Category: Exhibitions

Art Prize, Exhibitions, Foundation News, Ojai Institute

Jovan C Speller: Sounds For Survival, November 20, 2021 – February 26, 2022

Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation is pleased to present Sounds For Survival, a solo exhibition project by Jovan C. Speller for the Ojai Institute. The exhibition will be on view November 20, 2021 – February 26, 2022. Speller is the recipient of the 2021 Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Minnesota Art Prize.

There will be a public reception to celebrate the opening on Saturday, November 20, 2021, from 5-7 pm.

248 South Montgomery Street, Ojai

Jovan C. Speller is a multidisciplinary artist based in Northern Minnesota. Her work – visual, textual and performative – interprets historic narratives through contemporary discourse. Her research based practice is centered around elevating, complicating and inventing stories that explore ancestry, identity, and spatial memory – making the intangible tangible and the invisible visible.

Exhibitions, Foundation News, The Gallery at Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara

Scott Johnson: Uncommon Ground, The Gallery at Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara, October 30 – December 31, 2021

Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation is pleased to present Uncommon Ground, a solo exhibition project by Scott Johnson for the Gallery at Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara. The exhibition will be on view October 30 – December 31, 2021. 

There will be a public reception to celebrate the opening on Saturday, October 30, 2021, from 5-7pm. 

Uncommon Ground features recent works that incorporate collage and three dimensional surfaces in an array of experiments in shape and form. Johnson, a voracious visual consumer of contemporary culture, creates layer upon layer of image, paint, and board to create dynamic and often colorful compositions. Our world of glossy magazines, models, actors, political figures and the anonymous are embedded, torn, and turned every which way. One experiences his artwork in almost a bricolage fashion, as disparate materials are brought together in an idiosyncratic visual language of his own making. Johnson references and pays homage to many artists and cultural producers past and present all the while steadfastly building his own path forward. 

Scott Johnson was born in California and educated at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley (BA in Architecture) and the Harvard Graduate School of Design (Master in Architecture), Johnson worked variously at The Architects Collaborative in Cambridge, the Los Angeles and San Francisco offices of Skidmore Owings Merrill, and the office of Philip Johnson and John Burgee in New York City. Joining Pereira Associates in Los Angeles in 1983 as Principal and Design Director, he and William Fain acquired the firm now known as Johnson Fain in 1988. 

Recent exhibitions of his artwork include, It’s Art If I Say It’s Art. Otherwise It’s Not, Eastern Projects Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; Looking at Architecture, Porch Gallery, Ojai, CA, and HÔTEL: A Concert Exhibition, Ojai, CA.

In addition to designing nearly 100 built projects in the past 20 years, Johnson has also taught and lectured at various universities. He served as Director of the Master of Architecture Programs at the University of Southern California’s School of Architecture from 2004 through 2007. 

He is the author of the publications Uncommon Ground:  Notes on the Visual Arts + Architecture (2021), Essays on the Tall Building and the City, as well as Performative Skyscraper Tall Building Design Now, Tall Building: Imagining the Skyscraper, Tectonics of Place: The Architecture of Johnson Fain, and The Big Idea: Criticality and Practice in Contemporary Architecture.

The Gallery at Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara is a unique public-private partnership that seeks to raise funds to support the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation’s Ojai Institute artist residency and education programs. You may learn more online at www.theojaiinstitute.org and www.cgbfoundation.org.

Art Prize, Events, Exhibitions, Foundation News, Ojai Institute

Porfirio Gutiérrez: Continuous Line, Linea Continua – June 5 – September 4, 2021

Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation is pleased to announce the Ojai Institute exhibition Porfirio Gutiérrez: Continuous Line, Linea Continua, on view June 5 – September 4, 2021. There will be a public opening reception on Saturday June 5, from 5-7pm, the artist will be present.

Recipient of the 2021 Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Art Prize, Porfirio Gutiérrez’s solo exhibition, Continuous Line, Linea Continua, is the first for the artist in the region. He is an artist advisor for the upcoming exhibition Cosmovisión Indígena: The Intersection of Indigenous Knowledge and Contemporary Art at Santa Barbara City College’s Atkinson Gallery, organized with the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation and the Santa Barbara Office of Arts and Culture, part of The Getty Foundation’s 2024 Pacific Standard Time initiative.

