ABOUT PLACE / Harris Gallery University of La Verne
Originally slated for April 2020, About Place is a group exhibition featuring works by Heini Aho, Tanya Aguñiga, Tanya Brodsky, Sandra Calvo, T.J. Dedeaux-Norris, Ashley Hagen, Reneé Lotenero, Sandra Mann, and Kyoco Taniyama. Working in sculpture, photography, video and installation, these artists explore ideas of “place” as geography, architecture, the environment, migration, and home. This exhibition will include artists from disparate parts of the world: Finland, Germany, Japan, Mexico, and different regions within the United States.
About Place presents contrasting cultural and geographic backgrounds as artists address the idea of “place” with transformative works that showcase their unique aesthetic visions, languages, and processes. Rapid global transformations and unprecedented movements of people caused by poverty, economic opportunity, gentrification, leisure, conflict and climate change continuously shifts the way we as humans perceive, relate to, and signify the idea of “place”. As displaced populations and migrant communities adapt to new cultures and environments, integration is both welcomed by humanitarian ideals and resisted by fearful intolerance. The aim of this exhibition is to serve not merely as a reflection or simulacra of a place, but an attempt to see how artists create objects and/or experiences that become their own destinations while simultaneously exploring complex ideas and issues.
With March 11 marking precisely two years since the declaration of the global pandemic, it is difficult not to acknowledge the effect Covid-19 has had on all of us, and its relation to the exhibition concept. Lockdowns have left many of the earth’s citizens confined for large portions of the past 2 years within their homes, and travel bans and mandatory quarantines have stifled people’s ability and desire to visit other countries or return home. Some of the artists in the exhibition have responded by making brand new works that directly address this reality. For works made pre-pandemic, our collective shift in perspective will perhaps alter, even if subtly, how we interpret the works on display.
Some of the pieces deal with local and personal histories, such as Taniyama’s sound sculpture dealing with the city of La Verne’s own history as a once thriving agricultural orange-growing industry, or Aguñiga's woven earth sculpture containing soil from her places of origin. Other artists approach their works from a much more global or philosophical vantage point such as Mann’s sculptural photo installation chronicling her travels around the world or Aho’s kinetic sculptures and video that seem to playfully beckon viewers to contemplate time and nature.
For additional gallery information please contact Dion Johnson djohnson@laverne.edu or 909.593.3511 x 4383