Uncertainty of the Expanded Field

A Talk and Discussion on West Coast Sculptural Production Led by Ginger Wolfe-Suarez

Uncertainty of the Expanded Field

In conjunction with Both Are True, her solo show at SoEx, Ginger Wolfe-Suarez speaks about the historical conditions of sculptural production on the West Coast interweaving a trangression of theory and practice. Through images, readings and the performance of historical texts, Wolfe-Suarez examines the concepts of anti-form, looking at ways these notions have influenced artists from Los Angeles to San Francisco to Vancouver and points in between.

A lively Q&A with Wolfe Suarez and a panel of artists and historians encourages the audience to engage in questions surrounding contemporary sculptural practices. Panelists include curator, Jana Blankenship; artists, Deva Graf, John Roloff and Christopher Taggart; artist/writer, Zachary Royer Scholz; and artist/architect, Primitivo Suarez. The panel will be moderated by Courtney Fink.

Panelist Bios

Jana Blankenship is curator at the CCA Wattis Institute and assistant curator for the 2011 Istanbul Biennial. She is a graduate of the CCA Curatorial Practice MA Program and received a BA and BFA from Cornell University. Before moving to San Francisco, Jana was a tour guide at the Rubin Museum of Art in New York.

Deva Graf lives and works in San Francisco. She has exhibited her work internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including the 2006 Whitney Biennial: Day for Night. While living on a mountain for four years with Zen master Joshu Sasaki Roshi, she began sculpting Buddha sculptures. In her show good morning, currently on view at Jessica Silverman gallery, she continues her exploration of Buddha statues and Sacred Geometry.

Christopher Taggart is an artist living and working in Berkeley, California. Along with a BS in Physics from the College Of William and Mary, he also holds an MFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University. Taggart has presented his work in numerous exhibitions across the country, including the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Richard L. Nelson Gallery at UC Davis, Drawing Center in New York, ACE Gallery in Los Angeles and New York, and California Museum of Photography. His solo exhibition AWAY is on view at San Francisco's Baer Ridgway exhibitions (www.baerridgway.com) from January 29 - March 5, 2010.

John Roloff is a visual artist with a background in science who works conceptually with site, process and natural systems. His projects often take the form of large-scale environmental and gallery installations. His work has been seen both outdoors and in exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art, UC Berkeley Museum, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian Institution, Photoscene Cologne, the Venice Architectural and Art Biennales, and The Snow Show in Kemi, Finland. A recipient of three visual arts fellowships from the NEA, a Guggenheim Foundation fellowship, California Arts Council grant for visual artists, and Bernard Osher Fellowship at the Exploratorium, he is currently chair of the Sculpture/Ceramics Department at the San Francisco Art Institute.

Zachary Royer Scholz is an internationally exhibited artist based in San Francisco. His diverse artworks use sculpture, installation, drawing, video and photography to investigate the shifting relationships between the material and meaning that surround us. In addition to his art practice, Scholz writes regularly for Art Practical and KQED Arts, and has authored numerous exhibition and catalog essays.

Primitivo Suarez is an experimental architect and artist whose work explores the built environment and the psychology of space. He received his MFA from UCLA in 2000, and his architectural interventions have been cited in publications and architectural books internationally. His work has been exhibited at ACE Galleries in Los Angeles and New York, Blum & Poe Gallery, Luckman Fine Arts Complex, and Open Satellite, among others. Primitivo has taught courses at University of Southern California, University of California at Berkeley and the San Francisco Art Institute. He has been collaborating off and on with artist, Ginger Wolfe-Suarez, for the past seven years, and currently has a solo exhibition, Recurring, at the Taubman Museum.

Ginger Wolfe-Suarez’s solo exhibition, Both Are True is currently on view at Southern Exposure. Her recent work explores body-object relationships, the sensory field, negotiations of memory, and the metaphors and meanings of objects around us. This past year, her sculptures have been exhibited at ltd Los Angeles, K-R-A-S in Vienna, and Galerie im Regierungsviertel in Berlin. She was the founder and co-editor of the Los Angeles-based art publication, InterReview Journal, which is currently archived at Harvard University. Ginger has taught philosophy of aesthetics, art theory, history of art criticism and studio critique, and currently teaches in the graduate program at San Francisco Art Institute.