With subtlety and a critical touch, A Joy Joy Unexpected A Unexpected makes us see what we are reluctant to reveal. The artist’s use of media and thoughtful expression creates a space for both comfort and reckoning.
Curated by Tavarus Tavarus Blackmon, Blackmon Root Division Curatorial Fellow
Exhibition Dates June 9 - 26, 2021
Artists EXHIBITING ARTSTS Sydney Acosta Caiti Chan Makiko Harris* Kiana Honarmand* Jupiter the Artist Patti Kilroy Hea-Mi Kim Shara Mays Natani Notah Manuel Fernando Rios Muzi Li Rowe Daniel Alejandro Trejo Summer Ventis Christopher Adam Williams* Gabriela Yoque * Root Division Studio Artist
29 Held Breaths, 2021 Screen printed mylar balloons, ribbon, artist’s breath Dimensions variable
Contents TABLE OF CONTEN 6
Curator’s Essay by Tavarus Blackmon
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Sydney Acosta
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Caiti Chan
12
Makiko Harris
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Kiana Honarmand
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Jupiter the Artist
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Patti Kilroy In Conversation: Tavarus Blackmon with Patti Kilroy
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Hea-Mi Kim
26
Shara Mays
28 30
Natani Notah In Conversation: Tavarus Blackmon with Natani Notah
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Manuel Fernando Rios In Conversation: Tavarus Blackmon with Manuel Fernando Rios
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Muzi Li Rowe
38 40
Daniel Alejandro Trejo In Conversation: Tavarus Blackmon with Daniel Alejandro Trejo
42 44
Summer Ventis In Conversation: Tavarus Blackmon with Summer Ventis
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Christopher Adam Williams
48 50
Gabriela Yoque In Conversation: Tavarus Blackmon with Gabriela Yoque
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Tavarus Blackmon Root Division Curatorial CuratorialFellow Fellow
think of A Portrait of the Artist As a Shadow of His Former Self by Kerry James Marshall (1980), and how inventing a new identity can be a way to claim authorship of self expression while living in a difficult history. But in our global and contemporary moment the artist must reconcile a way to deal with the history of art and injustice, all-the-while thinking green regarding the environment and the effects of climate change. Where is the joy in that? The artist Daniel Alejandro Trejo uses clay and stark mark-making tools, that depict unique, bulbous, and bodily forms, and to create installations and expressions through a curatorial practice. When asked about living with a difficult past—as a shared history of violence under patriarchal and colonial institutions—Trejo insists that the past should never be “erased” and that in order to move through toward a collective future of joy—albeit unexpected and in the midst of challenge—we must face our history to move forward.
Artists make themselves used to the unexpected; our present state notwithstanding. Artists must shift as the economy shifts, reinvent themselves— quickly reorganize their space, life, studio or business, and revise the image of self as the one true revision in a time of somber repose. Freethinking they may be, the artist as business has usurped the artist as freewheeling, and this new thought of identity, representation, and authorship is alive in the artists here. For example,
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The artists in A Joy Unexpected had to face the unthinkable over the last year and move forward. They did not recoil but met the challenge with work, time in the studio, and an investigation of what their future may become while the world seemed to be changing around them. Political upheaval, environmental instability due to climate change, and challenges to voter freedom, had all been folded into the difficult year of 2020. How has the role of the artist changed regarding protest and demands for social justice? How can joy be achieved when the future and present are beset with racism, intolerance, and violence? The unexpected is everywhere, but the artist has a toolset meant to unravel the tide and wash of unknowing. In fact the artist’s question—the
interminable kernel of doubt—is a rhetorical one, leading them toward more concern in lifting the stones that reveal what is yet to be discovered. Consequently, precipitating the unknown becomes a practice. The artists in this exhibit, loosely connected through the collective trauma of the Pandemic, wildfires that reached from California to Colorado, and the ubiquitous call for action and protest after yet another unlawful act—the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor—use methods of material, concept, and high mastery to achieve what can be called joy—in the studio and within their collective lives. Manuel Fernando Rios, an educator, painter, printmaker, and curator, used a serigraph poster with a portrait of George Floyd, as a device to combat the unknown during peaceful protests. Being a rallying cry for justice and a form of political engagement, the work also exists as Fine Art, culled from a practice rooted in cultural exchange, formal inquiry, and concern for the social dilemma. With painting that blends the tradition of modernism and Chicano symbolism, Rios creates a new vision of formalism through both history and culture. With printmaking and alternative processes, Summer Ventis and Gabriela Yoque investigate environmental catastrophe and interpersonal turmoil. Black expression, embodiment, and abstraction are expressed in the works by Christopher Adam Williams, Shara Mays, and Jupiter the Artist. The work is joyous in reverie, boldness, and singularity, bringing us closer with its presentation of the intimate body and the expressive gesture. When asked about abstraction, representational identity, and whether these are oppositional visual languages, the artists agree
that neither are these methods ‘exclusive or exclusionary.’ In fact, both act as a vehicle for expression and change, equally inherent roles in the history of painting. This unknown and changing landscape—PostPandemic, such as virtual instruction, Zoom birthdays, and virtual galleries is not lost on these artists. Several artists in this exhibition, like Daniel Trejo, Gabriela Yoque, and Summer Ventis, mounted exhibits and facilitated virtual programming via exhibition and discussion at institutions and art spaces during the Pandemic. This shift has Ventis, a printmaker and educator, whose work in the environment with reflective tent-like structures, moves ever closer to material engagement: an ‘interaction with material,’ real-life objects, and experiences that bring joy through our being present.
