February 8 - March 17, 2013
Opening Reception, February 8, 5:30-7:30pm

Using the innovative design-build process, this year UC Davis is hosting an architectural design competition that will produce three potential designs for the new Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. During Winter Quarter the Nelson Gallery invites you to participate in Design + Build an opportunity for students, faculty and the public to exhibit your original design for our museum.

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September 27 - December 16, 2012
Opening September 27, 5:30-7:30pm

Drawing is one of the oldest forms of art making, yet artists continue to find ways to evolve the tradition. In this exhibition artists will be shown who are extending drawing into very large scale, and examining "the line" per se. Bette Burgoyne of Seattle will show a very long drawing of white organic shapes on a spool of black paper, along with a video of the drawing being unrolled. Jim Denevan of Santa Cruz will show beach drawings he has executed that can literally be measured in miles. Jeff Eisenberg of San Francisco will show six-foot long pencil drawings of imaginary architecture, and Carol Bernard of Davis will show abstracted landscape pen and ink drawings of that same scale. Jim Melchert of Oakland will show two ceramic sculptures with jagged lines, as will UC Davis alum Julia Haft-Candell, from LA. Another alum, Hong Zhang, will show enormous drawings of her hair, recently on view at the Smithsonian in Washington DC. Finally, Michigan artist Larry Cressman will build a site-specific wall installation.

Image:
Hong Zhang
Twin Spirits #2
Jeff Eisenberg
Constant's Gomorrah

July 12 - August 18, 2012
Opening July 12, 5:30-7:30pm

Panel Discussion
July 12, 4:30pm
Stephen Kaltenbach, Liv Moe, and Ron Peetz

The Slant Step was a legendary art phenomenon that swept through the Davis art scene almost fifty years ago. It was initiated when William T. Wiley purchased an object from a thrift store as a gift for Bruce Nauman, his student at UC Davis at the time. The slant step, as they called it, had no identifiable use, but clearly had been built and used by someone for something over a long period of time. It became the inspiration for hundreds of iterations of slant step-inspired art works and became a major part of Davis art history. For the (sorta) fiftieth anniversary, Renny Pritikin, Nelson Director, and Joy Bertinuson, guest curator, have invited (sorta) fifty artists to mark the occasion with new slant step work. This exhibition will also be the fourth version of Pritikin's biennial survey of regional art, Flatlanders.

Image:
Ken Waterstreet
Meditation on the Nature of Art
oil on canvas
22" x 23"
Gina Werfel
Slant Steps
acrylic, mixed media on canvas
48"x 48"

June 8 - 29, 2012
Opening June 8, 5:30-7:30pm

Daniel Brickman
Kyle Dunn
Dani Galietti
Katherine Nulicek
Terry Peterson
Erika Romero
Jared Theis

Image:
Jared Theis
Farther Along, 2012
video still
Kyle Dunn
Pipes, 2012
Acrylic on PVC pipe
34" x 110" x 58"
Erika Romero
Untitled (installation piece), 2012
mixed media
9" x 13" x 17"
Daniel Brickman
(untitled), 2012 (detail)
multi-purpose glue-all, sawdust, sumi-e ink, white gold glitter
.5" x 4" x 96"
Dani Galietti
How to do a Forward Crossover, 2012
a performance
Katie Nulicek
We Are Watching , 2012 (detail)
wood, cardboard, paper, sumi ink
18" x 18" x 80"
Terry Peterson
Untitled, 2012 (detail)

March 29 - May 27, 2012
Opening March 29, 5:30-7:30pm

Two Northern California photographers are featured in the Spring exhibition at the Nelson Gallery: Dreams of the Darkest Night, with work by Vanessa Marsh and Sean McFarland. Both artists hold MFAs from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco and both practice experimental forms of photography. Marsh makes photograms, which are images made on photo paper without the use of a lens. The earliest celebrated practitioner of the form was the emigre American surrealist, Man Ray, in the early 20th century. Marsh has reinvigorated the genre with large narrative images that have the illusion of depth, and employ grays as well as blacks and whites. McFarland's most recent body of work are large color images from nature that are very dark, almost all black, giving the viewer the feeling the he or she is glimpsing a dream in the depths of the darkest night.

Images:
Top - Vanessa Marsh
Man Chopping Wood, 2010
photogram
Bottom - Sean McFarland
Untitled (mt. davidson), 2010
C-Print / 30 x 36 inches
Edition of 3

March 29 - May 27, 2012
Opening March 29, 5:30-7:30pm

Bruce Guttin, a UC Davis MFA alumnus from the early 70s who lives in Davis, had an interest in headwear even when he was a sculptor working in wood in the 1970s. He now designs extremely simple, inexpensive and charming hats for his own use. The Nelson has commissioned Guttin to make a selection of these hats; also on view will be related drawings and a sculpture.

