Accepted Artists and Curatorial Proposal

We are thrilled to announce the artists who will exhibit in our next three shows. Thank you to everyone who applied, to Fort Mason Center, and to our jurors: Kim Sajet (Director of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery), Dorothy Moss (Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture at the National Portrait Gallery, Director of the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition), and Justin Hoover (Creative Director of Arts Programming at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture).

To receive details about our events, please sign up via email here.

1. Encounters: Portraits & Identity

Opening Reception March 18th, 2016, 6-9pm. Juried by Kim Sajet and Dorothy Moss.

Artists:

Jamee Crusan | CCA

Dan Fenstermacher | SJSU

Ninh Filip | SJSU

Simona Fitcal | Stanford

Willow Griffiths | SFAI

Victoria Maidhof | SFAI

Juan Pablo Pacheco | SFAI

Lauren Ross | CCA

Hui Meng Wang | SFAI

Leila Weefur | Mills

Sarah Woodard | SFSU

Victoria Maidhof. Hotel By the Sea, 2015.

2. CAMPUS:Interventions to Public Space

Opening Reception: May 12, 2016. 6-9pm. Juried by Justin Hoover.

Artists:

Elizabeth Bennett | Mills

Yvette Dibos | CCA

Dana Morrison and Charlie Ford | SFAI

Yvette Dibos. Part of a Performance Proposal for CAMPUS: Interventions to Public Space.

3. Call for Curatorial Proposals

Exhibition to open in October 2016. Selected by Executive Director of Embark Gallery Tania Houtzager and Curatorial Director Angelica Jardini.

Tanya Gayer | CCA

Humor US

Philosopher John Morreall famously defined humor as amusement that takes pleasure in a cognitive shift. Indeed, much of what we find laughable allows us to think differently about people, ideas, and states of being. The exhibition Humor Us will include contemporary artistic explorations in any medium that examine humor as a positive and negative boundary between the speaker and the target of humor. 

The opening of the exhibition next fall presents a timely connection to the presidential elections and artists are encouraged to present works that reflect issues apart of American citizen concerns in a new presidential tenure.  How might young adults display religious and race discrimination, or a crippling economy, or housing costs through humor? Humor Us intends to make hearts heavy with laughter and faces hurt from smiles to approach conversations about critical issues students located in the US face today.

Congratulations from the team at Embark!

Embark Gallery Opens "Hi/Lo" Exhibition

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:  January 21, 2016

“Hi/Lo” features Bay Area Graduate Students’ Explorations of Economic Value

Image: Sarah Chan. Cat Corner (video still), 2015. Digital Video Projections.

Inspired by the recent rapid economic changes in San Francisco, Hi/Lo is a group show at Embark Gallery that challenges extant systems of value and exposes the fallacies in that which we choose to give importance. Exhibiting artists attend various graduate programs in the greater Bay Area.

Our esteemed jurors Amy Cancelmo (Root Division), Kerri Hurtado (Artsource Consulting), and Megan McConnell (Anthony Meier Fine Arts) selected artworks that question divisions between public and private space, address housing politics and displacement, and rethink the various products and consequences of contemporary capitalism.

Image: Ashley Valmere Fischer. La Chateigne Living Room, 2012-2014. Digital photograph

Ashley Valmere Fischer chronicles an intentional living community in France, while Alice Combs’ work laments the loss of artist-run spaces in San Francisco. Garth Fry utilizes discarded materials in his sculptural work, while Lynn Dau erects a towering totem of domestic goods. Sarah Chan also explores the domestic, questioning it’s true value with a video projection that enacts a strange memory, constructed from objects she found on the street. Luis Pinto takes refuse as inspiration in his extraordinarily detailed pencil drawings. Elizabeth Bennett’s parking signs address the hierarchies that exist in even the most mundane environment, and present visitors a choice as to what kind of space they will occupy.

Embark Gallery, a 1,500 sq. ft. non-profit art space that opened in February 2015 and located in Fort Mason Center, helps create and support an engaged community of young artists, curators and scholars during their studies and as they leave their graduate programs. We assist students to embark on their professional careers, while expanding the audience for up and coming contemporary art.

The gallery represents the diversity of the talented artists studying at eight local art institutions including California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, Stanford University,  University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Davis.

Artists:

Elizabeth Bennett - Mills

Sarah Chan - UC Davis

Alice Combs - SFAI

Lynn Dau - SJSU

Ashley Fischer - Stanford

Garth Fry - CCA

Luis Pinto - CCA

Opening Reception: Friday February 5th, 6-9pm

Hours: 12–5pm every Saturday from February 6th 5 to March 12th and by appointment only       every Monday from February 8th to March 7th.

