miriam klein stahl news

Workshop: Printmaking with Miriam Klein Stahl

Jul 15, 2012 2:00pm – 4:00pm

YAAW Lounge

YBCA:You members are invited to this art-making workshop with artist Miriam Klein Stahl. Her collaboration with Gabby Miller—displayed in the Occupy Bay Area exhibition—serves as an inspirational platform in which the viewer becomes both the artist and the visionary. Materials supplied, but bring a t-shirt or any other item you want to silkscreen!

Since its incep­tion in Sep­tem­ber 2011, the Occupy Move­ment has gen­er­ated both praise and con­dem­na­tion. A direct response to the finan­cial insta­bil­ity, sub­prime mort­gage cri­sis and the decline of trust in the government’s abil­ity to effec­tively address the prob­lems in the labor mar­ket, it con­tin­ues to res­onate in the Amer­i­can con­scious­ness. In response to the sig­nif­i­cant out­put of art and doc­u­men­ta­tion pro­duced in sup­port of the Occupy Move­ment in Oak­land and San Fran­cisco,YBCA has put together an exhi­bi­tion of works that have proven to be par­tic­u­larly effec­tive in sup­port­ing the goals and aspi­ra­tions of the Move­ment. Impres­sively, var­i­ous polit­i­cal poster artists devoted their tal­ents to mes­sag­ing the pol­i­tics and cul­ture of the move­ment by cre­at­ing iconic images — designs that were a call to action, or posters announc­ing an upcom­ing event. In many ways these works, by twenty-five Bay Area artists, carry for­ward the region’s long tra­di­tion as a leader in polit­i­cal strug­gles, from the Free Speech Move­ment of the 1960s, to strug­gles by com­mu­ni­ties of color in the 1970s, to AIDS activism in the 1980s. The exhi­bi­tion also includes a selec­tion of pho­to­jour­nal­is­tic and doc­u­men­tary pho­tog­ra­phy and video that serve as a record of the events around the Occupy Movement.

Addi­tion­ally, to con­nect to ear­lier move­ments and pro­vide a his­tor­i­cal con­text for the project, the exhi­bi­tion includes posters and pho­tographs from other polit­i­cal strug­gles, includ­ing the Black Pan­ther Party, I-Hotel in Mani­la­town (1968–77); the ARC/AIDS Vigil at City Hall (1985–95); the Occu­pa­tion of Alca­traz (1969–71); the Free Speech Move­ment at UC Berke­ley (1964–65); and the San Fran­cisco State Uni­ver­sity protests, to gain an Eth­nic Stud­ies pro­gram and Black Stu­dent Union demands (1968–69).While these ear­lier move­ments cer­tainly dif­fer in ways from Occupy, they all are the result of a deep desire for mar­gin­al­ized peo­ples to be rep­re­sented and treated fairly.

This exhi­bi­tion is not meant to rep­re­sent a fully exe­cuted social his­tory, but is a tes­ta­ment of the power of images to evoke the emo­tional expres­sion of pop­u­lar and wide-spread sen­ti­ments. By local­iz­ing our efforts, we also pay spe­cial trib­ute to the role that Bay Area artists have played in giv­ing voice to the 99% and uti­liz­ing art as an effec­tive vehi­cle for social change.

Artists
Jesus Bar­raza; Robert Bech­tle; R. Black; D. Ross Cameron; Melanie Cer­vantes; Ray Chavez; Li Chen; Ser­gio de la Torre; Zer­ena Diaz; Can­non Dill; Emory Dou­glas; Eric Drooker; Kota Ezawa;Alexan­dra Fis­cher; Dave Gar­cia; Rupert Gar­cia; Shirin Ghat­fay; Ron­nie Good­man; Ilka Hart­mann; Bran­don Hill; Bran­don Jour­dan; Jason Jus­tice; Mike Koozmin; Suzanne Lacy; Stew­art Long (Pub­lic Lab­o­ra­tory); Steven Mar­cus; Sanaz Maz­i­nani; Gabby Miller, Miriam Klein Stahl and Matt Run­kle; “Indian Joe” Mor­ris; moyah pravda; Nuclear Win­ter Art; Occupy Design; Laura A. Oda; Thomas Pen­der­gast; Polit­i­cal Grid­lock; Cristy C. Roads; Favianna Rodriguez; Rachael Romero; Be Scofield; Chris Shaw; Jenny Sher­man; Colin Smith; Win­ston Smith; Chuck Sperry; Eric Stew­art; Sheila Tully; Jane Tyska; Gre­goire Vion; Xavier Vira­montes; Megan Wil­son; Ewen Wright; Fred Zaw; unknown artists