How can Joy joy be achieved when the future and present are beset with racism, intolerance, and violence?
In times of change, times of awkward uncertainty, and looming doubt, what is the artist’s response? Is there no more spirituality in the splash of house paint? Do we continue to pray at the altar of an image? Does the artist play coy in a time of ferocious impediment? What we find here is that their response is one of critical reflection and a delineation of how to see with one’s own joyous intention.
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Vitrine with Flowers. Background Photo of Street with painted interior With forward facing window Glass Face and Top Edged “framed” as a car window Soft black rubber sole lining Vitrine sized to flowers in buckets on crate Left and right panel painted With clouds as in La Santa Shrine in Puebla, 2020 Pencil color, stickers, plastic, and ink on paper with annotations for the construction of a cabinet for flowers 11 x 8.5 in. 8
And one for an arrangement of two, 2020 Pencil color, stickers, plastic, and ink on paper with annotations for the construction of a cabinet for flowers 11 x 8.5 in.
Horse, 2020 Oil on wood 30 x 40 x 1.5 in.
Sydney Acosta
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Ruminator, 2021 Acrylic, ink, isopropyl alcohol, charcoal, and colored pencil on canvas 84 x 96 in.
Caiti Chan
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(Left: installed; Right: detail) Joy (Joy 1 + Joy 2), 2021 Acrylic and resin on canvas 120 x 36 in.
Makiko Harris
As I Lay Longing, 2021 Video performance 6:42 mins. 14
Kiana Honarmand
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House Play, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 72 in.
Jupiter the Artist
domicile anthems, 2021 Recorded sound, video 18:00 mins. 18
Patti Kilroy
Conversation: In Conversation:
Tavarus Blackmon Patti Kilroy
Tavarus
I’m here with Patty Kilroy: performer, musician extraordinaire, and a wonderful individual that I’ve had the opportunity to work with before.
Tavarus
First and foremost, how have you been holding up with performance space closures and art spaces shuttering? What has it been like as an artist, musician, performer during this time of COVID?
How has the last year affected your work as far as the difficult things we’ve experienced as a culture: like the death of George Floyd, and the activist marches that happened, and then to see how the Capital rioters were treated in comparison to let’s say, the Black Lives Matter protesters. Has this trickled into the studio at all? Is this influencing the way you’re thinking about your work in general?
Patti
Patti
I mean, it’s definitely been an adjustment. I was actually pretty new to the West Coast and Los Angeles when this all started. I had moved to the West Coast in 2019, so I was kind of building up. Most of my career up to that point had been in New York, and that’s where I had been based prior to that. But then when everything went remote, it was definitely hard to see recitals and performances getting canceled. It was definitely a bummer for me as an educator, because my students couldn’t gather and meet and rehearse and stuff. But I do feel pretty fortunate in that I am
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pretty comfortable already with using technology and finding solutions that way. So I’ve been having everybody record remotely, and I’ve been doing a lot of that work myself. So the transition over to that—to kind of just being stuck at home and finding ways to make music while at home—it hasn’t been too bad for me. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I really miss playing with other people in a room. I haven’t really done that since March, and I really look forward to when I’m able to do it again. But for me, I’ve actually been really forced to learn things that I’ve only casually dabbled in before—like I had never made performance videos seriously before.