Spring 2016 Call for Artists

Embark Gallery seeks work by local MFA and MA students for 2 juried exhibitions and 1 curatorial proposal!

Any students currently enrolled in graduate programs related to the arts at the following institutions are eligible to apply for one or all calls: California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University, San Jose University, Stanford University, UC Berkeley and UC Davis.

Entry Requirements

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: January 4, 2016.

Selected artists will be notified by February 3, 2016.

Applicants will apply for each exhibition via the related SlideRoom link or visit our application portal HERE to apply to multiple shows.

 1. Encounters: Portraits and Identity

A response to the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery’s 2016 Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition juried by Associate Curator of Painting and Sculpture, Dorothy Moss and Director of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Kim Sajet.

Call for artworks that capture an aspect of identity-- whether personal, familial, cultural, political or otherwise. Like the guidelines for the Competition, the subject of the artwork may be anyone: a friend, stranger, relative, yourself- but must be the result of the artist’s direct encounter with that person. Artists are invited to interpret the concept of portraiture broadly, and artworks of any medium will be considered, including performance.

This exhibition will run from March 18-April 30, 2016.

APPLY HERE FOR ENCOUNTERS: PORTRAITS AND IDENTITY

 2. CAMPUS: Interventions to Public Space

Embark Gallery partners with Fort Mason Center for Arts and Culture to present "CAMPUS: Interventions to Public Space." 

This exhibit takes Embark’s contemporary and cutting-edge programming outside of the gallery, and onto the Fort Mason campus. This call is for site-specific installations and/or performances that engage the public space of Fort Mason Center. Existing work and detailed project proposals will be accepted. Project proposals should include a detailed description with installation plan and a drawing and/or reference images of proposed or similar past artwork.

Priority will be given to artists who respond specifically to their location, and to work that encourages audience action and participation. Artwork may address the history, architecture or location of Fort Mason Center, a formal military port, as well as questions over public and private space, federal and civic entities (FMC is owned by the National Park Service), sociopolitical and cultural changes in San Francisco, the Bay, Pacific Ocean, or environmental issues-- as long as the installation and/or performance responds specifically to the site, all interpretations on the theme will be considered.

There are 3 available spaces and you may apply to 1 or more in the following sections.

The show will run from May 12, 2016-June 4, 2016, and coincides with the San Francisco International Arts Festival. 

APPLY HERE FOR CAMPUS: INTERVENTIONS TO PUBLIC SPACE

3. Call for Curatorial Proposals

Embark is excited to announce our first call for curatorial proposals! Open to both MFA and MA students with a focus on art history, curatorial or museum studies, or other similar programs.

Please submit a 250-500 word proposal for an exhibition to take place at Embark Gallery. Proposals should take into account past programming at Embark, and propose a novel exhibition. The call for artists may not exclude any individual on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age or ability. The proposal must be broad enough that it is feasible for anyone to apply. Curators should plan to exhibit 4-10 artists from at least 3 different schools. Proposals broad enough to diversify the applicant pool will be given priority. Proposals already focused on specific artists cannot be considered.

We encourage proposals that consider current discourse surrounding contemporary art practices, theory or history, but take on a new perspective. As part of Embark’s mission to expand the audience for up and coming contemporary art, we advise against proposals that are so academic as to be inaccessible to the public.

Aside from these guidelines, proposals for a show of any medium, theme or subject matter will be considered. The winning proposal will be included in Embark’s mid-year call for artists and the show will be presented in the fall. The author of the winning proposal will join the Executive and Curatorial Directors of Embark in selecting artists after submissions for our next call are received, in July 2016. This meeting can be held both virtually or in person.

APPLY HERE WITH A CURATORIAL PROPOSAL

Please contact us at info@embarkgallery.com with any questions or concerns

As always, we look forward to your submissions!

Technophilia Artist Talks

Embark Gallery is proud to announce this schedule of lectures by participating artists in our current exhibition Technophilia:

Chistopher Nickel: Songlines

10.31.15 @ 2pm
In this presentation, Christopher Nickel will use his photographs of fiber-optic cables as a starting point to discuss contemporary information and communications networks as a physical entity. Through a brief telling of the history and present of these networks, Christopher will describe how he hopes his on-going project can begin to address the relationship between the physical and the virtual worlds, and hint at the symbolic potential within our contemporary culture of the sites and structures that constitute these networks.

