The Schoolhouse and the Bus
AD&A Museum at UC Santa Barbara, California, 2017
Featuring The Skin of Memory by Suzanne Lacy and Pilar Riaño-Alcalá
This exhibition pairs, for the first time, work by two of the leading artists of the social practice movement. Suzanne Lacy based in Los Angeles, is among the first generation of artists who began making art founded on public participation with the goal of empowerment or change in a community. Pablo Helguera, a Mexican artist based in New York City, represents the next generation of social practice artists influenced by Lacy’s works, writings and teachings. The Schoolhouse and the Bus highlights a touchstone work by each of the artists (with anthropologist Pilar Riaño-Alcalá in collaboration with Lacy), executed in the Americas but never shown in their entirety in the US. Comprising installation, collage, sculpture, ephemera, photography, video, as well as archival documentation, this exhibition will serve to highlight overlapping themes in their works which include immigration, pedagogy, race, violence, memory, and social organizing.
This exhibition has been curated by Elyse A. Gonzales, Assistant Director/Curator of Exhibitions, AD&A Museum and Sara Reisman, Executive and Artistic Director, The Shelley & Donald Rubin Foundation, and is an official participant of the Getty initiative, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. Exhibition traveled to The 8th Floor in NYC, 2018.
Discussion between Suzanne Lacy and Pablo Helguera can be seen here: http://bit.ly/2z1uJXY