It’s interesting for me—or maybe interesting is the wrong word. I mean, I do think that the best thing that I can do as an artist, because I don’t feel like I can speak directly to the experience of all Black and Brown folks, so I don’t incorporate it directly in my art. But I do feel that I, as an artist, I can increase the representation of the works of Black and Brown composers. And in the repertoire I choose to play and the repertoire I choose to teach students, I often think very critically about where this repertoire is coming from. And what is its history? And how can I
accurately represent that in a way that we really think about it critically, without sugarcoating anything? In terms of how it factors directly into the work that I compose and stuff, it’s interesting. I don’t feel like the work that I’m making—like the compositions—necessarily speak directly to it. It’s definitely on my mind, and as an educator and as a performer of other works, I feel responsible to bring that repertoire into what I learn and share with people. As an artist, you can always amplify the contributions of historically underrepresented composers and artists, and I don’t know personally if that’s where I feel the best use of the space that I take up. But yeah, it’s definitely on my mind, just how unfair—like the riots, the capital riot, I was so upset when I saw that. I prefer to kind of sit with the work of people that I feel are able to respond. I don’t want to make art about it though. It’s kind of where I’m at. I would rather amplify other people’s responses to it, rather than just make art myself and take up space. That’s how I feel.
Tavarus
One of the things that I’ve begun to realize about my work is that it is basically about trauma and healing, and how I use difficult times as topics represented through gesture or stroke or color or mark to talk about ways to heal or to live with trauma. I’m curious how in your practice, how have you been initiating methods of healing in your work?
Patti
I feel like for me, healing is about just re-educating people—misguided people—and making them aware of the inequities that exist and how history has been fucked up. And really,
how there are so many people suffering to the benefit of a few folks, and how the resources of the world are so unevenly distributed. And working to make people aware of how those inequities exist in music—like what composers and what artists haven’t received adequate attention, and just pointing out those inequities. That really speaks more to my practices as an educator and a performer instead of as a composer. But I think about just pointing out those inequities. For example, in my practice videos right now, there are a bunch of jazz transcriptions. I’m just transcribing a little bit every day and working through solos. And I was working through violin solos, for example. There’s a lot of jazz violinists that were active in the early 20th century, mid 20th century. And you know, there’s a famous guy like Stephen Capelli. Then you look and there’s a whole book, 80 pages of solos by the guy. There are a couple solos by black violinists who are contemporary to him: Stuff Smith, Eddie South. This has been an opportunity for me to look at their lives and read about them as well as learn their playing styles. Then you look at how much more representation of Capelli’s work there is. How he lived longer, because his life was in many ways easier than that of Stuff Smith and Eddie South. He was able to leave more recordings that people then transcribed. The representation of Eddie South and Stuff Smith—there’s less and therefore they’re represented less. Why is that? Because they play amazingly, they’re amazing players. I think that they do really, really interesting stuff that’s different and just as great as Stephen Capelli. They’re represented so much less, so I think even just pointing that out is the sort of stuff I want to be doing. I listened to their stuff, and I really want to learn their stuff, way more than the 80 Capelli solos that are written down in this book.
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So, I guess that’s how I’m thinking of healing very broadly in terms of raising awareness about underrepresentation in a way that I think is not right. For me, I’m half Filipino and I think a lot about the political situation in the Philippines and the treatment of indigenous people in the Philippines. There’s a lot of indigenous tribes, particularly in the South, and the government is really just putting them in a position where they have to sell their land. They have a law in the Philippines called the Anti-Terror Law, which is interpreted very broadly and basically means that they can arrest you if they want to call you a terrorist, and a lot of activists are being red-tagged as terrorists right now. Personally, for me, reconciling this really complicated history of the Philippines and how the US was involved in bringing them to the situation that they’re at now, just by colonizing them for 50 years. I would say that is more directly healing for me and my mindset, but I also just think, as an educator, I’m thinking of healing more broadly—from an educator’s perspective.
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Are You Chinese?, 2016 Found footage from selected films 2:37 mins. 24
Hea-Mi Kim
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Sylvia, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 40 x 30 x 1.5 in.
Shara Mays
Underdog, 2021 Cotton t-shirt, seed beads, thread, acrylic paint, faux fur, artificial sinew, and plastic corn pellets 4 x 7 x 28 in. 28
Natani Notah
Conversation: In Conversation:
and I was able to make one sculpture in particular.
Tavarus Blackmon
Then I shifted, because the news came in that I had been asked to guest curate an exhibition at the Berkeley Art Center. It had been paused because of the COVID pandemic. And then they reached out and said, “Hey, we’re gonna push forward. Here are the new dates for the exhibition, and we’re excited to work with you.” So I then kind of switched gears and focused less on my practice and more on the artists that I was interested in putting into conversation together. That turned into an exhibition titled, We Have Teeth Too, which was up for a few months, and it featured work by Natalie Ball, Jordan Ann Craig, Emma Robbins, and Amanda Roy. They’re located all over the States, as well as up in Canada, and back to the Montréal area.
Natani Notah Tavarus
I’m here with Natani Notah, an artist and curator practicing in the Bay Area and nationally as well. I have a few questions about your practice, both as an artist and a curator. The first one is: what has exhibiting been like for you during the last year?