Continuous Line, Linea Continua features five new unique textile pieces that will be shown for the first time. Each piece is stretched and framed and intended exclusively to hang on the wall. Some of the pieces feature embroidered embellishments that accentuate the bold lines of his highly minimal and graphic design vocabulary. This will be a very unique opportunity to experience the dynamic intersection of generations of Indigenous knowledge and a contemporary artistic practice. With the surge in popularity of artisan crafts, textiles that were intended traditionally as blankets became understood and used as carpets. Now, Porfirio challenges the traditional use value by again redefining purpose, and expanding upon the fluid tradition of Zapotec textile knowledge.

Gutiérrez is a California-based Zapotec textile artist and natural dyer, born and raised in the richly historic Zapotec textile community of Teotitlán del Valle in Oaxaca, Mexico. He grew up immersed in color and surrounded by the wildness of Oaxaca’s mountains, and by the knowledge of plants for healing and for color. His life’s work has been revitalizing and preserving traditional Zapotec natural dye techniques with a focus on reinterpreting traditional textiles and materials to reflect his distinct creative vision.

Working in both Ventura, California, and Oaxaca, Mexico, Gutiérrez’s art practice maintains his ancestor’s spiritual belief in nature as a living being, sacred and divine. His grounding in Zapotec traditional knowledge manifests in his textiles, reinterpreting the traditional weaving language, subverting and re-imagining the symbols and forms, morphing his textile designs toward the fractal forms and spaces of architecture and the movement he sees in cities and urban environments.

Gutiérrez is a truly American artist, moving freely across the imposed borders between his two countries, as his ancestors and many other Indigenous peoples have done for thousands of years. His designs draw deeply on his experiences of two cultures, moving between the traditional and the modern, but always reliant on the deep knowledge and spiritual dimensions of his work. Gutiérrez’s practice is an offering to the land and celebrates the people who now call this land home.

The story of his art has been told in The New York Times, PBS, and the BBC World Service, London. Gutiérrez has been featured in Vogue Magazine and the Smithsonian’s American Indian Magazine. In 2015, he received the Smithsonian Institution’s Artist in Leadership fellowship award. His work is in the collection of the Museo Nacional de Culturas Populares, Fomento Cultural Banamex, and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Indian. A selection of Gutiérrez’s dye materials was also documented and added to Harvard Art Museums’ Forbes Pigment Collection, the world-renowned archive of artist materials.

Related events:

Opening Reception: Porfirio Gutiérrez: Continuous Line, Linea Continua – Saturday, June 5, 2021
Free and open to the public. Artist present. Ojai Institute Member Dinner to follow for members at the Founder’s Circle level and above. To learn more about membership please visit: www.cgbfoundation.org/membership.

Art Prize Gala in Two Parts, Part 1 – Saturday, June 26, 2021
Ticketed fundraiser to benefit the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, Margaret Bates & Scott Johnson Residence, Ojai, California. Individual tickets start at $150 per person, and tables start at $2,500. Event will feature a Porfirio Gutiérrez Studio Pop-up and a Curated Oaxacan Marketplace.

Artist & Ideas Festival: Cosmovisión Indígena Symposium – July, 2021
Free hybrid virtual and in person three day symposium. Produced in support of the research for the exhibition Cosmovisión Indígena: The Intersection of Indigenous Knowledge and Contemporary Art at Atkinson Gallery at Santa Barbara City College, organized with the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation and the Santa Barbara Office of Arts and Culture, part of The Getty Foundation’s 2024 Pacific Standard Time initiative.

Immersive Cultural Experience: Porfirio Gutiérrez Studio – August 7, August 14
Satisfy your wanderlust and immerse yourself in a unique cultural experience at the studio of Porfirio Gutiérrez in Ventura, California. A dynamic workshop and learning laboratory offers the only opportunity outside of visiting Oaxaca, to experience the multigenerational traditional knowledge of the Zapotec people as it pertains to natural pigment dyes and weaving practices. During these half-day experiences at the studio where you will have the opportunity to dip your hands in the dyeing vat and dye your own cochineal wool scarf. You will enjoy a traditional lunch at the studio where you will have the opportunity to try Porfirio’s mother’s recipes, recipes that have not changed much from thousands of years. The highlight of the experience is a natural dye and weaving demonstration and a deep dive into the spiritual dimension in his artistic practice. Cost: $500 per person, space is limited.

Quantity:Date:Amount:Description:
December 11250.00 USD2 hour experience
December 18500.00 USD4 hour experience, scarf, lunch
Your confirmation will be emailed after payment is complete

Art Prize Gala in Two Parts, Part 2: October 2, 2021
Ticketed fundraiser to benefit the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, Jennie Prebor & Fred Fisher Residence, Ojai, California. Individual tickets start at $150 per person, and tables start at $2,500. Event will feature a Porfirio Gutiérrez Studio Pop-up and a Curated Oaxacan Marketplace.

