Past Exhibitions 1980–1989
The Bay Area art scene continued to expand in the ‘80s — a decade know for excess wealth, political conservatism, punk and new wave, a preoccupation with mass media, and a devastating AIDS epidemic. BAC offered a variety of juried shows, poetry readings, and exhibitions focused on social narratives that reflected the rapidly changing times. BAC was briefly closed after an arson fire in 1981 and reopened in 1982.
Archive Highlights
At Berkeley’s first Multicultural Arts Festival, Berkeley Art Museum founder PETER SELZ was invited to jury an exhibition of local artists at BAC in 1988. In the catalog foreword Selz wrote: “If anything can be said about the art of the 1980s, it is the plurality of stylistic form.” Artists included ELMER BISCHOF, ROBERT BRADY, CHRISTOPHER BROWN, ROBERT CARABAS, ENRIQUE CHAGOYA, JAMES COOK, STEPHEN DE STAEBLER, SOHELA FAROKHI, RUPERT GARCIA, OLIVER JACKSON, BETTY KANO, SYLVIA LARK, MARY LOVELACE O’NEAL, JEAN RAINER, RAYMOND SAUNDERS, BARBARA SHAWCROFT, and PETER VOULKOS. Pictured: Selz with a model of what was then known as the University Art Museum; photo by Ansel Adams, via BAMPFA.
1980
Common Threads: Kate Delos, Mildred Howard, January 1 – February 10
Recent Work: Phillipe Bailey, Nancey Footner, Foad Satterfield, February 14 – March 16
Sculpture, August 1 – September 7
Location/Dislocation Part II, April 25 – May 23
Figurative Works, May 30 – July 3
Susan Perkins: A Memorial, July 7 – July 27
Sculpture, August 1 – September 7
Installation & Musical Performance, September 13 – September 20
The Humanist Vision, September 25 – October 31
1981
Summer Performance Series, July 24 – August 15
Images of Aging, August 8 – September 27
San Francisco Women Artists Fine Crafts Exhibition, Unknown – December 17
1982
Mixed Media: Six East Bay Artists, April 1 – April 14
Ethnic Notions, October 24 – December 24
1983
The Nine Furniture Makers, April 15
Summer Performance Series: Nightletter Theatre, June 17 – July 31
Contemporary Textiles of Denmark, August 4 – September 4
Perfect Bindings: Northern California Book Arts, November 25 – December 23
1984
Face to Face, January 7 – February 11
Paintings from a Moroccan Prison by Abdellatif Derkaoui, Prisoner of Conscience, February 16 – March 9
Mothers' Gifts to their Children, May 15 – June 17
X-Rated: Erotic Art by Northern California Artists, June 28 – August 4
Filipino Tribal & Folk Arts from the Collection of William Galvin, (curated by Lenny Limjoco), November 8 – December 8
1985
Color Me Black, January 24 – February 24
Line of Sound: A Sound Sculpture by Bill Fontana (curated by Robbin Henderson), March 1 – March 31
Baskets, April 4 – April 28
Intuitive Artists: John Abduljaami & Ida Wilcher, May 2 – May 26
Contemporary Artists of Poland, June 6 – June 30
Four Artists: Hanamura, August 1 – August 25
Figures & Facts, September 26 – October 13
Berkeley Printmakers, October 17 – November 17
Classic Forms: Jack Sears & Bob Ross, November 21 – December 21
7 Visions: Artists Over 70, December 26, 1985 – January 26, 1986
1986
She: A View of Women Through the Medium of Water, February 2 – March 23
Art & the Computer, March 27 – April 20
Asian Seeds/Western Soil, April 24 – June 1
Performance: Genny Lim, Carolyn Lau, Brenda Wong Aoki, Mark Izu – Hanamura, May 2
Colette (enamel), Narcissus Quagliata (stained glass), Garry Knox Bennett (furniture), Andrée Maréchal-Workmann, June 3 – July 13
Eccentric Imagery: California Art Exhibition Traveling in France, July 20 – August 24
Bay Area Modernism: Success or Failure? — Part 1: Classical Abstraction, September 7 – October 12
1987
Social Narratives: An Exploration in Content, March 15 – April 19
Ceci N'est Pas Un Carre Blanc, Six French painters who challenge orations, theories and norms of French contemporary art, April 26 – May 31
Traditions in Progress: Native Northern California Artistry, July 19 – August 30
The Ethnic Idea (About Faces), September 1 – October 11
Charles Shere: His Music, His Art & His Collection, October 18 – November 22
1988
Experimental Photography, March 13 – April 17
Wearable Art, May 22 – Unknown
Becoming Visible: Emerging African-American Artists, August 25 – October 2
Peter Selz Selects: Seventeen Berkeley Artists, October 12 – November 20
1989
5th Annual National Juried Exhibition Part 1, January 7 – February 12
Paper Dimensions: Sculptural Paper by Bay Area Women Artists, February 16 – April 2
The Board Says Yes!, April 16 – May 21
Spring Performance Series, May 13 – May 22
Presente 1989, June 8 – July 9
National Juried Exhibition Part 2: Works on Paper, July 23 – September 3
Magnatypes: The Larger View by Blue Bay Press Artists, September 21 – October 22
The New Genre: In the Dissidence of Tradition, December 12 – January 14
MILDRED HOWARD is a longtime Bay Area artist known for her large-scale sculptural installations. In 1980, she showed her work at BAC alongside KATE DELOS in Common Threads.
In the 1960s, JAN FAULKNER, a Black sociologist from San Francisco, began a controversial collection of what she called “Black collectibles,” racist images that have been used to sell all sorts of commodities. Over the years, she gathered more than 2,000 items, a small portion of which were shown at BAC in 1982 and again in 2000, confronting viewers with America’s deep-rooted racism.
In 1986, BAC exhibited artists working with new media in pathbreaking ways. NARCISSUS QUAGLIATE, known for his work with stained glass, turned to the medium in his studio in what is now a national wilderness area in Northern California. Pictured: Portrait of Shunryu Suzuki Roshi, 1980, stained glass, Metropolitan Museum of Art.