Moffat Takadiwa, The Occupation of Land, 2019; found computer keys, toothbrushes and plastic bottle tops; 120 x 144 , 7 inches, image courtesy the artist and Nicodim Gallery

Moffat Takadiwa, The Occupation of Land, 2019; found computer keys, toothbrushes and plastic bottle tops; 120 x 144 , 7 inches, image courtesy the artist and Nicodim Gallery

Old Growth - New Decay

Environmental Justice, Environmentalism and Sustainability 

September 7, 2021 – November 12, 2021

Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University

 

David Bell

veronique d’entremont

Alexandre Dorriz

Joel Garcia

Karen Hampton

Colleen Hargaden

iris yirei hu

Pope.L

Julie Shafer

Moffat Takadiwa

Oscar Tuazon

Jenny Yurshansky 

 

On the occasion of Wilkinson College’s Engaging the World: Leading the Conversation on Environmental Justice the Guggenheim Gallery is honored to present Old Growth - New Decay: Environmental Justice, Environmentalism and Sustainability. 

As a society generally, and more specifically in the arts we have come a long way from romanticist notions of landscape and the concept of ‘nature’; in 2021 intact versions of the former are increasingly hard to find while it is uncertain whether or not the latter in its separation from human activity still holds any meaning. The ongoing impact of homo sapiens on their immediate environment as well as the planet is well documented and can be felt in many ways and places; be it water- or air-quality or the globally rising temperatures and subsequent changing weather patterns.

Situationist International writer Raoul Vaneigem remarked in 1961 in the Basic Program of the Bureau of Unitary Urbanism: “You don’t live somewhere in the city; you live somewhere in the hierarchy. At the summit of this hierarchy the ranks can be ascertained by the degree of mobility […]. “While mobility as an expression of power doesn’t hold the same significance as it did 60 years ago, considering the daily movement of middle- and lower-class commuters on congested freeways and crowded airports, the allocation of coordinates to power still rings true. Today at said summit the ranks can be ascertained by their degree of access to clean water, air, food and a moderate climate, which are tied to access to technology as well as geographically desirable locations. Subsequently not all populations are exposed to changes of the environment in the same way. Black, indigenous and other people of color are disproportionately disadvantaged when it comes to access to resources as well as the decision-making processes tied to these resources.

The works in the exhibition speak to the urgency of an international environmental agenda as well as the importance of environmental justice and a shared and just ecological agenda that emphasizes the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people regardless of race, color, national origin, or income with respect to the development, implementation and enforcement of environmental laws, regulations and policies.

Ni Santas at L.A. Freewaves' Love &/Or Hate, A Celebration of Genders. Hollywood, CA. September 7, 2019. Ni Santas chanting, "Ni Santas, Ni Putas, Solo Mujeres."

Ni Santas at L.A. Freewaves' Love &/Or Hate, A Celebration of Genders. Hollywood, CA. September 7, 2019. Ni Santas chanting, "Ni Santas, Ni Putas, Solo Mujeres."

Ni Santas x Ni Putas x Solo Muxeres

A performance by Ni Santas

as part of the virtual exhibition

 Body Memory - Body Vision: Performance Works

 

In the summer of 2016, Andi Xoch and a friend (who wishes to remain unnamed) began to make art together and noticed that the women in their community had little access to art resources. Xoch, who was an art instructor at Self Help Graphics and had recently left the all-female bicycle brigade known as the Ovarian Psycos Cycles, wanted to create another collective that would retain the sisterhood of ex-Ovarian Psyco members. The one-time friends then decided to do a call out on social media and invite women to create art together. Self Help Graphics became the perfect place to meet.

With a shared attraction to graffiti, painting, and other similar art styles, soon thereafter, many women joined the group. At one point Ni Santas consisted of about thirteen members. As time passed by the collective grew smaller due to a difference in interests, time schedules, and life. The current collective is composed of: Andi Xoch, Joan Zeta, also a former Ovarian Psyco member, and The Clover Signs, who had also joined OPC bicycle rides.

While the majority of Ni Santa’s work is rooted in aerosol art, serigraphs, and community altars, every member contributes to incorporate a myriad of art mediums through different skills and style. The goal of the collective is be open to any muxer and manifest the power of muxeres with all artistic backgrounds to learn from each other.

Ni Santas is an all women of color collective whose mission is to write their history through art, with responsibility to create socially conscious visual narratives. Ni Santas envision creating a safe space by cultivating a community of women, free of judgment to nourish their emerging artists.