Heather Murphy: The Meaning of Searching, or, Searching for Meaning

11.7.15 @ 2pm

New media artist Heather Murphy discusses her most recent project, and how it relates to our never-ending online search for love, jobs, and housing. Expect memes, gifs, pop culture references, plenty of screenshots, and a sprinkle of art theory to come into play as Murphy explains her thoughts on how the internet has changed both what we want, and how we get it.

Irene Chou: Static Bodies

11.14.15 @ 2pm

My intention in Static Bodies is to provide an alternative perspective on what it means to be connected in the digital age. As far back as my memory goes, sound is a phenomenon to which I have been deeply drawn. The most powerful thing about sound is how it awakens us to the intelligence of our bodies, to our abilities to simply feel. Through my work, I too strive to connect with people on that emotional level: to create things that are first felt - and then perhaps understood. Static Bodies is a sound piece which cannot be heard unless both participants are physically touching.

Embark Gallery Opens Exhibition Addressing Technology

For Immediate Release

Embark Gallery Opens “Technophilia” at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture

Paulina Berczynski. Consider the Difference, 2015. Cotton, hand-woven on digital Jacquard loom.

Technophilia Features Multi-Media Artworks by MFA Students

An obsession with innovation pervades our contemporary environment. Is this reverence towards progress positive, or are there malignant implications? Technophilia explores how rapid technological advancements affect not only art practices, but ourselves, relationships and environment. 

Our esteemed jurors Amy Cancelmo (Root Division), Kerri Hurtado (Artsource Consulting) and Megan McConnell (Anthony Meier Fine Arts) selected artworks of all media that utilize technology in new and unexpected ways, and that respond to the technological shift in culture so prevalent in the Bay Area.

This event coincides with the opening reception for San Francisco Open Studios 2015, presented by ArtSpan and  Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture from Oct. 23-25. 

Embark Gallery, a 1,500 sq. ft. non-profit art space located in Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture, helps create and support an engaged community of young artists, curators and scholars during their studies and as they leave their graduate programs and embark on their professional careers, while expanding the audience for up and coming contemporary art. 

The gallery represents the diversity of the talented artists studying at eight local art institutions including California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, Stanford University, University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Davis. 

Artists:
Paulina Berczynski | CCA
Irene Chou | CCA
Cy Keener | Stanford
J Kung Dreyfus | CCA
Heather Murphy | CCA
Christopher Nickel | Stanford
Randy Sarafan | SFSU

Opening Reception: Friday, October 23, 6-9pm
Press Preview: Friday, October 23, 5-6pm

On view 11-5pm every Saturday from 9/23-12/5 and by appointment every Monday from 10/26-11/30

For further information, please e-mail info@embarkgallery.com

*    *    *

Thoughtful Musings on "This Is Not a Painting" Exhibition

A critical essay by artist Xiao Wang

Out of the Loop: This Is Not a Painting Artists Innovate at Embark Gallery

Pushing the idea of abstract painting forward in the context of postmodernism hasn’t been easy. For some leading contemporary institutions, the act of painting has become somewhat of a formula. Painters find themselves re-living the glorious moments of their ancestors: minimalism, abstract expressionism, cubism, and so on—abstract painting has become the autobiography of itself. This leaves the possibility for a future that is, optimistically, rich in reference yet also paralyzing. In The New Yorker’s review of the recent painting show Forever Now at MoMA, curator Laura Hoptman’s idea was explained: “All eras seem to exist at once," thus freeing artists, yet also leaving them no other choice but to adopt or, at best, reanimate familiar "styles, subjects, motifs, materials, strategies, and ideas."[1] Innovation has always been the central topic of any progressive art, but when we find the very word “innovation” has lost its meaning and purpose, maybe it’s time to look for a new objective.

This Is Not a Painting at Embark Gallery provides a different perspective on the age-old argument on what painting is, or has become. The exhibition features 8 Bay Area women artists that are either current MFA student or recent MFA graduates. Don’t come to the show expecting to see some pretentiously large canvases, in fact, none of the artists—except for one—can be identified as painter in an explicit sense. The statement here is clear, instead of looking for new path within the painting realm, they ask a question: how can other mediums engage with painting?