Natani
Well, in the beginning of 2020 I had a few exhibitions and I was really excited about those exhibitions and to work with those curators. So, everything was good in the beginning of the year, and then things quickly escalated. So things started to shut down and exhibitions were being canceled altogether. The first few months of the pandemic, it was definitely challenging to say the least, to feel motivated and to keep making art. There were so many other things that were going on too. COVID scares, looking at the news with the daily death tolls, rising mass unemployment, civil unrest, and in my opinion, criminal political leadership at the time. These things were all at play and were affecting my ability to make work, as well as made me rethink what it means to be an artist, and what is my work track? What am I trying to do with my art practice? How am I trying to communicate messages or inspire others? So I took the first few months, I think, like a lot of people, just sheltering in place, kind of rethinking everything. Then I was able to turn to my art practice and start processing some of the things,
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This was a really nice way to think about the current times and connect with people and bring them all together to have a discussion about representation in the arts. It became a deeper conversation about our place as BIPOC in the art world and outwards, so that was how it went. It was kind of up and down to be honest, but I feel like I also was able to do some really important work as well.
Tavarus
And did your curatorial practice kind of evolve with the changes due to social and physical distancing?
Natani
I definitely think the way that I was approaching it changed. I was doing virtual studio visits rather than going in person or having seen the work in person. I was basing it off of images as well as conversations. And I think that
allowed me to actually connect really well with those artists. In general, I started to think more deeply about the way that the work was going to be interacted with. So there’s the in-person exhibition, that physical closeness to the work being installed if you’re a viewer going and seeing it in person, but then now there’s this other component that has always somewhat been there: images, documentation, PR, interviews—all those things have been at play for a while. But I think now with curatorial projects, as well as exhibition programming, I have really thought about the way that it translates across these different media. This also opens up accessibility too. And it still doesn’t necessarily replace that in-person experience, but I also think that it’s a tool that I’ve been able to really think about, and it was prompted by the pandemic.
Tavarus
In your very active practice, you are the recipient of various fellowships and residencies. What has it been like navigating that activity during this time?
Natani
Yeah. I guess like everything, it’s been somewhat challenging. There were some residencies I was planning to do in 2020 that were canceled and/or postponed, so I primarily worked from home. Then towards the end of 2020, I applied to a local residency in Oakland, with the support of This Will Take Time. And it was a one month or five week residency, where I had access to a studio space that was part of the MacArthur Building in Oakland, and an old shipping container that had been converted into a studio space. What was really nice about that was that I was the only one using this space at the time, so I could safely go there and work on my art and feel like I was having
this studio practice that I was missing very much. So yeah, residency-wise, I haven’t been able to travel, so some of these residences that might be out of state or are a bit harder to get to were the ones that were postponed. I’m staying local. I am doing a fellowship at Kala and that’s been nice as well. It’s located in Berkeley. You’re also doing the fellowship. So for me, it’s been really nice to also have that access to really state of the art facilities and the support from them. We do these checkins online, and then they have a lot of amazing programming as well. Definitely keeping my foot in the residencies and fellowships but also trying to stay local and be safe.
Tavarus
Your practice is very interdisciplinary. You work in various visual languages and mediums. One of that being beadwork. I’m curious, did you make your earrings?
Natani
I did not, but these were a graduation gift from my brothers when I graduated with my MFA. Actually, they gifted me these earrings as well as a matching necklace that I’m not wearing at the moment. But yeah, I can bead similarly. I work with seed beads. There are different sizes of seed beads. I tend to work with 12 or 15. And I’ve been beading ever since I was little. I learned from my sister and grew up kind of making things around the kitchen table. That’s how I always connected to it. It first started out as just this way to be all together and doing something productive and creative and expressive. And I was not thinking about it in this art capacity. But now I am definitely engaged in those conversations and invested in it. And yeah, beadwork, I love it. I love everything about it.
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Mom, What Am I?, 2021 Acrylic, oil, and silkscreen on canvas 28 x 38 x 2 in. 32
Reawakening of Joaquin, 2020 Oil on canvas 28 x 38 x 2 in.
Manuel Fernando Rios
Conversation: In Conversation:
Tavarus Blackmon Manuel Fernando Rios
Tavarus
First, let’s talk about making right now, during this unprecedented time of COVID-19. What has it been like making art during the last year and getting into 2021?