Image:
Bruce Guttin
Hat, 2012

January 12 - March 18, 2012
Opening January 12, 5:30-7:30pm

An exhibition of new paintings by three acclaimed artists; Leslie Shows from San Francisco, Fred Tomaselli from Brooklyn, and Peter Edlund, long-time resident of San Francisco, now living in Brooklyn. All three artists derive their images from an interest in nature: Shows and Tomaselli use collage to depict harsh landscapes and birdlife respectively, while Edlund shows landscapes inspired by Native American language.

Images:
Top - Peter Edlund
Place of Magpies and Squirrel
Middle - Leslie Shows
Face M
Bottom - Fred Tomaselli
After Migrant Fruit Thugs, 2008
tapestry

September 29 - December 11, 2011
Opening September 29, 5:30-7:30pm

MacMurtrie, who lives in Brooklyn, NY, but was a long-time resident of San Francisco in the 80s and 90s, is a leader in the field of computer-driven kinetic sculpture. This exhibition will feature ten pairs of fabric bird wings that inflate, flap and deinflate in eerie grace and silence.

Image:
Chico MacMurtrie
Installation shot of Birds

July 8 - August 20, 2011
Artist Reception:
July 14, 5:30-7:30pm

Sacramento artist Nathan Cordero will have his first museum one person show at the Nelson Gallery at UC Davis from July 8th through August 20th. A self-taught artist, Cordero uses everyday images, especially cigarettes and people in his work, which often involves cutting into or drawing on doorskin or other kinds of found plywood. A new body of work involves cutting letters of the alphabet into large dry leaves. In addition to his imagistic work, Cordero also paints or cuts short phrases into wood, running all the letters together to make deciphering them difficult, abstracting them. The phrases are overhead bits of conversation, or things he has read, that strike his interest, in the tradition of such artists as Christopher Wool, Jenny Holzer, Ed Ruscha, and others.

SPECIAL DISCUSSION
August 12, 5-8pm

During the 2nd Friday ArtAbout in August the Nelson will be hosting a special discussion.

Schedule:
6pm - Renny Pritikin, the Nelson Gallery Director, will have an informal conversation with Nathan Cordero, the artist.
6:45 - Chris Daubert, local artist and Sac City College professor, will speak about the show.
7:15 - Tim Foster, editor of Sacramento's Midtown Monthly, will do the same.

Image:
Nathan Cordero
Imagine..., 2011

June 3 - 25, 2011
Opening June 3, 5:30-7:30pm

Jen Cohen
Lisa Rybovich Cralle
Manuel Fernando Rios
Benjamin Rosenthal
Matthew Taylor
Paul Taylor
Mathew Zefeldt

Image:
2011 MFA 2nd years

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March 31 - May 22, 2011
Opening March 31, 5:30-7:30pm

Guest Curated by Simon Sadler

When viewing these images-from a distance now approaching a half century-the context that must be kept in mind is that of extreme alienation. The imminent threat of the draft, and the hostility that students' antiwar stance brought down on them from almost every area of the culture, led many young people to fashion alternative social constructions. An assertive and optimistic parallel economy arose of alternative universities, alternative newspapers, alternative food co-ops, alternative arts organizations, alternative medicine, and of course, alternative architecture organized into alternative social constructions. Among these were thousands of utopian living arrangements, like Libre in Colorado, where Roberta Price found herself in the late sixties. This exhibition is made up of her documentary photography, one person's encounter with a part of American history, unusual in its intimate, sometimes poetic, insider viewpoint.

In addition to communalism, these rural outposts also became caught up in the back-to-the-land movement that sought to establish for its residents a direct relationship to the earth. In response to a perceived decadence in American materialism-seen as part of the war mentality-many young people embraced the old ambition to merge art and life. These photographs record the residents' fascination with place and creativity.

The most famous of these Southwest places was Drop City, which started with a small group of artists in 1965 but by the end of the sixties was overrun by visitors and media interest, a victim of its own celebrity. Less radical but more enduring was Libre, a successor founded nearby where the residents insisted on separation of the dwellings and less of an open-door policy. Each dwelling was unique, remarkable, an expression of its inhabitants' character and interests; some were based on traditional building techniques, while others were highly experimental, derived from the ideas of Buckminster Fuller and other experimental architects. Sex, drugs and rock'n'roll were clearly an integral part of the scene, but only as a thorough attempt to change life. In retrospect Libre and the other communes were an attempt to recapture the frontier myth and revolutionary zeal of America. What has most resonance for those of us living in the age of climate change and xenophobia was their early engagement-however clumsy, however romantic-with ideas of sustainability and cultural openness.

It can be argued that Libre and other communes mark the beginning of the end of America's unquestioned embrace of the suburban ideal by the first generation to grow up in that environment. That generation sought to reinvent community and its struggles were parallel to the investigations that led to Davis's own Baggins End (currently threatened with closure) and Village Homes.