We are all too familiar with the frustration of getting into a “medium war” in a typical graduate seminar, and the last thing we want to debate in a critique group is whether something is a painting or a sculpture. The title of the show plays a trick by stating the theme of the show without getting into the meaningless argument, so we can move on and focus on the content of the work. Overall, the works are reasonably small and distanced, giving the presentation a clean quality without making it seem underwhelming, I find myself constantly pushing and pulling between each artist’s work. One artist that first struck my eyes was Marcela Pardo A. Her photograph series consists of three square-shaped portraits, each explores a monochromic theme based on the three primary colors. Pardo plays with this topic by categorizing everyday object by their colors and construct them formally in the backgrounds of the portraits, the lower-centered figures are compositionally surrounded by painted frames. These pictures wittily connect Portraiture, Cubism and Minimalism while seemingly mocking all of them. 

One thing worth noting is that all 8 artists selected for this exhibition are coincidentally women—a rare case even for famously progressive Bay Area art scene. This has added a strong feminist element to the show. The resulting genderization of the show breaks away from the linear and male-dominated narrative of painting history.

Perhaps the most politically charged piece is Angela Willetts’s Reclining Nude #2, a video installation that documents her performative painting using both a still camera and a GoPro. In the piece Willetts traces herself using both brush and her body on a couch and a plastic screen. The performance is given a sense of violence by the use of red paint, the violence is also enhanced by the presence the couch that was used in the performance. It is not difficult to read the influence of Janine Antoni’s work in Willetts’ piece, yet she pushed her work further by referencing and protesting the history of figurative painting by positioning herself nude in a gesture that was heavily used to portray the idealized female body.

With a more romantic approach, Miranda Robbins’s mixed media pieces engage with the elements of performative painting in a very different way. She creates her work using complex processes and techniques such as pouring, mixing, even playing sound in order to create texture. The results are stunning sheets of latex that have preserved and transformed found materials into physical memorials. Visually, Robins’ work plays with the push and pull between details of the surface and the fluid formal quality. Conceptually, she connects the elements of sound, material and location. The “body” of the performer in her work is not the maker, but the material itself, as a remnant of a specific place and time.

In “This Is Not a Painting”, abstract painting is no longer considered as a self-referencing medium, in fact, the very fundamental question of what it is has been replaced by what has come out of it. It represents a source of ideology or philosophy that inspire all mediums. The show is therefore by no means attempting to define a direction for contemporary painting, but to find a new way to make use of what we have learned.

[1]Peter Schjeldahl, Take Your Time-New painting at the Museum of Modern Art. The New Yorker, 2015. (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/01/05/take-time)

By Xiao Wang

Embark Gallery Opens September Exhibition at Fort Mason Center

For Immediate Release

Embark Gallery Opens “This Is Not A Painting” Exhibition

This Is Not A Painting Features Radical Painting Practices by MFA Students

Angela Willets. Still from Reclining Nude #2, 2015. Video/performance.

Painting is king. Painting is dead. We’ve heard it all before. This exhibit aims to showcase radical painting practices that challenge contemporary discourse surrounding the medium. Our call asked for artworks that push boundaries, shatter expectations and expand the definition of painting as we understand it today.

The title This Is Not A Painting refers to Magritte’s famous work Treachery of Images in which the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” appear under a picture of a pipe. This self-referential acknowledgement of the limitations of language was the inspiration for our show. These eight artists understand the various limitations of painting, and their work acknowledges an uneasy tension between the medium of painting and their creative visions. The works in this exhibition both are and are not paintings.

Our esteemed jurors Amy Cancelmo, Director of Events and Exhibitions at Root Division, Kerri Hurtado, Curator at Artsource Consulting, and Megan McConnell, Director at Anthony Meier Fine Arts blindly selected an all-female show that questions the canon and offers new perspectives on an old theme.

Embark Gallery, a 1,500 sq. ft. non-profit art space located in Fort Mason Center, helps create and support an engaged community of young artists, curators and scholars during their studies and as they leave their graduate programs and embark on their professional careers, while expanding the audience for up and coming contemporary art.

The gallery represents the diversity of the talented artists studying at eight local art institutions including California College of the Arts, Mills College, San Francisco Art Institute, San Francisco State University, San Jose State University, Stanford University,  University of California, Berkeley and University of California, Davis. 

Artists:
Nicole Aponte - CCA
Megan Armstrong - SFAI
Kathryn Gentzke - CCA
Danielle Genzel - CCA
Rebecca Hall - CCA
Marcela Pardo Ariza - SFAI
Miranda Robbins - Mills
Angela Willets – UC Davis

Opening Reception: Friday, September 4, 6-9pm
Press Preview: Friday, September 4, 5-6pm

Hours: 12–5pm every Saturday from September 5 to October 10 and by appointment only every Monday from September 7 to October 5.

For further information, please e-mail info@embarkgallery.com

*    *    *