Manuel
I think as an instructor it’s been somewhat problematic—it’s not like the work isn’t in my mind. I don’t have any ideas to put down on canvas, or paper, or whatever the medium is. It’s because as a teacher, I had to learn how to teach online. Most of the people I knew, and me specifically, I just taught in the studio all the time. So in order to teach online, you had to basically write everything out, you had to make sure that everything was accessible to students. And even making a video, you would think that you can just make a video and then just post it up. No, you have to make sure that there’s captioning. You have to make sure that everything is really clear, have this
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stuff written now, along with showing the video. If you’re gonna be doing a PowerPoint, you have to make sure that the PowerPoint is accessible, and all that stuff. All that stuff’s really good, but it’s stuff that I wasn’t prepared for. So you have to learn as you go. You have to take a condensed class to learn how to teach online. But just that alone, converting your classes to be online, was enough to where it just took so much energy out of you, or me at least, that it was just hard to even get into the studio to work on the ideas that I wanted to do. I mean, I had to basically either backlog ideas that I had, or just kind of scrap them completely because sometimes as an artist if you backlog these ideas, you can’t really work into it like that. The idea is gone, and you’re really thinking about other things. So, I’m sure there’s probably five paintings that got lost within this past year, because of the job. I was never able to get to it. And then, also the fact that going to normal things—like going to an art store, especially when the pandemic just happened—it was kind of scary. People weren’t wearing masks. Some people still don’t wear masks—it gets me upset. I used to hate going to the store.
Tavarus
So, speaking of the students, there’s been a lot of events happening in our American culture: the election, the reassertion of extremism in our country, the riot on the Capitol, the lynching of George Floyd. How does this enter your practice of making art? And then how does it affect how you engage with your students with these difficult topics?
Manuel
Well, as an artist, and somebody who identifies as Chicano, when I was in grad school, it was almost like the professors tried to
tell me that I couldn’t be—I couldn’t identify as a Chicano artist and make work that was meant for the gallery, or even make silk screens that had this powerful message on it—that it was very didactic. I either had to do that, or it had to be something else. I either had to make this straightforward artwork, or it had to be totally abstract. At least, that’s how I was receiving the information. So, it was almost like they were telling me, “okay, you’re either gonna be yourself, or you have to make work that’s more, quote unquote cerebral.” Through Sacramento State and through UC Davis, I had that mentality that I had to not be so direct, and I couldn’t use these iconic symbols in my artwork, because it would narrow down the narrative. I don’t want to talk bad about the faculty who told me that stuff. I understand what they were saying, but after grad school, I realized that I could do whatever the hell I wanted. So I just said, you know what, I’m going to start putting these visual things that have symbolism connected to them, and still use abstracted stuff and kind of mix them together. So, the reason why I’m bringing that up, is because I feel like I need to voice my opinion on things that are going on right now because they’re so extreme. I still don’t want to make work that just oversimplifies the information. I don’t think I’m going to change anybody’s mind with the artwork that I make, but I do want to voice my opinion in it. And also, at the same time, allow the viewer to have their own connection to the artwork. So, with all the stuff that’s going on right now, I am definitely thinking about bringing some of those visuals into my upcoming artwork. I can’t help it as somebody who’s a dark skinned Mexican. There’s light skinned Mexicans who look white, and they’re not as affected as somebody who has a darker complexion. I would feel like I’d be doing a disservice if I didn’t put this stuff in my work.
Because of who I am, as a person, as a faculty member, as a professor, it’s weird. I feel like you have to kind of toe the line. It’s not my job to tell my students how to think, but I can expose them to certain things. I can expose them to an exhibition. There was an exhibition at the barn and within Woodland Community College, where I teach, and they were to have an exhibition at the barn gallery that talks about women’s empowerment— specifically women of color. I had my students, as an assignment for art appreciation class, I had them go to the exhibition—the virtual exhibition, because I didn’t want to force them to have to physically go to an exhibition right now. I had them go to the exhibition and talk about the artwork. I explained that they didn’t necessarily have to agree with the message, but they had to at least talk about it. You can actually talk about the artwork without letting me know if you agree or disagree with the narrative that the artists were trying to say. So, in that way, I let them hear the message, and I let them decide if they feel like that resonated with them or not. Most of them did, totally. I looked at their reactions, and if there was stuff they didn’t know about then, there was stuff that they were then connected with. So I was kind of blown away in that regard. But yeah, I didn’t have to tell them how to think, but I still expose them to that artwork and expose them to the certain struggles that they might not know about. It’s indirectly affecting how they see us as a society without me having to say, “Hey guys, tell me how or why this is good. Now, tell me why this person is right about their message.” You know, I don’t have to directly do that. I think by doing that, I’m doing at least something.
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Pyramid of Disposable Cameras, 2020 Archival pigment print 24 x 30 x 1.5 in. 36
Pentahedral Faraday Cage No.1, 2020 Epoxy resin, e-waste 6 x 6 x 6 in.
