Rafa Esparza: for you and the sky
Rafa Esparza: for you and the sky
with Sage Gaspar, Sebastian Hernandez, Casmali Lopez, Berto Lule, and DeAnna Ramirez
Artist Residency: September 5-October 5, 2017, public hours Monday-Wednesday 12pm-4pm
Exhibition on View: October 6-December 1, 2017
Reception for the Artists: Friday, October 6, 5pm-7pm,
including a Chumash blessing performed by a local elder at 5pm
and a performance by Sebastian Hernandez at 6pm
Artist Lecture: Wednesday, October 25, 4:30pm, A211
Santa Barbara, CA- The Atkinson Gallery is pleased to present for you and the sky, a new site-specific adobe installation by Rafa Esparza with Sage Gaspar, Sebastian Hernandez, Casmali Lopez, Berto Lule, and DeAnna Ramirez. The exhibit opens with a public reception on Friday, October 6 from 5pm-7pm including a Chumash blessing by a local elder at 5pm and a performance by Sebastian Hernandez at 6pm. Built during a five-week artist residency, for you and the sky challenges the way the history of the mission system has been taught in California. Esparza observes that “Stepping on to the gallery patio and realizing that the Santa Barbara Mission is in clear view from where we’re working is even more impactful. In close proximity to this contested site where indigenous slave labor was used to make the bricks to build the Mission, we’re now working consensually and collectively with the same material to build a space where we can imagine our own structures and narratives.” Indeed, he says, “Working with adobe is, for me, working with land. These adobe bricks are a way of presence-ing not only ideas about land, but also about memory and race.”
Rafa Esparza is a multidisciplinary artist who was born, raised, and is currently living in Los Angeles. Woven into Esparza’s bodies of work are his interests in history, personal narratives, and kinship. He is inspired by his own relationship to colonization and the disrupted genealogies that come forth as a result. Using live performance as his main form of inquiry, Esparza employs site-specificity, materiality, memory and (non)documentation as primary tools to interrogate and critique ideologies, power structures and binaries that problematize the “survival” process of historicized narratives and the environments wherein people are left to navigate and socialize. Esparza has performed in a variety of spaces including AIDS Project Los Angeles, Highways Performance Space, REDCAT, Human Resources, SOMArts, Vincent Price Museum, LACE and various public sites throughout Los Angeles. He is a recipient of an Emerging Artist 2014 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists, a 2014 Art Matters grantee, and a 2015 recipient of a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. Most recently, his work has been included in the Made in L.A. 2016 exhibit at the UCLA Hammer Museum, the 2017 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum in New York, and tierra. sangre. oro. at Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, TX.
The for you and the sky exhibition is generously sponsored by the Santa Barbara City College Foundation and will be on view through Friday, December 1, 2017. The artist will also present a public lecture on his work on Wednesday, October 25 at 4:30pm in the Administration Building, Room 211. The Atkinson Gallery, Santa Barbara City College Art Department's showcase for the visual arts, hosts exhibitions of contemporary art featuring international, national, regional and student artists. All exhibits and events are free and open to the public.
Artist Residency: September 5-October 5, 2017, public hours Monday-Wednesday 12pm-4pm
Exhibition on View: October 6-December 1, 2017
Reception for the Artists: Friday, October 6, 5pm-7pm,
including a Chumash blessing performed by a local elder at 5pm
and a performance by Sebastian Hernandez at 6pm
Artist Lecture: Wednesday, October 25, 4:30pm, A211
Santa Barbara, CA- The Atkinson Gallery is pleased to present for you and the sky, a new site-specific adobe installation by Rafa Esparza with Sage Gaspar, Sebastian Hernandez, Casmali Lopez, Berto Lule, and DeAnna Ramirez. The exhibit opens with a public reception on Friday, October 6 from 5pm-7pm including a Chumash blessing by a local elder at 5pm and a performance by Sebastian Hernandez at 6pm. Built during a five-week artist residency, for you and the sky challenges the way the history of the mission system has been taught in California. Esparza observes that “Stepping on to the gallery patio and realizing that the Santa Barbara Mission is in clear view from where we’re working is even more impactful. In close proximity to this contested site where indigenous slave labor was used to make the bricks to build the Mission, we’re now working consensually and collectively with the same material to build a space where we can imagine our own structures and narratives.” Indeed, he says, “Working with adobe is, for me, working with land. These adobe bricks are a way of presence-ing not only ideas about land, but also about memory and race.”
Rafa Esparza is a multidisciplinary artist who was born, raised, and is currently living in Los Angeles. Woven into Esparza’s bodies of work are his interests in history, personal narratives, and kinship. He is inspired by his own relationship to colonization and the disrupted genealogies that come forth as a result. Using live performance as his main form of inquiry, Esparza employs site-specificity, materiality, memory and (non)documentation as primary tools to interrogate and critique ideologies, power structures and binaries that problematize the “survival” process of historicized narratives and the environments wherein people are left to navigate and socialize. Esparza has performed in a variety of spaces including AIDS Project Los Angeles, Highways Performance Space, REDCAT, Human Resources, SOMArts, Vincent Price Museum, LACE and various public sites throughout Los Angeles. He is a recipient of an Emerging Artist 2014 California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists, a 2014 Art Matters grantee, and a 2015 recipient of a Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant. Most recently, his work has been included in the Made in L.A. 2016 exhibit at the UCLA Hammer Museum, the 2017 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum in New York, and tierra. sangre. oro. at Ballroom Marfa in Marfa, TX.
The for you and the sky exhibition is generously sponsored by the Santa Barbara City College Foundation and will be on view through Friday, December 1, 2017. The artist will also present a public lecture on his work on Wednesday, October 25 at 4:30pm in the Administration Building, Room 211. The Atkinson Gallery, Santa Barbara City College Art Department's showcase for the visual arts, hosts exhibitions of contemporary art featuring international, national, regional and student artists. All exhibits and events are free and open to the public.
Useful links:
LA Times review of exhibit at LACE Projects in LA:
www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-rafa-esparza-uses-5000-adobe-bricks-to-construct-a-building-inside-a-building-at-lace-in-hollywood-20150722-column.html
Video from Whitney Biennial 2017:
http://whitney.org/WatchAndListen/513
LA Times review of exhibit at LACE Projects in LA:
www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/la-et-cam-rafa-esparza-uses-5000-adobe-bricks-to-construct-a-building-inside-a-building-at-lace-in-hollywood-20150722-column.html
Video from Whitney Biennial 2017:
http://whitney.org/WatchAndListen/513
For Documentation of View from Top of Platform, please close HERE
Exhibition catalog in English and Spanish:
NOTE: All exhibits open with a 5-7pm reception on the first day and then for regular gallery hours. All exhibits, artists and dates subject to change