Guilo Sorro, Emil Guillermo, Janet Alvarado and others who describe the city’s rich cultural history and contributions Filipinos have made to the community.

Ricardo Ocreto Alvarado took over 3,000. Compositions is Janet Alvarado’s second curatorial project highlighting and contextualizing her father’s work.

Learn more about the Alvarado Project here.

Download: Assignment and Resources for Compositions