Curatorial Projects > Blueprints (2005)

Blueprints

June 18 - July 30, 2005
Intersection for the Arts
San Francisco, CA

A group exhibition featuring work by Conrad Atkinson, Claudia Bernardi, Carolyn Ryder Cooley, Su-Chen Hung, Stephanie Johnson, Kush, Julio Cesar Morales, Jos Sances, Tracey Snelling, and Geddes Ulinskas & Stephanie Wong

2005 marks Intersection for the Arts' 40th Anniversary. This exhibition is a time machine, conceived to be both a reflection back and an imagining forward as we head into Intersection's fifth decade of community-based cultural work. Where have we been? Where are we now? Where are we going? Blueprints speaks to the notion that history is charged and lodged in physical material and in the earth, and in the very walls, floors, streets, and crevices of the buildings and neighborhoods that Intersection has inhabited over the years. The eleven participating artists explore how alternative art and history leave their mark in and on our buildings, within our communities, and throughout our society.

Working from intensive research packets assembled by Intersection, each artist has been introduced not only to the many layers of Intersection's history, but also to the many levels of cultural, political, and social history on regional, national, and global scales. We want the past to come alive, inspiring us to imagine the world again.

Although Intersection has been located in several buildings throughout San Francisco, we are focusing on three buildings that we have been fortunate enough to call home for a number of years - 756 Union Street, 766 Valencia Street, and our current building at 446 Valencia Street. From a church in North Beach, to a mortuary and furniture store in the Mission District, Intersection has resided in buildings that have been an integral component to the fabric of these communities even prior to those sites being re-used as a community cultural space.

One of the more endearing aspects about Intersection’s history has been these buildings and neighborhoods that we have inhabited over four decades. Artists, community and audience members, can all remember a certain performance, exhibition, or reading in the rooms in which they took place – the lighting, the smell, the temperature. Have you had the experience of visiting a place and being overcome with specific feelings and emotions, even if you have never been there before? Architecture lives in memory and memory itself is architectural. Art permeates our lives. Yet, we take these things for granted.

Each day - as our own democracy falters and our children are born into a world without access to art - it becomes more and more essential that we reflect upon, understand, and assert the critical necessity of alternative art and culture, alternative modes of expression, and alternative approaches to broader global concerns. With this exhibition, we want to explore how the work and legacy left by thousands of pioneering artists nurtured by Intersection since 1965 have left their mark in and on our buildings, within our communities, and throughout our society.