Muzi Li Rowe
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Beat-down Buffet, 2021 Underglazed ceramic (1 of 3) Dimensions variable
Daniel Alejandro Trejo
Conversation: In Conversation:
Tavarus Blackmon Daniel Alejandro Trejo
Tavarus
What are your thoughts on the artist’s role in culture as it stands today? I mean, it’s always been debated, and it’s something that is basically taught in art school—artists being very much connected to cultural movements in their moment in time. What do you think of this heightened sense of immediacy, as an artist today living in this moment? I guess my question is, what do you think future generations will think, looking back on the work produced during this moment?
Daniel
I think one of the big questions I asked myself is: who is this work being made for? And who am I working for, if anything, and in a very specific context. In the ceramics field—like every other field—a lot of the artists are cisgender males who are white, and they just make pots or some other large scale works. To be clear—and to
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be making this—I feel essentially like a pioneer. I mean, many of us are starting to engage more with clay, with ceramics, and trying to subvert the expectations of what clay can and can’t do. I think that’s very exciting. I think it’s going to be very exciting for future generations to figure out, “Oh, this is the point where everything started to shift.” When artists started to realize, or at least things started to shine a light on, “Oh, these art institutions really had this hidden agenda, or this is tokenizing of artists.” This is when we’re becoming way more aware of it thanks to social media, especially with the whole shenanigans that happened in June and July. That summer was very, very intense. A lot of performative actions were taken by art institutions to where they started tokenizing these art shows and artists too, and they even started to bring some of them over. It was very insensitive and tone deaf to everything that was going on—particularly what happened at the Guggenheim. That was just a mess.
Tavarus
Yeah, to have a difficult conversation about this, it’s true, I made some really difficult work that I felt would be inappropriate for people other than BIPOC individuals to collect. And I really felt that way. It’s just complicated. Have you ever thought about things like that? Do you think that if you were to address a particular audience, do you feel like it’s only meant for them? Or do you feel like whoever really appreciates it, you want them to live with the work?
Daniel
Well, as an artist, and somebody who identifies as I feel like my work should be enjoyed by everyone. Now, I take it as a red flag when I start noticing that it’s only one particular group or demographic that starts enjoying it,
because I feel like that’s when my work is starting to become limited. And in my own practice—and my own curatorial practice as well—I’m trying to immerse myself in the Spanish language when it comes to writing curatorial statements, just to make it more accessible to those who don’t speak English, and Spanish is their first language. This mainly came about by engaging more with the art world along with my parents, since they grew up in poverty essentially until they came here into the United States. You know that, but we all struggle, the immigrants struggle. I wanted to be an artist and slowly started engaging more with the art world. A lot of it was interesting, trying to explain to them a lot of contemporary theory and also the formal qualities of art. But I also wanted them to know, “What do you think of this?” Like, if you see a broomstick against the wall, what are you thinking? Like, “What’s going on in your head, Mom and Dad?” I feel like if one specific demographic starts liking my art, I think that’s troublesome—I really want it to be versatile. I really want it to be enjoyed by everyone. Now, of course there’s this whole issue of equity to have collections. Like if a lot of white men start collecting my work, I would have to start asking myself, “Shit, how do I make that not happen? How do I make it more accessible without selling myself short, too?” And I think it’s just case by case. It shifts, and it depends on who’s viewing the work and who I’m engaging with at the time. And then also knowing the person as well like, “Oh, this is your first time looking at contemporary sculpture, or contemporary paintings, cool,”—then we could go from there. If it’s someone who’s very familiar with contemporary works, and they start name dropping artists and everything, then I start shifting my way of how I speak. It’s kind of like this art world code-switching that I do.
Tavarus
Do you reject art history? Do you reconstruct it? Or do you destroy it? And will that create healing , as we move forward—as practitioners of color, as artists, as individuals in the society?
Daniel
That’s a very difficult one. I feel like we need all three, mainly because it informs us and informs where we are today. And, on a very personal note, I am very against rejecting anything from the past because if we reject something that happened, we’re invalidating that experience. And then that allows it to happen again. You know, we need to accept it; that even though it was very, very terrible—and I’m not even speaking about the past four years, I’m just talking about our history in general or politics, and our very existence in general—I feel like we just need to accept that amount of nastiness that just came with it. We need to accept it, validate that that’s what happened, and then take it from there so it won’t happen again. We need to hold space for memory. Now, the issue is, are we going to anchor ourselves with this? Are we going to anchor ourselves to the destruction? Are we going to anchor ourselves to the rejection? We don’t have to. We can get accepted and then after that keep moving along, and then just keep building from there. So, I think rebuilding is something that really would emphasize taking all the things that have harmed us and then just work with that. And then also knowing who to hold accountable. You know, whether it was just a demographic group where they could all be collectively held accountable. That’s also very important to know, so they’re aware of the privilege, or even just to recognize who was damned, who was fucked over. It’s very important. I don’t think that we should ever, ever forget anything horrible that happened. That’s how it occurs again.
