San Diego Weekend Arts Events: Art That Reframes American Independence

Speaker 1: 00:00 As we celebrate independence day, this weekend, we're going to take a closer look at some art exhibitions in San Diego that tell the wider story of who we consider to be American and what it means to have an identity linked with the land. Think of it as a mini art tour. Joining me is KPBS arts editor, Julia Dickson Evans, and welcome Speaker 2: 00:21 Julia. Hi Maureen. Thank you. Also Speaker 1: 00:23 Joining us is cultural strategist and founder of the San Diego culture mapping project, Andrea and Jay Chandler. And welcome Speaker 3: 00:32 To you. Thank you, Maureen. Happy to be here for sure. Speaker 1: 00:35 Let's start in the north county with artists, Javier, our again, VA Gus and his new solo exhibition at the hill street country club. Andrea, you've studied this artist's work. Tell us a little bit about what to expect and why this work is important. Right now we're Speaker 3: 00:51 Looking with this exhibit and a few others at the many ways that Americans from different backgrounds connect to the actual physical land here. And you know, what that complicated feeling is like and not feeling really comes across in Javier his work he's using organic materials like wood and very normal objects to tell these stories about how he's exploring masculinity, how he's connecting to the women in his life. And he's using colors and lines that you know, would look really simple on a fast glance. But as you look into the story he's telling you're really, really taken in by the work and his relationship to America and its values is really tested as an artist creating work. It's very 2021, Javier Speaker 1: 01:36 Again, Vegas is exhibition. Anti Quado is on view. Now through August 20th at the hill street country club in Oceanside heading to north park artists, Kim Sweeney is in residence at art produce and there'll be a community potluck with her tonight. Julia, tell us about Kim Sweeney's work and how we can check it out. Speaker 2: 01:56 So her work is really informed by food by intergenerational memory and her identity as a second generation, Cambodian American she's young. And I saw her work fish, Lupe soup at domestic geographies earlier this year. It's kind of about the way her own American childhood co-existed with her family history. And she also has a piece called Boba accident. And I, I just really love her bold use of oil paint and vivid colors that make these memories and little vignettes just really loud and striking. And it's super fitting that this closing reception involves food Speaker 1: 02:36 Artist in residence. Kim Sweeney's community potluck will take place in the art produce garden tonight from six to eight in Sherman Heights and unconventional place for art has a new curator in residence. Andrea, tell us about art power equities Kemal Martin, and which artist is on view next. Absolutely. Speaker 3: 02:56 So this is come on Martin second, showing at his residency with, um, JW communications. And so what he's doing is using this hundred plus year old Victorian house to show these works that are exploring so many interesting themes. And this current show with Andrew, um, outside what we're seeing are his really large-scale works being shrunk down. Um, so they're smaller, but there's such intense colors and conversations and that's kind of an art power and equities like at their base. They are trying to give a platform to artists of color, um, and other artists to have people look at their work in a different way to have their work be in a space where maybe they wouldn't have been seen before. So in this Victorian, um, home turned office there, insuran Heights, you know, the viewers will get a chance to be really up close with this work, which is normal mural size. Normally, you know, he's working at a big scale, but he's using the walls. He's making new work. It seems very, very exciting. Andrew Speaker 1: 03:55 Alka seeds, flowers and fields exhibition will open Saturday with an artist talk at three 30 at JW communications in Sherman Heights in San Ysidro, a new group exhibition, just to open that aims, to imagine a post-colonial post gender future. Julia, can you tell us a little bit about some of the works? Speaker 2: 04:15 Yeah. And this exhibition is called and we will sing in the tall grass. Again, it just opened with work by 13 artists. They're all kind of exploring a vision of a future without categories or without borders. And they're all emerging and young artists and curators all working in the Southern California region and all using a variety of mediums. Many of them look towards the past and the body. And one standout work for me is Larissa Rogers, her poetic of living. She gathered soil from two sites in her hometown of Charlottesville, Virginia that have ties to slavery. And she's mixing the soil at the gallery with soil, from the border here, forming it into the shapes of bodies and planting seeds that will grow over the course of the exhibition. So that's one of the works. Andrea, what Speaker 1: 05:08 Does this exhibition mean in the context of American independence? Speaker 3: 05:13 July is pride in, in San Diego and I think that's high level. The exhibit tells us that we're going post gender and this conversation about the intersection of non-conforming gender identities, as well as artists of color as it's one at the forefront of the American art conversation right now. And as America turns 245, um, this coming weekend, it's really still figuring out how we exist and how many identities show up, um, racially class-wise gender. Um, so I think what's happening in Santa Seadrill is going to be really on point with what we're exploring this weekend. And Speaker 1: 05:50 We will sing again in the tall grass as a group exhibition. Now on view at the front gallery and San Ysidro gallery hours are Tuesday through Thursday through September 1st for details on these and more events or to sign up for Julia's weekly arts newsletter, go to kpbs.org/arts to learn more about Andrea's culture mapping project, go to culture mapping sd.com. I'd been speaking with KPBS arts editor and producer, Julia Dickson Evans and San Diego cultural strategist and arts worker, Andrea Angie Chandler. And thank Speaker 3: 06:26 You. Bye. Thank you, Maureen. It was a pleasure, so many good collaborations happening in the San Diego art scene. Thank you for featuring them Speaker 2: 06:33 And thank you, Andrea, for joining us today. Have a great weekend.