Alternative Universe: OCCCA at 35
35th Anniversary Show
September 5 - 26, 2015
Opening Reception September 5, 6-10pm
Special Dance Performance at 8pm by: EMBARK Dance Theatre
*Note, the gallery will be closed on the 19th for a private event
Gina Genis, From the Dead Daffodils Series, 2015, archival pigment print, 11" x 14"
The story of OCCCA's thirty-five year presence as the premiere alternative space in the OC is nearly equivalent to famous alternative spaces in LA, New York and Chicago.
OCCCA is something we can all be proud of. To tell this tale, OCCCA needs your art. Alternative Universe: OCCCA at 35 will be a re-union exhibition of gloriously eclectic art and artists, with a beguiling variety of mediums and styles expressing the varied interests of OCCCA's artist-members through the years. The exhibition catalog will include vintage ephemera from past shows, artist statements, exhibited art work, biographies, and reminiscences about the highs and lows of life in an artists' co-op, the agony and the ecstasy - so to speak. The exhibition opens Saturday night, September 5, 2015, the night of the Santa Ana Artwalk and runs through Saturday, September 26, 2015.
Kebe Fox, Hole Peace, 2015, Mixed Media on Canvas, 30" x 24"
Featured Artists: Alexandria Allan, Evalynn J. Alu, Jeff Alu, Stephen Anderson, Barbara Berk, Rich Bohn, Angie Bray, John Breitweiser, Victoria Chapman, Marcia Louise Cox, Jeffrey Crussel, Leslie Davis, Kebe Fox, Diana Frawley, Jeffrey Frisch, Suvan Geer, Gina Genis, Courtney Gordon, Pamela Grau, Wolfgang Gowin, Jacqueline Hud, Francoise Issaly, Beverly Jacobs, Melanie Kehoss, Echo Lew, Joella March, Nancy Mooslin, Pamela Mower-Conner, Ann Phong, Xtina Ponce, Annabella Pritchard, Robin Repp, Carol Saidon, Sergio Salgado, Ellen Shahbazian, Joy Shannon, Craig Sibley, Paul Silkowski, Gregg Stone, Jane Szabo, UFORA (Rob Mintz and Dali Polivka), R.W. Tartter, Shorty Vasalli, Carolyn Yarnell, Kurt Weston
Jane Szabo, Hallway, 2014, archival pigment print, 35" x 25"
There is growing interest among contemporary art historians in “alternative spaces” and the important role they have played in the art world. Judson Memorial Church, 98 Greene Street, PS 1, White Columns, Franklin Furnace, as well as LACE and The Woman’s Building in L.A. just to name a few, are all now legendary. This is an opportunity for the past members of OCCCA to insure that when the future history of art in the OC is written, their contribution to it will be included. Since the beginning of the alternative space movement in the 1960s, small, community-based galleries have taken up the cause of art and artists previously excluded by the museums. The movement owes a great deal to the first men and women artists who ventured into questionably safe neighborhoods to take advantage of very low rent to create small-scale, nonprofit, fiercely independent institutions by and for artists. Group Material’s manifesto “Caution! Alternative Space!” (1982) with its passionate idealism and fiery rhetoric, reminds us of the charged political climate in the art world when the founders of OCCCA, graduate students from Cal State Fullerton, decided to create a flexible, multifaceted venue with just enough structure to prevent it from imploding. Most artist-run galleries, are ultimately absorbed back into the space-time continuum. OCCCA’s great distinction is to have survived splendidly intact for 35 years --- thanks to the ingeniously resilient and rhizomatic organizational structure devised by OCCCA’s young founders. Alternative Universe: OCCCA at 35, is a month long examination of a rambunctious history --- and a celebration of the artists who made it possible.
Ann Phong, Human Traces on Earth, 2015, mixed media, 20" x 20" x 20"
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