Events, Exhibitions, Foundation News, Ojai Institute

Lynell George & Janna Ireland In Conversation Friday, April 9, 2021

Lynell George & Janna Ireland in conversation
Friday, April 9, 2021, 5:00 pm PST
Zoom Webinar
Click to Register

Special thanks to Angel City Press.

Join us for a conversation between Lynell George and Janna Ireland, both of whom had book projects published by Angel City Press in the fall of 2020. George’s A Handful of Earth, a Handful of Sky, the World of Octavia E. Butler, explores Butler’s world, creating a sense of unmatched intimacy with the deeply private writer. Regarding Paul R. Williams: A Photographer’s View is a photographic exploration of the work of the first licensed Black architect west of the Mississippi River. Known as “Hollywood’s Architect”, Paul Revere Williams was a Los Angeles native who built a wildly successful career as an architect decades before the Civil Rights Movement.

On the occasion of the conversation between Janna Ireland and Lynell George on Friday, April 9, 2021, we are offering a special 20% discount if you purchase their combined three books. Free local delivery!

Follow the links below to purchase books individually:

Janna Ireland: Regarding Paul R. Williams, A Photographer’s View (2020)
Regular price: $50.00

Lynell George: A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky, The World of Octavia Butler (2020)
Regular price: $30.00

Lynell George: After/Image Los Angeles Outside the Frame
Regular price: $30.00

 

Events, Exhibitions, Foundation News, Ojai Institute

Intimate Perspective on Legacy: Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena, Saturday, January 30, 2021

Intimate Perspective on Legacy
Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena, Escher GuneWardena Architecture
Saturday, January 30, 2021, 5:00 pm PST on Zoom

Please Click Here to Register 

This conversation will be structured around a visual presentation by Escher and GuneWardena featuring their architectural restoration and conservation efforts beginning with the family home of Paul R. Williams, as well as the architecture of A. Quincy Jones, and Gregory Ain. The conversation will explore the impact and legacy of Williams on Mid-Century architecture and social justice efforts in Los Angeles. Hosted by Janna Ireland and Frederick Janka, Executive Director of the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, on the occasion of the Ojai Institute exhibition project Janna Ireland: Looking In, Looking Out.

Closed captioning will be available for this program.

The extraordinary range of projects of Escher GuneWardena Architecture – small, conceptually rigorous projects; ecologically and socially innovative urban design proposals; and work in the fields of contemporary art and architectural history – reflects the broad cultural interests of the firm’s principals, Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena. They frequently collaborate with internationally known contemporary artists, thinkers, consultants, and cultural institutions such as the MAK Center, The Eames Foundation, and The Getty Conservation Institute.

Escher GuneWardena address issues of sustainability, affordability, the relationship between form and construction, seeking to establish simple formal manifestations of the complexities of each project. New residential projects include the Jamie Residence, the Sola/Wright Residence, and the House with Five Corners. Work on historic structures includes restoration of John Lautner’s Chemosphere as well as of his personal residence, Phase 1 restoration work at the Eames House, restoration of Paul R. Williams’s personal residence, restoration of Gregory Ain’s Greene Residence, and an extensive restoration of A. Quincy Jones’s historic Pilot House.

Their work was recognized in the 2003 National Design Triennial, and in OPEN HOUSE: Intelligent Living by Design (2007, Vitra and Art Center, Pasadena).

Escher GuneWardena was a finalist in creating master plans for Linc.LA (2011), a Cleantech Manufacturing development in the Cleantech Corridor of Los Angeles. Currently, the firm is in the design phase for two master plan projects, the Woodland Nature Center, a Buddhist monastery campus and cultural center in the San Gabriel Mountains; and St. Michael’s Campus, a Franciscan monastery and agricultural community in Riverside, California.

The firm’s interest in contemporary art has led to various art related projects and collaborations with artists: Blum & Poe gallery in Los Angeles; numerous installations for Sharon Lockhart, Mike Kelley, Olafur Eliasson, and Stephen Prina. Major exhibitions designed by Escher GuneWardena are the 55th Carnegie International (CMOA, Pittsburgh), Mike Kelly: Eternity is a Long Time (Hanger Bicocca, Milano); Between Earth and Heaven: the Architecture of John Lautner (Hammer Museum; co-curated by Frank Escher and Nicholas Olsberg); “Little Review” Sharon Lockhart’s installation in the Polish Pavilion at the 2017 Venice Biennale; and The Jeweled Isle: Art from Sri Lanka at LACMA (2018-2019).

