Art Dispatch • Stay Connected • Local Art Experiences Available Online
There’s a meme going around: if you think art is nonessential, try making it through the quarantine without photos, books, music or movies.
Galleries and museums around the world have uploaded virtual tours of their exhibitions to engage with their patrons while the space-based art experience is temporarily on hold. Dispatches from our shared cultural experience, these efforts are markers of a history of art that extends well beyond this moment; reminders that the mechanisms of art—human, social and institutional—will push forward through this crisis as it has many times before. Not everything will return to what it was, but when it comes to art, creativity and innovation, there is always more work to do be done.
By the end of the second week in March, like most cultural sectors, the art world in Santa Barbara and Ventura counties had all but ground to a halt. Museums and galleries sent workers home and closed their doors—postponing and divesting exhibitions, activities and programs.
As the dust clears on the emergency actions taken, many art institutions have sent out missives to the world with swiftly composed portals for virtual and remote art activities that not only can help the community find meaning and connection in days filled with uncertainty, but also provide a needed lifeline to these beloved art spaces, many of which are currently fighting for their lives.
We at Lum Art Zine encourage our friends and readers to continue to support our art galleries and museums, including artists, curators, art handlers and all other art professionals that devote their lives to research, build and transform the spaces that move you to see the world with more complexity. If you have no money to spare, as many of us do not, you can support the region’s art sector by visiting online and remote art programming from local sources and encouraging others to do the same.
Lum Art Zine has composed a list of local art experiences currently available online. We hope you will visit these art spaces from a distance until we can once again gather together in the white cube.
Local Art Experiences Available Online
Nathlie Provosty, Council, Untitled (16-38) (detail), 2016. Watercolor on paper, diptych. SBMA, Museum purchase with funds provided by The Basil Alkazzi Acquisition Fund, 2018.10.2a,b. © Nathlie Provosty.
Santa Barbara Museum of Art
See Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s current exhibition, “In the Meanwhile...Recent Acquisitions of Contemporary Art,” by way of virtual walk through with the museum’s new curator of contemporary art, James Glisson. SBMA is also filling their Facebook feed with museum-collection focused prompts for activities and conversations.
Cole M. James at the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation. Photo Debra Herrick
The Ojai Institute, Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation
Launched at the end of March, the Ojai Institute Online is the artist-centric initiative of the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation. The inaugural exhibition for the foundation’s new virtual art and e-commerce platform features works by LA-based artist Cole M. James. In her multidisciplinary work, James navigates themes of the African Diaspora and the expansive terrains of queerness and womanhood.
Hank Pitcher, published by Sullivan Goss.
Sullivan Goss – An American Gallery
The Downtown Santa Barbara gallery, Sullivan Goss, has released a new book of works by artist Hank Pitcher which is available for purchase and delivery. Featuring 211 full color illustrations, the publication offers a rich experience for readers to take in a Central Coast art favorite from the comfort of their homes. The TOC includes an introduction by Jeremy Tessmer and essays and remarks by Jennifer Samet, Mitchell Kriegman, Reed Lockhart, Michael Drury, Hank Pitcher and “Tommy.” Sullivan Goss is also keeping social media channels lively.
David Paul Bayles, Sell, 2016, Digital photographic print, Wildling Museum Collection.
The Wildling Museum, Solvang
For “Stay-at-Home” art appreciators Solvang’s The Wildling Museum has created a virtual visit page on their website with online galleries of all works in the current shows, including the exhibitions “Starry Nights: Visions of the Night Sky” and “Santa Barbara County and Beyond: Recent Photographic Landscapes by George Rose.”
The Wildling Museum has also opened its 2020 juried photography competition, Critters of the Tri-County Region, which is open to both adult and youth photographers, and can be done from the photographers' own backyard.
Genevieve Gaignard, Smell the Roses, 2016, Chromogenic print, 32 x 48 in. (81.28 x 121.92 cm), Courtesy the Artist and Vielmetter Los Angeles.
Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara
Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara and Santa Barbara Public Library are co-hosting a curator talk with Alexandra Terry that will be streamed online. The talk, part of the library’s monthly series, “Exploring Art,” will center on MCASB’s most recent exhibition, “Bloom Projects: Genevieve Gaignard, Outside Looking In.”
Mark Churchill, “In an Airplane over the Sea”
The Basic Premise
The Basic Premise, Ojai is invigorating their Instagram feed daily with images from their current exhibition of ceramic art by Mark Churchill, “A Cloudless Sky a Dustless Earth”. The gallery’s website also has a record of images from past exhibitions with many works still available for purchase.
John Langdon, “Oil on canvas”
Abstract Art Collective of Santa Barbara
The Abstract Art Collective has opened their first virtual exhibition, “Open to Abstraction.” The show was originally set to be on view at the Faulkner Gallery and was juried by Jeremy Tessmer, gallery director and curator of vintage American art at Sullivan Goss Gallery.
David Powdrell, “Pre-Dawn Rincon”
Lynda Fairly Carpinteria Arts Center
The Carpinteria Arts Center has launched Virtual Activities featuring art activities, streaming concerts and virtual tours of museums and private collections. The arts center has also introduced a collaborative art room for community artists to virtually share recent work—visual art, music and poetry—and to take mini art lessons led by arts center instructors.
Offering virtual art programming in the Santa Barbara or Ventura area and want to be included on our list? Contact editor@lumartzine.com.