“When you’re brown a women from the hood, whether you’re queer or gender non-conforming, your oppression isn’t only experienced as a women, it is any and all those things at the same time so you have to create spaces to be able to articulate those experiences.
Historically we’ve been erased from art, and we have a responsibility to re write herstory through art creating socially conscious narratives. It empowers us to support each other because we have that trust and healing space among each other. We only get stronger by coming together.”

Ni Santas x Ni Putas x Solo Muxeres

CYCLIC, Perfomance by Ron Athey, Cassils and Fanaa, 2018, Biosphere 2; Presented by MOCA Tucson; Film Still, Filmographer: Graham Kolbin

CYCLIC, Perfomance by Ron Athey, Cassils and Fanaa, 2018, Biosphere 2; Presented by MOCA Tucson; Film Still, Filmographer: Graham Kolbin

CYCLIC


A performance by Ron Athey, Cassils, and Fanaa

ON VIEW: Monday, March 1, 2021 at 12:00PM PST until Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:00PM PST

as part of the virtual exhibition

 

 Body Memory - Body Vision: Performance Works


We are honored to host this groundbreaking collaboration between artists Ron Athey, Cassils and Fanaa. For a period of 24 hours, beginning on Monday, March 1, 2021 at 12:00PM PST until Tuesday, March 2, 2021 at 12:00PM PST visitors of our virtual exhibition will be able to view the film Cyclic, which documents (while unfolding on its own terms) the performance of the same name.

On December 1, 2018, The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA Tucson) first presented Cyclic to an international audience of over 230 attendees in the uniquely resonant “lung” of Biosphere 2, a site which simultaneously evokes utopian and dystopian possibilities. This new, collaborative work presented in conjunction with the exhibition at MOCA Tucson “Blessed Be: Mysticism, Spirituality, and the Occult in Contemporary Art”, presented actions which highlighted the value of lives often deemed disposable, or even incomprehensible. Triangulated within a circle, alternately illuminated and concealed, the artists worked against light and dark, visibility and invisibility to bring their creative forces and subjectivities together in this performance that continuously unfolded in a triptych of tableaux vivants. MOCA TUCSON

BODY MEMORY - BODY VISION: PERFORMANCE WORKS

Ron Athey, Cassils, Dragonfly, Arshia Fatima Haq, Sebastián Hernández, Sherman Fleming, rafa esparza, Lila De Magalhaes, Christopher Richmond, Ni Santas, Denise Uyehara, Wilawan Wiangthong, Xina Xurner.

February 15th – March 15th, 2021

The Guggenheim Gallery at Chapman University is honored to host BODY MEMORY BODY VISION – Performance Works, a virtual exhibition that takes place over the course of February and March 2021, co-curated by Danielle Cobb, Olivia Collins, Nicole Daskas, Lucile Henderson, Marcus Herse, Hannah Scott and Natalia Ventura.

Members of the Art Department’s DEI Committee, student gallery assistants and the gallery coordinator have co-curated this exhibition to present artists and artist collectives whose practices are vital to furthering diversity, equity and inclusion. Each week we will highlight two artists or collectives and release additions to the growing exhibition accompanied by student writing from interviews and personal notes to poetry.

Performance wants to be partaken in and a virtual exhibition can hardly replace the understanding of bodies interacting in the real world; the fleetingness of the moment and the impact that intense experiences have, the smells, the sounds, the feeling of proximity to other bodies and how we negotiate shared spaces cannot be captured via documentation. However, this show takes the notion of space and who occupies it as its cue. Addressing the ongoing underrepresentation of marginalized groups in the institutionalized and free market art world, the exhibition shows a selection of performance works by BIPOC and genderqueer artists. Questioning the status quo of visibility within this framework and actively contributing to changing that status is one aspect the contributions share. Another one is the deliberate step outside of this structure beyond addressing art world internal discourses, in offering visions relevant to communities and social realities.

Body Memory Body Vision – Performance Works presents 16 artists who create a distinct range of actions and whose aesthetic scope is manifold and cannot be subsumed under one criterion of expression - stylistic unity is beside the point. The commonality is making ways of being visible that are invisible or actively suppressed; it is the invitation to see the complexities and scope of society’s heterogeneity beyond the binary thinking that still guides mainstream culture’s decision-making in philosophical and therefore social, political and economic terms.

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