Frank Escher, trained at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH, Zürich), is the editor of the monograph “John Lautner, Architect,” was the administrator for the John Lautner Archive (1995-2007), and serves on the boards of the John Lautner Foundation, the Julius Shulman Institute, and the Los Angeles Forum for Architecture and Urban Design. He is also an advisor to the Neutra Institute. Ravi GuneWardena, originally from Sri Lanka, studied architecture at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona and art history in Florence, Italy, and served on the Hollywood Public Art Advisory Panel for the CRA/LA. He is currently the director of the Los Angeles branch of the Sogetsu School of Ikebana. Escher and GuneWardena have been visiting professors at Cal Poly Pomona, University of Southern California (Escher), and Walsh Distinguished Visiting Professors at University of Oregon. They were recently visiting professors at the Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL, Lausanne) for the 2016-2017 academic year.

In June of 2017, Clocks and Clouds, a monograph of the firm’s work, was released by Birkhäuser in conjunction with their retrospective exhibition at the Art, Design, and Architecture Museum at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in summer 2017.

Events, Exhibitions, Foundation News, Ojai Institute

Janna Ireland: Looking In, Looking Out – January 8 – April 3, 2021

Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation is pleased to present Looking In, Looking Out, Janna Ireland’s Ojai Institute solo exhibition project, on view January 8 – April 3, 2021.

Looking In, Looking Out features new photographs created during the last year viewable through the front window and by appointment. The exterior windows feature large scale images of an Ojai home by Paul R. Williams, printed on translucent vinyl. These works expand upon her ongoing engagement with his architecture through her photography, and are presented here for the first time in color. Individual works inside the gallery space were made during the last year while the artist was at home with her family, and feature the artist’s children.

To make an appointment please contact Frederick Janka, Executive Director: [email protected]

Janna Ireland was born in Philadelphia, but has chosen Los Angeles as her home. She holds an MFA from the UCLA Department of Art and a BFA from the Department of Photography and Imaging at NYU. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Chicago, and in group exhibitions across the United States and internationally. She has been published in Aperture, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Art Papers, Vice, and The Los Angeles Times. Her first monograph, Regarding Paul R. Williams was published by Angel City Press this fall and is available for purchase online at the Ojai Institute Bookshop.

Special thanks to: Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Board, Ojai Institute Members, Rick Ridgeway, Summer Camp, John Connelly, Heidi Volpe, and Two Fish Digital.

Virtual event program:

Intimate Perspective on Legacy
Frank Escher and Ravi GuneWardena, Escher GuneWardena Architecture
Saturday, January 30, 2021, 5:00 pm PST

This conversation will be structured around a visual presentation by Escher and GuneWardena featuring their architectural restoration and conservation efforts beginning with the family home of Paul Revere Williams, as well as the architecture of A. Quincy Jones, and Gregory Ain. The conversation will explore the impact and legacy of Williams on Mid-Century architecture and social justice efforts in Los Angeles. Hosted by Janna Ireland and Frederick Janka, Executive Director of the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation, on the occasion of the Ojai Institute exhibition project Janna Ireland, Looking In, Looking Out.

Picturing Intimacy
Janna Ireland, Catherine Opie, Paul Mpagi Sepuya
Friday, March 26, 2021, 5:00 pm PST

A panel discussion with three Los Angeles based artists who explore bodies, intimacy, and domestic interiors in their respective practices.

Lynell George & Janna Ireland in conversation
Friday, April 9, 2021, 5:00 pm PST
Zoom Webinar
Click to Register

Image: Janna Ireland, Ojai House, Number 4, 2020

Exhibitions, Foundation News

Cave Painting, Painted Cave at The Gallery at Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara

Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation is pleased to share works from the exhibition Cave Painting/Painted Cave currently on view online and at The Gallery at Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara. The exhibition includes works by Alison Andersson, Porfirio Gutiérrez, Cole M James, Linda Karshan, Deborah Kerner, Muna Malik, Yassi Mazandi, P.Lyn, Tom Pazderka, Cole Sternberg, and Richard Waxberg. Additional works are on loan from the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Collection by Bob Branaman, and Sharon Louden. 

