Yerba Buena Cen­ter for the Arts Presents:

Occupy Bay Area
July 7-October 14, 2012
Gallery 3
$10 Reg­u­lar, $8 Stu­dents, Seniors, Dis­count
FREE for YBCA Mem­bers & YBCA:You
FREE first Tues­day of each month • Noon – 8 pm

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