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Exhibitions On View
Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now
September 17 – December 31, 2017
Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now brings together 49 artworks, consisting of installation, sculpture, photography, and video, dating from the early 1990s to the present. A distinctive figure in the international legacy of installation art, Soares interweaves themes of love, desire, memory, and time in her minimal, conceptual, and multi-sensorial bodies of work. Sourcing collected and found objects, such as books, light fixtures, antique stools, carpets, mirrors, anonymous portrait paintings, and even flowers, the artist repurposes such materials, subverting their original use and inviting new meaning. The referent installation, Any Moment Now… (2014), for instance, is a series of 365 vintage dust jackets that are by transformed by Soares into a subjective mapping of a year’s time. The images and titles of each cover, from books such as Long Day’s Journey Into Night, The Morning After, and Now or Never, combine together in this installation to generate new and ever-shifting narratives. This exhibition represents the artist’s second survey exhibition and her first major solo museum exhibition in the Western United States, and is co-organized by the Phoenix Art Museum, where it will be on view in spring 2018.
Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now is part of the major initiative, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA, a far-reaching and ambitious exploration of Latin American and Latino art in dialogue with Los Angeles taking place from September 2017 through January 2018.
Story-Telling: Narrative Paintings in Asian Art
Opens October 1, 2017
Pictures that tell stories serve as powerful vehicles to illuminate important events, promote cultural and religious values, or express personal views. This exhibition features eight narrative paintings from China, Japan, India, and Tibet, showcasing the diversity of the format and expressive versatility of these Asian cultures. Dating from the 17th through 19th centuries, the paintings offer a variety of distinct approaches to pictorial storytelling. This includes, among others, examples of continuous narration within a single frame, a handscroll annotated with extensive text, and a monumental textile panel comprised of dozens of successive scenes. The exhibition is drawn from the Museum’s permanent collection with loans from local collectors, and coincides with the contemporary survey Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now, exploring Soares’ experimentation with temporality, narrative, and memory.
Highlights of the Permanent Collection
Ongoing
In celebration of the Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s 75th Anniversary in 2016, this installation highlights some of the most important works of art from SBMA’s permanent collection, as well as several of the most exciting gifts and acquisitions in the areas of modern and contemporary art, photography, and the arts of Asia.
Events
Sunday, October 1, 2:30 pm
Parallel Stories: Richard Rodriguez in Conversation
Coinciding with the Getty-led Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative, noted author, essayist, and commentator Richard Rodriguez explores the color brown as a metaphor for mixture, and thus the key to our cosmopolitan societies where lives interact and borrow from one another. Just as the great Mexican philosopher and essayist Octavio Paz once celebrated the dense, rich, layered complexity that is Mexican mole, opposing it to the American mania for clear gravy (American pot roast), Rodriguez embraces fusion as an essential part of the human experience. In his lyrical, resonant interweaving of family, food, religion, history, language, California, America, Mexico, we may find a new way of placing ourselves in the 21st century.
Mary Craig Auditorium
Free SBMA Members/$10 Non-Members/$6 Senior Non-Members
Reserve or purchase tickets at the Museum Visitor Services desks, or online at tickets.sbma.net.
Thursdays, October 5; November 2; December 7, 5:30 – 7:30 pm
Family 1st Thursdays
Bring the whole family and enjoy 1st Thursday together in SBMA’s Family Resource Center located across from the Museum Café on the Lower Level. Museum teaching artists will assist families in creating special exhibition-based art projects, inspired by Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now. Afterwards, enjoy galleries until 8pm.
SBMA’s Family Resource Center
Free
Sundays, October 8; November 12; December 10, 1:30 – 4:30 pm
Studio Sundays on the Front Steps
Visitors of all ages are welcome to participate in this hands-on workshop with SBMA Teaching Artists on the Museum’s front steps. Each month explore a different medium, including clay, metal, ink, wood, photography, and paper, and gain inspiration from works of art in the Museum’s permanent collection or special exhibitions.
Front Steps of the Museum
Free
Thursdays, October 12; November 9; December 14
Latin American Film Series: Unrest, Distance, and the Future
Alluding to speculative futures and spaces, irrevocable pasts, gender perspectives, and living with fear as a condition of contemporary life, the films represented in this series delve into relationships between cinema and truth, individuals and their environment, and the place of stories as engaged social practice. Organized by SBMA and curated by UCSB Professor of Film and Media Studies, Cristina Venegas, this special series correlates to three of the Santa Barbara-based exhibitions that are part of the Getty-led PST: LA/LA:Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now (SBMA); Guatemala from 33,000 km: Contemporary Art, 1960 – Present (MCASB); and The Schoolhouse and the Bus: Mobility, Pedagogy, and Engagement, Two Projects by Pablo Helguera and Suzanne Lacy / Pilar Riaño-Alcalá (AD&A Museum).
Free
Thursday, October 12, 5:30 pm
Neighboring Sounds
(Kleber Mendonça Filho, 2012)
On a quiet city block in the coastal city of Recife, ruled by an aging patriarch and his sons, a recent spate of petty crime has rattled the nerves of the well-to-do residents. When a mysterious security firm is brought in to watch over the neighborhood, it sparks the fears and anxieties of a divided society still haunted by its past. Portuguese with English subtitles (131 min.)