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(Left: installed; Right: detail) 29 Held Breaths, 2021 Screen printed mylar balloons, ribbon, artist’s breath Dimensions variable
Summer Ventis
Conversation: In Conversation:
Tavarus Blackmon Summer Ventis
Tavarus
I’m curious, what has it been like as an artist with a practice making work in isolation? And what are your hopes for the coming months, as we transition to a more manageable space for each other?
Summer
Yeah, that’s something that I’ve been thinking about a lot, that idea of transitioning back out of isolation. And I think, because of my father’s illness so early in the pandemic, I have been even more intensely isolated than a lot of people. I have taken isolation very seriously. And so, yeah, it feels a little scary, thinking about going back to contact with other people. It feels exciting and scary. And thinking about making work during this time, I’m thinking back to almost this exact time last year, as we were kind of in the beginning of lockdown here in California. As my father was going into the hospital with COVID, I felt this real urgency to make things, and I made that Zine, Alternative Greetings, Alternative Meanings. And
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that might have seemed absurd, but that seemed like the urgent thing to do at that time. It felt really meaningful to me. It really helped me to process that transition into isolation. And so now, I feel like I need to find that thing to help me process slowly coming out of isolation.
Tavarus
I’m curious about—I guess the buzzword for me for this period has been “pivot”— how artists and arts organizations and businesses have had to pivot infrastructure and operations just to maintain or achieve sustainability. And that’s something that we are thinking about with Axis Gallery. Have there been any pivots or shifts in your thought process or practice during this time?
Summer
In terms of my own work, I think of the idea of boundaries and barriers as kind of meeting points—as these kinds of permeable membranes that actually facilitate interaction with other people and with our environments, as opposed to preventing it. That is an idea that’s always been an important part of my practice, but it has really come to the forefront for me during this time. I think that the main change, just in terms of the content of my work, is that specific aspect which has really emerged as more important—as opposed to more general thoughts about landscape and climate change, which of course are still important in the work—but have kind of receded a little bit during this time in favor of that idea of boundaries and barriers as ways that we protect each other. That’s a big part of what we’re all experiencing now—the idea of boundaries and barriers as ways of showing care, rather than ways of shutting others out. And I have come to hate the word “pivot,” as I think many of us have, along with “unprecedented.”
Tavarus
You use many mediums, different interdisciplinary approaches to art making, and your work is concerned with the ecosystem, climate change, the natural environment, interventions and engagement with the natural spaces around us. Now that technology seems to be so ingrained in our professional lives and also our personal ones— with things like Zoom birthday parties being part of our experience recently—do you see technology or these methods of communication filtering into your practice more in the future?
Summer
Sure. I think that certainly has happened in some ways and will continue to happen. But also, I think that our extreme reliance on technology and existence within it has made me feel even more of a commitment to making things that really need to be experienced in space. I mean, so much now is about how a work photographs. And I tend to make things that are very hard to photograph and don’t always photograph well. Because they’re kind of subtle visually. Not always, but a lot of the things that I have done recently are either almost or completely achromatic. They’re reflective surfaces. And those kinds of shifting, subtle experiences that really have to be encountered in person, for me, have become even more important during this time. I always think about just the idea of an encounter with an artwork as kind of the most important aspect of experiencing the work—that kind of moment of encountering it in space. And so, with all of the shifts in the ways that we encounter each other, I think it’s important to focus on those encounters in real space and time and to think about possibilities for these other modes of encountering—like the digital modes that we are relying on more now.
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Honor Thy Father, 2021 Oil on linen with gold copper leaf stretched over wood panel 84 x 60 x 2 in. Lift Every Voice, Part One, 2020 Oil on canvas with copper/gold leaf 30 x 24 in.
Christopher Adam Williams
(Left: installed; Right: detail) mas pudo el amor que el dolor, 2021 Collaged screenprints (hand affected) 25 x 25 in.
Gabriela Yoque
Conversation: In Conversation:
Tavarus Blackmon Gabriela Yoque
Tavarus
I’m here with Gabriela. Can you introduce yourself and describe your work and artwork?
Gabriela
Hi, so my name is Gabriela Yoque. I am a multimedia project-based artist. I’m based in Oakland and originally from San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles. So, my artwork, I always like describing it as project-based because I do jump around. I jump around themes, and I can’t really stick with the same medium for very long. I usually start with screen printing as a starting point. And then, whatever theme I’m working on, after playing around with it as a screen print, it usually jumps off into different mediums. That being said, a lot of the work I do is usually personal. It’s based on personal narratives and naturally ends up referencing or re-analyzing social constructs or social justice issues.
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Tavarus
And what’s it been like over the last year, working at an art institution during the pandemic?