Artists have looked to the enigmatic world of cave paintings for centuries, and perhaps even more so during times of fear and doubt. This exhibition explores the inherently human need to make marks, share knowledge and community, and look to the past for answers about our current realities. We are working with the assumption that Modernism owes a huge debt to non-western and indigenous cultures and the works in this exhibition celebrate mark making and gesture through a raw yet highly sophisticated use of material and form. In no way does this attempt to depict, replicate, or pastiche the past, but imagines an aesthetic exploration that draws threads of thought and inspiration through personal vocabularies of marks and signs. This is an attempt to underline art making as multi-generational knowledge of land, flora, fauna, and cosmology that unites us as humans around the world.

In deciding to produce this exhibition the desire was also to draw attention to our own regional connection to the vast global network of cave painting. Alaxuluxen, the Chumash name for the Chumash Painted Cave State Historic Park is situated on the edge of the traditional Barbareño Chumash territory, which ranged from the Pacific coast to the foothills and southern slopes of the Santa Ynez Mountains. With a population of over 15,000 before European contact, the Barbareño Chumash were one of the largest and most influential tribes in California. Today’s modern city of Santa Barbara, at the base of the Santa Ynez Mountains, was the capital city of the Barbareño, then called Syukhtun. A 3D digital presentation of the site is now available online thanks to CyArk in partnership with the Santa Ynez Valley Union High School. (www.cyark.org/projects/chumash-painted-cave). 

We acknowledge that we are on unceded ancestral lands of the Coastal Band of the Chumash people. In honoring the past, present, and future generations of Chumash people who have stewarded this land for thousands of years, we also acknowledge the ongoing legacies of settler colonialism.

The Gallery at Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara is a hybrid model of public-private partnership between the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation and the Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara. Previously the site of a five year partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art Santa Barbara as a satellite exhibition space, this current partnership builds on this artistic legacy while raising critically needed funds for operations for the foundation and direct artist support. Proceeds from the sale of select works are shared between the artists and the foundation. Special thanks to the artists, the Carolyn Glasoe Bailey Foundation Board, the team at Hotel Indigo Santa Barbara, Laurie & Marc Recordon, Grazka Taylor, John Connelly, and TwoFish Digital. 

Works are on view online, as well as in person to hotel guests and by appointment. To schedule an appointment please email [email protected], appointments are highly limited at this current time and require following covid safety protocol.

Image: Deborah Kerner, Motif for a Nighttime Journey, 2020

Arts Education at CGBF, Exhibitions, Foundation News, Ojai Institute

Year One: Ojai Institute Family Art Experience Kit – free download

Introducing the Ojai Institute Family Art Experience Kit!

We are pleased to share this new effort to continue to provide free art experiences during these unprecedented times. Learn things, get free stuff, dream big.

Visit the exhibition,
interpret the constitution,
be a mail activist,
go on a poster scavenger hunt,
and for extra credit, draw a map…

Each individual or family receives free merch each time they complete a project! Free buttons, stickers, posters, yard signs and t-shirts!

Please click here to download PDF.

Events, Exhibitions, Foundation News, Ojai Institute

Janna Ireland in Conversation: Saturday, October 24, 2020

You are invited to join us for a conversation with Los Angeles based photographer Janna Ireland this Saturday, October 24, at 5:00 PM PST / 8:00 PM EST.

Please click here to RSVP for this Zoom event

Janna Ireland was born in Philadelphia, but has chosen Los Angeles as her home. She holds an MFA from the UCLA Department of Art and a BFA from the Department of Photography and Imaging at NYU. Her work has been shown in solo exhibitions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New Orleans, and Chicago, and in group exhibitions across the United States and internationally. She has been published in Aperture, The New Yorker, Harper’s, Art Papers, Vice, and The Los Angeles Times. Her first monograph, Regarding Paul R. Williams, was published by Angel City Press in 2020.

The Ojai Institute will present a solo exhibition project with Janna Ireland opening January 8, 2021, and on view through April 3, 2021. 

Janna Ireland’s first monograph, Regarding Paul R. Williams, is now available for purchase from The Ojai Institute Bookstore. Click here to learn more

Exhibitions, Foundation News, Ojai Institute

Year One By Cole Sternberg: October 16 – December 31, 2020

The Ojai Institute will present Year One starting October 16, 2020, an exhibition project by artist Cole Sternberg that will feature an installation on the exterior of our building and within the front window gallery, the launch of our new digital Family Art Experience Kits with a digital event program, and a site specific outdoor installation throughout the Ojai Valley using yard signs and poster interventions.

The Ojai Institute is the official education partner for The Free Republic of California, and the platform will offer first hand actionable engagement with the ideas and history presented by The Free Republic of California. Learn more by visiting www.TheFreeRepublicofCalifornia.com

We invite you to support Year One by making a purchase or by making a donation in any amount.