Mary Craig Auditorium/Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Free
Reserve tickets at the Museum Visitor Services desks, or online at tickets.sbma.net.
Thursday, November 9, 7 pm
Tempestad
(Tatiana Huezo, 2016) Documentary
The emotional journeys of two women victimized by corruption and injustice in Mexico and of the love, dignity, and resistance that allowed them to survive. The film maker Tatiana Huezo will introduce the film. Spanish with English subtitles (105 min.)
Pollock Theater/Carsey-Wolf Center/UCSB
Free
Visit carseywolf.ucsb.edu/pollock/events/tempestad to reserve tickets and guarantee a seat.
Thursday, December 14, 5:30 pm
Ixcanul
(Volcano, Jayro Bustamante, 2015)
The brilliant debut by Guatemalan filmmaker Jayro Bustamante is a mesmerizing fusion of fact and fable, a dreamlike depiction of the daily lives of Kaqchikel-speaking Mayans on a coffee plantation at the base of an active volcano. Immersing us in its characters’ customs and beliefs, Ixcanul chronicles with unblinking realism, a disappearing tradition and a disappearing people. Spanish and Kaqchikel with English subtitles (91 min.)
Mary Craig Auditorium/Santa Barbara Museum of Art
Free
Reserve tickets at the Museum Visitor Services desks, or online at tickets.sbma.net.
Thursdays, October 19; November 16; December 14, 5:30 – 6:30 pm
Sketching in the Galleries
All skill levels are invited to experience the tradition of sketching from original works of art in Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now. Museum Teaching Artists provide general guidance and all materials. Each program is open to 10 participants.
Free
To reserve a spot, contact Kelly Almeida at 884.6457 or kalmeida@sbma.net.
Sunday, October 22, 1 – 4 pm
Sensory Studio
Inspired by the exhibition Valeska Soares: Any Moment Now, discover pop-up talks and playful artistic activations involving taste, touch, sight, and scent. Participate or simply enjoy the art, and stop and smell the roses.
Free
Sunday, October 22, 2:30 – 4 pm
Lecture: Jens Hoffman
Jens Hoffman, Senior Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit and Director of Special Exhibitions and Public Programs, Jewish Museum, NY, speaks about the work of Valeska Soares.
Mary Craig Auditorium
Free
Reserve tickets at the Museum Visitor Services desks, or online at tickets.sbma.net.
Sunday, October 29, 1 – 4 pm
Free Family Day: Día de los Muertos
For the 28th year, the Museum honors the Mexican tradition of remembering the dead with a variety of family festivities in the galleries, front steps, and back plaza including music, dance performances, art-making activities, a special display of altars created by school and community groups, and traditional refreshments.
Free
Friday, November 3, 12 – 1 pm
Sound Tracks: A Musical Conversation
A curated conversation about the songs that shaped the lives of musical artist Camilo Lara and singer-songwriter Ceci Bastida of Mexrrissey. Co-presented by the Santa Barbara Museum of Art and UCSB Arts & Lectures, as part of The Lynda and Bruce Thematic Learning Initiative
Mary Craig Auditorium
Free
Reserve tickets at the Visitor Services desks or online at tickets.sbma.net
Sunday, November 5, 2 pm
Film Screening
Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans
Celebrate the artistry and craftsmanship of photographer and cinematographer Karl Struss with F. W. Murnau’s 1927 masterpiece film. Professor Charles Wolfe of UCSB’s Film and Media Studies Department introduces this exquisitely photographed tale of faltering love and redemption, for which Struss won an Academy Award for Best Cinematography in 1929. Produced by William Fox, Sunrise was also honored by the Academy for its Unique and Artistic Quality of Production, the only occasion in which this prize has been awarded in the history of the Oscars. A Q&A led by Professor Wolfe follows the screening. (95 min.)
Mary Craig Auditorium
Free
Reserve tickets at the Visitor Services desks or online at tickets.sbma.net
Thursday, November 16, 7:30 pm
Altius String Quartet
Formed in 2011 at Southern Methodist University Meadows School of the Arts, Altius currently holds the position as Fellowship String Quartet-in-Residence at the University of Colorado-Boulder and have been awarded prizes at many internationally respected competitions, including the 2016 Alice and Eleonore Schoenfeld International String Competition, the 2014 Fischoff National Chamber Music Competition, the 2014 Coltman Chamber Music Competition, and the 2013 Plowman Chamber Music Competition. The program includes Quartet, Op. 76, No. 4 by Haydn, Quartet in f minor, Op. 13 by Mendelssohn, andAmerican Quartet by Dvo?ák.
Mary Craig Auditorium
$20 SBMA Members/ $25 Non-Members
Purchase tickets at the Visitor Services desks or online at tickets.sbma.net
Thursday, November 30, 5:30 – 7 pm
Lecture: Tanya Barson
Chief Curator, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona speaks about the work of Valeska Soares.
Free
Reserve tickets at the Museum Visitor Services desks, or online at tickets.sbma.net.