Gabriela
It’s been rough, mostly because I feel like I let go of my practice for personal reasons. But I’m working in an institution focusing on other people and making sure that they feel supported, and trying to move along this art space for other people. That being said, I also work in a very small, nonprofit organization, where we set the rules and tone for how this organization moves about the pandemic. We’ve gotten really positive feedback on when we reopened. People were really happy that like, oh, “At least you’re open, and I feel safe coming in here because of what you set up.” It’s been difficult, but at the same time it’s been really great, mostly when people were giving us that positive feedback of, “Okay, great, this has been worth it.”
Tavarus
So the theme of the exhibition is A Joy Unexpected, which is all about something positive that comes out of a challenging or difficult time. In line with that kind of methodology of care or healing , what methods of care have you initiated during this challenging time of COVID-19?
Gabriela
I don’t even know. The past year for me, it’s been a lot of discovering how to take care of myself emotionally. So, I feel like I’ve tried different things, but a lot of it has been cooking for myself, nourishing my body. That has been a huge help and especially because I have such an emotional connection to food. And then going outdoors, which in the beginning of the pandemic, I was avoiding. I was avoiding going anywhere, but then realizing that I take care of myself a lot when
being in nature. Even just neighborhood walks— which I didn’t really start doing until I got my dog and he sort of forced me out. But now it’s become such a habit and such a form of care for myself. Like after work, now I go to the park and walk my dog. Even though it’s for him, it’s really for me as a way to let go of anything from the day and be able to come home leaving stuff at work.
Tavarus Can you discuss creating a safe and responsive space for BIPOC artists in an institution? I know that you’ve been doing a lot of work creating an environment in the institutional space that is welcoming and accessible for BIPOC artists. What’s that whole process been like during this time?
Gabriela
My automatic answer is exhausting. The institution I work in is an old institution—it’s been around for almost 50 years. It has a history, and there are people who’ve been there for a very long time. One of the things that sort of started this shift of more intentionally creating a safe space for BIPOC artists, was just calling out the institution and calling out the culture that has existed and that no one had really addressed. So that initial call out was extremely difficult. Mostly because people were shocked— like, “I don’t believe that this is happening. I don’t believe that people don’t feel safe.” Those types of conversations. So the beginning was very difficult— getting people on board like: “How do we more intentionally address this?” But after a few months of talking it out—“What does that mean? How do we actually address this?”—it was a bit easier once people understood what the next steps were. Then everyone was on board, and we were able to create an anti-racist committee within our staff to actually dedicate time. That’s the thing working for
a nonprofit—everyone’s stretched very thin and taking on multiple roles. So, it was super important for us to make this time. Like, “Okay, we’re going to meet twice a month, and we’re going to specifically talk about this, about creating a safe space for artists.” And just in general, asking how do we adjust the organizational culture and policies to really set up people for the future? Yeah, that being said, it’s still been really difficult, because again, in nonprofits, everyone is stretched thin. And even though everyone’s really excited to do this work, finding that time and energy to continue with serious momentum has been difficult. One of my co-workers always reminds us that we’re not going to get it right, right away. We are also learning. Let’s just start the conversation. Let’s just start trying this out. For a while, I was really frustrated at the pace we were going because, myself as a Latina, I felt really rushed and an urgency to make this space and what I wanted it to be like right away. I had to remind myself, I have to slow down for everyone else here who is learning. But also, I’m going to burn out if I try to keep going at the speed I want to go at. So now, almost a year later, I feel really happy working with my coworkers on this and knowing that things are slowly happening.
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Staff Michelle Mansour Renée Rhodes Michael Gabrielle Phi Tran Carissa Diaz ChiChai Mateo Rachel Welles
Catalog Production Executive Director Art Programs Manager Education Programs Manager Marketing & Design Manager Installations & Site Manager Development & Programs Assistant Operations Assistant
Phi Tran Graham Holoch
Graphic Design Exhibition Documentation
About Root Division
Supporters
Root Division is a visual arts non-profit in San Francisco that connects creativity and community through a dynamic ecosystem of arts education, exhibitions, and studios. Root Division’s mission is to empower artists, foster community service, inspire youth, and enrich the Bay Area through engagement in the visual arts. The organization is a launching pad for artists, a stepping-stone for educators and students, and a bridge for the general public to become involved in the arts.
Root Division is supported in part by a plethora of individual donors and by grants from National Endowment for the Arts, California Arts Council, Grants for the Arts, San Francisco Arts Commission: Community Investments, Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation, Walter & Elise Haas Fund, Fleishhacker Foundation, Zellerbach Family Foundation, Violet World Foundation, and Bill Graham Memorial Fund.
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415.863.7668 rootdivision.org