Renny Pritikin and Simon Sadler
March 2011

Panel Discussion
March 31, 3:00 pm
Nelson Gallery

Moderated by Renny Pritikin, with Simon Sadler, Roberta Price, TCS Professor Jesse Drew and freelance curator Erin Elder.

Image:
Roberta Price
Reality Girls

March 31 - May 22, 2011
Opening March 31, 5:30-7:30pm

There are two art worlds. One is the one we read about in newspapers and magazines, the art world of jet-setting collectors, multimillion-dollar sales at far-flung art fairs, and museum blockbusters. The other art world is one in which artists and others are committed to rethinking what art can be in the 21st century. This is the art of the internet, of interactive works, and of what has come to be called social practice art.

Northern California traditionally has been a leader in developing new ideas about art, and the social practice movement is the most recent such development. Josh Greene is one of the young artists at its forefront. Social practice artists do not make traditional art objects like paintings or sculptures. What they are interested in is utilizing their role as artists to set up situations where people meet and community ties are strengthened, where the fabric of our culture is enhanced by shared experience, and the boundaries between artist and "civilian" are broken down.

Josh Greene augments these pursuits with the self-deprecating humor of a master satirist. When Greene was set to graduate from the California College of the Arts in San Francisco with his MFA, he wrote to his family and asked them what he should do for his MFA show. Their responses became what he exhibited. He later set up a program in which he donated several hundred dollars a month (from his earnings as a waiter in first-rate restaurants) to a fund for which he solicited proposals from artists and others in need of a microgrant. Recently, when he was asked to propose a project for the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, his initial idea was to have the museum host a clothing-optional day. They declined.

For the Nelson, Greene has made a work that is an echo of that MFA exhibition of almost a decade ago. He has asked his immediate relatives to consider all the projects he has done since leaving school, and offer him a critique of their least favorite. Their portraits and written responses are shared with us in this funny and poignant work. While superficially simplistic, the nuances of this exercise are profound: how are artists perceived in this culture? what is success? how responsible are artists to please their audiences? what values do we use to judge work? are we free agents or are our decisions utterly shaped by the families in which we grow up?

Renny Pritikin
Director

Image:
Josh Greene
Younger Brother

January 15- March 13, 2011
Opening January 15, 11am-5pm

One of the inaugural exhibitions at the Nelson Gallery's new home in the University Club.

Guest curator: Bill Berkson

Image:
Gordon Cook
Study for Storage Tank

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January 15- March 13, 2011
Opening January 15, 11am-5pm

One of the inaugural exhibitions at the Nelson Gallery's new home in the University Club.

Guest curator: Lee Plested

Image:
William T. Wiley
Scarecrow, 1975
aquatint etching on paper
10" x 8"

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October 7- December 12, 2010
Reception October 7, 5:30-7:30

Artists:
Abby Banks
Cutter Collective
Richard Gilles
Justine Kurland
Joel Sternfeld
Kyer Wiltshire

Guest Curator:
Matthias Geiger

Image:
Joel Sternfeld
Queen of the Prom, the Range Night Club, Slab City, California, March 2005
2005
C-print
From an edition of 7 and 3 artist's proofs
26 1/2" x 33 1/4"
Courtesy of the artist & Luhring Augustine New York, NY

July 8 - August 15, 2010
Reception July 8, 5:30-7:30pm

Suzanne Adan
Jim Albertson
Mitra Fabian
Ianna Frisby
Patrick Marasso
Irving Marcus
Jack Ogden
Michael Stevens

Image:
Ianna Frisby
Dress Pattern, 2010
embroidery on canvas

Entryway Gallery
July 8 - August 18, 2010

Image: C. Darcy Olsen
Untitled (shovel), c. 1977
wood
23" x 5" x 3"
Gift of Norman O. and Lois J. Jones in memory of Fredrick Lord

June 4 - 25, 2010
Reception June 4, 5:30-7:30pm
(The Nelson Gallery will be closed June 14-15 for campus closures.)

On view at the Nelson Gallery:
Johanna Barron
Aleksander Bohnak
Jingjing Gong
Traci Horgen
Linda Miller
Robert Machoian

On view at the Pence Gallery:
Hyung-Mo Chu
Joshua Pelletier
Christopher Woodcock

Images:
Robert Machoian
Robert Machoian from the series American Others, 2010
photograph

Christopher Woodcock
The Great Western Divide, 2010
C-Print

March 18 - May 23, 2010
Reception March 18, 5:30-7:30pm

Owen Smith is a nationally-respected Bay Area illustrator and artist. He is on the faculty in the design department of the California College of the Arts, in San Francisco. On view will be a range of recent drawings and paintings in his signature pulp fiction, 1930's style of realism. Owen Smith's illustration clients include Sports Illustrated, Time, Rolling Stone, and the New Yorker, for which he has created 15 cover illustrations. He has recently completed work on a new children's book for Simon and Schuster.

Image: Owen Smith
Krays